by Rye Brewer
She opened the door and stepped inside. I could hear her footsteps on the wood floor—slow, tentative. “You all right?”
“Does it look like I’m all right? I’m lying here in the dark.”
“What’s up?” She sat on the edge of the bed.
“How much time do you have?” I muttered.
“You know what I think would make things better?”
“I almost shudder to think.”
She snorted softly, then said, “I think you should talk to Anissa.”
“What?” I sat bolt upright. That was the last thing I’d expected. “Since when? I thought you were thrilled she wasn’t around anymore.”
“I wouldn’t say thrilled,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You could’ve fooled me. What’s with the sudden change of heart?”
She shrugged, glancing down at the bedspread where I had torn a hole. One of her eyebrows arched, but she didn’t say anything about it.
Instead, she said, “I don’t like seeing you this way, for one thing. And that’s more important to me than how I feel about her.”
“Big of you,” I observed.
“Besides, I think she wants to talk to you.”
I laughed bitterly. “You’re wrong about that. She made it pretty clear she didn’t want to have anything to do with me for a while—and she’s the one who decides when she’ll come back.”
“I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t think there was a good chance she wanted to see you… but I wanted to be sure how you felt about it.”
“You know how I feel about it?” I got up and went to the window so I could avoid looking at her. “I feel as though I’m sick and tired of all of this. One minute I’m getting pulled in one direction, the next minute I’m getting pushed in another direction. She wants to see me, she doesn’t want to see me. And all revolves around her, what she wants. Not what I want. Maybe I don’t feel like talking to her. Did anybody ever consider that?”
“Okay. You’re feeling conflicted. That’s understandable.”
“Conflicted?” I whirled around to glare at her. “Who are you supposed to be? And what did you do with my sister?”
“Come on. Stop being so touchy and think rationally.”
“Rationally? Rationally, I think it’s ridiculous you’re sitting there, telling me how to behave when you’re the one who usually loses her mind over little things.” Then I took it to the next level. “Interesting you want me to be rational. The kind of rational that puts corpses in our vault? Is that the kind of rational?”
She recoiled. “You don’t have to be mean. Don’t take your anger out on me.”
She was right, but it didn’t do anything for my anger. “It’s just a tad hypocritical, is all.”
“I’m trying to help.”
I blew out a long, frustrated breath. “You’re right, of course. I shouldn’t take this out on you.”
She smiled. “How many times have I taken things out on you?”
“Oh, yeah. You’re right.”
“So, will you talk to her?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone,” I growled. “I’m gonna make this as clear as I can: I’m not interested. She’s not the only one who needed time to think things over. She doesn’t call all the shots.”
“I never said she wanted to talk about the two of you,” she reminded me with a scowl. “She has something you need to hear about. I don’t know what it is.”
“Right. Because she would want you to know if she had something personal to talk about with me. Come on, Philippa. Just lay off me.”
“It’s crucial you speak with her. Stop being selfish.”
I was across the room in two strides and stopped short of picking her up and throwing her out of the room. “Selfish? Well, maybe it’s about time I started thinking about myself. When have I ever been able to think about just myself? It’s always been you guys and the clan. That’s what comes first, right? Not me. I’m always last.”
She didn’t shrink back or even blink. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to see her just a little bit.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What if I told you she’s on the roof, waiting for you?”
I took a step back, and the satisfied gleam in her eye told me how pleased she was with herself. “Why couldn’t you have told me that before? What kind of game is this?”
“It’s not a game,” she said.
“What is it, then?”
“I wanted to see how you felt about talking with her before telling you she was waiting, is all. I thought it would be better to feel you out first.” She grimaced. “I see that might not have been the best idea.”
“You think?” I didn’t know what to do. Should I go? Should I stay in my room to teach some stupid lesson? What if it was really important?
“You have to go. Please. Go.” Her voice cracked a little.
“Why are you so desperate to get me up there?”
“It’s a long story, all right? And we don’t have time for it. I trust her when she says it’s important she sees you. I think that’s saying something, don’t you?”
I didn’t quite believe her—there was some other, deeper reason for Philippa to plead with me the way she was. Even so, the temptation of seeing Anissa again was too strong to deny. I told myself I could at least be sure she was okay. Sure, I was kidding myself, but Anissa did that to me.
How the hell had she gotten to the roof? I almost asked my sister then stopped myself.
Anissa could do anything, couldn’t she? She was an assassin. Sometimes, I forgot about that, even when it was what had brought us together.
Philippa tapped her foot impatiently. “Well? You’re coming, right?”
What could I say? “Yeah. Okay.”
What I didn’t say, what I couldn’t say as we walked out to the balcony and up the stairs to the roof, was that I loved Anissa and wanted nothing more than to see her again. Just to see her. I didn’t have to touch her. To see her and hear her voice would be enough.
“Over there.” Philippa pointed to the far corner of the rooftop, away from where we were.
She didn’t wait to see what I would do and, instead, walked away.
I barely paid attention. Anissa was the only thing I saw that mattered right then.
She was staring out over the city and the bright lights which cast her profile in shadow. I knew every line and curve of her profile by heart. There was something about the way she stood—head down a little, shoulders slumped—that told me how tired she was. Defeated, even.
What had happened to her in the short time we had been apart? I wanted to wrap her in my arms and make everything better. She had already been through so much.
She turned to me as though she’d heard my thoughts.
My heart swelled when our eyes met, but I reminded myself to play it cool. She didn’t need to know I missed her more than I thought possible to miss anyone.
I went to her when it was clear she wasn’t coming to me, but I kept my distance when I reached her.
“Hi,” I said, hands in my pockets.
My palms were clammy.
Since when did my palms get clammy?
“Hi. Thank you for coming up to see me.”
Nothing about her tone of voice or the look in her eyes told me what she was feeling. I couldn’t tell if she cared we were together again for the first time since she’d walked away.
“What’s going on? Philippa said it was important.”
She nodded. “It is. I have to warn you of something, and I need your help, too.”
I raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t what I had expected to hear. “Warn me of what? Help you with what?”
She took a deep breath then pressed her lips together in a tight line before speaking again. “My sister was born a pure-blood. That’s the first thing I need you to understand. She’s pure vampire.”
Why were we talking about Sara? “Okay…”
“Something has chang
ed. She’s not just a vampire anymore. She has elemental powers.” She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to tell you that, but I don’t know any other way to warn you about this.”
“Wait. How is that possible?”
And what did it have to do with a warning to me?
“Well, we’re still not completely sure, but we have a theory. Raze came up with it.”
I tasted bitter bile at the mention of his name.
Raze.
I remembered him. I saw him at the league meeting—and he saw me when he wasn’t staring at Anissa from where he sat at Marcus’s table.
It was obvious he was crazy about her. She’d been with him?
Was that why she’d left me, to be with him?
Anissa went on, not noticing the way my attitude changed. “Raze overheard some of the Euro-vampires who came in for the meeting talking about contaminated blood. It has to be the way Sara developed these new abilities. She must have fed from a contaminated batch of blood… and your blood bank is the only supply she’s fed from since we left the mansion.”
So that was what she was driving at.
I let the idea sink in then shook my head. “You know, she got blood exclusively from Marcus for a long time before she ever came here. Did you think about him? This sounds like something he would do—either keeping tainted blood and accidentally giving some of it to her, or doing it on purpose for some crazy reason.”
“I don’t think so. I never noticed anything different about her until we came here.”
“What’s that mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know… there was, like, a glow about her. An aura. I didn’t notice it until after we got here. Not when I first rescued her from the mansion, not when we were together in the woods or at Malory’s. When we were here and she fed to get her strength back, that was when she started changing.” Her forehead creased as her frown deepened. “I should’ve followed up on it. I know I should have. But there were so many things going on, and I figured there had been so much time when we were apart that maybe she changed, and I just didn’t know about it. Excuses, excuses.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” I murmured, watching her closely.
“You’re right. I can’t blame myself.” Her eyes went cold. “I blame you.”
“Me?” I pointed to myself with my jaw hanging open. “What would you blame me for?”
“Okay, maybe not you, specifically. But there’s a traitor in your clan, and you don’t know about them. Either that or your security measures are seriously lacking. That still falls on your shoulders.”
“I refuse to be your scapegoat,” I said.
Instantly, all the tenderness I’d felt when I first saw her dissolved.
This was why she was desperate to see me? So she could blame me for some other screwed-up thing that happened to her? It was like she attracted drama.
Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw jutted out. “Listen. I’m not trying to use you as a scapegoat, and I’m sorry if this hurts your ego or whatever, but facts are facts. She was one way when we left the Carver mansion, and she’s another way now. The only change has been where she got the blood from.”
“This doesn’t make sense. What are the odds she would be the only vampire in the entire high-rise to feed from contaminated blood? She’s the only one with these new powers.”
“You don’t know that.”
I chuckled. “What, you think somebody around here could keep elemental powers a secret? Give me a break.”
“When’s the last time you took roll call? Was anybody missing? They might have run away to hide what’s happening to them.”
My chuckle turned into a sneer. “Please. This isn’t a prison. I’m not a warden. We don’t take roll call around here.”
She looked shocked. “How do you keep track of the clan?”
That was one thing we had never discussed—our security measures. I wondered what Marcus Carver would think about how we did things.
“We have a database with the names of everyone who’s been approved to come in, and there are retina scanners at the entrance and along the corridors to keep track of who’s coming and going.”
She blinked rapidly without saying anything at first. I didn’t know if she was impressed or furious. All she said when she finally spoke was, “I’ve never had my retina scanned.”
“Sure, you did. You and Sara both.”
“What?” she shrieked.
“Hey… we keep things secure around here. It’s such a discreet process, you didn’t even know it was happening. We keep it that way on purpose. I personally called your names in after the first time you entered the high-rise, to be sure you were both on the approved list.”
She let out a humorless laugh. “Okay. I’ll simply forget the whole invasion of personal privacy thing for a minute because there are other issues at hand. What about the rooftop? There’s no security up here.”
“Sure, there is. Come here.” I took her to the door which led to the hall and pointed down the stairwell. “Step inside, and I’ll show you what happens when an unauthorized person tries to sneak in from the rooftop.” I pulled out my phone and opened the security app.
“Uh, no, thanks,” she said, waving her hands. “I’ll take your word for it.”
I rolled my eyes but understood her concern. “What I was going to do was set off the security system. If an unauthorized individual tried to enter the building through this door, a steel door would slam shut in front of them and behind them, and the floor and ceiling would seal shut, too. They would end up encased in six inches of steel on all sides.” I closed the app and shut the door.
“Wow. That’s impressive.”
“So you see? There’s no way somebody could get in here if they weren’t authorized, and I don’t authorize just anybody.”
“I had no idea any of this was in place. And all that time, I was sort of secretly worried Marcus or one of his goons would come after us when we were here.”
“No chance.” I smiled tightly. “Besides, it’s not like I ever had the time to show you our security system. We’ve been moving a hundred miles an hour ever since we first met. There’s barely been time to breathe.”
“I know.” She looked sad, wistful.
We both went silent, though there was a mile of unspoken things between us.
I couldn’t leave them unspoken any longer, I realized—because there was no guarantee I would see her again.
“Nothing I feel for you has changed,” I blurted out.
“Jonah…”
“I still love you.”
Her expression softened, but she said nothing.
I guessed that was to be expected, even if it stung a little. I couldn’t help but wish she would reciprocate.
Moments spun out, longer and longer, with neither of us saying anything. I had to fill the silence. “Where’s Sara now?”
I wondered what sort of powers she had, but it wasn’t for me to ask. She would’ve volunteered the information if she wanted me to know.
“She’s safe.”
I waited for more. When she didn’t keep going, I said, “And?”
“And what?”
“And where is she? ‘Safe’ isn’t a place.”
“Why do you need to know where she is?” She sounded suspicious.
“Why don’t you trust me? It’s not like you to distrust every little question I have.”
“Yes, well, this is a little different. You know how dangerous elemental powers could be for her, what the league could do to her. Forgive me if I’m a little protective, Jonah.”
“Still, you know I would never do anything to hurt her. You can trust me.”
I was only trying to be supportive, but it was obviously the wrong choice of words.
Her eyes flashed fire as she glared at me.
“Really? The way you trusted me and told me things?”
14
Anissa
I shouldn’t have said that.
The s
econd the words were out of my mouth, I wished I could reach out into the thin air and pull them back. I’d gone too far. And it hurt him—pain filled his eyes as he winced a little, like my words were blades. It wasn’t fair for me to throw that at him, and I was mad at myself for taking a cheap shot.
He hadn’t been trying to deceive or hurt me when he’d kept Fane’s identity a secret—but still, he’d kept me in the dark.
It was beyond hypocritical of him to challenge me when I didn’t tell him every last thing he wanted to know.
Even so, I couldn’t afford to make an enemy right now. I needed him. We had to work together until we figured out the tainted blood situation. I could sort out my personal feelings afterward—and I had more than enough to sort through.
I swallowed my pride and wished I had it in me to apologize. “Will you help?”
He opened his mouth then closed it.
I was afraid he would tell me to jump off the roof—and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did, because I’d been rude and nasty.
Instead, he nodded. “Yeah. I’ll help. What do you want me to do?”
My knees went weak with relief. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
“You don’t?”
“I was hoping you would. I’m at a loss.” I shrugged. I needed him so much, more than I wanted to admit to myself.
I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he thought it over. “I’ll have the database cross-referenced with all records of anyone going and coming, to check for anyone who’s been gone for more than forty-eight hours. I’ll make sure to have the records checked for any evidence of attempted unauthorized visits, too. I usually get an alert when that happens, but it’s worth checking out.”
“Don’t you think somebody would’ve noticed an unauthorized vampire trying to get in here?”
He frowned. “I’m putting this all together as I go along, you know? It seems as good an idea as any.”
He was right. I was being too hard on him. It was easy to forget he didn’t always have all the answers, and here I was, telling him there might be a traitor in his midst. I couldn’t blame him for scrambling a little.
“What about the blood?” I asked in a quieter voice. “What if there’s more tainted blood in your supply?”