Gasp

by V. J. Chambers

  I winced. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

  “Well,” he said. “I guess you probably didn’t want my mom to die either, did you? But it happened anyway.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ~azazel~

  “Um, well, I guess I can talk about Mina,” I said. I sat on the couch with Chance next to me. It was evening of the next day. Jason and Jude had recovered (Jude with no delay, even having been in the presence of my baby), and Hallam had been given blood to heal as well. We were all gathered together in the living room. We’d just finished burying the bodies of Mina, Grace, and Boone. “When I first met Palomino Marx, she was my roommate at the Sol Solis school in Italy, and all I knew about her was that she was my brother Chance’s girlfriend, and that she had a really funny name. Anyway, she turned to be the best roommate ever. She taught me all the tricks to get by in the dorms. Like when to take a shower to make sure you didn’t run out of hot water, and how to plug in a curling iron and a hair dryer and a back-lit magnified mirror into one of the sockets without blowing a fuse. And, um, she was my friend. I didn’t have a lot of friends back then, not ones who were still alive, anyway. Mina was a good friend. She was a normal, sunny person in the middle of all of this crazy madness that is our lives. I’ll never forget her. I’ll never be able to really accept that she’s gone. I’ll always miss her. Always.”

  I looked around at the others. Jude nodded at me, but none of the others met my eyes.

  It was quiet.

  We all sat together, no one saying anything.

  It had been better to bury them here than to try to get the authorities involved, we’d decided. None of them had family besides us, not anymore.

  Mina’s family had died during the solar flare, and the vampires had killed Grace’s and Boone’s.

  It wasn’t ideal.

  It wasn’t a real funeral.

  But we were the ones that cared about them, and funerals were for alive people, not dead people. Dead people didn’t know one way or the other.

  Jason cleared his throat. “Do, um, I have to say something about Mina or can I talk about Boone?”

  “No rules,” said Hallam. “Whatever you need.”

  Jason looked at the carpet. “I just, uh, I wish things had gone differently. I know we’re supposed to be sharing memories or something, but that’s not what I need right now. I need… I never should have let him go in. He was a computer guy. He didn’t know how to handle himself.”

  “He did,” said Jude. “Much as I did, anyway. You would have done the same thing for him.”

  Jason shook his head. “He was a kid. You know it was only a couple months ago that we were all laughing about him and Grace together. They were only…” He looked at me. “They were like us. It’s like if we had died when we were seventeen, Azazel.”

  A lump formed in my throat.

  “I should have protected them. I should have watched them,” said Jason.

  “Jason, you can’t blame yourself,” I said.

  He stood up. He looked down at Chance. “And what about Mina? That’s on me too. These people are all dead, and it’s on me.”

  “No,” I said. “Please, don’t blame yourself, Jason.”

  Jason ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, you guys want to have your little memorial thing? Go for it. But… I can’t do this.” He walked out of the room.

  More silence.

  Marlena took a deep breath. “They were too young, you know?”

  “They’d been on missions with us before.” I licked my lips. “I guess we all thought we were invincible. I guess we didn’t realize…”

  None of us looked at each other.

  It was quiet again. Long moments of silence stretched out between us.

  “I miss them,” said Chance suddenly.

  We all looked at him.

  “Grace was nice to me,” he said. “And Boone used to play soldiers with me sometimes. Plus they both helped me with my homework. And I miss Mommy too. I miss her a lot.”

  I squeezed the little boy closer to me.

  He pushed me off. “But I can’t do this either.” He got up off the couch and followed his father out.

  * * *

  “Azazel?” Hallam called up the stairs.

  I came out of my room. “Yeah?” I headed for the top of the stairs.

  “Where’s Jason?”

  “I don’t know.” I peered down the steps into the foyer. Hallam was looking up at me, but he wasn’t alone. There were two police officers with him.

  I scurried down the steps. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re looking for Jason Wodden,” said one of the officers. “We need to ask him a few questions.”

  “About what?” I said.

  “It’s in connection with the capture and torture of some girls,” said the other officer.

  My heart sank. I’d forgotten all about that, considering everything that had happened with Mina, Grace, and Boone. But Hallam and I were pretty sure that Jason was hurting girls, and now the police were here.

  “You really don’t know where he is?” Hallam asked me.

  “I haven’t seen him since the memorial,” I said.

  “Memorial?” said one of the officers.

  “Um…” Right. I didn’t want to explain about how we’d buried three bodies in our back yard, did I?

  “Look,” said Hallam, “I know Jason will be back eventually. If you want to leave me a number where I can reach you, I’ll call you the minute I see him.”

  The officers surveyed Hallam, who seemed very British and proper in that moment.

  One of them nodded, pulling out a card and handing it to Hallam. “All right. You see him, you call us.”

  Hallam smiled.

  * * *

  ~jason~

  Chance and I had been on a walk together, just walking around the neighborhood, his hand in mine. We hadn’t done much talking. The only sounds had been the pounding of our feet against the sidewalk, the wind in the trees, the occasional passing car.

  Now we were back home. Chance said he was hungry, and I was going to make him a sandwich or heat something up for him.

  We went in through the front door.

  Azazel and Hallam were both standing there.

  “Where have you been?” said Azazel.

  “Chance and I went on a walk,” I said.

  “We need to talk,” said Hallam.

  “See if Marlena can keep an eye on Chance for a minute,” said Azazel.

  They were both so serious. I furrowed my brow. “What’s going on?”

  “The police were here, Jason,” said Hallam. “I think you know why.”

  Imri’s threat. He’d said that unless I traded Azazel’s baby for Chance, I was going to have trouble with the authorities. I swallowed.

  “Why were the police here, Daddy?” said Chance, looking up at me.

  “Chance, why don’t you find Marlena and see if she can get you something to eat?” I said, smiling at him.

  He knitted his brow together. “You can’t keep things from me just because I’m little, you know.”

  “Sure, I can,” I told him. I gave him a nudge.

  He looked annoyed, but he left.

  Hallam started out of the foyer. “Let’s talk in the den.”

  I looked at Azazel. She wouldn’t meet my gaze. She turned away from me and went after Hallam.

  I hung my head and brought up the rear.

  I never wanted her to know about this.

  In the den, Hallam and Azazel both sat down in the leather easy chairs, leaving me to stand. I wandered over to the other side of the room. There was a gun and some bullets on the end table. The bullets hadn’t been completely finished being stuffed with leaves. I picked one up and began to tuck the leaves inside.

  “Jason,” said Hallam.

  I looked up.

  “How long?” he asked me.

  I looked back at the bullet, pushing wayward bits of dry leaves inside the casing. “A
few months. I didn’t kill most of them, you know.”

  “So, you are doing it?” said Azazel. “It’s you.”

  I didn’t say anything. I set the bullet down and picked up another one, pushing its leaves inside as well.

  “Jason, the last thing we need is police involvement right now,” said Hallam. “We have no idea what Imri is planning next—”

  “This is what Imri’s planning,” I said. “He warned me this would happen if I didn’t trade Azazel.”

  “He knew about this?” said Azazel.

  “I told you he was watching us, and he knew everything.”

  Azazel looked at Hallam. “Do you think those police officers are working for Imri?”

  “He could have simply tipped them off,” said Hallam.

  I toyed with the bullet. “I’m sorry. I know this creates more problems for everyone.”

  Honestly, I’d been expecting something worse. I’d been expecting the two of them to be angry—to yell or to scream. I’d expected Azazel to cry, to tell me how awful I was. But neither of them were doing that. They were both so calm.

  “It does,” said Hallam. “It makes things tough for all of us.”

  I set the bullet back down. “Well, I could turn myself in, I guess.”

  “What?” said Azazel. “No. Jason, why would you say that?”

  I turned to her. “Why aren’t you angry with me?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “You’re not acting like it,” I said. “Do you even know what it was that I did? It started with a girl named Patience. I thought I’d cut her up and then give her blood and she’d be okay, but I cut too deep, and she died. I felt disgusted with myself. Horrified that I was even capable of something like that. And I wasn’t ever going to do it again. I came back to work with you guys, killing vampires. But it turned out that while we were doing that, none of the people we killed deserved it. Not even Fleming.”

  “Jason—”

  “Still, it was fine with me,” I said. “It was better to be killing with a gun, out in the open, not down in a basement just me and her, listening to her beg me to stop.” I shivered.

  “But you did do it again,” said Azazel.

  “I had to stay with Chance instead of going on missions,” I said. “And the vampires started drying up. There weren’t any left to hunt and kill.”

  She nodded. “Well, that’s kind of what I figured.”

  “You’re still not mad,” I said.

  “I’m…” She shrugged. “I’m disgusted and horrified too, okay? But like you said, you didn’t kill them all. You healed most of them, right?”

  I couldn’t believe she was saying this. “That doesn’t make it okay, Azazel. You can’t… not this time. You can’t forgive me for this too.”

  She licked her lips. “I need you right now, Jason. Imri is after my unborn child, and I need someone like you on my side.” She folded her arms over her chest. “But you have to stop. The next time you get an urge to find some girl with red hair and introduce her to your knife, you need to come to me instead, and we’ll work through it somehow. Okay?”

  I picked up the gun on the side table and began idly loading the leaf bullets into it. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s okay. I don’t think I’m okay.”

  “You’re not,” said Hallam. “Maybe you never have been.”

  I weighed the now-loaded gun in my hands. “So, I should turn myself in, then.”

  “No,” said Hallam. “Azazel’s right. We need you right now. You may be bloodthirsty and unhinged, Jason, but sometimes that’s a nice trait to have on your side.”

  I smirked. “So, I’m useful, and it doesn’t matter what I do?”

  “It matters,” said Azazel. “But it’s more important for us to figure out what we’re going to do about it than for you to beat yourself up over it. It’s done. It’s over. We need to move forward.”

  “Right,” said Hallam. “So, what do we do about the police problem?”

  They both looked at me.

  I laughed bitterly, raising the gun. “Why don’t I just blow them all away? That’s my special skill set, right?”

  “I think that would probably cause more problems that it would solve.” Hallam cocked his head. “I realize you feel guilty, Jason. You think that if one of us punishes you for what you did, it will serve to absolve you—”

  “I don’t think that,” I said. “I went down that road before. I tried to punish myself, and it didn’t make any difference, did it? Because no matter what I do, deep down, I’m a killer. I’m evil.”

  “You’re not evil,” said Azazel.

  I gestured with the gun. “I’m not good either, am I?”

  “I feel guilty too, if it makes it any better,” said Hallam. “I had a part in turning you into what you are. It’s not all your fault.”

  “And what am I?” I said. “Come on, Hallam. Tell me what I am. Am I a monster? Am I an abomination? Am—”

  There was a knock on the door.

  Startled, my finger twitched.

  Against the trigger of the gun.

  “Who’s there?” said Azazel.

  And the gun went off.

  Hallam grunted.

  I’d hit him.

  The door burst open. “What the hell?” Jude rushed inside.

  I lurched forward on unsteady feet. “Hallam?”

  He had fallen to the ground and blood was pouring out of his throat.

  I put my hands on the blood, on his skin, trying to stop the redness from flowing. “Hallam.”

  But he wasn’t responding. His body was spasming. Blood was coming out his mouth.

  “No,” I whispered.

  Wait. Wait, there was something I could do. I had immortal blood, and I could give it to Hallam. When Azazel got wounded with leaves in her system, my blood healed her. I could fix this. I got up. “Knife.”

  Azazel was looking down at Hallam with wide eyes.

  “I need a knife!” I said. “I need to give him blood.”

  Jude looked around, as if he thought a knife was going to appear somewhere right in front of him.

  There wasn’t a knife here, then.

  I needed to find some other way to break my skin, to bleed. I needed to feed Hallam my blood and save him.

  Azazel went down on her knees next to Hallam. She was talking to him, begging him to be okay.

  Jude backed out of the room. “I’ll get a knife. I’ll go to the kitchen.”

  I spied a poker next to the fireplace. I wasn’t sure if it was sharp enough. I lumbered over to pick it up.

  I drove it into my hand. My hand started to bleed.

  I crawled over to Hallam, putting my bleeding hand against his mouth.

  “Come on, Hallam, drink,” I said.

  But Hallam wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even bleeding like before when the blood had been pulsing out of him.

  Now he seemed… still.

  “Hallam,” I said, my voice getting desperate.

  “Oh no. No, no, no,” said Azazel.

  I slapped his face, trying to rouse him. The sound echoed in the den.

  But Hallam didn’t even blink.

  “Hallam!” I screamed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ~azazel~

  I got up, staggering back away from Hallam’s body.

  Jude reappeared in the doorway, holding a carving knife.

  “Where’s Jason?” I said.

  Jude shook his head. “I passed him in the hall. He was running.”

  This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Hallam didn’t die. He was the closest thing to a parent that either Jason or I had. He’d helped us fight the Sons. He’d been our guardian in Florida. He’d been with us through the solar flare. He’d been there through everything. Hallam didn’t die.

  We needed Hallam.

  And if Hallam was going to die, it shouldn’t be like this.

  Not just an accident, a wayward bullet that wasn’t even intended to be shot. N
ot like that.

  I pushed past Jude. I needed to find Jason.

  Everything seemed hazy. It was hard to walk. I didn’t want to be awake. I wanted this to be a dream, just a bad portent of things to come.

  Awake.

  Dream.

  It reminded me of the tableau I’d seen with Lilith. Old me had shouted, I knew it when you killed Hallam. I knew I never should have let you live!

  Jason had killed Hallam.

  Just like my dream.

  It had come true.

  Why hadn’t I paid attention to that part? Why hadn’t I said something? Maybe I would have been able to prevent this…

  I stumbled through the hallway.

  Marlena was coming the other way, little Kenya and Chance trailing after her. “What happened?”

  I shook my head at her. “It was an accident.”

  “Azazel, what happened?”

  I pushed past her, a lump forming in my throat. I couldn’t look at her.

  I kept going. Fast as I could, even though I couldn’t manage to keep myself upright. I hugged the wall instead, moving through the mansion.

  “Jason?” I called.

  I saw him on the steps. He was heading upstairs, the gun still dangling from his hand.

  He looked down at me, but he didn’t say anything. He looked away and started up the steps.

  In the distance, I heard Marlena scream.

  But it seemed so far away. Everything seemed far away. Everything seemed… wrong.

  I started up the steps. “Jason!”

  He was disappearing around a corner.

  “Jason, wait.” I got to the top of the steps, turned that same corner.

  Jason was standing at an open window. The breeze was coming inside, fluttering the curtains out into the hallway. He had the gun in his mouth.

  “Jason.”

  He didn’t look at me.

  I went to him. I put my hand on his shoulder. I put the other hand over his hand. The one holding the gun. I tried to ease the gun out of his mouth.

  But he was stronger than me, and I couldn’t force it.

  I struggled with him there, the cold wind chilling my fingers.

  Eventually, my fingers slid off of his. Slid off of the gun.