Strange Trouble

by Laken Cane

  She jerked, startled, when gunfire began again. But this time, it wasn’t aimed at the tent. “What the hell?”

  Lex moaned. “Rune,” she whispered. “Rune?”

  “I’m here, baby.”

  “Promise me,” Lex said suddenly, “that when my mother gets out of prison, you will hunt her down and kill her. Promise me.”

  But before Rune could promise, before she could say a word, her crew was there. They charged into the tattered tent and yanked Rune and Lex from the floor. Lex continued to cling to Rune, unwilling to leave the security she’d found there.

  “Promise me you’ll kill her,” Lex cried.

  “She will die,” Raze answered, his deep voice full of something that was part relief, and part darkness. “I swear it.”

  Finally, Lex backed out of Rune’s arms. “Raze,” she cried, like a bewildered child. “They hurt me.”

  And with that, the little Other broke down. She sobbed, and held her arms out to Raze.

  As her legs gave out and she started to fall, Raze caught her. Holding her to his chest, he ignored the others and carried Lex out of the Camp.

  Staring after them, Rune tried to shake off the feeling of desolation that overtook her. Until Karin Love was dead, Lex and the twins would never be free.

  Let her out of prison, you fucks. Let her out.

  Because when they did, Shiv Crew would be waiting.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Rune stood at the foot of the hospital bed, watching as Elizabeth read to the child from an enormous, brightly illustrated book.

  Fie leaned against Elizabeth’s chest, occasionally giggling as a particular passage amused her.

  Elizabeth still looked like death, with her white-as-paper face, sunken cheeks, and haunted eyes, but she was recovering.

  Fie was helping that along.

  “You want her,” Rune said.

  Elizabeth glanced up. “I’m taking both children. Just as soon as George wakes up, he’s coming home with us, isn’t he, Stefanie?”

  The little girl nodded solemnly. “He’s still asleep.”

  Elizabeth’s smile was rueful. “She’s complete charmed me, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s okay. You needed a reason to go home at night.”

  A cloud passed through Elizabeth’s eyes. “I’ll be fine,” she murmured, as though Rune had suggested otherwise.

  “Yeah.”

  “Ellis has agreed to help Bill out until I’m ready to return.”

  Rune nodded. Ellie was ensconced in his new position. Even knowing he would live his life always one bite away from turning was something, he’d said, he could handle.

  Rune didn’t believe him.

  What he couldn’t handle, he’d told her, was not getting the twins back. Not getting Levi back.

  That, she believed. “We’ll get them back, Ellie.” But she was sick of speaking those empty words. Time was running out for the twins, if it hadn’t already. She had to find them.

  Bill Rice had settled firmly on the RISC throne. It was all his baby now. The humans wouldn’t have him back as police director, and he didn’t want to go back.

  One of the things he promised her was to use every available resource to track Horner and find the twins. Sooner or later, the slayer would surface, and RISC would be waiting for him. But Rune didn’t really care about Horner any longer.

  Nothing mattered but finding the twins.

  And they had no idea where the boys were. They’d torn the Camp apart—torn the county apart. The twins were not there.

  Rice seemed to think COS would contact RISC and the crew soon. They’d want something in return for the twins.

  Rune had a feeling that something was going to be Lex, but that wasn’t a trade the crew was willing to make. They had to find another way.

  When she’d gone to the RISC building to pick up her package from Amy, Rice had stopped her in the hall.

  He’d seemed content. “I belong right here.” His eyes were still haunted by the horror he’d witnessed, but he managed a smile.

  “Yeah,” she said. “This is where I belong as well.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, and just as she’d started to feel uncomfortable under his serious regard, he’d spoken. “You’re mentally ill, Rune.”

  It was the last thing she’d expected him to say. She’d stepped back and dropped her fangs without meaning to. “Fuck you!”

  But he reached out and patted her shoulder. “It doesn’t mean you don’t belong here. You’re my best operative—maybe because of your illness. I just want you to know I’m aware.”

  “Why?” She tried not to whisper, but that’s how the word came out.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I…maybe because it doesn’t matter. I accept you. I admire you. I want you to feel less alone. And maybe because I worry that you haven’t accepted yourself.”

  “I have.”

  “Don’t self-destruct, Rune. If you feel in need of anything, come to me.” His eyes had been intense, and something lurked there that made her mumble some excuse and run away from him.

  What the hell?

  She hadn’t a clue.

  She had no idea who Rice really was.

  Strad slipped into the hospital room, amazing her anew at how quietly he could move.

  Fie’s eyes lit up. “Did you bring it?”

  He grinned and pushed the door shut. “Of course.”

  Fie squealed and bounced in Elizabeth’s arms, causing the woman to flinch with pain. But she stared at Fie adoringly. “Quietly, darling. The nurses wouldn’t be happy with Mr. Matheson’s gift.” She tentatively moved away from Fie and looked at Rune. “May I use your cell to call Owen?”

  “Sure,” Rune said, and handed her the cell.

  Elizabeth smiled her thanks and slid off the bed. She carried the cell into the bathroom. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Rune frowned. Elizabeth’s walk was slow and careful, and she appeared to have lost weight. She was no longer slim. She was skinny and frail.

  But she was alive, and she would be okay.

  Strad went to the bed and carefully withdrew the smallest puppy Rune had ever seen from inside his coat. “Be gentle, Fie. He’s a baby.”

  Fie’s eyes grew huge and her lips formed a perfect O as she carefully took the animal. “It’s adorable.”

  “I have to take him back,” he told her, “but he’s yours as soon as you’re home.”

  “I’m going to live with Elizabeth,” she said. “And Rune will visit. And George will live with us when he wakes up.”

  “What will you name your puppy?” Rune asked.

  “Hmmm. I don’t know.” She laughed as the puppy squirmed in her arms, but then she scrunched up her face and squealed. “It peed on me!”

  “Time to take the puppy home,” Strad said. He looked at Rune. “Walk out?”

  Elizabeth opened the bathroom door and joined them, returning Rune’s cell. “Thank you.”

  She nodded. “Goodbye for now, Fie. Elizabeth, do you need anything?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “But nothing you can give me.”

  Rune nodded. “Call me if you need me.”

  “How is Lex?” Strad asked, trying to look innocent as he walked down the hall with a wiggling dog under his coat.

  Rune touched her stomach. “Not good. She’s going out of her mind with worry about the twins. Plus…” She hesitated. “They hurt her. I’m not sure—”

  “She’ll recover,” Strad said, his tone even. “But she needs to learn how to deal with the threat of COS.”

  Rune nodded. “She needs reconditioned. Rice is going to find someone to help her.”

  “And physically?”

  “Doctor says she’ll heal.” Lex had been tortured by the bastards, but Rune didn’t know exactly what had been done to her. When—if—Lex wanted to talk about it, Rune would grind her teeth and listen.

  She was safe in the clinic in Willowburg, with the crew taking turns
watching over her. She cried for the twins, almost the entire time she was awake.

  “They’re not dead, Lex,” Rune had said. “They’re not dead and we will find them.”

  But Lex could not be consoled.

  “Go get some sleep,” Strad said, his arm brushing hers.

  “I will.”

  “And when you’re ready for me, let me know.”

  She knew he needed her bite. For the last three nights, since they’d rescued Lex, she’d wanted only to sleep and eat.

  “I will,” she said, again. But she’d addicted the berserker, and feeding the addiction was her responsibility. “Soon. Are you okay right now?”

  “Yeah.” He opened his truck door and put the puppy in a little carrier. “I’ll wait.” He leaned against the side of his truck and stared down at her. “For soon.”

  She had to get through the hell to come first. He knew that, and understood. He just didn’t want her to do it alone.

  “I got the box Amy left me. I have to open it tonight.”

  He nodded.

  “But when I…when I think of Z, when I let those thoughts out, I’m going to need you.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  And she knew he would be.

  She watched him drive away, then went to find her car. She was not looking forward to opening the package Amy had left her. It scared the fuck out of her. Probably it was no more than a note and a keepsake, but those items were going to bring her to her knees.

  She narrowed her eyes when she saw a tall, slender man leaning against her car, scribbling furiously into a notebook. It took her a few seconds to recognize him.

  Sam Cruikshank, the reporter. He’d been following her, quietly and reasonably unobtrusively, for months.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  He straightened and pushed himself away from her SUV, then stuffed the notebook into the pocket of his long coat. “I came to see you.”

  She gestured at her car. “I figured that out.”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  “Dude. I don’t think so.”

  He studied her. “I have the recording.”

  “Pardon?” She massaged her stomach. “What recording?”

  But she knew. Fuck if she didn’t know.

  Her first thought was how to find out where he’d hidden it before she killed him.

  Maybe he saw it in her eyes. He glanced around at the parking lot, full of cars but empty of people. The setting sun lent a soft, rosy glow to his face and glinted off the dark blond of his hair.

  Something about the way he was staring at her was vaguely familiar. He looked like someone.

  Someone…

  She frowned and closed her eyes, trying to think of who he reminded her of and why the hell it would make her want to throw up.

  Then she snapped her eyes open and took a step back. “What was he to you?”

  He shrugged. “Jeremy? Jeremy was my half-brother. And I’m pretty sure you and your crew know exactly what happened to him.”

  Suddenly cold, she forced herself not to shiver. “I have no idea where he is. You saw what the world saw—one minute he was in Hawthorne sending the Dark Others after me and my crew, and the next he was just…gone.” She didn’t give a fuck if he believed her or not.

  He smiled. “My brother and I weren’t close, Rune. He tortured me from the day I was born until I got old enough to fight back. Eventually we formed a truce, but we never pretended to feel any sort of brotherly love.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you want from me so we can get this shit over with?” Oh yes. She was going to have to kill him.

  Fucking Jeremy.

  She did shiver then.

  He slid his fingers into his coat pocket, stopping suddenly when she shot her claws out. “Easy, Rune. It’s just his phone.”

  She retracted her claws as he tossed her the phone.

  “He showed me the video on his computer,” she said.

  “The only copy of that video is on this phone. He connected the phone to his computer to…” He paused, then went on. “To watch. That’s how he showed it to you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me. He had no reason to lie.”

  She clenched the cell so hard it creaked. “What do you want?”

  “My brother and I had something in common besides our father. I can give you what you want. What you need. And I can do it so much better than he ever could.”

  “You…” She cleared her throat. “You want to hurt me?”

  He tilted his head, his rather unremarkable face shadowed in the late evening darkness. “I want to help you.” His voice was gentle. So gentle.

  “Get away from me.”

  “Take all the time you need to think about it. I know you. I’ve been watching you, studying you, learning about you. I can make you better.”

  The phone cracked then, cutting her palm. “Get away from me,” she screamed.

  He wasn’t afraid. He nodded, the look in his eyes soft, yet commanding. And so fucking knowing. “When you need me, come find me.”

  And before she could even imagine he’d be brave enough, right there in the parking lot, right there with her rage and her fear and her sickness, he grabbed her by the throat and dragged her to him.

  As she stood frozen and off balance, her mind blank, he stared into her eyes. “I can make you better.”

  Then, he let her go, left her with her fingers caressing her throat, and strode away.

  She’d have to kill him.

  Wouldn’t she?

  To save herself, wouldn’t she have to kill him?

  Because fuck her for the crazy bitch she was, but she wanted that. What he promised, what he could do, what he knew.

  She wanted it.

  She moaned and climbed into her car, where she sat for two black hours before she was finally able to start her car and drive home.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  That terror, that deep, awful fear, fear of what she was and what she’d always been and what she might do, helped her open Amy’s package.

  Because horrible though it was, what had happened to Amy was somehow more manageable than what had happened to her in the hospital parking lot.

  She couldn’t forget about it, but she could resist it.

  She could.

  For now.

  When she slid into the dark place, she’d call Strad. He was enough.

  “I can’t be that kind of help, Rune.”

  Fuck.

  She slit the tape wound messily around Amy’s box and finally, she looked inside.

  There was a lined piece of notebook paper, a small envelope with something hard inside, and a small diary in the shape, of all things, a fang.

  The stake wound on her chest was completely healed, but as she stared into the box, the wound began to throb hard enough to make her gasp.

  This is going to be bad.

  She read the note first.

  The handwriting was printed and rather childish, and the image of Amy was suddenly so vivid she had to close her eyes and breathe away the pain. Amy hadn’t been angry that Rune had deserted her. The note was simply a couple of sentences explaining why she was going back to Nicolas. She understood Rune and the crew would be unhappy about it, but she missed the vampires. She missed the bite.

  Rune opened her computer and read the emails, as well. They were more of the same. The knot inside her stomach began to slowly loosen.

  One of the emails made her cry, just a little. I’m not much, Amy had typed, but I’ll always be proud because I helped Shiv Crew. I did that. Then she’d added, I wish I could be you.

  The envelope held a tiny slip of paper and…

  “What is that?” Rune murmured, as she poured the item from the envelope and into her left hand. “Is that a fucking tooth?”

  It was. And not just a tooth, but a fang. Not a vampire fang. A wolf’s fang, maybe. It had a small hole through the top.

  The to
oth was…revolting.

  Her hand began to itch and she tossed the tooth on the bed, staring at it with distaste. She looked at her palm. Red blisters started to appear and as she watched they grew, broke open, and seeped a clear, thick liquid.

  They spread from her palm to her wrist, then crawled up her arm.

  “Oh, Amy, what have you done to me?”

  She ran into the bathroom, and turned on the hot water. The blisters hurt, and hurt even more when she held them under the spray of water.

  “What the fuck did you do to me?” She realized she held the tiny paper, and as the blisters climbed her arm, she read the note.

  Nicolas will kill me if he finds out I stole this. He’s going to hurt you. This won’t let him. A present from your BFF, Amy.

  “Shit, Amy,” Rune whispered.

  The tooth was some kind of vampire repellant—not just a repellant, but seemed to be lethal to them.

  Amy hadn’t known what Rune was. Hadn’t known Llodra was her father, hadn’t known Rune was part…vampire.

  Fuck me. Ended by a well-meaning bite junkie and a fucking tooth.

  Maybe that was why Llodra had tortured Amy. Maybe he’d suspected her of taking the deadly fang.

  Most likely, Rune would never know.

  The water wasn’t helping. The painful blisters continued to slide up her arm. It felt as though someone pushed burning sticks into the ends of her fingers. Like her claws and her bones were on fire. Like her blood was beginning to boil.

  She yelped and held her arm out to the side, staring at it with horror. Her hand had turned black, and the blackness chased the blisters up her arm.

  And oh God, the pain.

  The strap of the top she wore burst into flames when the blisters grew beneath it, and she beat them out with her right hand, staring in horror as the blisters and black began to spread across her chest.

  What a fucking horrible way to die.

  And she was alone.

  Why was she always alone?

  She stumbled out of the bathroom and grabbed her cell off the dresser—she hit redial, not remembering or caring who she’d talked to last. She needed to tell them what had happened to her.

  She needed not to be alone in her last few moments of life.