by Heidi Lowe
Clara laughed before agreeing to stay. She would have to use a different strategy. Jean wouldn't toss the silly orphan out that easily.
Robyn's happiness meant a lot to Jean, just as Robyn herself did. She didn't begrudge her it. When Jean discovered that she and Nadine were "working things out", no one, besides Robyn, could have been happier for them. She just wished this phone conversation – their exchange of sweet little nothings, engaging in that trivial prattle new lovers excelled at – could have waited until after their meeting. Particularly as Robyn was the one who'd called it.
Jean sat back in her chair, drumming her fingers on the desk, patience wearing thin while Robyn chatted away on the sofa. Several days had passed since Lissa's incident. From what she gathered, Robyn and Nadine were having a debate over what to eat that night, and what would have the least calories. Human stuff.
"Robyn, I don't wish to be rude, but you said you had something to share with me," Jean said.
"Okay, just go with that. We can work it off at the gym...or another way..."
Jean couldn't help but smile to herself, though she did feel slightly perverted for being present.
"Sorry about that," Robyn said, once she'd hung up.
"It's fine. Your phone call sounded urgent. What did you want to see me about?"
Robyn gave her a sombre look. "Our friend's back in town."
The blood drained from Jean's face. Already pale, she seemed to turn ghostly white in that moment.
"You mean...Dallas?"
"Yeah. You know how I said I would get someone to keep an eye out, let me know if she turned up? Well, I got the call this afternoon. My contact spotted her, or someone who fitted her description, not far from here. Do you think she's back for revenge?"
"She already got her revenge," Jean said, getting up from her desk. She closed her eyes, let out a slow, shaky breath. "This is all I need."
Robyn considered her next move carefully and, deciding that her boss had no choice but to listen to her advice, she opened her mouth to speak...
...right at the same time that Jean raised a hand to silence her. "Don't start with that again."
"So how do you want to handle this?"
Jean let out another heavy sigh. "I don't know. But Lissa can't ever find out that she's here."
Safe in the knowledge that Lissa was at the gallery, she'd taken no care in mentioning Dallas's name, though she'd done so quietly. Sadly, not quietly enough. She didn't hear the floorboards creak outside the office as Clara crept away, a new weapon added to her arsenal.
THIRTY-FOUR
No matter how many times Jean insisted that we were fine, that she wasn't angry with me, I didn't believe her. Violent outbursts that happened without warning, for no apparent reason... no one could forgive them. And if they ever found it in their heart to forgive, who would want to live that way, always on edge, never knowing when I would snap next?
So I retreated into myself, tried to figure out what was wrong with me, why I snapped so suddenly and saw Jean as my enemy.
She watched me closely through the mirror as I zipped her black dress up. It was a sleeveless number that hugged every curve, accentuating the finest parts of her body. Her black hair was in a neat French braid. Diamond clip-on earrings and a matching necklace made her sparkle, looking like a wealthy wife who'd married into money. Had I been myself and not mired in misery, she would have stolen my breath away.
"Please reconsider coming, Lissa," she said. "I don't want to do this without you."
"Don't make me feel any worse than I already do," I groaned. I snaked my arms around her waist, rested my head on her back. "I don't want to be around anyone right now."
For nearly a week, since my last episode – when I'd fled the house, into the night, no shoes on my feet – I'd only left the house once to go to the gallery. That was yesterday, and as a matter of urgency. Rosie needed my signature on something that couldn't wait. Mostly my hours were spent lying in bed with my thoughts, afraid for my next bout of psychopathy. If I could sense when it was coming, I reasoned, maybe I could curtail it. Nothing happened, of course. As a result, the whole week had been wasted.
Now, the grand opening of Jean's casino was scheduled, and I wouldn't be attending. She'd stood beside me at my gallery re-opening, and I wouldn't return the favor. It crushed me to see the disappointment in her eyes, but it would have hurt far worse if I had one of my outbursts in public. I couldn't let that happen.
"You'll have to face people at some point, honey. You can't stay in here forever."
"It's for the best, at least until my condition improves." I turned her to face me. "I'm sorry I won't be with you. Don't hate me."
She smiled, her eyes sad. "I could never hate you." When she kissed me and saw that some of her lipstick had rubbed off on me, she laughed, using her thumb to wipe it off my lip. "At least I won't be alone up there."
Resisting the urge to grimace, I forced a smile. "I'm glad Clara's going with you."
"Me too."
They'd shopped for the occasion, spending a truckload of money once more on outfits they didn't need. Jewelry, too. Once again, the lion's share of the shopping was for Clara, with Jean only getting the black dress out of it. I'd lost track of how many shopping sprees they'd been on, how many things Jean had written a check for. It seemed to be something new every day: tuition fees, dental work, money for a luxury car rental service while Clara was in the country, the down payment on a unit for the prospective restaurant she would open when she returned to France. The list went on and on. Jean had become an ATM and she didn't seem to care.
Someone knocked our bedroom door while we were kissing, and entered before we could give them permission.
"Sorry to interrupt," Clara said. She sported black pants and a white sleeveless blouse, pointed toe heels, and long, dangling, sparkly earrings. Demure and ladylike, everything I was not. She would never look out of place beside Jean, or in any professional environment, not like I did. Without saying a word to me she could make me feel inadequate; just by being there, by being everything she was.
"Is the car here?" Jean asked.
"Five minutes. He just called. There's traffic. The phone in your office is ringing."
Clara hung around while Jean rushed off to answer the phone. She stood by the door, eying me with amusement, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face.
My fingers itched to slam the door in her face.
"It's for the best that you stay here tonight. You can be very unpredictable. We wouldn't want you to go crazy again. It would be bad for business."
When would Jean catch her in the act, making these vicious comments? Just once was all it took, then she would see what a she-devil her daughter was. My words alone would never do her justice. And Jean probably wouldn't have believed me.
"Tell me, does bipolar run in your family?" she went on.
Blood now fully boiled, fists clenched, I flew at her, stopped inches away from her.
"Say that again," I warned, my breathing erratic. "I dare you."
She laughed. "What will you do?" She kept her voice low to prevent anyone hearing her goad me. I would have been the one Jean heard, if anything. "If you harm me in any way, she would never forgive you."
I knew she was right. As much as my body itched to break every bone in hers, self-restraint kicked in. Her visa ran out soon; all I had to do was survive a few more weeks.
"You're not worth it," I said, withdrawing to the bed. "You'll be gone soon."
"I like America. I was thinking about moving here with the kids. Jean would like that a lot."
She was trying to get to me; she had no intention of moving her whole life here. She had to be joking. There was no way I could endure her and her spawn living here permanently.
She chuckled to herself, went to leave, then stopped. "Oh, I wanted to ask you something. Who's Dallas?"
I froze, a sudden chill hitting my flesh. "None of your business."
She shrugged. "I t
hought it might interest you to know that she's back in town."
"W–where did you hear that?" I stood up on weak legs. "How do you know that?"
She tapped her nose, grinning triumphantly, then walked away.
She must have heard Jean talking about Dallas. With Robyn, maybe? If so, they knew about it and had kept it from me.
A long distance call to Petr proved fruitless. Only after he failed to pick up twice did it occur to me that they were six hours ahead of us in Ireland, so he was likely asleep.
That only left one other person. Reluctantly I called him and told him to come over. Oliver could always be counted on to show up. Rich playboys with nothing better to do always showed up. Especially when there was drama involved.
His pissed off look when I opened the door and let him in was clearly worn for effect. He wasn't fooling me.
"Do you know how many women I could be sinking my teeth into right this minute? Instead I'm here with you. It wouldn't be so bad if you were putting out."
My natural and only response to that was to roll my eyes and insist, in no uncertain terms, that if one day I woke up and by some miracle the male anatomy didn't make my skin crawl, he would still be the last man on Earth I would sleep with!
"Where's your "life partner"?" He had used the term so sarcastically for so long that it had lost all meaning.
"Opening her casino." We headed to the living-room.
"Why aren't you with her? Trouble in hell?" He laughed at his unfunny joke.
"I didn't feel like going. I've been feeling out of sorts lately."
"You're dead, Lissa. You never feel out of sorts."
Although I'd used the word to describe vampires in the past, I had a hard time thinking of myself that way. Death was final, the end. What we had was eternal, no end in sight.
"I have been lately. I've been getting these mood swings... One minute I'm fine, then the next, boom, I turn aggressive, start attacking my girlfriend."
Oliver was dependably predictable. If I'd expected any other reaction besides laughter, I would have been disappointed. One of these days I planned never to call him or visit him again. He brought nothing constructive or helpful to the table; on the contrary, his apathy made matters worse.
Luckily, my relationship woes weren't the reason I'd called him.
I offered him a blood bag, which he declined – making his face up, as though it was a bag of dog shit – then sat down.
"I found something out this evening," I started. "The werewolf that attacked me, she's back in town."
His eyes shone with zeal. "And you want revenge?"
I shook my head. "No. Revenge is what got me into this mess. It was my fault that her pack was killed. I gave out their location."
"Yeah, you did," he said. I thought his smile was odd, but didn't know what to make of it. "She took your life and you don't want revenge?"
"I want answers. I need to know what she meant. For peace of mind, you know."
He crossed one leg over the other, held his knee. "What does it matter what she meant? She bit you, you died, you were reborn. What more do you need to know?"
I got up, wringing my hands as I padded across the room. "I have this strange feeling that something else happened that night. The way Jean acted, became so aggressive when I said I wanted to find her, it's like there's more to this. Like she's keeping something from me." The words sounded so blasphemous now that they were out there in the ether. Up until then I'd never had the courage to voice them, to really allow for that possibility. She never spoke about the night she turned me other than to say that there was no other way, that I'd already lost too much blood when she found me. But her resistance to me finding Dallas had come as a surprise, brought me to tears, even. At first I thought it was the jealousy in her speaking out, but now I wasn't sure.
"Then find the bitch and get it over with," Oliver said impatiently. "And then put her out of her misery. You do realize that, had she been with her brothers and sisters when they died, you would still be alive, right?"
"I know that. That's no reason to kill her. I'm not a killer," I said, shooting him a stony-eyed look.
"Everyone's a killer, Lissa. Some just haven't found a person worth killing yet." His grin was maniacal. "And then again, some have..."
My eyes were locked with his devilishly blue ones. I'd long suspected that he'd been involved in the Were murders, but wanting to remain ignorant, for an easy life, I'd never asked. I could scarcely afford to lose any more friends, even those I deeply despised. But I had to know now.
"Did you kill them?"
He laughed. "Of course I did. I thought you already knew that."
I shook my head in disgust. "Why?"
"Because, Lissa, they're animals. All of them. And it was kill or be killed. We can't coexist, and they started that war."
Deep down I'd always known; he was right about that. He'd made comments and I'd ignored them all. Maybe because there was nothing I could do for them now; maybe because my nature didn't allow me to empathize with them anymore.
Except, I did. As I stared at him – a mass murderer sitting in my living-room, no longer grinning, though as nonchalant as ever – a feeling of nausea settled in my stomach. Repulsion turned to rage.
Not any rage, The Rage. It consumed my whole body. The ground beneath my feet felt like it was shaking.
He wasn't my friend, but an enemy. Just like all the rest. Like her, the woman who claimed to love me. None of them were my friends.
I leaped at him, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. He was laughing, laughing at me, at his crimes.
"What the hell are you doing, you crazy bitch?" he said, and with no effort at all, shoved me away. I toppled over, but got up straightaway.
"Get out of my house," I howled, and started whacking him ferociously. He chuckled as he left, fending off my hits, not visibly fazed by them.
"I guess vampirism doesn't cure all ailments. You need a shrink," were his last words as I slammed the door on him.
It took five minutes for the haze to fade, and for clarity to return. He'd made me angry many times – most times – and the most I'd ever done was call him names and get myself as far from him as possible. This was getting serious. He easily could have turned on me had I been more of a threat, had I been stronger.
And why had that pushed me over the edge? I hadn't wanted the Weres to die, but they'd caused so much pain and suffering already. They had brought the war on themselves by attacking sleeping vampires. Their deaths were inevitable in that climate. Why did I care enough to attack their killer?
So many questions I couldn't answer. But I made a decision that night: I would find Dallas. Myself.
THIRTY-FIVE
A few nights later, determined to find the truth, I set off in search of Dallas. Lying to Jean about where I was going felt horrible, but it was a necessary evil. If she found out, it would have put our relationship in jeopardy. "You and I are going to have a problem," she'd said before. I had to lie.
"I can pick you up from the gallery later if you want," she'd said as I slipped my boots on.
"Er, no, it's fine. I might walk. The weather's nice." I kissed her goodbye, said nothing to Clara as she came down the stairs.
This was silly. Only once I'd started on my way, following no particular path, with no direction in mind, did it occur to me that I might have been wasting my time. There were a plethora of reasons why this was a bad idea, not least of all because she could have been anywhere. That was if Clara's information could be trusted. What if she'd made the whole thing up? And how would I approach Dallas if I couldn't stand the sight of her? Jean had spoken about the natural repulsion both races felt toward each other, the natural instinct to attack. Would we ever get to the conversation part before the claws and fangs came out?
I thought about turning back, or simply changing course and heading to the gallery just as I'd said. There was still time to do the right thing and not be a liar.
No. Fat
e had brought her back here when she had no reason to return. She must have known how dangerous it was for her.
I hailed a cab when I got to the main road, and told the driver to drop me to the Brady Creek Woods.
He shot me a dubious look in the rear-view. "You sure? What do you want around there? It's pretty dangerous, you know."
Not interested in getting into it with him, I sighed. "I'm more than capable of taking care of myself."
This time he turned around to look at me in the back seat. Under the car's interior light, I watched the color drain from his face.
"Oh, you're one of them," he said, his voice little, frightened.
"Yeah, I am. Is that a problem for you? I can get another cab." I'd never had an issue before, though I usually got the same drivers. This guy seemed a little wet behind the ears. He could have been new to town. Only a newbie would be shocked to find one of us in the back of their car.
"No, no," he said quickly, swallowing so loudly I could hear it. "It's just I'm not used to driving you guys around. Most of you have drivers and things."
"Not me," I said. "Are you sure you're okay with it? I would understand if you weren't." I would, though it would piss me off. His reservations had once been mine, so I sympathized.
"It's fine." He twisted back round and drove on.
Flashbacks of the night of my first attack came flooding to me as the car pulled up to the entrance to the woods. That had been my last visit here. At the time, as Robyn and Nadine loaded my battered, bruised and busted body into the car, I thought that if I ever survived, I would never step foot anywhere near the place again.
"Is this it?" the driver asked, when I made no attempt to get out.
"Yeah." I peered into the dark beyond. Nothing about it had changed. It could have been that night, minus the full moon. A pack of wolves thrashing at me, all coming for their pound of flesh. Even though they were long gone, and I was far stronger, it took a long time to get out of that car.
