He looks down and rubs his legs. “It was… frustrating. Not entirely successful.”
“We need to call the police,” I say. “Like, now.”
“No,” he says. “We’re not calling the police.”
Screw that. I reach for Jamie’s cell phone on the coffee table, but quick as lightning, he grabs my wrist before I can pick it up.
“We’re not calling the police,” he says in a voice that leaves zero room for argument.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Whose side are you on?”
“The side of trying to keep you alive,” he says. “If the police show up here, Chas will know right away I’m not going to kill you. He’ll do whatever it takes to get to you. You call the police and you’re finished, Brooke.”
Jamie is still holding my wrist, his grip not easing one bit.
“Fine,” I say. “I won’t call.”
He studies my face for a moment, then apparently decides I’m telling the truth and releases me. I flop down on the chair next to him. I don’t know what to think anymore. My entire world has been torn apart. Jamie is one of my best friends and now it turns out I don’t know him at all. I don’t even know his name.
“Who’s Tom?” I ask him.
He rubs his eyes again. “I was born Thomas James Blake. I’ve gone by my middle name ever since… I left home.”
“Why did you leave home?”
He gives me a pained look. “There were… incidents.”
“You killed people.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated,” I repeat. “So… what? You’re a vampire?”
“A vampire? Christ, you sound like Gabby.” He laughs, although it’s a sad laugh. It doesn’t make my skin crawl the way Hunter’s laugh did. “I’m not a vampire. Vampires aren’t real.”
“But you drink blood?”
“It’s… complicated.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “So explain. I don’t have anywhere to be.”
He shifts on the couch. I can tell talking about this makes him uncomfortable. In spite of everything I just heard, it’s hard to imagine Jamie killing a woman. A thought suddenly occurs to me.
“All those soup containers you have in the fridge,” I say. “Is that… blood?”
He hesitates, then nods.
“Oh my God.” I cover my mouth. “Human blood?”
“God no,” he says quickly. “It’s pig’s blood. I get it at the butcher in the grocery store. I don’t… I mean, I haven’t had human blood in… years. Maybe… forty years?”
“Forty years?” I stare at him. “But you’re only…” I look him up and down. He has only very slight creases around his eyes and no other lines on his face I can detect. “How old are you?”
He smiles crookedly. “I was born in 1889. I’m 127 years old.”
“Are you serious?”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t look a day over a hundred, do I?”
“No wonder you drive like an old man,” I breathe, and Jamie almost laughs. “So are you immortal then?”
He shakes his head. “No, I just age slowly. A year for every decade since I was sixteen, I’d say.”
“When you were sixteen,” I say thoughtfully. “Is that when you were bitten?”
“I told you, I’m not a vampire.” He rolls his eyes again. “Whatever this is, it’s… genetic—passed down from father to son only. It starts showing itself during the adolescent years. That’s when Chas—I mean, my brother, Charles—he found me. He told me everything.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “So you drink blood and you stay young forever, but you’re not a vampire?”
“Look,” Jamie says, “I don’t have superhuman powers. I don’t sleep in a coffin. Sunlight doesn’t bother me. Garlic—I mean, I like garlic. So no, not a vampire.”
“But you crave blood.”
He lowers his eyes. “Yes.” He heaves a sigh. “It does give me increased strength and speed and it has healing powers for me, as far as I can tell. Back when I regularly used to… well, you know… I didn’t need a cane to walk.”
I frown at the cane resting next to him on the couch. At least I know that wasn’t all an act—clearly, he really needs it. “Did you really get hurt in a car accident?”
He snorts. “Cars weren’t around back then. I… I got stabbed in the back. I think my spinal cord was injured, but obviously I couldn’t see a doctor. Human blood heals me, but as it turns out, it’s only temporary. After a few weeks, my legs get weak again.”
“So you used to…?”
“I never wanted to kill anyone,” he sighs. “Chas never had a problem with it, but I did. But you have to understand, it was different back then. People were different. The Spanish flu hit and I got a job taking away bodies from homes. Some of them were long gone, but some weren’t quite gone yet, so… I ended it for them. I’d find people dying on the streets and I’d just… you know…”
“Oh,” I whisper.
“I fought in the Great War,” he says. “Then the Second World War. The Korean War. It was easy to find people just on the brink of death. If I tried the sorts of things now that I did back then, I’d be court martialed.”
“It’s got to be blood from a living person?” I ask him. “I mean, you can’t just knock off a blood bank, can you?”
“No.” His cheeks color. “Fresh arterial blood is the only thing that has the… healing properties.”
“Oh,” I say again.
“I don’t do it anymore,” he mumbles. “At first, I was on this mission to… well, there were things I used to think I needed to do, but that’s not the case anymore. I don’t mind the cane. I’m used to it. I learned to deal with the… cravings.”
I frown at him. “What Hunter—or Charles, or whatever his name is—said about why you liked me… about the smell… is that true?”
He drops his eyes. “Yes, it’s true.”
“God,” I murmur. “That’s…”
“Yeah, I know,” he says irritably.
I sit there on the couch for a minute, playing with the hem of my skirt. “You knew he was killing all these women… didn’t you ever try to stop him? Like, call the police?”
“The police,” Jamie snorts. “Come on. He’s the world’s expert at evading the police.”
“Fine, then you could have—”
“No, I couldn’t,” he snaps at me so loudly that I jump. “The whole reason I kept drinking blood to keep myself on my feet was because I wanted to stop Chas. I wanted to get him locked up, or short of that, kill him so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. That kept me going for sixty years.” He shakes his head. “You saw what happened when you sprayed acid in his face. I’ve shot him point blank in the chest and he barely flinched. He does not die. There’s nothing I can do.”
We both sit there on the couch. Jamie is staring at his lap, his eyes glazed over. I have other questions I’d like to ask him, like how he managed to get himself stabbed, but it’s obvious he’s getting upset. Maybe I’ve learned enough for one night.
“I think,” I say, “I’d like to go home.”
Jamie raises his eyebrows. “Are you out of your mind? Chas wants to kill you—do you get that? You can’t go back to your apartment tonight.”
“So when can I go back?”
“I don’t know.” He furrows his brow. “A month or two?”
“Are you kidding me?” I give the coffee table a kick. Now I’m banished from my own home because of this monster? And as much as the idea of being alone and a possible target for Hunter scares me, I’m not thrilled about being alone with Jamie right now either. “I’m not allowed to go back to my own apartment for a month because your brother is going to kill me?”
“You’re the one who dated the guy. I warned you. I told you to break up with him.”
“Yeah, well, maybe if you hadn’t been with Gabby…”
He snorts. “That’s not true and you know it.”
We’re both quiet, glaring at each other. Jamie fi
nally sighs. “Wait one month, okay? I’ll find a safe place for you. Once Chas finds another woman, he’ll leave you alone.”
I squint at him. “Another woman he’s going to kill? And you’re just going to let it happen?”
“What the hell do you want from me, Brooke?” Jamie snaps again. “I did what I had to do to save your life. I’m trying my best, okay? I can’t…” He closes his eyes as he leans his head against the sofa. “I can’t stop him. If I could, I would. But I can’t.”
I look at Jamie, his eyes still closed. Whatever else, he did do his best to save me tonight. Even if it means someone else might be killed instead.
I wonder how he deals with that thought.
“God,” I murmur. “I almost slept with him.”
Jamie rolls his head toward me and cracks open his eyes. “You mean you didn’t?”
“No.”
“You don’t have to feel bad if you did.” He shrugs. “Chas has kind of a… psychic power over women. He’s gotten really good at it. Not that he needs it these days when everyone sleeps with everyone, but back at the turn of the nineteenth century, it came in handy.”
I remember the overpowering feeling that came over me sometimes when I was with Hunter, that I wanted to give myself to him entirely. That I wanted to surrender myself to him. I thought I was just horny. “Do you have psychic power over women too?”
He snorts. “Obviously not.”
“Didn’t you sleep with Gabby?”
He doesn’t answer me, which is an answer in itself. Hunter may have the psychic power over women, but it’s clear Jamie does okay without it.
He lets out a sigh and runs a hand through his light brown hair, tousling it so that it looks like he just rolled out of bed. I think of the pitch black color of Hunter’s hair and that bottle of dye in the bathroom.
“Do you dye your hair?” I ask him.
He yanks his hand away from his hair and gives me a wary look. “Yeah.”
“If you didn’t,” I say, “would it be black like his?”
He nods. “I’d look just like him. It was… hard to look in the mirror.”
“What about your eye color?”
“Contacts.”
“Do you even need those glasses?”
He pulls them off and tosses them on the coffee table. “No. Just another prop so I don’t look like him.”
“Can I see your eyes?” I ask softly. “I mean, without the contacts?”
“Brooke…”
“Please?”
He sighs and sits up on the couch. He uses his forefingers to pop out the contacts into his right hand. Then he turns to look at me.
God, his eyes are really dark. So dark that you can barely tell the iris from the pupil. Even, I’d say, a shade darker than Hunter’s. I shiver.
“Happy?” he says bitterly.
“No,” I say. “Not happy. Definitely not happy.”
Chapter 31: Brooke
I end up sleeping on Jamie’s couch. He offers me the bed, saying he’ll take the couch himself, but I refuse it. I don’t want to sleep in his bed. I don’t want to take anything he’s offering me. I don’t even know who he is anymore and I don’t trust him for one minute. I wish I didn’t have to stay here, but he’s emphatic that if I leave, I won’t live through the night.
I wake up in the morning feeling like a truck ran me over. I’m still wearing my uncomfortable dress from last night, having also refused Jamie’s offer of one of his T-shirts to sleep in. I’m beginning to regret many of the choices I made last night.
There are clanking noises coming from the kitchen—Jamie’s awake. I stumble off the couch, rubbing my sore eyes. I see him at his coffee machine, fumbling with the filter.
“Hey.” Jamie glances at me. He looks about as awful as I feel—his light brown hair is sticking up even though it’s damp from the shower and his eyes are bloodshot. He’s not wearing his glasses or contacts, which temporarily throws me for a loop. God, those eyes are dark. “You want some coffee?”
“Are you having some?” I ask him.
“Yeah.”
I lean against the kitchen counter. “Wouldn’t you prefer a steaming cup of double O negative?”
Jamie gives me a pained look. “You want the coffee or not?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I let him brew it for me and I drink it straight, without any sugar or cream. It tastes awful—really, really bitter. But it wakes me up. By the end of the cup, my brain feels less like mush and I’m ready to face a day of work.
“Am I allowed to go to work?” I ask bitterly. “Or are you going to stop me from that too?”
He hesitates. “Chas usually… he only kills after dust. You should be safe during the day. But you need to tell your boss you’ve got to take a leave.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” he says. “I can’t keep you hidden from him if you’re going to work every day. You’ve got to be off the grid until he loses interest.”
I glare at Jamie. This is getting ridiculous.
“Can I at least go to my apartment for like fifteen minutes?” I ask him. “So I don’t have to go to work in day-old clothing?”
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll go with you.”
“Are you going to come in?”
“I am.”
I slam my coffee cup down on the counter. “Are you seriously going to follow me everywhere I go? Why won’t you just let me call the police and they can handle it?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “That depends. Do you want to live through the week?”
I glare at him.
“Look,” he says, “let me just go to your apartment and check things out. I won’t follow you into your bedroom while you’re changing or anything.”
This is bullshit. Despite everything, I can’t say I trust Jamie. Despite all his efforts, Hunter nearly slit my throat. And after all, whatever disease or disorder or syndrome Hunter had, Jamie has it too. He admitted the only thing that drew him to me was the smell of blood from the lab that clung to me. Maybe he’s managing to suppress his carnal urges, but it clear that what he really wants is to cut my throat and go to town. It’s only his self-restraint that’s keeping him from doing it. Probably by a shred.
Now that I know his secret, I’ve got to be careful around Jamie. He’s dangerous. As soon as I get to work and he isn’t around to stop me, I’m calling the police. I’ve decided.
“Okay,” I grumble.
“And I’ll drive you to work,” he adds. “And pick you up.”
Great.
After we leave Jamie’s apartment to head up to mine, I make a beeline for the stairwell. Usually when I’m with him, we take the elevator. But what can I say? I want to see the look on his face when he chases me into the stairwell and sees the two flights ahead of him.
“Brooke,” he says to me. I’m halfway up the first flight and he’s still on the bottom. He’s got one hand on the railing and the other holding his cane, and he doesn’t look thrilled at the prospect of climbing two flights. “Come on. Can’t we take the elevator?”
“Well, gee,” I say. “Why don’t you just slit my throat and drink my blood? Then you can get up the stairs no problem.”
Jamie grits his teeth, but doesn’t say another word. And about halfway up the first flight, I’ve realized the error of my decision. It may be a struggle for him to get up all these stairs, but it’s also pretty painful for me to stand there waiting for him. Oh well.
I’ve got my keys in my purse, although the door is unlocked since I wasn’t exactly thinking about locking it when I was running away from the guy with the switchblade. I open the door and start to go inside, but Jamie quickly steps in front of me to go first. He limps inside, his eyes darting around the room.
“I’m sure he’s not here,” I mumble.
He turns to look at me. He’s got the blue contacts in place now and looks like his old self, but I remind myself not to be fooled. He’s not the person I thought he
was. “You understand what he wants to do to you, right?”
“Right,” I say, “and how is that different from what you want to do to me?”
He stares at me for a moment, his mouth hanging open. He doesn’t know what to say. He has no answer for my question because he knows I’m right.
“I’ll check the other rooms,” he says.
Jamie goes around the apartment, checking every room thoroughly. He won’t let me take a shower before he checks the bathroom and pulls back the shower curtains. He even looks in my closets, which reminds me of that night I made him come over at two in the morning. I thought he was such a great guy back then. God, I was so stupid.
Anyway, I was right—Hunter is not lying in wait. It looks like he took Jamie at his word and moved on.
He waits on the couch, watching television, while I shower and dress for work. When I come out of my bedroom dressed, Jamie looks at me with his mild blue eyes. Contacts. Fakes.
“You should pack a bag,” he says. “You won’t be back here for a while.”
Right. He’s delusional if he honestly believes I trust him enough to disappear with him.
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’ll just buy new stuff when we get wherever we’re going.”
He narrows his eyes at me, but doesn’t say anything.
It’s a tense drive to work in Jamie’s Civic. I wish I were with anyone but him. Well, no. I don’t wish I were with Hunter. But anyone but the two of them. We listen to the radio during the entire ride, because it’s obvious we’re not going to speak to one another.
When we pull up in front of the lab, he says to me, “I’ll pick you up at five.”
I make a face. “This is all a bit much, Jamie. Honestly.”
“Tell me the time you finish work and I’ll be here.”
I glare at him. “And what if I’m not?”
He looks down at the steering wheel, gripping it with both hands. He looks like he’s struggling with some sort of internal debate. Finally, he says, “I’ve spent the last few days trying to find someone to kill.”
I stare at him, ready to bolt from the car. No good conversation has ever started with those words. “You… what?”
“Look, it’s obvious I couldn’t follow you and I couldn’t protect you when I could barely walk.” He’s still staring down at the steering wheel. “I knew the only way to be able to help you would be if I drank and healed myself. That was the only way I’d be any sort of match for Chas. So…” He heaves a deep breath. “I started walking around the alleys late at night. Trying to find someone who was close to death.”
Love Bites Page 23
