by Tara Brown
“No way!” The other guy seemed genuinely invested in the story at this point, as if this Giselle was something special.
“I grab her and she tries to pull her arm away but she is weak. She says, ‘Please don’t hurt me. I’ll just let you do it.’ I almost threw up. I flash us to mine and Aimee’s beach. It was the safest place I could think of.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah. So now the poor thing is upstairs. She’s sick as hell. I’ve been trying to keep her alive, healing her as best as I can, but she isn’t improving.” Aleksander sounded devastated. “She said it’s some guy named Tony who hooked her up.”
Grateful Marcus wasn't named, I continued down the stairs, interrupting their conversation. Aleksander was with an almost equally hot guy, also one of the ageless beings. He smelled like heaven, musky and strong. His lips curled into a grin when he saw me, matching Aleksander’s. We’d met before but my gaze fixed on Aleksander before I recalled who the guy was.
“Hanna, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Aleksander leaned over the counter, grinning. His eyes traveled my fleecy jammies.
“I missed you.” I leaned on the counter, staring back at him, inhaling whatever the hell that smell was.
“Me too.” He chuckled.
“Ahem,” the other guy spoke but I hardly noticed him. “You guys okay?”
“Go on with your story.” I grinned at Aleksander, curious about the ending of it and not caring what the other guy was saying.
“There’s not much more to tell. She’s upstairs and I think she’s dying.” His words didn’t match his face. He was going to kiss me again, I knew it.
“What a waste,” the other guy mumbled.
Aleksander blinked and the connection between us was lost. He turned to the other guy, dragging my eyes with his. I realized it was that weird dude, Lucas. We’d met before. He was a jerk then and sort of now. “What?”
“A waste.” Lucas shrugged. “Yes, Giselle is the hottest girl on the planet, but when Aimee talks about her she sounds like a nice girl. It’s a waste.” He narrowed his gaze on us both. “What’s with you two?”
“Us?” Aleksander folded his arms across his broad chest. “How’s Ari, speaking of girls you’re into?”
Lucas chuckled. “I can see the girl is hot and know she’s not for me, man. I was just asking is all. Ari’s it.” His cheeks lit as a smile spread across his lips. “I wasn’t thinking anything else.”
“Who is this girl anyway?” I forced myself to focus. Aleksander was just so yummy.
“Aimee’s best friend from back home.”
“Oh.” I made a face. “Wow. Death wish much? Where is Aimee now?” I glanced at the ceiling, hoping she wasn’t upstairs with her friend. I was in no mood for an Aimee visit.
“I don’t know but I hope Ari’s not with her. She’ll be scarred for life, if she is.”
“Why?” I frowned.
Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Have you ever seen Aimee in action and pissed off? She can take the soul nicely or she can rip it from your flesh.” He shivered. “Not pretty. I will say though, my wolf likes to clean up her messes.”
Aleksander laughed. “That’s disgusting.”
But I didn’t say anything. I’d seen Aimee in action. She was horrible.
“I’m going to check on Giselle. You wanna come meet her? She’s nice.” Aleksander stopped laughing and gave me a subtle smile.
“Sure.” I took the hand he stretched out to me and let him flash us to her room.
The second we got to the floor with her room, the smell of death was overbearing and in my face. I didn’t know what to say or do. Part of me panicked because she smelled like my dad. The other part of me was curious about the pale girl in the bed.
She was stunning. There was no denying her that, even as sickly as she was.
I couldn’t imagine how she looked when she wasn’t sick, but her beauty must have been intense.
“What did they do to her?” I’d never seen a girl like her in my life.
“Some vampires like to do drugs and then feed their blood to humans. With most humans it’s fine. They all get high together. But Giselle has had organ transplants and tons of damage to her. She was sick a couple of years ago and the residual effects are permanent,” Aleksander whispered as we walked to her bedside. “She will always be weak.” He sat and placed a huge hand on her tiny forearm. He closed his eyes and focused like he was assessing her or something.
“Is there no hope?” I whispered back, contemplating a possibility.
“No. Feeding off crackhead vampires and feeding them is not being extra cautious, as the doctors instructed her to be.”
“What are you going to do?”
A sickening grin came across his lips as he spoke, “I was thinking about bringing Lucas and Ben with me to kill them all. Nothing more classic than vampires and werewolves fighting to the death.”
I didn’t dare ask whose death he meant.
The girl stirred. Blinking and seeing me, she smiled softly. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I glanced at Aleksander just as he vanished, leaving that warm wind and his scent.
I didn’t know what to say to her and couldn’t believe he would leave me like that.
Awake, the girl appeared even sicker and more fragile. Her long, silky dark hair hung limp around her thin face.
“Are you the new girl?” she asked after an awkward moment.
“I guess.” I shrugged. “Maybe. I’m Hanna.”
“I’m Giselle.”
“So you’re a human. I didn’t think Aimee had human friends. I thought everyone here was a freak show.”
“She doesn’t. We haven’t been friends in years. She vanished a long time ago.” Giselle lowered her gaze, angrily. “She used to be like the sister I never had.”
“Oh. How are you feeling?” A subject change seemed necessary.
“I’m dying so I feel like crap. Stupid vampires.”
“I thought vampire blood healed.” I frowned, recalling Marcus healing me in the woods. None of it made sense.
“Maybe for normal people but I had a liver transplant. Aimee and me were drugged by our rapey science teacher at a party. It made Aimee sick and she vanished. I got a new liver and kidney but I’m still weak. I think the drugs were more harmful than the vamp blood was healing.”
“It depends on the age of the vampire. Old vampires heal, newer ones don’t really. A very old vampire can heal you almost instantly, from anything.” Aimee walked into the room.
A low growl slipped from my lips upon seeing her, but Giselle interrupted me by screaming.
“Oh my God! Aimee, you look hot. Are those pants leather? No wait—I’m pissed at you.” Giselle sprang to life, crossing her arms and sticking her lip out.
The remorse on Aimee’s face worsened. “Giselle, I had to stay away. I was sick.”
Giselle raised an eyebrow. “Your sister and Blake said you were an evil killer now.”
“You’ve seen them?” she asked, disregarding Giselle’s statement.
Giselle continued, “Yeah. Alise has been by a couple of times when Blake had work here—in Seattle, not here.”
Aimee appeared baffled. “His work? I thought he was at MIT?”
“Yeah.” Giselle smiled. “Duh, he works at the school now.”
“MIT?” Aimee didn’t appear convinced. “He works at the school? After a year and a half, he’s working there?” She paused for a moment. “So you see them when they come here?”
“Yeah.” Giselle sounded like she didn’t care, but her eyes told me she did. She cared about Aimee a lot.
“When did you go to the blood bar for the first time?”
“Blake took me and Alise. They’d been there before.”
“Oh my God.” Aimee seemed on the verge of throwing up. “What?”
Giselle scoffed, as if it were all a joke. “Yeah, he wanted to see the vampires. He liked to watch them bite me, and Alise. It wasn’t sexy though, not
for him. It was like science. He wanted them to bite us for science.”
Aimee instantly shifted into the psychotic killer she was. “He does what?” Her tone lowered and her brow cast a shadow over her eyes.
“Yeah, he observed us, like he was going to pull out a clipboard and take notes.”
“And my sister?”
“She was into it. I think she liked being used to experiment with the blood and drugs. Typical Alise.” Giselle acted like she was telling Aimee a story about how her sister drank too much on weekends, not something like this. “Are you part of all this too? Do you let them bite you?”
“No, but I’d like to,” Aimee seethed, and I felt like I should try to sneak out of the room, especially when she sat at the bedside, taking Giselle’s hand in hers. “I gave up my life, as it was, to live. I didn’t have enough time to wait for a liver. I am what Alise and Blake said: a monster, like the vampires now.”
Giselle’s eyes widened and flickered to me. I sort of shrugged and nodded. Having seen the horrific act myself, I wasn’t about to defend her.
“Who did this to you?” Aimee asked Giselle. “What was his name?”
“I don’t know, some guy named Tony. He’s always at Master Mike’s in Seattle.”
“The good thing about me being what I am now, is I can make them pay. I can make them all pay.” Aimee smiled as if telling her long lost friend a bedtime story. But like maybe one Quentin Tarantino wrote. “I love you, and I won’t let you die. I’m sorry I never told you the truth before. I didn’t know how. Not without sounding nuts.”
“Okay.” Giselle sighed.
“Take care of my friend, Hulk.” Aimee gave me a soft smile before she bent and kissed Giselle on the cheek. She was gone before I could blink.
“What was that? Where did she go?” Giselle panicked.
“They all do that.” I pointed at the door behind me. “They flash here and there and everywhere. It’s creepy.”
“That is creepy.”
“Why don’t you tell me the story of how you got here, and I’ll tell you a story of how I did.” I sat in the chair next to her bed. I honestly didn’t know what else to say.
“Well, it all started the summer Aimee and Alise’s mom died . . .” Giselle began and I listened.
Chapter 13
Old Aimee
I woke in the chair next to Giselle. She was asleep again and appeared worse for wear.
Aimee stood in the corner, covered in blood.
“Oh my God!” I jumped when I saw her.
“I am sorry, Hanna.” Her eyes landed on me. “I was only doing what he asked me to. I didn’t want him to die, but he was going to change any second. It would have been the last change of his life; he was dying. The beast was too strong for him to hold back any longer. He would have killed everyone. And he didn’t have time to tell you everything.”
She looked sorry and yet was covered in someone else’s blood. “You’re apologizing for killing my dad, my only family, covered in the blood of someone else you’ve killed?”
“I lost control tonight.” She lifted her stained hands in the air. “When I saw what they had done, I lost it. There were other girls there—” She glanced up but her eyes were empty of emotion. “I killed every one of them as violently as I could.”
“Oh my God, Aimes!” Giselle stirred, sitting up abruptly and gasping for air. “What did you do?”
“They’re all dead. All those vampires are dead.”
Giselle grimaced. “Dude, you didn’t have to do that. I wanted to go to the club. It wasn't their fault.”
“You were becoming an addict. Their blood is addictive on its own. Adding cocaine and Ecstasy to it only makes it worse. They knew that. And I know they smelled your sickness on you.”
“I guess.” Giselle shuddered and repositioned back in the bed. “Whatevs. Gross.”
Aimee blushed. “I’m going home for a shower. I have to speak to Lorri and find out what we can do to fix you.”
Giselle laughed. “Girl, you can’t fix this. I’m like a cat with nine lives, and this is the ninth.”
Aimee reached for her hand but Giselle pulled back horrified, making her laugh. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find a way.”
“Go shower. You smell.”
“Okay.” Aimee glanced at me once more. “I really am sorry, Hanna. I never knew he meant for you to be there for it. I promised him that in the end I would do it the way he wanted.”
“Okay.” The piss and vinegar had washed out of me after the scary teacher story and hearing about the loss of Aimee’s love, but the apology itself made things better. “Thanks.”
“Be back in a bit.” She was gone from the room with a whoosh.
“She’s so weird now.” Giselle frowned. “She used to be funny. She was a huge nerd, like, I mean science-camp smart.”
“Seriously?” That was hard to believe.
“Seriously,” Giselle attested. “She was quiet and smart and nerdy. She saved my life.”
“Crazy.” I couldn’t help but think about my father’s note. I wondered if Aimee would be able to decipher the numbers and letters in the equations. If I could solve it without Marcus, things would get a lot simpler for me.
We stayed there, me hiding in the dying girl’s room as she went in and out of consciousness. She nattered and then passed out hard, only to wake and natter again.
It was the strangest experience. We were in a haunted house and she was dying.
I liked her.
After a couple of hours Aleksander burst into the room. “We’re taking you to the hospital. There’s nothing else to do. I’ve checked.” He crossed the room with a few large strides and lifted her up. He glanced back at me, tilting his head at his arm. “Grab on.”
I took his meaty bicep in my hand and suddenly we were at the hospital in Seattle. He carried her to the front doors and then to the front desk.
Seeing her yellow eyes and complexion, the nurses hurried her through admitting and up to a ward. I followed along, confused, scared, and suddenly curious of what an old vampire could do for this gentle soul.
The doctor shook his head as he spoke, “We’ll run some tests but the yellow eyes and skin are bad signs.” He turned with a grim expression and observed Giselle through the window and muttered bitterly, “I will be back. I need to make a call.”
Aleksander stared at Giselle, taking it all in, just sitting on the bed in her hospital gown.
“I have an idea,” I whispered, also staring at the beautiful girl. Her doe eyes landed on me and her lips turned into a slight smile.
“What?”
“Marcus,” I said carefully, like his name was Beetlejuice and we had to be cautious.
“He would never.”
“He would if you told him you knew where I was.” I hated the thing I was offering. “You could pretend to give me over, as though I don’t know about it all. Barter for her life.”
“You would do that?” he asked, maybe scared for me too.
“I would.” And then I would turn monster and run away again. But she would be healed so Marcus couldn’t take that back.
“I’ll think about it.” Aleksander took a deep breath and entered the room again. “The doctor is going to do some calling around and then they’ll do some tests to see where we are.”
Giselle nodded along, either not taking what he was saying seriously or just not caring anymore.
She accepted her fate rather easily. Perhaps she was accustomed to disappointment.
We waited around for Aimee to come back before Aleksander asked to see me in the hallway.
“Okay, but let me offer him some other things first.”
“I want to come with you. I want to hear him agree to it.”
He opened his mouth to argue but I spoke, “Fine. But you stay hidden.”
“Fine.”
He grabbed my hand and flashed us to the old gloomy castle.
“How well do you know Marcus?”
> “Very well. Well enough to know to despise him. He’s selfish to the point of murderous.” He left me at the back of the house where there was only one window. “I’ll flash here when I leave, grab you, and flash on. It’ll be a rough ride back, okay?”
“Fine.”
He narrowed his icy gaze, maybe about to argue but he didn’t. He turned and headed for the front door.
I peeked around the corner, watching Henry answer the door, smiling wickedly.
“Is he home?” Aleks was gruff.
Henry nodded, opening the door and walking from the massive entryway.
I snuck around to the window, watching as Marcus strolled into the room with his usual smug grin. “What could you possibly want, beyond the moment’s gloat I will permit? You have won, but I will not give up.”
Aleks frowned. “I have no idea what you’re on about, and honestly, I neither care nor have time for it. I need a favor.” He struggled to maintain his composure. “I. Will. Owe. You.”
Marcus burst into a fit of laughter. “You don’t have her then? Where would she have gone? I’ve spoken to Roland but the old goat told me she wasn’t there. He could have lied, I suppose.”
“MARCUS!” Aleksander snapped.
Marcus turned to him suddenly. “What?”
“I need you to save someone.”
“Save?” Marcus was definitely puzzled, if not a slight bit intrigued. “Save? Like create?”
Aleks nodded.
“You? You want me to save a human?”
“For Christ sake, yes. How else can I explain this? Do you have some paper and a pen? I could draw it, like we all did in the eighties.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” Marcus beamed. “You would owe me?” His voice lifted with delight.
“Yes.”
Marcus thought for a moment. “No.”
“You understand what you are turning away?”
“Yes,” Marcus replied. “As much as I want you dead, because I can’t stand your tormented-soul nonsense—no. Whoever it is, will just have to die.” Marcus turned away, stalking down the hall.
“I will drain your blood myself before I let her die.”
Marcus turned back. “We’re deadlocked, mate. You can’t kill me, and unfortunately, I can’t kill you. Shall we wrestle in the garden like men?” He turned and walked away again.