by L E Royal
“It wasn’t the Government, sweetheart. Can we leave it at that, please?”
I knew she was trying. Her jaw was set, she was irritated by my questioning, yet she kept her words pleasant, ever so slightly beseeching.
“You’re hurt.” My tone was soft, careful but unyielding.
I searched her face, which was becoming clearer each second as the eye drops wore off.
“Was it…your father?”
My mouth asked the question as my brain formed it, and this time she looked away, confirming the answer for me.
Jade caught my eye and nodded ever so slightly before her brown eyes fell to the floor.
“I have to go to work.”
Surprise that she was leaving me so soon shot through me. Instead of following, I let her go, only then noticing she was already changed into her typical outside clothes, makeup and hair fixed perfectly.
“You could stay tonight. Rayne just got back and it’s already late!” Jade called after her, voicing my thoughts. I knew first hand that Scarlett struggled to deny her sister, but tonight she was resolute.
“Perhaps if I’d been working more to begin with, she wouldn’t have been taken in the first place.”
The words were sharper than she usually used with Jade. I could sense her restlessness, the storm rising inside her and her desperation to get away from us all, to a place where she could unleash it. I was ready to tell Jade to let her go, but Camilla spoke first.
“She has a point, Scar. No need to bite her head off.”
Scarlett’s dark eyes burned, and her fury was hot. For a split second I worried I would lunge across the coffee table and strangle Camilla myself. As quick as it came, the emotion left me, though I knew from looking at her it still raged inside Scarlett.
“Don’t you dare defend her to me. I spent my entire life defending her. Your sudden interest in getting into her bed doesn’t give you the right. She’s a child.”
She spat the words. Jade looked like she was going to cry, and I was torn between watching the car wreck taking place before me and comforting her. I couldn’t feel anything from Scarlett down our connection, but I knew she needed to leave, now.
Camilla was on her feet and stalking toward us, so I jumped to mine, my vision blurring at the edges ever so slightly before it cleared again.
“Rayne’s a child. She’s eighteen years old. Jade’s nineteen and she’s been nineteen for how many years? Pot calling the kettle wouldn’t you say?”
“I trusted you. I let you into this family, and this is how you repay me?”
Scarlett was winding up, and as much as I trusted her, as much as I knew deep down she loved Camilla and had put herself in harm’s way for her and her siblings multiple times, she wasn’t in a place to have this conversation right now. The tension I had walked into on my return from the bunker started to make sense.
“Cami, maybe we should do this another time…”
I tried to interject but it was too late.
“I just didn’t expect this from you. Now I’m unavailable you suddenly want my little sister?”
Scarlett didn’t seem to notice me, intent on getting answers from her former lover.
“Oh please, get over yourself, if anyone is jealous here it’s you! Why can’t you see that we’re happy? It was unexpected and unplanned, but we work in a way you and I never did—maybe because Jade’s not psychotic!”
“You don’t even know her!”
The volume was rising, and I stepped between them, one hand on Scarlett’s arm. I pushed her backward gently, hoping she might go with me to our room, anywhere. She didn’t budge. It crossed my mind to compel her, but as livid as she was, I thought better of it.
“Scarlett, stop it, please!” Jade shot to her feet. “Cami, you too. Scarlett, I love you, you’re my big sister and I need you, I will always need you, but I care about Camilla too. She’s right, this is still new but we’re happy. I never meant to hurt you.”
“I’m not hurt, I’m worried.” Scarlett’s voice thawed. Much of the venom seeped away but it was still cool, hard.
“Maybe we can take a break to think about what’s been said here, and talk some more later?” I tried tentatively.
Scarlett studied Jade and then stared Camilla down for a few more seconds. Camilla looked back, unflinching.
“Be safe tonight.”
Scarlett’s words to me were quiet, and her lips lingered against my cheek for barely a second before she was gone. I didn’t hear the elevator ding.
“Did she leave?”
Jade nodded.
“Window.” Camilla supplied as she rolled her eyes. “Someone’s feeling dramatic.”
“Were you guys fighting while I was gone?”
Camilla nodded. Jade slung her arms around my neck.
“I’m so sorry, Rayne. You’ve had a horrible day, and you come home to all this. Scarlett’s just…being Scarlett. She never wants me to grow up.”
“Well, her and Cami did used to be…a thing.” I tried to be tactful. “I can see how it’s maybe hard to hear you two are dating now?”
Camilla glared at me.
“On the flip side, I’m happy you guys are happy,” I added, guessing my question would remain unanswered.
“We just need to give her time,” Jade concluded sadly.
I untangled myself from her and plopped back down on the sofa, tired from the events of the day—night—and anxious about the hell I knew Scarlett was creating wherever she was.
The thought spurred a memory.
“There was something I wanted to ask you guys about. My friend from the Fringe needs some antibiotics. Her sister is sick, a lot of the people out there are. Where do you get drugs from?”
“You don’t.” Camilla cut me off. “It’s not your business, don’t make it.”
She got up, clearly still irritated from the exchange with Scarlett, and disappeared down the hall in the direction of Jade’s room.
Jade seemed glad of the distraction.
“We have a lot of medicine here in the tower, and we never have issues getting more.”
“Do you get sick?” I couldn’t help but wonder.
“Not often, but the staff does, so… We could get some, but I’ve no idea how we’d take it to them. I hate to think of them suffering out there.” She paused. “And I would like to look for Christian, just to know she’s okay.”
Jade’s inclusion of herself into the plan made me nervous and it soothed my anxiety about trying to accomplish it alone.
“Couldn’t we get into trouble for this?”
She nodded. “Probably, but we could make up a story, maybe that we visited the Fringe and dropped the pills by mistake or something?”
“I think they need more than a bottle or two.”
Her hazel eyes were determined, alight with the adventure I knew she craved but so seldom got to have.
“We can figure something out.”
Loath to deny her and loath to spend my evening alone wondering what Scarlett was doing, I nodded my agreement.
Chapter Four
SINCE MY RETURN from the bunker, Scarlett had been fanatical in her quest to avoid turning me, convinced now that we were running out of time. She was right; we had little over two months left to complete the order, though as the unrest in Vires around my existence as a hybrid grew, it felt shorter and shorter each day.
She was gone more than she was home, leaving me chronically lonely, homesick for her, for the messed-up simplicity that had been our life before the bottom fell out, again.
She kept her emotions away from me always, and I only had an insight into her turmoil, her determination to overcome this, and her fear of failure when she sat down to play the piano early in the morning after she returned home and thought I was sleeping.
I missed her, and I ached for her, for her to spill my blood and her own, for her to let our connection flicker back to life. For her cool body against mine to be peaceful not tense while she lay th
ere lost in her schemes.
She’d kissed me goodbye and disappeared into the elevator a while ago, leaving me lingering in the living room, staring at her piano, replaying the many memories we had together with it and searching for a solution of my own. Anything to take some of the weight.
Jade appeared in the doorway already wrapped in a heavy winter coat, fur lining the hood and a thick scarf peeking out from its collar.
“Do you think it would really be so bad if I just became a vampire?” The words tumbled out.
I knew we ought to focus on the task at hand, but I had gone so far down the road of what-ifs and how-abouts that I had to see this train of thought through. I trusted Jade enough to share it with her.
“I don’t know.” She unzipped her coat and sidled over to the sofa. She sat down opposite me as she sensed my need to talk. I let out a breath I felt I’d held for days, because finally, finally I was going to talk about this rather than chasing it around endlessly in my head.
“I think it would be complicated in a different way than your being a human, or I guess a hybrid now, is.”
I nodded for her to explain.
“I mean, your relationship with Scarlett would be no big deal and we wouldn’t have to worry all the time about you getting squished or bitten or just…dying.”
I couldn’t help but giggle.
“Gee, thanks.”
She laughed, an apology in her lingering smile.
“I mean, you are sort of breakable…”
In comparison to the vampires, she wasn’t wrong.
“So that’s the pros of turning me. What are the cons?” I wanted to hear it from someone else’s point of view, someone a little more impartial, more reasonable, than Scarlett.
“Well…”
She hesitated, and I could tell she was choosing her words carefully.
“You’re already kind of famous in the city. Everyone is eager to see what you’ll be like as a vampire since you’re the only hybrid in so long, maybe forever.”
I doubted Scarlett and I were the first vampire and human to ever share blood as we did but said nothing.
“Then there’s the fact that you’re associated with Scarlett. They probably expect you to be like her, or maybe they want to see if you end up like me, for all intents and purposes a failure in their eyes.”
She laughed a self-deprecating little laugh and I reached out to take her hand and squeeze it in mine.
“Jade, being a good person, having a moral code, and caring about the fate of those around you doesn’t make you a failure.”
“As a Delta vampire in Vires, a daughter of the most powerful family in the city, no less, it sort of does.”
The words were sad, and I knew she was right. She cleared her throat and returned to her explanation.
“Aside from the Government expectation, there’s my father too. He’s the one who set Scarlett down this path. He’s tried the same with me, though she never really let him, and eventually I became more useful as a means to manipulate her than I ever would have been as someone like her. He’ll probably be interested in you too, for one reason or another.”
I nodded.
“That’s what she’s so afraid of, isn’t it? That’s why she’s completely against turning me?”
Jade shrugged, her lips tugging down at the corners. I knew the sisters had been distant recently, perhaps more so than they had ever been, and I knew it was hurting them both. They needed to resolve the Camilla issue soon.
“I don’t know. I think so, but there’s also the fact you probably won’t live up to what the Government hopes for you and that’s not going to lead to anything good. Plus, I think she sort of loves you for your humanness.”
That made me smile. I wanted to ask what she meant, but it didn’t seem like the time.
“I’m just worried she’s making herself crazy trying to figure this out. She’s gone all the time doing who knows what. When I asked, she said her reputation is going to be important and that we’re going to need power and fear, and anything else we can get if we’re going to find a way out… I believe her, but part of me also thinks she’s just using it as an excuse to take everything out on people…”
I was saddened by the thought, saddened by the knowledge that Scarlett was out in the city right now punishing and torturing, and more than likely having a wonderful time doing it.
“It’s probably both,” Jade agreed grimly.
I loved her in that moment. I had loved her long before I really knew her well enough, thanks to Scarlett’s feelings for her reflected to me because we were blood bound. But now, she was one of the few people, maybe the only person in the world, who understood what it was to truly love Scarlett Pearce.
After a long few seconds she broke the silence.
“Are you ready to go?”
I agreed though in reality I wasn’t ready at all.
“Do you have it?”
Long slim fingers reached into her left coat pocket. She pulled out a sandwich bag stuffed with large white pills, before producing another from the right.
“Wow…and no one will notice they’re gone?”
She shrugged.
“Maybe the head of staff, but she’ll just order more and probably assume they got misplaced or someone took them without asking. Word shouldn’t get back to my dad or Scarlett, we should be good.”
“So, we just take a car down there, walk around some. If anyone asks, we were going to see what all the fuss was about. You hide them when you can, and I let Zoe know?”
Jade nodded, standing and zipping up her jacket.
“Yep, sounds right.”
I got to my feet, letting out a long breath and reaching up to bop her nose with a fingertip as I went, creating a much-needed break in the tension, I went to fetch my own coat, glad that in the midst of all the mess, we could at least get the medicine to those who so desperately needed it.
THE CAR RIDE was mostly silent. The standard issue black car with dark tinted windows took us out to the Fringe at Jade’s request. Unlike when I rode with Scarlett, the divider between the front and the back of the vehicle stayed down. Maybe Jade was too polite to raise it. Either way, we had no time to talk.
Jade asked the driver to wait, and then we slipped out, boots crunching in the few inches of snow that had settled over Vires the previous night. It was already dark, the sun long gone down, and I tugged Jade close to me. Linking my arm through the crook of her elbow, I wondered if I had been wrong to bring her here. The echo of Scarlett’s feeling for her sister, the unconditional love and the overbearing protectiveness lingered in me, clouding my own feelings. I had to tell myself to shake the thought off and focus on the task at hand.
“So, we’ll walk a little, hide it, find Zoe, or Joseph, or someone, then we’ll go back to the car, go home, and never say a word about this.”
My breath billowed out in clouds. When Jade replied no vapor escaped her lips.
“Yes. Cami said she wouldn’t be back from her thing until midnight at the earliest, so we should have plenty of time.”
I squeezed her arm and we continued down the streets. Jade led me easily. Everything looked the same, especially under the thin covering of snow, and I knew without her I wouldn’t be able to find my way.
“Where is everyone?”
Jade’s voice was quiet, hushed now. Some of the little shacks had dim light shining from inside, some were totally dark, but unlike my previous visit, the streets were empty.
“I don’t know. Let’s check the square, and if no one’s there we can just leave them somewhere?”
Jade shook her head.
“The humans have a tough life here, and there’s corruption inside the Fringe as much as there is in Vires as a whole.”
When I looked at her, questioning how she knew such a thing, what she even meant, she shrugged.
“Christian told me. They have so little and they trade and barter a lot. Imagine if the wrong person found all those pills, i
magine the kind of prices they could have people pay to help their sick loved ones. We have to make sure they get into the right hands.”
I agreed instantly.
We turned a corner and the brighter lights of the square up ahead greeted us, bodies already visible silhouetted in its glow, and lots of them.
“Wow, the protest ramped up…”
I barely got to finish my sentence. Jade tripped, making me jump, the eerily dim lighting and the forbidden nature of our visit getting to me. Luckily, I caught her using our joined arms.
“Sorry.”
I was about to brush off her apology but something more pressing caught my attention. A foreboding energy radiated from the gathered crowd. My stomach sunk from it, the lead of nervousness settling heavy inside me.
Jade tugged my arm and I slowed my pace, moving quietly to lessen the crunching of the snow beneath our feet as we approached the edge of the crowd.
Jade heard it long before me, stopping in her tracks. I tugged her forward, determined to find Zoe, Joseph, Christian, anyone we could trust, and drop our cargo then leave.
I heard her voice before I saw her. Scarlett’s voice found me through the bodies and we ground to a halt again. We stood on the edge of the square. I couldn’t see her through the throngs of people. The sparse lights illuminated Jade’s pale face as we stared at each other.
“We need to go.”
She looked sick, and I wondered how much more she had heard that my human ears couldn’t detect.
“Scarlett?”
I asked the question I already knew the answer to, wanting absolute confirmation, hoping, somehow, I was wrong.
She nodded.
“She’s… Rayne, we need to go. We shouldn’t be here, she’ll be so upset if she finds out, and neither of us needs to see this.”
Her big hazel eyes were beseeching, her cold hand tugging lightly on mine, urging me back to the car. I thought of other brown eyes, in the cell across from mine in the bunker, keeping me sane, explaining how the city worked, hateful and guarded as she explained she needed to save her sister.
