After Dark

by Gena Showalter

  If he’d told her then that he loved her, that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her in his arms, he wouldn’t have been lying....

  CHAPTER 12

  If bones could talk, Tiffany’s would have groaned and said, That. Was. Amazing. She stretched and twisted herself out of the tangle of bed linens, grinning like a fool as she mentally replayed the passion she had shared with Damon. She inhaled deeply, the scent of his skin filling her nose. He lay on his stomach next to her, mouth cracked open and arms spread, one over his head, the other dangling off the side of the mattress as he slept. She listened to the sound of his breathing, and watched his chest rise and fall.

  Her fingers itched to run over the brand across his shoulders. The dark black ink contrasted with his lightly tanned skin. Watching him sleep, seeing him so totally relaxed, sent her heart racing faster. He was so sexy, so perfect. She bit her lower lip and fought to restrain herself from waking him, from pushing herself against him, kissing him deeply and seeing if what she’d heard about a man’s sex drive upon first waking was true.

  Before she could stop herself, she brushed the smooth skin of his face with her thumb. The sharp chiseled lines of his cheekbones and face stunned her. Even while he slept, he was breathtaking, beautiful in his intensity. But when he was awake, nothing gripped her more than the icy-blue depths of his eyes. They pierced through her, wild and ferocious, and sent chills down her spine. Like an angered Siberian tiger, both hypnotic and terrifying.

  Still dead to the world, he responded with a low grumble. He leaned into her touch, then settled into sound sleep again. She smiled. Being with him for a second time had been so different from the first. When she’d given him her virginity, the pain had been minimal, and he had impressed her with how quickly he’d assuaged her fears. But the second time had blown her away with how familiar it had been in its intimacy. And unlike the first time, this time she’d known that the man she lay with was her B, the man she’d dreamed of for years.

  Rolling to her side of the bed again, she stared up at the ceiling. For someone so distant, calculating and sometimes downright cold, Damon’s capacity for tenderness had touched her, revealing the man behind the mask, the man she’d come to know through letters. There was no doubt in her mind that he cared for her. The same feelings coursed through her when they touched.

  Whether he knew that or not, she wasn’t certain.

  She clenched her jaw. Anger built inside her as she thought of how stupid she’d been. How could she have been such an idiot? She should have known that the man she knew, her B, wouldn’t intentionally have left Mark for dead. Damon still blamed himself, but after nearly losing him in the same way, she didn’t blame him anymore.

  Her mind wandered to all the letters she’d never answered. How deeply had she hurt him?

  Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she stood and padded across the room to her desk. She slid the bottom drawer open and dug underneath the piles of school papers until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out the large stack of envelopes—not a single one opened.

  She set the letters down, then quickly cleaned herself up and got dressed, then pulled on a black pea coat. Finally she grabbed the letters, walked through to the living room and stepped out onto the fire escape.

  The cold winter air stung her cheeks. She sat down on the top step, her favorite quiet place. She glanced at the sky. Not a single star in sight thanks to the overwhelming lights of the city. She exhaled a long breath.

  She had to know.

  After removing the rubber band holding the letters together, she shuffled through them, reading the dates. One letter each day for over a month. A large lump caught in her throat. Her breath swirled around her face as she held the last letter Damon had ever sent her.

  Tucking the rest of the pile under one knee, she opened the envelope. The paper made only a small ripping noise as it tore, but in her ears the sound was amplified by a factor of ten, a noise nearly as painful as a blaring alarm clock during an awful hangover.

  Her hands trembled as she removed the single piece of paper, and pain filled her heart at the sight of B’s familiar handwriting. She paused. For a moment she almost released the paper into the wind. It would be so much easier not to know.

  But she had to.

  Hands still trembling, she unfolded the letter and slowly read the scrawled words.

  Dear Tiffany,

  I have so much to say, but little time to say it as I start to search for Mark’s killer. I doubt you will even read this letter, since there’s been no response to the others I’ve sent for the last month. But I have to write this in the hopes that maybe someday you’ll open this envelope.

  No matter how much you may hate me, no matter how much you may wish me dead, you will always hold a place in this cold heart of mine. I never intended to care for you, but I do. We both know I do, and for that I have no regrets.

  Losing Mark, and now you, has driven me to the brink of insanity, and the pain is more than I can bear. You know how difficult it is for me to admit this to you, but I’m not okay.

  I can never be okay.

  Nothing I can say or do will ever express to you how sorry I am. I’ll bear the guilt of what I’ve done for the rest of my life.

  This isn’t something I can just get off my chest, and as much of a relief as it would be for all the pain of what’s happened to be taken away, I don’t deserve any relief. I wish there were something I could confess to you that would turn this around, something that would make this better. I wish I knew the perfect lie.

  Tiff, I’m begging you.

  Tell me what it is you want to hear and I’ll make sure you hear it. I’d say and do anything to have you back in my life again. I’ve got no family to fall back on, and my heart is so rooted in our friendship that even if I did, their love would never be enough to heal me without you in my life.

  It’s amazing how we got this far, how a one-line letter could turn into these feelings I have for you. Maybe it’s meant to be this way, because Lord knows I don’t deserve a woman like you in my life.

  We both know what I want to say. It’s always been on the tip of my pen, waiting for me to write it. But I’m too much of a coward.

  You know how I feel, and if I could just say it to you in person one time...I could die knowing I’d had something meaningful in my life.

  Yours always,

  B

  With still shaking hands, Tiffany attempted to refold the letter, but it was no use. Tears blurred her vision and spilled over onto the paper. She trembled at the thought of what she had to do.

  He has to know.

  * * *

  Damon sat straight up in bed, heart racing as he gasped for air in the aftermath of the dream. His pulse beat in a heated rhythm, and he clutched the sheets in his hands. His eyes darted around the room. Tiffany. Where was Tiffany?

  He launched himself from the bed and threw on his jeans. Rushing into the living room, he spotted a hunched-over figure on the fire escape. He ran back into the bedroom and threw on his shirt and boots before he strode to the living room window.

  In his dream, Tiffany had changed her mind and decided that she did blame him for Mark’s death. She’d said she’d been wrong to forgive him.

  He wrenched open the window and climbed onto the fire escape. A blowing northern wind hit his arms like hundreds of small needles pricking his skin. Damn, it was cold outside. Tiffany was sitting on the top step, completely still.

  “Tiff?” he said.

  When she didn’t respond, he walked up behind her. His heart stopped as he saw what she held in her hands. His letters. He brought his hand to his mouth and lightly bit his thumb so a string of profanities wouldn’t fall from his lips. One letter lay open on her lap, and it was the letter, his final letter.

  T
he letter that told her he loved her.

  Shit.

  He opened his mouth several times to speak but couldn’t find any words.

  He was still too much of a coward. Every time he tried to find the right thing to say, his mouth went dry and the words dissipated. What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he tell her? For fuck’s sake, he knew exactly why. Because admitting he loved her would make him vulnerable. Though he’d often refused to admit it to himself, he’d been in love with her for years. They both knew it. She already held his heart.

  But if he said he loved her, he would be defenseless and exposed. She would have even more power to hurt him than she did now, and damn if that wasn’t the scariest thing he could ever imagine.

  Tiffany patted the spot next to her, motioning for him to sit. He sat down, resting his elbows on his knees, completely unable to speak. The pain in his chest overwhelmed him. Everything inside him wanted to grab her, tell her that he loved her and kiss her senseless, but he just couldn’t do it.

  She let out a long sigh. “I don’t think I need to tell you that I was wrong. I think you already know it.”

  Damon’s stomach churned. Suddenly nothing else mattered but the words that had just left her lips. The cold weather ceased to chill him, and the wind stopped burning his cheeks. She wasn’t saying what he thought she was...was she?

  “Here.” She pushed an overstuffed, unstamped envelope toward him.

  “What is this?” he choked out.

  She bit her lower lip and stared straight ahead, refusing to meet his eyes. “The letters I wrote you. I never sent them.”

  He watched her in disbelief. She’d written to him?

  She turned toward him. Tears streamed down her face, staining her porcelain cheeks. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “You need to know—I need you to know—that I never stopped loving you, not for one second.”

  Damon tangled his fingers into her hair and encircled her waist with his arm. He pulled her into him so fast that he barely realized what he was doing before his lips crashed against hers. He kissed her deep. Their tongues swirled against each other, the heated passion radiating over both of them. The feel of her body pressed against his sent his heart racing into overdrive.

  Slowly he released her hair but never stopped cradling her head. His lips brushed against hers as he spoke. “I never stopped dreaming of you,” he whispered.

  A single warm tear slid onto his cheek, falling from her face as he kissed her again. He scooped her into his arms and carried her into the warmth of the apartment toward the bedroom. If he couldn’t say he loved her, he could at least try his damnedest to show her in whatever way he could.

  * * *

  Damon couldn’t have been more content. Tiffany lay against him with her head nestled into the crook of his arm. His eyes ran over her naked form. She was so damn beautiful. Angels couldn’t compare.

  He allowed his head to sink into the softness of the pillow. He closed his eyes and pinched himself, but when he opened his lids again he was lying in the same exact spot. Was this really happening? Was this what lay in his future? His nights spent protecting the innocent, with Tiffany there to lie in his arms when he arrived home at the crack of dawn?

  For once in his life he hoped for the best. He prayed God wasn’t playing some cruel, sick joke on him. After they’d returned to the bedroom, he’d tucked her letters inside the pocket of his jacket. He was still in a state of disbelief. She’d written him letters. He couldn’t decide whether he was looking forward to reading them...or dreading it.

  A sharp buzz sounded from the bedside table as his cell phone vibrated. Tiffany stirred, blinking lazily as her eyes opened. The phone continued to buzz.

  He looked at the caller ID. Shit. The E.U. calling never meant news about flowers and rainbows.

  He snatched the phone from the table, flipped it open and placed it to his ear. “Hello?”

  Chris’s voice on the other end of the line sounded desperate. “Have you seen it already?”

  Tiffany met his eyes, listening to Chris, whose voice was loud enough to carry.

  “Seen what?” Damon asked.

  Chris swore. “You’d better get to the nearest computer.”

  Without hesitation, Tiffany darted to her desk, where her too-old laptop sat closed and asleep. She opened the screen and hit the power button.

  “What’s going on, Chris?” Damon asked. He pressed the button to switch the phone to speaker.

  Chris spoke at the speed of light, his nerves clearly getting the better of him. “There is a viral video online. You need to see it before H.Q. gets it taken down. Search for ‘zombie apocalypse Rochester.’”

  Damon gestured to Tiffany. She typed in the search terms and hit Enter.

  Damon shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around what seemed to be happening. “Please tell me this isn’t what it sounds like.” He could hear the sound of Chris’s fingers flying across his keyboard in the background.

  “If by ‘what it sounds like’ you mean dumbass teenagers getting video footage of the bloodsucker who’s orchestrating your virus transitioning a dead guy into a viral vamp, then, yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.”

  Adrenaline shot through Damon’s veins. “What are you talking about, Chris? We killed Caius last night.”

  “We? Who’s we?” Chris rasped. “Who do you have working with you? And whoever you killed last night clearly wasn’t the right vampire.”

  “Never mind who—”

  Tiffany beckoned Damon. “Found it.” She clicked Play.

  The rustling sound of movement near an unsteady camera echoed from the speakers. The shaky video phone pointed down a dimly lit alleyway. A hooded man with his back to the camera over an unmoving form. A disgusting slurping sound carried through the video. Damon’s heart raced.

  After nearly a minute of continuous slurping, the figure pulled away.

  “Fuck!” Damon roared.

  The camera showed what was clearly a freshly dead corpse. Fang marks marred the victim’s throat, plain as day.

  “Holy sh—” The whispering of a teenage boy’s voice was cut off as, judging by the sounds, one of his friends clapped a hand over his mouth.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Damn teens these days and their freaking video phones.

  A trickle of blood ran from the man’s neck before the shadowed figure hunched over the body again. Reaching into his pocket, the faceless vamp removed a small syringe.

  Tiffany mumbled under her breath. “Holy crap.”

  The shrouded figure lifted the arm of the corpse and injected the serum into the deadened vein. When it finished, the figure stood and stepped away, looming over the body. The corpse twitched, jerking to life. The dead man’s eyes snapped open. The irises glowed a pulsing red.

  The hooded figure disappeared into the night.

  One of the teenage boys swore. The newly turned leech’s head snapped in their direction. It opened its mouth and bared its fangs. A loud hiss ripped from its throat, and with unnatural jerky movements it scrambled into a crouched position, ready to pounce.

  “Fuck! Run!” one of the boys yelled. The video blurred and jerked as footsteps pounded the ground. Seconds later the video cut abruptly to black.

  Chris cleared his throat. “We are in some deep shit.”

  CHAPTER 13

  An hour later Damon sat facing the rows of monitors in his home control room. Tiffany lingered outside the doorway, pacing. Sweat gathered on his palms, and a dry feeling filled his mouth. The last time he’d spoken with the Sergeant had been directly after Mark’s death. The E.U. designated all accidental deaths as “under investigation,” and Damon had been the Sergeant’s lead witness.

  One of the highest-ranking officers in the Execution Undergroun
d, Sergeant James Winfield took shit from no one and commanded respect without even batting an eye. He was one of only a handful of men in the Execution Underground who Damon absolutely refused to spar with, because he was not about to embarrass himself by having his hind end handed to him on a platter. With years of experience, age was nothing but a number to the Sergeant. Fifty-six years old and he could still kick some serious trainee and field operative ass. Aside from his salt-and-pepper hair, the gruff bastard didn’t look a day over forty, and he didn’t fight like an old man, either.

  The green light on Damon’s switchboard flashed, and the alert alarm sounded throughout the apartment. Tiffany jumped at the sound. On first moving in, Damon had rigged the sound system to blare in case of emergencies, and the Sergeant calling him definitely qualified. With a deep breath, Damon pressed the button to accept the call.

  A small beep sounded, and then the Sergeant’s stern face appeared on the nearest monitor, with Damon’s own image boxed in the lower left corner of the screen.

  The Sergeant’s lips made a tight line, and he cast a frustrated glare at Damon. “What the hell sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into now, operative?” he barked. “Your town’s little vampire-turned-zombie video bullshit is raising holy hell, operative. Do you know how much damage control that cost the security department?”

  When Damon didn’t respond, the Sergeant yelled, “Answer the damn question, operative!”

  “No, sir. I don’t know how much damage control it cost.”

  The Sergeant eyed Damon up and down. “A hell of a lot. That’s how much. I don’t give a flying shit if the video had nothing to do with you. It originated from your division area, so therefore you’re responsible for it. Understood?”

  Damon nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  The Sergeant glanced down at a stack of papers lying in front of him. “Your nerdy tech tells me you believed you killed the son of a bitch who was injecting these bastards, but it appears you were wrong. Is that correct, operative?”