Where Winter Finds You

by J. R. Ward

  It was all tangible evidence that her old life had continued without her. And the fact that none of the communications except for Gareth’s calls were recent made her feel like she’d died and was witnessing people move on. Cousins, friends, professional contacts. Those had all stopped reaching out after a short while. Her brother had persisted, however.

  Not texts, either. Calls.

  He was a texter. Or had been. The only time he ever called her was for emergencies: Accidents, car or person. Sicknesses, although with vampires that was rare. House problems that were messy, like burst pipes or blown electrical fuses that were smoking.

  Or deaths.

  Funny, Therese had heard people talk about seminal moments before, and she had always pictured them in the context of history. History was important, and involved many people—and sometimes the entire race: Like the raids of a couple of summers ago. The democratic election of Wrath, son of Wrath. The birth of Wrath’s son, Wrath. All of those events were seminal in that they were origins of great change and the kinds of things that defined a given generation.

  The lives of most individuals, on the other hand, were anecdotal rather than historic. The ins and outs of a person’s life mattered solely to them, with minor extensions into families and friends. Rarely was there a span or sprawl that enveloped huge numbers. Rarely did things go so deep that breath was taken from you and you remembered exactly where you were standing when something happened or was told to you.

  Rarely did you remember the shift, and not in terms of a left or a right.

  Rather, like a glacier.

  As Therese held her old phone in her hand and stared at the number of voice mails her brother had left her, she felt her heart move. Or maybe it was more… reopen.

  Until she played the messages, she wouldn’t even know if there was a problem. But the fact that there could be? Or might have been? And she didn’t know? And she wasn’t… there?

  It was just wrong. And the whole who-birthed-who issue didn’t matter in the slightest.

  The next thing Therese knew, she was walking over to the table because sitting down suddenly seemed like a good idea. Except she didn’t make it. The phone cord didn’t reach that far from the wall.

  “Here, I’ll follow you,” Trez said as he unplugged the charger.

  There was little reserve battery, so she wondered, as she went and sat down, if the cell wasn’t going to crash. But it didn’t. Trez was quick to get another socket.

  Holding the unit in her hands, she stared at the screen some more. “I hope they’re okay.”

  Of course, she could find out if they were or weren’t by playing the frickin’ message(s). Hello. Except she was still grappling with the shift in the center of her chest. She was supposed to feel anger and resentment, hurt and betrayal—as she had since the moment she had left them all. She had had her reasons for all those negative emotions, and she had a right to be in that space. She had been lied to, the three of them conspiring to a fraud that they apparently had taken for granted would never be exposed.

  Being mad was okay.

  Now, though, instead of dwelling on the righteous indignation that had sustained her, all she could think of was that female’s eyes, that female who had called herself mahmen: They had been as heartbroken as Therese had been feeling underneath her fury.

  “Okay, enough of neutral,” she muttered.

  She called up the most recent message and prayed—prayed—that it was her brother chewing her out again for leaving.

  His voice, coming out of her phone, was a shock, by turns foreign and familiar:

  Well, it looks like you’re not going to do the common courtesy of returning any of my phone calls. That’s your decision. I hope you can live with it. We’re taking her to Caldwell to be treated at the clinic. They say she has some time left, but it’s limited, so if we’re going to move her, it has to be now while she has the strength for the drive. Hope you’re proud of this bullshit you’re pulling. It’s the only thing of your family you have left.

  As the voice mail ran out, Therese’s heart pounded so hard she couldn’t hear anything and panic flooded her veins with the sting and the combustion of gasoline.

  “I have to go,” she said. “I have to go… see my mahmen.”

  Leaping to her feet, she—

  She immediately realized she didn’t know where the Caldwell clinic was. And given how dizzy she was, dematerializing wasn’t going to happen even if she had an address.

  “Sit down.” Trez urged her back into the seat. “You’re very pale.”

  Therese’s breath pumped in and out of her, fast but not far enough into her lungs. “This is my fault. This is all my fault—”

  “Hold on. He doesn’t say why she—”

  She looked Trez square in the face. “She’s always had a heart problem. That was why they were moving. The cold of the winters was getting too much for her. But what has always been even more dangerous? Stress.” She grabbed onto his forearm. “Dearest Virgin Scribe, I’ve killed her.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Trez drove his female across the Hudson River, to the other side of Caldwell. Havers, the race’s physician, had relocated his treatment facility to a forest over there after the raids, and although Trez hadn’t been to the clinic since it had opened, he did know where it was. And he was able to make good time. The night was clear and very cold, so there was no falling snow to worry about, and the streets and highways had been plowed and salted well.

  One good thing about having to deal with a hard winter every twelve months was that the city was very efficient about storm cleanup and road maintenance. They had to be. Businesses had to run. Schools had to teach their students. Hospitals needed to treat their patients.

  If everything ground to a halt and stayed that way each time there was some serious accumulation? People in these parts would be indoors from mid-December to March.

  He glanced across the BMW’s cockpit. His female was staring out the window, but he doubted she was seeing anything. She was also unable to sit still, twitching in the seat, tapping her foot, moving around the safety belt that crossed her chest.

  Refocusing on the road, he wanted to go back to having a conversation about the weather with himself. But maybe he could mix it up and think about sports. The club.

  Particle-fucking-physics.

  What he absolutely did not want to think about was the fact that his female was going to Havers’s to deal with a family emergency.

  A family emergency. As in… a group of people who, although she evidently was not related to them by blood, nonetheless counted as such as the result of her having been raised by and with them.

  There was no reconciling this with her being Selena. Nope. And the fact that he couldn’t shoehorn this fact pattern into the construct of her reincarnation was shining a really fucking bright light on the number of things he had wedged and bent and twisted into vacancies in the puzzle.

  And what do you know. There were more forced pieces than ones that fit—and he found himself desperately grasping at the story he had constructed for himself. For them. It was impossible to ignore the sense that it was all about to be blown to shit, and the only thing he could think of was how much he wished she hadn’t lost her purse in the chaos the night before last. If she’d just kept it with her, she would have had Rhage’s tip money. And that burner phone.

  So they wouldn’t be doing this right now.

  Instead, they would be driving to get her stuff at the rooming house, and then, while she got settled at the nice little Cape Cod, he would go to the club and shuffle some papers. In a couple of hours, he would come home to her and they would cook those steaks and watch a movie. And do other stuff in the dark.

  He wanted that to be the plan.

  Not this.

  And goddamn, how selfish was all of that? Like he wanted her to not know this older female she cared for so deeply was sick?

  Another thing for him to be proud of himself for. He
had quite a fucking list.

  “How much farther?” she asked tightly.

  “Not far.”

  The subterranean clinic was hidden under acres of pine trees, and accessed through four kiosks, one of which was in a barn out behind the old farmhouse that served as a shell to the human world. The other three entries and their associated elevators were scattered through the forest, and convenient for those who could dematerialize. Needless to say, for them, it was going to have to be a park-and-ride situation, so he was going to bring them in the main road to the main driveway.

  About ten minutes later, he wedged the BMW in between a minivan and a pickup truck. “You ready?”

  “Yes,” she said as she opened her door the six inches she could.

  The fact that he didn’t care about whether his side panels were dinged was something he tried to find virtue in. But the truth was, he didn’t care about the car all that much, in spite of how beautiful it was.

  He met her in front of the BMW and escorted her into that barn. Got them cleared by the security camera and into the hidden elevator. Hit the button for lower level. During the descent, they both stared at the little numbers above the doors, even though they did not light up because things had been retrofitted to the purpose they served. L to 10, all dark. He found himself wondering what this Otis had been originally designed for. An office building, he decided. Or maybe a midsize hotel.

  When the doors opened, he took her over to the registration desk and stood right behind her, in case she got dizzy.

  The receptionist, who was wearing a white uniform and one of those old-fashioned nurse’s hats, looked up. “How may we help you?

  He waited for his female to speak. And so did the receptionist, although on her side, she didn’t seem surprised that it was taking a while. No doubt she was used to people in shock.

  His female cleared her throat. “I’m looking for Larisse, blooded daughter of Salaman? I believe she came in here a couple of nights ago. For her heart?”

  The receptionist’s smile was kind as she typed on a keyboard. “All right. Yes, I have her. What is your relationship to her?” When there was a hesitation, the receptionist said softly, “I’m afraid she’s in ICU and only family can be back there.”

  “I, ah…” His female cleared her throat. “I’m her daughter, Therese.”

  As the name was spoken, Trez’s hearing checked out while directions were given to the room—or at least he assumed that was what was happening as the female behind the desk pointed in various directions.

  Therese.

  Not Selena.

  Therese… a name that had been given to a female who had been born on earth, and then adopted into what clearly had been a loving home. The name that had been answered to during childhood, and written in a young’s wobbly handwriting, and then, later, spoken as phones were answered. The name that had been lived with after the transition.

  And was lived with now.

  Not Selena.

  As the walk to wherever the hospital room was commenced, Trez fell in step beside the female with the long, dark, curly hair. The female who was still wearing the server uniform from Sal’s. The female who had called herself the daughter of a mortal mahmen.

  Not the Scribe Virgin.

  Passing through various double doors, proceeding down various corridors, following signage with various arrows, he put his hands in the pockets of his slacks and marveled at the brain’s ability to construct reality.

  With concrete and beams, Sheetrock and studs, he had built a belief that, if he were honest, had never really stood on its own. Even though the renderings had been stellar and promised a beautiful home to live in, from the beginning, there had been fault lines in the foundation, and cheap materials used, and shoddy workmanship all around.

  Ultimately, that which could not hold itself up, did not.

  But come on, as if this collapse was a surprise? He had vacillated the entire time, only his desperate need to believe shoring up the unsteady walls and loose, unreliable ceilings of the project he had thrown himself into.

  The failure made him incredibly sad.

  And he thought of something else, too.

  So quick. This… hallucination of his… had come and gone so quickly. Hell, if you dismissed the prodromals, the actual tailspin had only been a matter of nights.

  Abruptly, his female—

  No, he stopped himself. Therese. This was not his Selena. Never had been.

  Abruptly, Therese turned and looked over her shoulder. As her mouth moved, he realized she was talking to him.

  “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” She reached out and took his hand. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  The intensive care unit of the very extensive facilities was located behind a set of double doors that had to be open internally from a nursing station. Fortunately, there were glass panes you could lean into, and the instant Therese put her face in one of them, a female in a uniform looked up from a computer behind a counter.

  There was a buzz, and some kind of lock was released.

  Therese gave Trez’s hand a squeeze, and then she released him pushed her way in. The instant she took a breath, she hated the antiseptic smell. And then her hearing checked in, and she was unnerved by the hush. Finally, as her eyes traveled around, she was disconcerted by the total lack of decoration.

  This was the all-business part of the healthcare operation, and you were only here because you were either a seriously ill patient or a seriously trained professional.

  Or a seriously worried family member.

  She went up to the nurse at the counter. “I’m Therese. I’m here—”

  “You’re Larisse’s daughter.” The female in the uniform smiled. “The front desk called. She’s in room thirteen thirteen. You and your mate are more than welcome to go down there.”

  Oh, God. Bad-luck number. Very bad luck.

  And… um, Trez wasn’t her mate. But like she was going to correct that if it allowed him to be in the unit?

  “Thank you.”

  As she went to walk in the direction the nurse pointed her in, she glanced back at Trez. When he didn’t seem to want to follow, she looked at the nurse, who nodded in support of his presence.

  But he still stayed where he was, and in the awkward silence, Therese fiddled with the hem of her parka nervously. “You don’t have to wait out here.”

  He looked over at a little arrangement of chairs and side tables just inside the ICU. Obviously, they had been provided as a break area of sorts for family members, the TV showing sports scores, a couple of half-finished coffees in Styrofoam cups left behind.

  “Unless you’d rather?” she said.

  “I think I better give you a chance to reconnect first.”

  As she considered the particulars, she saw the logic to that. Her showing up here with a “mate”? Yeah, that was one more layer of complication this “reunion” didn’t need.

  “I’ll come back and get you.”

  “Perfect.” There was a pause. Then he came in for a quick hug. “You’ve got this. You can do this.”

  Holding on to his strong body, she was struck by how important it was for her to have him with her. Trez was like a bridge between what had gone before and where she was now. So even though she hadn’t known him for long, he seemed more permanent than a friend, more intimate than a lover.

  Family, in a way.

  “Thank you for being here.” She’d told him that before. But she needed to say it again. “I won’t be long.”

  Probably because her brother was going to toss her out on her ass.

  Breaking off from him, she walked down the hall and refused to allow herself to look back. She was liable to lose her nerve.

  The corridor was wide enough for two emergency gurneys with associated medical staff and monitoring equipment to race into surgery side by side. Or something like that. As she went along, it was impossible for her to think in any other
terms than Marcus Welby, M.D. scenarios involving life-or-death rushes. Or maybe she needed to be more current. ER. Wait, that was like a decade ago.

  Fine, Grey’s Anatomy.

  The TV Guide debate was what was on her mind as she walked by so many rooms, all of which had glass doors that were shut, most of which had drapes pulled closed for privacy. From time to time, however, she was able to see inside to family members at a bedside, cloistered around a very sick patient, holding hands. Holding each other.

  Inevitably, the ill or dying were hooked up to a lot of machines.

  What did she expect, though. This wasn’t even a general floor. You were not here unless you were really, really sick.

  Room 1313 was down at the end, on the left.

  And she had to stop at 1311 for a minute and catch her breath.

  Thank God she had taken Trez’s vein. She wouldn’t have had the strength for this otherwise.

  Clearing her throat in anticipation of saying something coherent, she walked forward… and looked in through parted drapes.

  Therese covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes filled with tears.

  Her mahmen was lying so small and pale in a bed that was surrounded by equipment. The males of the family, son and hellren, were sitting on either side of her, each cradling one of her hands in their palm. The arrangement of them all, the pervasive sadness, the obvious sickness… they formed a tableau of grief and suffering, the emotions and dying process eternal even in the face of so much technology and medical advancement.

  Standing on the outside looking in, Therese greeted the three people she knew best in the world by reacquainting herself with their appearances, overlaying the present sight of them across the composite memory of the decades she’d known them. Her father looked older, much older. His hair, once salt-and-pepper gray, was now fully white, and his face was lined deeply, not wrinkles any longer but gouges around his mouth and at the corners of both his eyes. He had lost a great deal of weight, his plaid shirt hanging off his shoulders, his khaki pants pooling at his feet, and maybe that was part of the aging thing. But he was also exhausted, great bags under his eyes, his skin sallow and pasty.