"I know what you're thinking, but don't worry," Jax said quickly, squeezing her hand.
She shook free of his grasp. "Don't worry? Don't worry? Easy for you to say. You won't be the one frying to a crisp."
"Neither will you," he retorted, exasperated by her attitude. "Here."
He shoved a vial into her hand, raising his brows expectantly. Pandora glanced down, realizing it was a vial of crimson blood. And even with the stopper in place, she could smell the fire infused inside.
"Conduit blood?" she asked, opening the vial, letting the full scent fill her senses. Her fangs immediately popped out, and she couldn't be bothered to put them away—it just smelled too damn good. "How'd you get conduit blood?"
Jax turned away from her as a pained expression passed over his face. Staring into the flames filling the hallway, he said, "How'd you think I got in here? By myself? I went to the local group of punisher conduits and told them I knew for a fact that Tatsuya had conduits trapped in his prison. They said they already knew and had been working on a raid for weeks. Apparently, we both got lucky you decided to get caught the day before they'd planned this massive break-in."
But something didn't sound quite right about that. "So you told them you wanted to come along and rescue a vampire friend of yours, and they just gave up their blood, their biggest source of protection, just like that?"
"Yeah," he replied smoothly, glancing at her. "Just like that."
Pandora frowned. "What'd you have to give them in return?"
"Nothing," he grunted, moving them both closer to the door. "I just explained the situation, and they agreed. No secret plans. You might not remember this, but conduits and titans are sort of on the same side."
But while his words made sense, his expression didn't.
He wouldn't look at her.
He was pointedly turned away, and her vampire senses picked up on the clog in his throat, noticed how it strained his voice, how his heart sped just a little with the lie.
He'd given them something.
Or he'd told them something he didn’t want her to hear.
"Jax," she murmured slowly.
"Would you just drink it already?" he interrupted. "We don't have all day."
Pandora wanted to press the issue, wanted to ask why his grip on her arm had tightened, why his muscles had frozen up, why the vein in his neck had started to tick.
But he was right.
Escape first.
Questions later.
Well, all but one.
She hadn’t forgotten her goal in coming to New York, her real job. She hadn’t forgotten all the people in the cells around her, even if the rest of the world had. And she wanted to see them freed before she gave Jax the seven days she'd promised, before she ran away with him and put her own life on hold.
"Are they releasing everyone?" Pandora asked softly. "Are they helping all the prisoners escape? Not just the conduits he has trapped?"
That caught his attention. Jax glanced at her quizzically. "Why?"
Pandora shook her head. She didn’t owe him an explanation. She didn’t owe him anything, even if he had just set her free. "Just tell me."
"Yeah," he said, still unsure. "They're freeing everyone. They always do when they plan these sorts of raids."
“Promise?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure why. He never kept his promises anyway.
But his expression was sharp and honest when he answered. “Promise.”
Then my work here is done.
Pandora downed the vial, gasping as the blood dripped down her throat. It spread through her veins, filling her frozen body with fire. The power she'd just consumed was undeniable, burned her from the inside out in some deliciously painful way she'd never experienced. Her body felt stronger, her senses clearer. Glancing down, she realized her finger had completely healed, far faster than she ever would have expected. Invincibility ran through her veins, so euphoric she was sure her eyes glowed a bright cerulean blue.
But Jax was no longer looking at her.
He couldn't.
"Let's go," he blurted and stepped into the fire. "Try to keep up."
And with that, he was gone, moving fast—titan fast, tracker fast. But vampire fast was still faster. Pandora caught up in no time, marveling at how the flames rolled over her skin, not touching her, not burning, not anything. Just hours before, she'd been pummeled by protector conduit flames—fire meant only to contain a vampire and not kill it. And here she was, walking through an entire prison of punisher conduits who were shooting fatal fire through their palms, watching as those blazes burned vampires all around her until they were little more than dust, and she was racing through unharmed. Untouched. The heat prickled her skin like little pulses of static electricity, igniting her icy core and making her feel alive.
Too distracted by her awe, Pandora followed Jax silently—turning when he turned, keeping to his speed. Chivalrous as always, he kept the path clear for her—tossing any vamps in their way to the side with a good hard shove, forcing all the doors open, weaving a clear path toward freedom. They were spectators in the middle of battle, moving nearly unseen through the individual fights of conduit versus vampire happening in slow motion around them, as though the world were on pause while they moved in fast-forward. Jax glanced back at her a few times, relief flashing when he realized she was still there, still visible, still with him.
"That's the exit up ahead," he called over his shoulder, pointing to a circular vault door resting open in the distance.
They were close, so close to freedom.
"Pandora, stop!"
It was Tatsuya.
Reacting on instinct, she reached forward, pulled on Jax's arm, and forced him to halt in his tracks, stopping right beside her.
"Come on," he said, pulling against her hold. "We can beat him to the door."
Pandora glanced up, holding Jax's confused eyes for the barest second, noticing the sweat sheen on his forehead from the heat. "Whatever you do, don't look into his eyes. Let me handle this."
He furrowed his brows. "He won't catch us. We can just go."
She shook her head, remembering her promise from before. Tatsuya had made things personal, he’d chosen to up the stakes, he’d chosen torture, and he was about to get a much-deserved taste of his own medicine. Because Pandora had spent most of her life as the outcast, the one people didn’t understand, the one they were okay forgetting. But now she was strong and confident and tired of giving people the luxury of underestimating her. Not a head vamp. Not an ex-boyfriend. No one.
"I have unfinished business,” she murmured, words sharp.
"Don't," Jax said quickly, eyes widening when he understood the unspoken threat in her tone. But before he could mutter another word, Pandora released him and disappeared, stepping quickly out of his reach.
"Trust me," she whispered, unable to stop herself from adding, "I’ve always kept my promises."
And then she turned to face Tatsuya.
"Come now, Pandora, come back where I can see you," he said smugly, not at all concerned. And that’s when she realized he’d never seen the surveillance footage from her room. He’d been too preoccupied with the army of conduits breaking into his prison to notice the poor vamp he’d left alone in a pool of blood. Maybe he didn’t realize she’d completely broken his control. Maybe he thought his power still lingered in her blood.
This is the moment I've been waiting for, she thought, wrapping the shadows even tighter around her body, stepping closer to the head vamp. "That little trick of yours stopped working on me about an hour and a half ago. You were just too blinded by the thought of victory to notice."
His eyes widened minutely.
A moment later, he lunged toward the sound of her voice, launching into hyperspeed, grabbing at her with his perfectly smooth ivory hands.
But she was faster.
And, unlike him, she had the benefit of being able to see his every move.
"I think we'll do this the
hard way," she commented, pulling the knife out from her back pocket where she'd stashed it. Wrapped in the shadows with her, the knife was invisible. The vamp never saw it coming as the blade slashed a deep groove into his back.
Tatsuya hissed, spinning on his heels.
Pandora swiped the knife again, this time catching his cheek.
He snapped his hand toward her and managed to grab her forearm, digging his nails deep enough to sting. But it was the wrong hand—the empty hand. And before he could get a good hold, she used her other hand to drive the knife directly into the crook of his elbow, impaling him and dancing away as he howled.
A second later, the weapon clanged to the floor.
And, oh yeah, Tatsuya was pissed.
Pandora grinned. Payback's a bitch. Or maybe I am. But either way, it felt good, and that jerk deserved it.
Tatsuya froze, clutching his arm as he glanced up with fury in his blazing blue eyes. His gaze swept the room, searching for her but landing on Jax—Jax who was strong and a titan and could handle himself against almost anything. But in that moment, Pandora didn’t see the muscular, capable, grown-up Jax. She saw her best friend. She saw the boy who used to sing her songs in the moonlight to help keep the nightmares away, the boy who was gentle and caring and kind, the boy who'd stolen her heart without doing anything at all.
Until that moment, Pandora wasn’t really sure she wanted to kill the head vamp—it was a line she had yet to cross. Incapacitate? Yes. Hurt enough that he would never underestimate her again? Definitely. But kill? Not quite.
Yet, the second his gaze landed on Jax, something within her clicked.
Tatsuya launched himself into superspeed.
Jax sensed the change and started backing away, keeping his eyes focused on the floor as she’d told him to, while his hands were raised and ready to fight.
And Pandora reacted.
She flew across the room, moving on adrenaline and pure animal instinct as she launched into the air and landed on Tatsuya's back, possessed by her own rage. Without thinking, she dug her nails into his shoulders, cutting into his skin as her teeth found his throat. No hesitation, she sank her fangs deep into his carotid artery and snapped clean through it. Mouth full of flesh and fluid, she yanked, ripping a gaping hole in his neck and throwing her body away as he fell to the floor.
She spat the taste of him from her mouth, watching absently as his blood leaked onto the floor, spilling out in waves. But he wasn't dead. He could still recover from this, could still go after Jax for revenge or for leverage. So she reached down as Tatsuya inched back, trying to escape with the strength he had left, but it wouldn't be enough. Using both hands, she gripped the sides of his head and in one smooth motion wrenched it clean off of his body.
As she eyed his severed neck, only one thought entered her mind.
Now he's dead.
Jax gasped softly. "Dory."
She looked up from her crouched position, letting the shadows fall away, noting the horror on Jax's face as he stared at the blood dripping down her chin, soaking her hands. But blood was her life now, it had been for years, and Tatsuya deserved everything he got. So she stood, facing Jax challengingly as she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, not backing down. "He was an evil man who did evil things."
Jax swallowed, eyes narrowing as he looked at her, really looked at her and what she'd become, seeing her for the first time. And then he nodded. "Let's go," he said, voice strained. Softly, he added, "Pandora."
The word broke her, just a little, just enough.
The little bit of humanity she held on to cried out, wanting more than anything to still be Dory, to be the person she used to be.
But she wasn't.
And she never would be again.
This was what she was now—a vampire. A killer. The sort of beast Jax hunted down all the time to keep the rest of the world a little bit safer.
He didn't say another word as he slipped through the vault door, and neither did she. After following a long dank hall and passing through a few more open doors, they emerged into the cool, starless night, glancing around at the abandoned waterside buildings and construction machines parked all around them. Noticing the golden glow of Manhattan haloed across the sky, Pandora guessed they were in Brooklyn somewhere, maybe Queens. Planes rumbled overhead, preparing for landing. The clangs and shouts of fighting filtered fuzzily through the door Jax had closed behind him. Water lapped and splashed. But where they were, the world was silent. Too silent for Pandora. She needed the noise to block everything else out, to block herself out. So she opened her ears, growing numb to the world, letting Jax lead her blindly along.
He held her hand as they walked aimlessly along the water's edge.
He eased her down into a boat resting beside the dock they found.
He sat her down before leaning over to snap the ropes and locks.
And then he turned on the engine and sped them both off into the silky darkness of the ocean at night. Pandora didn't blink. She fixed her eyes on the golden lights of the city, watching them fade with each passing second. Another home she'd been forced to leave behind. Another place where no one would miss her.
She didn’t realize she'd been crying until Jax finally sat down and wiped his thumb across her cheek, watching her softly. Until that moment, she hadn't actually realized vampires could cry.
"What happened to you?" he whispered.
She finally closed her eyes. "Nothing."
"I mean your life, Dory," he said. "What happened to your life?"
She swallowed, opening her eyes, looking directly into his. "I grew up."
"No," he murmured sadly. "No, you grew hard. Cold."
"I had to," she muttered harshly. "I was fifteen and alone and a vampire. I had no one, nothing. I learned to depend on myself. I realized that life is tough, and people are mean, and nothing was going to get handed to me. I figured out how to take what I wanted whenever I had the chance. And tonight? I wanted Tatsuya dead. So I killed him."
Jax shrugged. "You were right. He was a bad guy. The world is better off without him. But you liked it. You enjoyed it."
She swallowed. Maybe a little.
But was that so bad?
Was it?
"You were initiated into the order when you were sixteen," she said, turning the accusation around. "You've been a professional titan tracker for years. What do you think happens to all the people you track? All the people you help catch?"
"It's different…"
"Why?" she demanded, sitting up straighter. "Because I used my teeth?"
He swallowed slowly, pursing his lips as he scanned the water, searching for something, anything. And then he glanced back at her with a deep, heavy sigh. "Do you think for just one night we could stop fighting? Do you think for one night we could pretend that we're still fifteen, sitting in our tree house in the woods, not worried about anything in the world except for each other?"
Pandora's heart twinged painfully, growing warm for a moment. But the moment passed. "I can't go back."
"I'm not asking you to," he said. "Tomorrow, maybe, but not tonight. I just want a few hours, a few meager, pathetic hours I can lock away for safekeeping. And then when the sun rises, I can go back to trying to convince you to come home. You can go back to flipping me off. We can go back to fighting because it’s so much easier than actually talking. And when the week is over and you're still being a stubborn ass and you say good-bye to me forever, at least I'll have one night to look back on and remember."
Pandora raised an eyebrow, stuck on the little stubborn ass comment. "You know, your sweet talk hasn’t improved much in four years."
But despite her snappy comeback, she was softening.
Because secretly, she wanted one night too.
One unspoiled night.
Jax grinned, lifting the corner of his lip as he looked down at her. "You never complained before. And besides, I thought that was pretty good."
She grumbled.
But when he stretched out his arm, opening it wide, she crawled into the space he'd offered, curling against his chest, the air between them electric. It was a spot she'd been in many times before, but it had never felt more right than in that moment.
Before, she'd been a girl. He'd been a boy.
They'd fit in an awkward, nervous, exciting sort of tangle. She was too tall. He was too scrawny. She was too shy. He was too polite.
But now, everything was familiar, yet different.
Better.
His chest was meant to hold her head. His bicep was meant to act as her pillow, to flex reassuringly as he pulled her closer. His palm was meant to cup her waist, to grip her skin in a way that promised to never let go. And her hand was meant to pass over the ridges of his abdomen, to feel the hard grooves of his chest, to come to a rest right above his rapidly beating heart. Her body was made to curve against his.
They fit.
Perfect.
I'm home, Pandora thought, closing her eyes tight against the idea, hating it and relishing it at the same time. This will just make everything harder, will just make leaving harder.
And yet.
She couldn’t force herself to move.
Instead, she sank deeper into the embrace.
Because she'd spent the past four years running and running and running, charging ahead without looking back, and for the first time in a long time, she finally felt as if she were home. She finally felt at peace, lying there listening to his heartbeat, to the breath flow in and out of his chest. His warmth sank into her skin, relieving the frigid frost perpetually clinging to her soul, letting her pretend for a moment that she was still alive, still human.
The water rocked their little boat.
The air grew colder.
The wind blew stronger.
The stars shone brighter and brighter, breaking through the clouds.
And just when she thought Jax was asleep, he did the one thing she was most afraid of—he sang their song softly in her ear, brushing his fingers through her hair as he held her closer.
"Querida, querida," he crooned in a deep, rumbling tone that vibrated through his entire body, through her entire body. "Con el pelo como el sol y los ojos como la luna. Mi amor, mi amor, tan cerca, tan lejos. Hasta mañana, que sueñes con los angelitos. Mi corazón está contigo."
Frost (Midnight Ice Book One) Page 10