by Jax Garren
His voice was sharp as a scalpel. “I didn’t pay you. I never have. If you don’t want me, then why do you keep coming on to me?”
Her knees threatened to give out, and she planted her butt on the bed before she fell down. Humiliating tears leaked out of her eyes, too fast to stop. She pulled her knees up and hid her face against her thighs. “I don’t want to feel anything, Javi. I don’t want to. Don’t make me feel anything, please.” Begging. How low was she going to fall? She couldn’t help it. The box where she stuffed it all was cracking open, and she couldn’t seem to close it this time. Each push just made the feelings come up harder. “I got rage and I got sorrow, and that’s all I got to feel. Don’t open that up. You don’t want no part of that.”
“Oh,” he said, voice so still. He would run away now. Nobody liked a sobbing woman. That was good, him running. She needed peace.
His arms came around her. She choked in surprise, crying harder. Wrong response. She didn’t want to turn to him. She’d get her shit together on her own and walk out of here with a smile on her face, because she always did. It wasn’t the first time she’d cried—not by a long shot. It was just the first time in a long while.
“Shh,” he murmured as he pressed her stiff body against his pliant one. “I get it. It’s okay.”
“No, you don’t.” How could he? She didn’t understand what had her so freaked. But the emotions swelled and spilled out in a flood she couldn’t dam. She would fix it and come back strong—give her time. But not right now. She pushed at him. If he left, she could get it together faster. Sympathy didn’t help her stuff the rage back in the box. “You don’t get anything. Go away.” But if he went away, everything would be so cold. His arms were warm.
He didn’t contradict her, but he didn’t let her go either. Instead, he did the opposite, pulled her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “I got you. You don’t have to say anything, just know I’m here.”
Well, shit, that just made it worse. She cried harder, still lost as to what the hell had come over her. But his arms were strong, and despite her better judgment, she turned her face to his shirt and pressed against him.
“That’s right. I’m here.”
Why was he nice? He shouldn’t be. Didn’t matter. She clutched his shirt, and he pressed his cheek to her head. She thought he might be saying something, but she had no idea what. Just soft words, sweet words, that seemed to soak into her skin like balm. It was too much. She gave in to the tears like she’d given in to her body’s desire for release—too much giving up—but Javier was still there, and it felt as good as it did deeply uncomfortable to cry on his shirt and breathe in the lavender of his laundry soap.
She didn’t know how long it took for the feeling to wash out, leaving her empty. It was a good empty. Clean. Javier’s arms still held her, he still muttered soft nothings, and she let his warmth and his voice soak into her dark spaces.
She didn’t want to look at him, but she had to. Fists still stuffed with his shirt fabric, she shifted until she could see his eyes.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Welcome back.”
Wiping her nose on her knuckles, she tried to smile back, but she was so shaky. “Well, that was embarrassing.”
His brown eyes were too full of pity, and she turned away. “Em, you know what I’ve been through. Some of it, anyway. Think I’ve never cried?”
More sniffing—damn, she was leaking everywhere—and she disentangled her fingers, letting him go. “No, I don’t think you have. I think your primary directive is staying perfect, and perfect people don’t turn into sobbing disasters for no reason.”
He flinched, like that hurt for some reason. Still, instead of reacting, he rubbed her arm—more perfect—and said, “You have reasons.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You ever thought about seeing a counselor?”
Time to get up. She pushed away and headed for the door. “My girls need counseling. I just need to toughen up.”
“You cried after we had sex.”
“We didn’t have sex!” She spun, face tight as anger replaced the sorrow. His eyes were wary, like he’d known before he’d said it that she’d be mad, and he’d said it anyway. In that vulnerability, she saw the kid he once must’ve been. A kid who, in the foster system, had probably been shoved into a lot of counseling, whether he wanted it or not.
Her girls all knew a catalog of mental illnesses and medications that made her head spin. Most of them knew how to answer a doctor’s questions to get the drugs their boyfriends wanted. Therapy was one more clusterfuck in a fucked-up system.
Javi hadn’t meant to insult her, though. So she tried to make a joke. “In my day therapy was a friend and a bottle of whiskey.”
“In your day there were no vaccines and doctors didn’t wash their hands, and there were slaves and public hangings. We’ve improved a few things since then.”
Build that wall. “It ain’t your place to tell me what I need.”
He looked away, a tic in his jaw.
“If seeing a shrink helped you, I’m glad. But it ain’t for me.” Now he looked hurt. Dammit. “Don’t we got people to save? Like your mama? I know she was a shitty mama, but you seemed eager to save her.”
At those words, his whole demeanor changed—his shoulders went back to rigid, his eyes back to darting at random, like just the mention of Danielle sent him into a panic. The woman had done a number on him, and he was going to face zombies for her anyway. “Let’s go.” He shook a finger at her, his body in front of the door like men did because they were so used to being stronger. “But this conversation is not over.”
She wanted to bite his finger off, and not in a sexy, nice way. In a sadistic, pointy-canines way. “This conversation is so over it should never’ve started.” She shoved past him, reminding him who the two-hundred-year-old vampire was. “Don’t block my path. Nobody controls me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Javier followed Emma out, swiping his fingers on his lab coat as if he could wash his hands of the last ten minutes.
Maybe the last ten days.
Emma had played him. Again. What was his fucking Oedipus complex with crazy, hot-and-cold women? One of his therapists had called it a gambling addiction—betting over and over again for the rare bliss of winning. Some people talked about hope like a golden thing. Not for him. Hope made him go back to Danielle over and over, hoping this time she’d finally love him more than getting high.
His mother’s love was a jackpot—no, the jackpot, the golden ticket, the brass ring, the holy fucking grail—that he’d never win.
He should let zombies eat her.
Who was he kidding? He wouldn’t let zombies eat her. The only thing worse than Danielle would be immortal zombie Danielle.
Faint screams echoed down the corridor and he turned, running for the sound. Danielle next. Hospital danger—that hopefully he hadn’t caused—first.
Two hallways over and too damn close to neonatal intensive care, the screams became an uproar. A wide, white hallway was jam packed with nursing staff trying to drag screaming teenage patients out of the way. Two security guards in black cowered behind an overturned gurney, hands on their holstered weapons.
Beyond them, a man in a crisp blue suit with black veins covering his face pounded a dead guard’s head into the tile. A dying woman in a hospital gown dragged herself across the floor, one hand on the tile and another at the blood gushing from her ravaged neck. A baby, still and mangled and red, was just out of her reach.
“Shit,” Javier murmured. Hopeless sorrow filled him at what he couldn’t stop.
With a crunch the guard’s head caved in, and the zombie licked at the hole where his parietal lobe leaked out.
Emma drew her gun and aimed. “Don’t sit there useless. Shoot it in the head,” she ordered the guards.
Instead of obeying, one guard tackled her. “She’s got a gun!”
Emma took the fall instead of lashing out. “I’
m killing zombies, asshole! I ain’t the problem!”
Her weapon cracked against the tile and skittered sideways, bringing the zombie’s attention up. A woman about Javier’s age picked up the gun and pushed a hank of spiral curls out of her face. A teenager behind her gasped for air, terror in her brown eyes as she gripped the woman’s shoulder.
“The man’s dead,” Javier told the woman with the gun, putting all the authority he could into his voice. “You can shoot him. In the head.” Which would be a damn lucky shot.
The zombie charged toward the crowd. Javier leaped for it, getting the thing around the waist. It was fever-hot to the touch and strong enough to drag him forward. He dug his heels in.
A bullet popped and the zombie dropped, pulling Javier to the floor with it. He looked up to find the woman with one hand to her mouth and the other pointing the gun at the zombie. The shot had struck clean through the forehead, minimal blood.
The thing was dead.
“It came at us,” she said. “I had to.”
“Saved my ass, Ms. Fish,” the teenager yelled, her arms wrapped around the woman.
The guards stared as Emma worked her way out from under them. “That’s what I’m saying! Who’s Annie Oakley over there?”
“You can’t just shoot people,” one of the guards said.
Javier straightened his lab coat. He might just have been fired, but they didn’t know that. “It’s a highly contagious fatal disease that causes hallucinations and rage. There is no cure for”—he made up a name—“cerebrum rabiosum.” Frenzied brain. It was an accurate description. He frowned, a churning in his mind announcing he’d just figured out something.
“Stop her!” someone yelled.
The crawling woman stopped her scrabbling and scooped up the dead infant. She raised it over her head, as if to dash its brains out on the floor. Her face was suddenly a mass of spiderwebbed black.
“Damn!” Emma said. “How’d she turn so fast?”
The zombie looked up at them with dead eyes and started to bring the baby down. Emma broke all vampire rules, moving too fast for humans to see, and wrested the child from its mother.
“She died. She transitioned when she died.” Javier pointed to the woman who’d shot the first zombie. “You have to shoot. Headshot.”
“Are you sure?” the woman asked, voice unsteady.
“Yes.” The zombie lunged for Emma, and Javier’s chest constricted. Emma kicked out, forcing the thing back, but with a baby in her arms she couldn’t fight.
Another shot. The zombie fell.
Cerebrum rabiosum. Bite wounds. Rabies.
“Avoid the saliva.” Blood wouldn’t be a contaminant if the spell was based on rabies. Spit would. Which meant he’d been exposed via Charming.
Almost as bad, though—if he was right, he knew where it came from. He touched Emma’s arm. “I have to run a test in my office.” A couple samples were left. He could test if it was truly derived from rabies, then go to Danielle with a better sense of what they were dealing with. “Find Dez. She made this. We need to talk to her.”
Emma shook her head at him. “No way. She didn’t—”
He’d been exposed; the pressure to fix it now made his words clipped and harsh. “I don’t have time for an argument. We need to get Dezi and get out of here. She did this. Hopefully she can cure it. I’ll meet you at her room.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned toward his office. He maintained almost human speed until he was out of the crowd, then ran.
* * *
Rhiannon was cursing at someone as they hauled a box out of his office.
“What the…?” he started to ask, but what was happening was obvious.
“They’re already moving you out!”
“Right now?” Sure enough, two office workers shot him sheepish looks and muttered apologies and imprecations about Hansen. “Rhi, quit yelling at them. It isn’t their fault.” Everything he’d worked for. Years of late nights catching up. Study sessions alone. Tests. Professors.
Fucking residency.
He’d fight for it later. Now he had to finish his tests. He ran for his desk. No slides. “Where are my samples?”
Rhi’s expression was solemn as she pointed at the biohazard disposal.
Javier’s legs turned soft, and he sat on the desk’s edge. “They contaminated them? I can’t…” He couldn’t test. The samples at CoVIn were all blood. Rabies didn’t show in blood. A brain sample was best; saliva a distant second.
Wait. No. Cash’s bullet. It was in Emma’s—his—somebody’s—room at CoVIn. He stood. “I have to get to CoV—uh…” He couldn’t talk about vampires in front of the staff. He just had to go. And leave this.
He touched his microscope, unwilling to just walk out.
Jenni, a front desk staff member with a half-full box, shot him a sympathetic look. “Hansen’s a… well, excuse my unprofessional language, but he’s a dick. We all know it. If you protest this, a lot of people will speak on your behalf.”
Most of the doctors were good men and women. Staff too. But Hansen had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. Javier swallowed thickly and nodded at her. “I have to go. My mother’s in trouble.”
The PA system crackled to life, announcing, “Code black.” Active shooter. Whether they were referring to the hero in neonatal or just had no code for “zombie attack,” he wasn’t sure.
“Holy shit!” Jenni yelled, dropping her box. She grabbed Javier’s coat sleeve, hauling him back into his office. “We need to—”
“No.” He detangled himself and slipped out the door. “You stay in here with the door locked. I have to get to my mother.” One by one the doors in the hall slammed as everyone went into lockdown. Jenni stared at him with frightened eyes as Rhi slipped past her into the hallway. “It’s not a shooter,” he assured his former coworker. “It’s an outbreak. Stay locked in here. I think it’s based on rabies. I’m going to do what I can.” He shut the door on her and turned back to Rhi. “I’ve gotta grab something. Meet me at Dez’s room—she made this.”
Uncaring who saw, he took off for the vaccination storage at vampire speed, hoping a vaccine would at least slow the progress of a magical disease he now knew he had.
Chapter Sixteen
Dezi looked destroyed—her proud face covered in bruises, her body looking more dead than alive. And Javier wanted to drag her into the middle of the zombie apocalypse under the stupid assumption that a victim was the perpetrator.
The girl stared at the ceiling, breathing so slowly Emma didn’t know if she realized she wasn’t alone. Then she said, “‘Things fall apart.’” She turned ever so slightly toward Emma. “I keep trying to put them back together, but they just fall apart faster and faster.”
Emma looked down at the ground and slowly approached the girl—the woman—who tried to take care of herself, her job, her family, the girls she used to work with. “I never had it so hard as you,” Emma told her softly. “You weren’t wrong when you said I was doing less with more. I haven’t done much worth anything with my life.”
Dezi struggled up. “Don’t listen to me, miss—”
“Stay still, sweet pea, you don’t need—”
“Oh, I’ve been worse. And you shouldn’t listen to me. What you did for me—for Jazmin, before… what you keep trying to do with us hardheaded girls, it makes a difference. It makes a difference knowing there’s somewhere we can go and just be safe for a bit. Even if in the long run we’re all just stuck. It’s nice to have a break.”
The way she talked about failure like an inevitability broke Emma’s heart. “You don’t have to be stuck. You don’t have to go back.”
Dezi gave a laugh that was more like a sigh. “How can you of all people say that? Or you of all vampires. How long you been alive?”
Emma thought about lying, but it was pointless. “Little less than two hundred years.”
“Two hundred years?” She blew out a hard breath. “Damn. Two hundred years. And you
being white and pretty and a fucking vampire, and you never got out. What the hell makes you think we can?”
Emma’s shoulders tensed. “I ain’t in the life. I ain’t been a whore since the 1800s.” Except she was—paid in blood instead of cream and bread.
Dezi’s face pinched as she gave her a look like she could see straight into Emma’s soul. “You may not be a whore, but you’re lying if you say you left the life. I see you, how you behave with that doctor, hear how you talk. You’re just as stuck as I am.”
Emma reeled backward, gut punched by an accusation that hit too hard. Her phone buzzed and she answered. “Em here.”
Javier’s voice came through, terse and hard. “Almost there. Get Dez ready. Rhi found Mom. We know where to go.”
Into the zombies. She licked her lips and looked at Dez.
“Okay,” was all Emma said. He hung up, message conveyed, and for a moment she mourned the connection they’d had just a few minutes ago that might be gone for good. She knew how to fuck up a relationship, that was for sure. She turned her attention back to the girl on the bed. “Doc seems to think you started this whole mess.”
Dezi turned back to the ceiling, her mouth turning hard. “They buried us all—you, me, Jaz… We’ve been dead since the days we were born. But now the dead speak. I’m not saying I did anything, but it seems like justice to me.”
“He’s coming here to get you. He thinks you can make it stop.”
She scoffed. “I can’t make it stop. I don’t even know how it happened.” She turned back to Emma, gaze flat as she started to pull her legs from the bed. “You gonna let him come in here and try to make me do something? Rough me up while I tell him the truth over and over that I don’t have some antidote, some cure for this?” She yanked the IV out of her arm and pushed herself to standing. “Thank you for the warning, but I ain’t going to be here for that. You coming with me or not?”
