Blurred Memories

by Kallysten

  Interrogated? She didn’t need to be interrogated. She needed to be staked, once and for all. What was wrong with them?

  He tried to argue when they reached the hotel and Jen was led to an old office. Somehow, though, it seemed that his ‘convalescence,’ as Daniel put it, gave Blake’s opinion less weight than ever, which was how he found himself faced with a choice: leave his lovers in a room with the traitor and worry about what she was up to now, or stop ranting and accompany them.

  He went with them, but his assessment of their collective sanity—and his frustration—only grew worse with each passing moment.

  “Why did the demons send you this time?” Daniel asked first. “Another mission? It was pretty dumb to send you when we were right outside the breach.”

  Even sitting in a chair with her hands shackled behind her back while the rest of them were standing, Jen managed to look as though she were sneering down at them. The way she took on airs, like she was better than everyone else, had always put Blake off, and he’d never liked her much. His dislike had only grown after she tried to take Marc from him, then Kate.

  “I knew you were out there,” she said, disdain dripping from every word. “That’s why I came out. They didn’t send me. I ran away from them. I can help you close—”

  Blake had started to cringe at the first word that came out of Jen’s mouth. By the time she mentioned ‘helping’ he was all but growling.

  “Liar.”

  He was in the back of the room, leaning against the wall near the door, but this one word filled the space as though he had shouted, making the room seem much smaller than it actually was. Blake could feel eyes turning toward him, but his own gaze remained on Jen. She looked back at him coolly and said again, “I can help you close this rip.”

  If it hadn’t felt so much like running away, Blake would have left the room rather than listen to one more word she had to say. Why couldn’t they all see that she was lying?

  “That’s what you said back in the City,” he spat. “You’re a filthy liar and—”

  “Blake.” Marc met Blake’s glare without flinching and continued in the same quiet, gentling tone that never ceased to irk Blake. “We were there, too. We remember.”

  It wasn’t quite a ‘shut up,’ but it certainly sounded like one. Blake’s body tensed, and angry words filled his throat, too many of them to even voice. He leaned back against the wall again. Daniel was the first to look back toward Jen. Marc looked toward Kate. She glanced at him, and although neither said a word, some kind of communication seemed to pass between them. Blake clenched his hands to try to keep away the sudden wave of estrangement he was feeling.

  “What do you know about this breach?” Daniel asked. “Why is it different from the ones we’ve closed so far?”

  Rather than remain at Daniel’s side, Kate moved to the back of the room and leaned against the wall next to Blake. She pressed her shoulder to his and flashed him a small smile that only reminded Blake of his own weakness. He focused on Jen again, and his anger bubbled over in moments.

  “It’s a trap! Can’t you all see it?”

  Daniel gave Blake an impatient look. “Why don’t you just let her finish?”

  Blake threw his hands in the air. Kate tried to pat his arm, but he couldn’t bear to stand still any longer. He started pacing back and forth along the back of the room. It seemed small. Much too small to breathe properly, and it never seemed to make a difference that he didn’t need to breathe. It really was the worst possible time for this, but the timing never mattered either. He tried to get a grip on himself. He had to make them see reason before his mind completely gave in.

  “It’s always a trap, with her,” he muttered. “She was lying back when they first figured out how to close breaches. She was lying when she took you guys to the City. She sure as hell is lying now. Or are you all too blind to see that?”

  His gaze flicked over all three of them, but it stopped on Marc. He, more than anyone else, should understand. Marc had admitted, as much as it had rankled him, that he had been wrong when he had followed Jen, years ago. But instead of agreeing with Blake and helping to warn the others, Marc observed Blake with a deepening frown.

  Blake froze, suddenly hyperaware that he was panting and that his fingernails, short as they were, bitten to the quick, were digging into his palms hard enough that he could smell his own blood.

  Kate moved forward, but Marc was faster in reaching Blake. He curled a hand around Blake’s arm. As light as the touch was, it felt like steel manacles closing on him. The vise that squeezed his heart, his entire body, tightened a little more. Blake jerked back, freeing himself.

  “Calm down,” Marc said in a low, urgent voice. “You’re safe. Everything’s fine.”

  But everything was so far from being fine, Blake couldn’t even find it in himself to laugh—or to rage at showing himself so weak in front of all of them yet again.

  “Go to hell,” he muttered, and stormed out of the room.

  He knew, before the door even banged shut behind him, that one of them would follow. Maybe both. He didn’t know which one he would prefer—or which one would be worse. On his third stride he started running. He didn’t stop until he had climbed the last set of stairs, pushed open the security door, and stepped out onto the roof of the hotel.

  He dropped to his knees and looked up. Winds had gathered clouds over the city, and now he couldn’t see a single star above. He tried to take a breath, unclench his throat, and relax his constricted chest, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. The sky felt too low, too heavy. It weighed on him like the ceiling of his cell once had, and he couldn’t—

  “Blake? Are you—”

  His body reacted before the gears in his mind could engage. He twisted away from the hand that was resting on his shoulder and swung his fist as he spun and rolled away. His closed hand struck Marc’s cheek where he had been leaning down toward Blake. Marc lost his balance and fell back on his ass, a stunned look on his face.

  Blake’s mind caught up with the rest of him, and he winced. “Sorry,” fell from his lips by pure reflex, and he had to battle the instincts that demanded he prostrate himself this very instant and beg for his Master’s forgiveness.

  Marc palmed his cheek, his eyes never leaving Blake. “It’s okay,” he said calmly. “No harm done.”

  Marc pushed himself back to his feet and held out his hand to Blake to help him up. Blake considered the proffered hand but didn’t take it. His knuckles felt like they were burning from the impact with Marc’s face. It was hardly the first time he had hit Marc; they had fought before, sometimes when sparring turned a notch higher, sometimes to let off steam and anger when they argued about something. But Blake had never hit his Master, and it was his Master he had lashed out at.

  Or at least, he rationalized that he wanted to hit his Master. In truth, there hadn’t been anything in his mind at the time, only raw fear and anger joined too close together to differentiate.

  “It was my fault,” Marc added after a little while. He was still holding his hand out to Blake. “I shouldn’t have sneaked up on you.”

  Blake wanted to raise his hand and take Marc’s, but try as he might, he couldn’t move a finger. He looked down, and rather than a closed fist resting on his thigh, all he could see were deformed fingers. He could feel the breaks again, the aching, dull, unrelenting pain of bones that hadn’t been reset correctly.

  It was just the same with his mind; the veil that had dulled everything for so long had been lifted with Simon’s spell, but the pieces were not back in their proper place, and everything still hurt so damn much…

  “Blake… Calm down, please.”

  Marc knelt down in front of him, close enough that their knees brushed together. His hand closed over Blake’s and gently pried it open. Four crescents in Blake’s palm welled up with blood.

  There was always so much blood, always—

  “Childe!”

  Blake’s head snapped up. H
e met dark eyes, with none of the anger, disappointment, and cruelty he had expected to see there. Instead, the pain in Marc’s gaze matched his own. Marc’s hand slipped over his until their fingers entwined.

  “Blake…” Marc’s voice was quieter now, no more than a murmur between them. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your head. Tell me something, anything, please. Let me help you.”

  It was the same thing Kate had asked from him.

  Words rose to his lips, painful yet inescapable.

  “Why did you…give up on me?”

  Abandon me, was what had first come to mind, but he refused to be that pathetic.

  Marc shook his head, his expression reflecting confusion. “Give up? I never gave up—”

  “You didn’t come for me,” Blake cut in. His throat felt raw, as if each word cut deep. “You didn’t try to find me. You gave up. You’re my Sire, and you…you gave up on me.”

  * * * *

  Had Blake plunged a stake in Marc’s heart, it wouldn’t have been as painful as hearing those words. It didn’t help that Marc had blamed himself before.

  “I didn’t know if you were still alive,” he murmured. “I couldn’t…” His hand rose of its own accord and clutched at his chest. “I couldn’t feel you anymore. I didn’t know if you were alive and—”

  “And you had a new Childe to take care of.”

  “No!”

  Blake recoiled at Marc’s exclamation, and Marc tried to get a grip on himself again.

  “No,” he repeated more quietly. “That had nothing to do with you. We asked Simon to reopen the breach. He said he didn’t know how, but Kate had him work on it even after Daniel told them it was too dangerous.”

  Blake’s eyes had never seemed so dark—so dead. “So Simon worked his magic. Kate pushed him on. And what did you do? Where were you? You weren’t there when I was brought back.”

  Guilt swept through Marc again, dulling everything he felt.

  “I wanted to stay with them.” To Marc’s own ears, he sounded like he was making excuses, and he hated himself for it. “Daniel wouldn’t let me, so I—”

  “You take orders from your Childer now?” Blake interrupted again, this time with a sneer. “And I’m supposed to believe that? Do you think I’m really that stupid?”

  “No, Blake, it’s not—”

  But Blake wasn’t listening. He pushed himself to his feet and looked down at where Marc knelt in front of him. The scent of anger and pain wafted from Blake, and Marc’s insides twisted until he felt like he might throw up.

  “If you are tired of me,” Blake said tonelessly, “all you have to do is say so. You don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to take care of me. Maybe I’ll be better on my own.”

  Marc could hardly believe this was happening. He wasn’t tired of Blake or pretending anything, and he wanted to help Blake, wanted to help him get better. Before Marc could figure out where to begin, however, Blake was already walking away, leaving Marc confused and hurt.

  What else could he have done? Jumped through the first breach he found after Blake’s disappearance? Marc had thought about it. He had even seriously considered it. But what good would it have done? He didn’t know the demon dimension, and even if he had known where Blake was kept, how could he have hoped to fight his way there and free Blake?

  You could have tried, a little voice that sounded a lot like Blake accused. You could have looked for Jen like Kate did. You could have made her show you the way.

  Marc’s heart ached. Could he really have helped Blake? Could he have spared him decades of torture?

  Why hadn’t he even tried?

  More importantly, what could he do to make up for it now?

  Chapter 11

  Every fiber of Kate yearned to go after Blake and Marc. Her heart demanded that she join them and help in any way she could. Her mind, however, had already reasserted this simple truth: she couldn’t help. Whenever Blake was agitated like this, her presence only made things worse. Marc could help. He would. She would be more helpful if she stayed out of the way—even if her heart broke from it.

  “Are we continuing or what?” Jen asked, and she sounded bored.

  “We will,” Daniel said in the same cool voice Kate remembered from before he had been turned into a vampire; he had lost his calm and his job as head of the squad then, at least for a while, but now that he had found his way again, he was the same Daniel she used to know. She couldn’t help but hope that Blake would turn out the same way. When Daniel looked at her, his eyes were clear, with none of the gold flames that would betray anger or excitement.

  “Go check what Simon is doing,” he told her. “It didn’t take him that long to prepare a truth spell last time.”

  Kate started for the door, pausing briefly when Jen said, “You might want to have him do the spell he did for Blake on me. The one that’ll stop demons from being able to find me.”

  There was a hopeful edge to her words, and Kate glanced at Daniel. The briefest of nods confirmed that he, too, thought this might be a good idea. They should have thought of it earlier.

  When Kate reached Simon’s room, she found out that one of them had thought of it.

  “I just need a couple more minutes,” he told her, his gaze flicking toward her before he focused on the array of ingredients spread out in front of him on the desk. “I was trying to adapt the spell I did for Blake. I don’t know what kind of magic she has in her, so I thought, if I had her drink…”

  He never finished his sentence, his eyes narrowing suddenly and his tongue peeking between his lips in concentration as he carefully poured two drops of a silvery substance into a small jar. Kate understood his reasoning well enough, though, so she didn’t press him for an explanation. Besides, mentioning Blake caused Kate’s worry to swell again. Were Blake and Marc back in their room? She wished the situation with Jen could wait, but she understood why Daniel wanted answers now. Jen might have time-sensitive information, and the sooner she divulged it, the better their chances of being able to use it.

  “All right,” Simon said, squinting at the jar he held in front of his face. “That should work at least until the next full moon, and I’ll make something more permanent if she’s still alive by then. Now the truth spell…”

  The rest of the preparations only took seconds. With the jar in one hand and a small bag of herbs in the other, Simon stood and followed Kate back to the office they used for interrogations. When they entered, Marc and Daniel turned to look at them, both with their arms crossed and wearing matching frowns.

  “Where’s Blake?” Kate blurted out, at the same time as Daniel said to Simon, “Finally. Get to work. I want to know if she’s telling the truth.”

  Kate was still looking at Marc with concern. He shook his head once with a meaningful glance to the others in the room, and Kate supposed he didn’t want to talk in front of them. It didn’t alleviate her concerns, however. Beckoning to Marc with her hand, she indicated for him to join her at the back of the room, and after a brief pause he did.

  “Should I go talk to him?” she asked in a whisper.

  Marc grimaced. “I think he needs time alone. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

  “Okay.”

  But as Kate clutched Marc’s hand, she couldn’t think that any of it was okay. Like Blake, she would rather not have had to deal with Jen for more than a summary execution. The fact that Jen had upset Blake even more after his relapse near the breach only made Kate want to reach for a stake to end Jen’s life—and her lies.

  Except…she wasn’t lying now, was she? She couldn’t lie, not when Simon had done that spell on her.

  Frowning, Kate focused on what Jen was saying.

  “Tell me about that prison again,” Daniel demanded. “Repeat what you said before we put you under spell.”

  Jen let out a long-suffering sigh but complied.

  “It’s where they take the prisoners they hope to turn traitor,” she said, and as detached as she tri
ed to act, there was now a hitch in her voice that hadn’t been present earlier. “It’s where they held me. And where they held Blake, too.”

  An icy wave slid over Kate, leaving her mind and heart frozen. She was glad suddenly that Blake had left the room. If Jen’s mere presence had been enough to agitate him, she didn’t want to know how he would react to hearing that his prison—what had been a literal hell for him for so long—was on the other side of the breach they hadn’t yet managed to close.

  And still…he would have to be told. This was too important.

  “How many people are there?” Daniel asked after he had absorbed the news. “Humans, vampires and demons.”

  Jen shrugged. “It varies. Every time I was there, the number was different. But it’s never been less than twenty prisoners at any one time. And sometimes twice as many demons.”

  The number resonated through Kate like a deep gong. Twenty prisoners. Twenty people who, at this very moment, were being tortured the same way Blake had. Her stomach roiled and she turned away, a hand rising to cover her mouth. She stumbled out of the room and just had time to reach the nearby restrooms before she started to retch violently.

  Moments later, after she had rinsed her mouth and splashed cold water over her face to refresh herself, she stepped out of the bathroom to find Daniel, Simon, and Marc in the hallway. All three looked at her with concern, and all three, she thought, would have asked how she was if she hadn’t spoken first.

  “We have to do something to help those people.”

  She had known Daniel for years and could usually read his expression well enough to know what he would say before he did. She had also pretty good insight into Marc; she hadn’t known him as long, but the intimacy they shared made up for it. At that moment, however, both of them were closed books to her as they looked at her with the same inscrutable eyes.