He spun around in time for the other woman thrust the blade deep into the left side of his abdomen, her eyes lost and feral as they locked angrily on his.
Only this time there was no near miss like the first night. This time Eden knew a major organ had been hit. He wrapped his arm around himself, fell to his knees, barely able to hold himself up on one braced arm as blood soaked through his T-shirt, masking his palm.
There was a scampering of feet around him, some tugging back and forth as if one was more reluctant to leave than the other, their whispered voices ones of panic.
And they left him.
Left him slumped alone on the floorboards as they made their escape.
33
Jessie shoved open door after door, barely registering what she was seeing inside, only that there was no sign of Eden.
She elbowed her way along another corridor, ignoring disgruntled complaints, yanking her arm free of anyone who tried to grab her, not even making eye contact with the leering drunkard who stepped purposefully in her way before she knocked him out cold with one blow of her fist.
Ballet flats padding over floorboards and the occasional curled rug, she shoved the door open to her left.
She stared at the floor in the dimly lit room, the focal lamplight creating a sense of walking onto a stage mid-act. Because detached from reality was how she felt as she stared down at Eden’s lifeless body face down on the floor, at Dice’s just a couple of feet away.
Slamming the door behind her, Jessie fell to her knees beside Eden, her hand clasping the back of his head, her heart pounding.
Her pulse rate picked up a notch as she detected the sweat on the back of his neck, his skin cold and clammy beneath her palm, his breathing rapid and shallow.
‘My guardian angel,’ he said with a hint of a smile, his tone low, quiet and pained as he barely opened his eyes. ‘We must stop meeting like this.’
As he attempted a deep, steady and clearly uncomfortable breath, she rolled him onto his back as gently as she could, but Eden still winced despite her best effort.
Only then could Jessie seeing just how pale he was. She gently lifted his T-shirt to see the blade wound. She slammed her hand to her mouth. He’d been struck in the spleen – badly. His skin was already purple from the uncontrollable internal bleeding.
But he was conscious. For now.
She felt his pulse, as rapid as his breathing, his eyes unable to focus.
‘Not stabbed for years – then twice…’ He took another unsteady breath. ‘…in one fucking week.’
‘You can hear me?’
He gave a small, involuntary groan but he managed another hint of a smile despite his frown. ‘I’d know that sexy voice anywhere.’
He was still semi-coherent, which was the only good sign right then. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the confusion set in.
‘Eden, you’ve got severe spleen damage,’ she said, moving her hand from the back of his head to clasp his cold neck. She fought back the tears of panic. ‘You’re haemorrhaging.’
‘So what’s the bad news?’ he asked, another hint of a pained smile gracing his lips despite his eyes being closed.
She glanced back at Dice. Looked across at the beds. It had potentially been an ambush, the Grace sisters now long gone.
‘Jess,’ he said, forcing his eyes open, the colour draining from his skin at an alarming rate. ‘Do your stuff, yeah?’
She flattened her palms to the floor, her nails raking wood. It wasn’t enough. With that much damage, there was no way her blood would be effective quick enough. It would only delay the inevitable.
She jammed her fist into her mouth to fight back the tears as he closed his eyes again.
But he wasn’t delirious enough yet to not pick up on her hesitation.
A tear trickled down her cheek but she knew even that wasn’t enough.
‘Jess?’ he asked again. He tried to ease up onto his elbows but quickly slumped back to the floor, cursing almost unintelligibly beneath his breath.
‘No,’ she said gently, trying to conceal her panic. ‘Don’t move.’ She leaned over to his ear, brushed her fingers through his hair. ‘You wait for me,’ she whispered. ‘Do you hear me? You wait for me, Eden.’
He frowned, her gentle kiss on his cheek clearly confusing him further.
Without even a glance in Dice’s direction, she exited the room, closing and locking it behind her.
It was breaking every rule. It was breaking every ounce of sense beyond what she was feeling. But she was not losing Eden that night. She was not losing him on some grimy floor in that hellhole row.
She ran back down the hallway, back the way she came, shoving aside anyone who got in her way. With the attic door rebounding off its hinges, she crossed to the window she’d entered by. She clambered back up onto the roof. She sped across the rain-soaked tiles, slipping to her knees at one point before quickly getting back to her feet, the rain smattering against her face, soaking her T-shirt to her chest.
She reached the end of the row, clambered back through her bedroom window.
She fell to her knees by her chest of drawers and yanked the bottom one from its rungs. She felt around for a couple of the vials, clenched them in the palm of her hand as she got back to her feet. Tucking them both in her front pocket she climbed back out of the window, back onto the roof.
Her heart pounded, rare perspiration coating her palms. She moved at a speed she hadn’t used for decades, thinking only of getting back to him, of refusing to let him die alone – not least with the belief that she had left him.
Because she would never leave him, not by choice.
Her chest ached. Tears poured down her cheeks – tears she didn’t have time to collect. Darkness consumed her at the very thought of living without him, of what lay ahead. Because she could not lose the light now – her bright, compelling spark in the darkness: her Eden. That light was not going out.
She slipped back through the window into the attic room. She yanked open the door. She ploughed back down hallway after hallway, everything a blur around her.
Unlocking the door, she fell back to her knees beside him, one hand cupping his neck as she lowered her cheek to his mouth.
‘No!’ she said through gritted teeth. Heart wrenched from her body, her tears washed his lips as she felt the absence of breath. ‘Don’t you dare leave me, Eden Reece!’ Not now that she had finally dared care again. Not now that she had found something to fight for. ‘Don’t you dare leave me.’
34
Eden woke to a gentle hand stroking through his hair. He opened his eyes to look directly into Jessie’s.
A smile, albeit faint, curled Jessie’s lips as she continued to stroke his hair as his head rested in her lap. ‘Payback,’ she said.
He looked up at the smoke-stained ceiling, across at the beds to recall where he was, the last thing that had happened.
‘But I’m afraid the T-shirt didn’t make it,’ she added.
He looked down at his bare chest but there was no blood there anymore; there didn’t even seem to be a scar. More significantly, there was no pain. The superficial wound Dice had inflicted was gone too. This time the dose had been powerful. This time she’d had every intention of saving his life.
He looked back into her eyes, unable to find the words to thank her.
She held up two vials by way of explanation. ‘Angel tears,’ she said with a small shrug. ‘More potent than my blood. More potent than any blood.’
He eased into a seated position to face her. Not only did he not feel any pain; there wasn’t the slightest hint of discomfort. He stared at the empty one before looking back into her eyes. A strange sensation coursed through him like a fresh breeze on a humid night, like a replenishing sleep after a hard day. It hadn’t just healed him, it had done something more. And he had he feeling he knew what.
‘Permanent?’ he asked.
She nodded.
He almost didn’t want to ask, for f
ear of what she would say. ‘A cure?’
She nodded again.
‘Fuck,’ he hissed quietly.
That’s why Sirius really wanted her. If The Facility had those little tubes of iridescent liquid, Sirius already knew. And he wanted more.
‘A cure humans can never get their hands on,’ she added. ‘That’s why my kind have to stay secret. That’s why we didn’t out ourselves with the others. If our existence is proven, what we can do, this whole set-up would be permanently eradicated – but not in a good way. If they realise that all this stuff they’ve got set up trying to find a cure using vampire blood could be a waste of time, that the Higher Order are stalling while they wait for their leader to rise, it will give the Global Council the perfect excuse to destroy all but my kind.’
But the secret was already out. What Cass had showed him proved that Sirius already had others like her.
The bastard was collecting angels.
Further unease crept through him. ‘The Higher Order aren’t going to want you outed either, are they? Are you in hiding from them too?’
‘The only thing that sustains this set-up, that keeps the Higher Order in the privileged position they’re in in Midtown, is talk of this adhesive. They have as much reason to keep our existence secret as we have.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘To kill us if we’re found.’
A toxic combination of fear and rage simmered deep in his core. ‘Is that why, even if you could escape from Pummel, you can’t leave the south?’
‘We’re impossible to mask from them. You can’t see it, but the third species can – the glow that surrounds us. The energy field.’
‘So you’re not just hiding from the Global Council the Higher Order – you’re hiding from the other third species in this district?’
‘They know our discovery is a threat to them.’
‘Yet you were still thinking of going near Jask Tao?’
‘I have no choice.’
He edged closer along the floorboards to sit thigh-to-thigh with her, facing her. He cupped her neck. ‘But this cure, Jessie, what your kind can do – that could also bring an end to all this in a good way.’
‘Under the power, under the influence of The Global Council? The Council that set all this up in the first place and condemned us without trial? Do you really believe that? The prospect of “beating the system” is something humans have hankered after since the very beginning and they will trample over anything along the way. Discovering what we can do will only bring out the worst in your kind. We’re not the threat – humans are. Your kind is a threat to us all – even to yourselves. That’s why I have to be able to trust you with this.’
‘Shit, Jessie,’ he said with a heavy sigh. ‘You’re not exactly free of complications, are you?’
She frowned. ‘A thank you would suffice.’
The coolness of her lips as he took them to his was a much-needed sensation, their willingness evoking a stirring deep in his chest. He closed his eyes, relaxing into the sensation of his tongue gliding gently over hers before he pulled back.
‘For trusting me,’ he said. ‘And for saving my life. Again.’
‘You didn’t kiss me like that last time.’
‘Sometimes I wish I had.’ He smiled. ‘All that foreplay was a killer.’ He glanced back at Dice. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Pummel said he’d sent you to kill the sisters. I knew where they hung out. I think it was Pummel’s final test. He wants to involve you in selling those kids on. He wants to use your contacts. Eden, this is getting more problematic by the minute.’ She too glanced back at Dice. ‘What happened? Was it an ambush?’
As her eyes searched his, he knew he couldn’t lie to her. ‘It was me. I killed him.’
Silence descended on the moment like a weighted shroud.
‘Why?’ she asked, the question feeling strangely naïve against the sordid backdrop.
But he could see in her eyes that her question wasn’t one of lack of comprehension – it was one of wanting to understand him more.
This was the next step – potentially the removal of his mask altogether.
‘I couldn’t do it, Jess,’ he said. ‘And I couldn’t let him do it either. You would have had to have been a saint not to kill him – and we both know I’m no saint.’
Her eyes flared with concern. ‘But did anyone witness it?’
He nodded. ‘Before they hightailed it out of here. What is it with manners around this place?’ He smiled despite the abandonment still grating on him, but he too knew the gravity of it if word got back to Pummel.
‘We’re going to have to move quicker,’ she said. ‘And hope word Pummel doesn’t find out in the interim. Eden, you’re going to have to get the young out of here now. Hide them somewhere a couple of miles from here. Find Jask. Tell him you have them.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘Forget the necklace, you don’t have time. We have to keep the young safe. It’s the only chance we stand of stopping this. I can get away long enough to meet Jask away from here. If he knows we saved his young, we could reason with him. If I explain the full extent of what could happen…’ Her soft, delicate hand coiled around his and peeled his fisted fingers open. She placed something in his palm – something small, cylindrical, cold – before closing it again. ‘For Honey.’
He opened his palm to look down at the other glass vial she’d been holding, at the iridescent liquid contained within.
‘Get the young out of here, take that to your niece, and meet me back in the lock-up in a few hours. I need you to not let me down, Eden. Please don’t let me down.’
He tightened his grip on the vial as he looked back into her eyes, knew what it had taken for her to trust him with it. Knew he couldn’t tell her that he already held some back just in case. Not yet.
He cupped the back of her neck, rubbed his thumb gently along her jaw, hesitating for a just a moment longer. But he needed her to know. He needed her to understand just how much she could trust him.
‘I lost my mother the day before my thirteenth birthday,’ he said. ‘She’d been attacked – not by the third species, but by humans. She never came out of the coma. They switched the machine off as soon as the finances stopped. I lost my father a few weeks later after he plunged into a downward spiral he couldn’t get out of. I don’t know what left me with the more bitter feeling – that in a world obsessed with the threat of the third species, it was my own kind that tore my family and my life apart; or that my father didn’t deem what he had left worth fighting for.
‘I spent a long time after that making sure I could never love anyone that deeply, so selfishly deeply that I would forsake all else just to be with them. I wasn’t willing to lose myself like he did, to become weak, to care that much that I felt like I was nothing without them. I was scared of becoming less of what I was by falling for someone – of making myself feel that vulnerable again in a place I couldn’t afford even an iota of it. Instead, I kept my focus on what I needed to: survival for me, which meant survival for my family. I wanted to succeed where he had failed.
‘But I get it now. He wasn’t weak; he was grieving. Loving her that much wasn’t a choice. Just like I didn’t choose to fall for you.’
Her eyes flared, her lips parting slightly as she stared at him.
‘It hasn’t made me weaker though, Jess. If anything, you’ve made me stronger, even more determined. I’m not scared of it anymore. I’m not scared of it because of you. So before I get back, if it even crosses your mind that I’m going to abandon you to this place, you remember that. We need that home run, Jessie. Don’t you give up on me now.’
35
Just as Eden had asked, Jessie had returned to her room. She’d put the bars back into position and locked the window. She’d replaced her damp clothes after a quick wash down.
And she’d waited.
She’d sat on the edge of her bed, her hands knitted tightly in her lap and waited for his return. Ever
y time a negative thought had crept into her head, she’d pushed it aside just like he’d told her to – every time she’d thought of him not making it back to her or, more so, that he had no intention of making it back to her.
Because he wouldn’t let her down.
Because he wouldn’t leave her there.
He wouldn’t abandon her.
She’d paced the room. She’d stared out of the window. She’d tidied her drawings. Then she’d perched on the edge of the bed again.
The second she’d heard the key turn in the lock, she’d stood to face the door, ready to run into his arms.
But it hadn’t been Eden who’d filled the doorway, who’d looked back at her.
Now she sat in the sofa chair, Pummel in his usual seat, Homer opposite him. Tatum sat the other side of Pummel, Chemist beside him.
At least a couple of hours had passed as they’d played cards, smoked joints, knocked back shots. And, as usual, it was as if she wasn’t even there.
But there was something different in the atmosphere. From the moment Pummel had turned up at her room to escort her down, barely uttering a word, there had been a tension in the air that told her something was wrong – very wrong.
She knew from experience, from instinct, not to question it. She knew he wasn’t so ignorant not to know she would have picked up on it. And his laughter grated through her all the more because of it – like water torture or a slow, prolonged, methodical stabbing. Yet there was no mention of Dice – her and Eden having stashed his body away. No mention of anything untoward.
She would remain prepared nonetheless. She would remain focused. She would be ready to act the second she needed to. Until then, she’d play him at his own game – pretending everything, apart from him having come to collect her, was as routine as any other night.
Her heart fluttered, her stomach flipped as Eden stepped into the lounge. She wanted to run into his arms, relief washing over her at his return. But like the night he’d first turned up in that doorway, he looked directly across at Pummel like none of the past three days had happened.
Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 36