by Jax Garren
That and a lot of determination that he would not be in prison by eighteen like everyone expected him to be.
But still, there were moments when he lost all his hard-won control. Once damaged, always damaged.
Not true. Not true.
Yes. It was. As he fought for breath control, he knew it was a fight he’d always have. He clasped his hands behind his back. They were safe there.
“Javier?” Her voice was gentle, but she sounded afraid. Only bad men made women afraid. He’d never hit a woman, but it freaked them out to see him go off. Of course it did. He tried to smile as he backed away.
“Javier!” His mother screamed, sending another spike of neurotransmitters careening through his system. He froze, zeroing in on the location of the sound. Why was she yelling at him now? She threw things in her tantrums and wasn’t careful about what she picked up. Get Emma out before Danielle hurts her. He grabbed her arm and started pulling.
“Hey! Javi? What’s going on? Your mama needs you.” Emma planted her feet, and they didn’t move. “You got quite a grip.”
Fuck, he was hurting her. He tried to loosen his grip, but his mom—Danielle—was screaming again, and he clenched harder.
“Javier! Help! Javier, baby? Where are you?”
Emma put a hand on his face. He flinched. No, she wasn’t hitting; she was just touching him. Her blue eyes were wide and her gaze was steady. He focused on her eyes.
“Sweetie, something’s wrong. It’s your sister’s party. They need your help. Maybe they need a doctor. You’re a doctor.”
He was a doctor. He took a deep breath, counting to eight, held it for a moment, then breathed out just as slowly. Then he did it again, and he realized Emma was counting with him.
The pressure of emotion eased just enough for him to think. Danielle wasn’t yelling at him. She was yelling for him. She wasn’t mad; she needed him.
Emma hadn’t freaked out when he tripped. She’d helped him hang on. How did she know what to do? He didn’t have words to thank her. Instead he kissed her because touching was communication when words didn’t work. She squawked like a bird, then kissed him back, her lips softening against his in response.
Dammit, she was lying again. She’d said she didn’t want him. So why had he kissed her? What was wrong with him? Other than everything.
He jerked away. Emma didn’t want him. Somebody else needed him. “Mom?” He dashed toward her voice.
Emma took an unsteady step back and watched Javier run away. Or run toward something. Or both. She touched her lips, still warm from his. Had she ever been so dead wrong about anyone? Her fledgling was a big ball of screwed up in the head. Add his mom, and suddenly he was tripping like a whore after that client.
Protectiveness for her fledgling—for Javier—squeezed in her chest, and she wished to hell there was something she could do for him. Why were the shitty clients, shitty people in general, the ones who wouldn’t go away? Good people scared off easily, or maybe they just got their shit back together and moved on—like Javier kept trying to do. The assholes, they were the ones who stayed too long and kept coming back like waves, dragging good folk down in a riptide.
Worry made her stomach churn. She wanted to be a part of Javi’s life. Problem was, she knew plenty of ways to be a bad family and pretty much no ways to be a good one. So far, all she’d done with him was fuck up left and right. Was it better for Javier if she stayed and kept trying, or did that make her one more shitty person who stayed too long and kept coming back?
Chapter Six
A gawking crowd had gathered near the edge of the food table. Danielle was in the center of the group, waving a damn plate of brownies around to ward people off, scattering the food and creating havoc. She spotted Javier, and her motions went from frantic to manic. “Javier! Let him through! Let him through. He’s a doctor.”
Javier swallowed. He wasn’t a high school punk. He was a respectable adult. He shoved his way through, none too gently. “Doctor. Let me through.” He felt like such a fake.
Cash was there in his absurdly expensive attire, clearing a path to pull Javier to the front. At least one other person thought a doctor was needed—not just Danielle of the eternally poor decisions. “Her boyfriend collapsed,” Cash muttered.
“What instigated it?” They reached the center of the mass. “Move them back.”
The vampire prince, to his credit and Javier’s surprise, followed orders as well as he gave them. Alex, Cash’s military adviser, was there too, and Charlie and Vince—helping and giving him space to work.
“Nothing that I could tell,” Cash answered. “No reaction, no clutching his chest. He just dropped like a man shot clean through the heart with an arrow. But without an arrow.”
Javier couldn’t help a moment’s distraction at that answer. “A man shot through the heart with an arrow? Yeah, I know exactly what that looks like.”
Cash grinned at him, flashing one pointed tooth. Count him helpful but absolutely unconcerned at the outcome of the petty human drama.
Danielle latched on to Javier, pulling him down as she alternately cried and shook with hysterical emotion. Maybe he’d spoken too soon when he’d claimed “hysteria” wasn’t a real disease.
“I need to work. I need you to back up.”
But she still clung to him, getting in his way as he tried to take the man’s pulse.
“If you want me to help him, back up!”
Emma appeared beside him, doing a nurse’s job, getting the panicked family out of his way so he could work. Her soft voice murmured, and Danielle clung to her instead, needing someone to rock away her own faulty chemical flood from her own damaged brain.
Ramsey’s chest was still. His pulse nonexistent. Javier checked his airways. No blockages. He pointed to Vince. “Call 911. We need an ambulance.” He scanned the crowd, looking for Rhi. He hadn’t seen her yet. Why hadn’t she come for Danielle?
There she was in the crowd, looking sullen. He had no idea what that was about. He’d ask later.
Anger, constant companion, simmered up, and he stared down at the man. Was there a reason he shouldn’t help him? Had he done something to Rhi?
The health and well-being of my patient will be my first consideration. He’d find out later, then react. Chest compressions. He hadn’t done them since he’d turned. He would need to regulate his strength—vampire strength wired on adrenaline was too much. He’d do the best he could.
Compression one. The soft crack of a rib. Dammit. He was too strong. It was okay. It was okay. Modulate pressure. Compression two.
The body—and it was a body at this point, not a person, no signs of life—stirred under him. He checked Ramsey’s neck. Still no pulse. Another compression. Keep the heart going.
But the body was definitely moving. What the hell? “I need another person on pulse.”
Cash dropped beside him and grabbed the man’s wrist.
Javier didn’t want help from the vampire who was currently feeding off his sister and was an off-and-on lover of Emma’s. Emma apparently liked sex with him.
Shove the thought away. Do the job.
“You know how to do that accurately?” Yes, in a thousand years a soldier had never learned to feel for a pulse. Real mature, Dr. Reyes.
“I’m reasonably adept at any first aid needed for blood loss.” Cash’s tone was bland enough for the crowd. The statement, however, felt like a provocation.
Javier lost the rhythm of his compressions and glared at him. “My sister—”
“No pulse,” Cash muttered, ignoring Javier’s wrath. His attention was focused entirely on Ramsey. “Methinks he shouldn’t be moving.”
The dead body lurched to sitting, shoving Javier back with unnatural strength.
“Ramsey!” Danielle yelled.
“Hold her,” Javier ordered as Cash kept a hand on the dead man’s shoulder.
Emma didn’t ask why, just held his mom back as she tried to rush to her potentially undead boyfri
end of indeterminate species.
Ramsey batted awkwardly at Cash, who dodged him with a reflexive grace. “You okay there, buddy?” Cash’s eyes were full of alarm, even as he kept a calm voice. He shot Javier a quelling glance, as if Javier needed instructions not to freak out and scare people with zombie talk. Under his breath he muttered, “The fuck is happening?”
Javier patted Ramsey lightly on the back, playing along like everything was fine.
Ramsey jerked around. His mouth dove down. Sticky breath hit Javier’s fingers. His teeth tapped against Javier’s skin.
Javier jerked away with vampire reflexes and wiped his damp hand on the grass.
Ramsey grunted and lunged forward from his ass to his knees, snapping at him like an animal.
Cash grabbed Ramsey’s shoulder, holding him back. “I’m not allowed to do anything useful,” he said between clenched teeth.
Ramsey turned toward him. His palms landed flat on the ground, and he shot toward Cash on all fours, jaws wide and face barren of emotion.
Javier stood, fear and confusion wiping every other emotion away. Several people had their phones out, taping it like they were at a show. “Get everyone out of here. Now!” Where was his sister? She wasn’t in the same place. He had to watch her back.
Emma, Charlie, and Vince snapped to obey, trying to hustle, shoo, or drag people off, but the madman jumping for Cash while Cash held him off had everyone transfixed. An unbalanced mix of gasps and laughter surrounded them, while Danielle whined and cajoled from the sidelines, begging her dead boyfriend to calm down.
Ramsey swung around, jerking away from Cash’s grip and turning his focus to the milling crowd. Cash snatched the back of his shirt.
With a rip the shirt tore, and Ramsey stumbled forward into the people.
“Rhiannon!” There she was—too close. Javier darted to her.
Ramsey knocked a phone down and sunk his teeth into the owner’s shoulder.
Blood sprayed in a hot stream. The damn monster had popped a vein. And he kept eating. The man collapsed, screaming and shoving at the monster with his good arm as pieces of flesh were torn from his other limb.
“Zombie!” somebody yelled. The crowd scattered—minus a few idiots with cameras still pointed on the grisly scene.
“Not again…” someone whispered in Spanish.
Javier turned, looking for the speaker. A young man who smelled like a were-jaguar backed up, horror in his eyes, as he shoved through the crowd. Javier pointed his way. “Get him.”
Rhi grabbed her were-jag friend Sofia, and they headed after him.
Cash had a hold on Ramsey’s hair, trying to drag him back. “Fucker’s strong.” Another photo, with flash, and Cash snapped his head up. “Get these dipshits and their fucking cameras out of here. I can’t do shit.” More vampires moved to obey, emerging from the crowd and manhandling people away from the scene.
The victim on the ground screamed and whimpered as a pool of blood formed under him.
Biting. Ramsey was still trying to bite him.
“Don’t let him bite you. Or exchange fluids.” But he needed fluids to test and see what had happened.
Crowd dispersed enough, Cash wrapped an arm around Ramsey’s throat. Javier dropped down to the bleeding man on the ground. He didn’t have gloves. He should have gloves. He’d just told Cash not to mix fluids.
Fuck it. The man was about to die. Javier ripped the bottom from his shirt, wadded it, and pressed it to the gaping wound. The black cloth saturated immediately, soaking his fingers in sticky life, flowing—flowing too damn fast. “Stay with me, buddy. Ambulance is coming.”
Beside him, Cash wrestled with Ramsey, then finally pinned him. Two vampires came in and each took an arm.
“Where’s Danielle?” Javier asked, trying to sound professional. Was she watching her snapped boyfriend get hauled away? All she needed was one more tragedy to send her over the edge herself.
She was probably shooting up somewhere, the stress too much to handle.
Why he was worried about her was beyond him, but the pleading horror in her eyes as she’d watched Ramsey become a monster haunted him. “Where’s my mother? Somebody find her.” Was there anybody even listening to him? Ambulance sirens sounded. Blood soaked his jeans. His hands did the right things—the best he could with no equipment, no help—but his mind was on Danielle.
“Rhiannon’s with her,” a woman with a slight Colombian accent said. Sofia. “Alex and I have this one.”
Javier glanced up to see the jaguar kid who’d seen this before, looking as scared as if hell was after him, held between Sofia and her boyfriend, Alex.
Three vampires in Cash’s military circle hauled Ramsey away.
“What’ll happen to him?” Javier asked.
Cash dusted off clean hands. “We’ll cage him until we can figure out what’s going on. Why are Sofia and Alex presenting me with a teenage jaguar who smells like he pissed himself?”
“Fuck you,” the kid snarled.
“Nice to meet you too. I’m Cash Geirson.”
The kid stilled, expression filled with a mix of awe and bad ideas. Javier grunted. Cash wasn’t merely a legend in his own mind. Young punks of every species who thought they had swag were often too eager to try to best him in a fight… and always found out why that was a terrible idea.
To forestall an interspecies incident, Javier spoke quickly. “He said ‘Not again’ before taking off, like he’d seen this before. That’s three.” Assuming Jazmin’s death wasn’t related—and considering she was strangled and not bitten, it seemed tragic but indeed unrelated.
Cash crossed his arms, back straight and proud like the lifelong aristocrat he was. “Interesting. Take him inside. Javier—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll deal with the EMTs.”
The struggling kid was hauled inside, protesting the whole way. Cash, however, knelt down and looked the bite victim in the eye. The poor guy was in shock. Javier had done his best to stem the blood loss, and with the ambulance almost here, he thought the guy had a good shot at making it—if the bite didn’t turn infectious. Should he even let him go to the hospital? What if he freaked out there and killed someone?
“Sleep,” Cash told him. The man’s eyes closed, and his breathing gentled. Vampires got more powerful as they aged, and command was a pretty advanced talent. He’d never seen Cash use it before. “Thank you for dealing with the EMTs. However, I was asking about the blood on your hands. You said no fluids.”
Javier kept steady pressure on the man’s wound. “He was going to die. I don’t know for a fact that fluids are a problem—it’s a guess. Besides, he’s not a… whatever that was.”
“Under the circumstances, letting him die is likely the best option.”
“Most convenient, maybe,” Javier said, forcing the anger out of his voice. “Not best. It’s never best to let someone die when you can see an alternative. Life means a new chance.”
Cash straightened up. “A chance for what, though? That’s the question. The chance for him to wake up a monster and go on a rampage, killing how many others and making how many new monsters before he’s stopped? We don’t know that’ll happen, but it could. One life versus how many?” He kicked the sole of the man’s shoes. “I know I said zombies don’t exist, but I’ve never seen anything like this. And I’ve seen a lot of weird shit.”
Javier snorted. “Considering the possibility?”
“If it quacks like a duck…”
The sirens were almost at them. He couldn’t help a Monty Python joke. “But if it weighs the same as a duck…”
Cash snorted, getting the reference. “It’s your sister. Speaking of witches, I’m going to go talk to her about Voodoo. Again.” He rolled his eyes like there was a story behind that, then turned, his fine shoes scuffing against the dirt as he headed inside. “This time she’s telling me more than ‘It’s an empowering religion of the peasant classes and blah blah Gaia, respect everyone, hug a fucking tree.’ Serious
ly, modern witches with their peace and love bullshit. I miss entrails and blights and creepy-as-Hela prophecies.”
A genuine laugh escaped Javier’s throat, diffusing the last of his manic brain. That happy-go-lucky earnestness did sound like Rhi. Still, he couldn’t let that pass without comment. “Yeah, well, she can hug a tree while saving your ass. How many times has she done that at this point?”
“A tree-hugging Valkyrie, indeed, is your most excellent of sisters.” The door into the house shut behind him.
It still stuck in Javier’s craw that the man was feeding off Rhi. But there was genuine respect in his tone.
It was with great relief that Javier turned the patient over to an EMT.
Yelling had commenced by the time Javier got inside. Rhi and his mom. Of course. It had been like this for as long as he could remember—one of many… many… oh so many reasons he never visited. To his grand embarrassment, their Jerry Springer antics had an audience this time. Cash seemed amused—go figure—and was in quiet discussion with Alex and the intercepted jaguar. Sofia and Vince chatted casually like they were used to Rhi and Danielle’s explosions—also embarrassing—while Charlie tried to blend into the woodwork.
“Javier! Tell her she’s not going to Abuela Carmen’s,” Rhiannon ordered.
He wanted to snap at her tone, then her words sank in. “No, no way in hell. You are not going to your mother’s.” The last time Danielle had gone there, she’d stolen Rhi’s sound system and hadn’t come back for a week. About half the time, Carmen was the perfect grandmother, all cookies and smiles. The other half, she was conning her daughter into buying her pot. Or using her sweet-old-lady status to buy massive quantities of decongestant for pseudoephedrine—an ingredient in home-brew meth.
