Three Days to Dead

by Kelly Meding

  “Vampires?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Halfies. I didn’t even see them until they brought you two in a few hours ago. No questioning, no talking.”

  It was still the same day, probably evening. Not as much time had passed as I’d thought, but that still didn’t explain—“What do Halfies want with us?” They’d gone through a lot of trouble to capture us alive—just a little more proof that they had, in fact, been targeting my partners at the train bridge. Not me.

  “I’m not sure, Evy. The Halfies aren’t organized enough to be the brains of this, whatever this is. They’re following someone else’s orders.”

  “Orders like setting me up, getting me hunted down, and keeping us locked down here for God knows how long?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What about your Gift, Wyatt? Why haven’t you used it to summon a key or something?”

  He pointed toward the far wall of the corridor. At first, I saw only more cement blocks. But dangling from a nail, wrapped in twine, was a slender orange crystal. “It’s blocking me,” he said. “Every time I try to do something, it zaps me like a cattle prod. I’ve never been cut off from my power source before. It’s so strange, like I’m missing an arm or something.”

  I realized the distant sense of static I’d felt since my rebirth was, likewise, gone. The crystal cut us off from the sources of magic—what Isleen referred to as Breaks—but how in the blue blazes did a Halfie get hold of one?

  “Well, if they haven’t questioned you, why take Alex?”

  “Dinner?”

  I slapped him harder than I intended. He stared, hurt sparking in his black eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Evy,” he said.

  “He’s a nice guy, Wyatt. He didn’t have to help me, but he did.” The idea of Alex surrounded by Halfies, each one taking a bite out of his arm or neck or leg, enraged me. “So what do we do now?”

  “I don’t know. Have you remembered anything new?”

  “Boy, have I.” I fed him the details of my Mo’n Rath experience, complete with visuals on Kelsa and the reason behind Max’s strange reaction to me. I left out some of the torture details, not wishing to relive them or inflict them upon Wyatt, but I saw the anger spark in him—fury at what I didn’t say, horror at what I did.

  “When you didn’t come back to the hotel by noon,” he said, “I knew something was wrong. I should have started looking for you sooner.”

  “You wouldn’t have found me. Wyatt, is it possible that the alliance we’ve heard about isn’t with the ruling vampire Families, but with the Halfies? They’ve always been outsiders, hunted by us, and treated like shit by the Bloods. It makes sense that they’d try for a power shift, if they made out good on the deal.”

  “I’ve considered that, too. It certainly puts Ash and Jesse’s deaths into perspective. The Triads are too busy chasing you to see what else is happening.”

  “Something still doesn’t make sense.”

  He tilted his head. “What’s that?”

  “Me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They could have picked any Triad to attack, Wyatt, but they chose yours. They chose me. Kelsa said someone was paying a lot of money for me, but not in the way I assumed. Whoever wanted me paid her to do what she did, and to ensure that you were the one who found me. But why? All they had to do was kill me and hide my body. You would have kept the Triads looking for me for days or weeks until I was found. Why set it up the way they did?”

  “I don’t know. I really wish I did, but I don’t. And it isn’t the only thing that doesn’t add up.”

  “Like why keep you down here, alive, and not torture you?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Are you advocating violence against my person now?”

  “No, jackass, just a logical ordering of events. They killed Wormer and Tully this afternoon while they were capturing us. Shot them dead. But they used tranqs on us. Why do they want me alive?”

  Aggravation mounting, I stood up on shaky legs and started pacing the narrow length of the cell. Confusion, anger, and remnants of despair all bubbled up through my mouth before I could censor myself. “Why the fuck did you bring me back, Wyatt? Why didn’t you just let me rest in peace? Hell has to be better than this.”

  He wilted in front of me—every bit of light, every scrap of fight in him fled. I didn’t regret the words. I only hated that they were true, and how precisely they reflected my feelings. Overwhelmed and frustrated, I took it out on my only available target—a man who’d given up everything for me.

  “Why?” I grabbed the bars separating us. He had to say it. I had to hear it.

  He retreated to the corner of his cell, as far from me as he could get. Worse still, he turned his back. I had no way to make him face me. He couldn’t disappear behind a bathroom door, but he could still escape.

  My knuckles ached. I loosened my death grip on the bars—a wall that might as well have been solid rock. I was livid, but not at him. I was furious at myself for not mounting the rescue I’d hoped for. For failing at the happily ever after he so desperately needed to believe in.

  “I really am a self-centered prick, aren’t I?” he asked. His tone was so mild I thought it was a rhetorical question. He turned his head, showing me his profile and nothing else. “Aren’t I?”

  “You’re not a prick,” I said. “A little selfish, but not a prick. Hell, you did what you thought was right. You need to know what I know.”

  His profile disappeared. He grasped the bars in front of him. Tension thrummed through his shoulders and back. “I convinced myself that was the reason. I convinced everyone, even you.”

  Nausea struck me so hard and fast my knees buckled. Only my hold on the bars kept me standing.

  “Now I’m not so sure anymore.”

  “I knew something.” I repeated words I’d been told and believed to be true. “I had information we needed about the alliance.”

  “I hoped you did.”

  “Wyatt, stop!”

  “I told myself that was why, that I wasn’t bringing you back because it hurt too much to lose you. That a lifetime without free will wasn’t worth three more days with you. That wasn’t good enough. I had to do it for the right reasons, you know. For them, not for us.”

  Rage rippled through me. My skin flushed. My hands continued to shake. “You bastard! Do I know something, Wyatt? Do I?” My voice grew louder, angrier, and he flinched away. “Do I fucking know anything, or was remembering it all for nothing? Did I just relive the torture and the goddamn rape for nothing?”

  “You never should have lived it the first time.”

  “That’s not a fucking answer!”

  “I don’t have one for you, okay?” He finally turned. Color suffused his face. His eyes sparkled, but no tears fell. “I don’t think I remember the truth anymore, Evy. I’ve been sitting here for hours with nothing but time, and I can’t seem to think straight. I don’t know the difference between what I told myself and the actual truth. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

  “I know you don’t love me, and that’s probably the worst of my crimes. I betrayed your trust, Evy. I had no right.”

  He looked so lost, like an abandoned child. Compassion had never been my strong suit, but even furious as I was at his deceptions, I found myself reaching for understanding. Intention did not outweigh the cost of what he’d given up for me. I had easily accepted the notion of him sacrificing his free will—becoming a slave to Tovin’s own will—in order to serve a nobler cause; I had trouble with the idea that he’d done it all for three days with me. I wasn’t that special. I wasn’t worth the price tag.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How can you still be in love with me? With this person? I’m not the same as I was before.”

  “It’s not about hair color or height, Evy; it’s about what makes you who you are. The spirit of you. Your memories and the way you talk and your ability to swear like no one I’ve ever met. They’ll nev
er change, no matter what the outside package looks like.”

  The physical mattered less to him than the emotional and intellectual. The former was a bonus; the latter the only thing he needed. So why was I struggling with the reverse problem? My new body wanted more from him than I was emotionally prepared to accept.

  “I think you’re wrong,” I said. “I think a little bit of Chalice is still inside of me, and that I’m different than I was.” My unusual connection to the magical Breaks was proof enough. Bits of her were leaking into my personality, including her friendship with Alex. “I think you want me to be exactly the same, because it’s what you hoped for. Just like me knowing anything pertinent to stopping this alliance is what you hoped for. But hope has no basis in fact.”

  “Fine.” He held out his hands, palms up and open, empty. Defeated. “What do you want me to say, Evy? I made a huge mistake. I did the wrong thing for the right reasons, and now we’re both getting burned for it. Is that what you want to hear? That this is all my fault?”

  “That’s not what I want, you asshole.” I slammed my palm against one of the bars. It reverberated up my arm and shoulder. I held tightly to the pain.

  “Then what?”

  “I want to live, goddammit!”

  The words flew out of my mouth unfettered—so unexpected I found myself stunned to silence. Had that been it all along? More than uncertainty over Wyatt’s motives, much more than not knowing if I had anything useful to contribute by regaining my memories, was I angry about my lack of time? Angry that I had forty-ish hours left to live? I couldn’t bargain for more time. I couldn’t prevent my window of opportunity from closing.

  Yes, everything in me screamed against going quietly into that supposed good night. Training told me to fight, to find any possible alternative to death. Only, the deck was stacked and the dealer had all the aces. I didn’t even have a wild card. I had nothing, except the keen sting of helplessness over my current situation and my impending doom.

  “I want to live,” I whispered. I pressed my back against the bars and slid to the floor, metal hard on my back and cement cool against my bottom. My anger was gone. All I had left was sorrow. I pushed it away. I could not give in.

  Denim rustled. Cool hands brushed my shoulders. I didn’t pull away, too electrified by the gentle gesture. He squeezed tense muscles, and I relaxed into the impromptu massage. Bitter tears stung my eyes, but did not gather or spill.

  “Dying wasn’t so bad the first time,” I said. “I clung to you when things got really bad. I never stopped believing you’d come for me. It was easier, because of our happy ending. Easier to believe in a rescue.”

  “I tried so hard to find you.”

  “I know.” I reached back and threaded my fingers through his, so strong and cool. “But now everything in me is screaming to fight and survive, and I just can’t reconcile that with knowing I’ll be dead in less than two days. I don’t want to die again.”

  “I wish I could take it all back, Evy.” His voice was so quiet, barely above a whisper. “But I can’t. This was wrong. All of it’s wrong.”

  He kissed the back of my head. A warm tingle danced down my spine. I thought of the library stairwell and the way I’d reacted to his touch, his kisses. All of this had been complicated by Chalice’s overt attraction to Wyatt, which had, in turn, become my attraction. It elevated my existing affection into something else, into something close to actual desire. Something I couldn’t bear to give in to when no chance of happiness existed for either of us.

  “We can’t undo it,” I said. “We can’t change it. Maybe we never could. My part was over, and I was never supposed to be here to stop the goblins or the Halfies or whoever the fuck is involved in this shit, but I am. We’re both in it now, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my limited lifetime rotting away in this stinking cell. It’s not me, and I know it’s not you.”

  “You have any bright ideas on getting out?” He thumped the top of my head with the tip of his finger. “Because that crystal is keeping me from using my Gift, and unless you’ve learned how to bend metal …”

  “I’m working on it.”

  I pulled away, just far enough to turn around. I knelt in front of the bars and took his hands. “No more about the past,” I said. “We have to think about right now and nothing else. No more why’s or how’s or who’s, and definitely no more self-pity from either of us. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “Are you?”

  I glared. How the hell did he do that? “Self-pity is your thing, not mine.”

  The hard line of his mouth remained. No hint of what he was thinking. Just an enigmatic stare that was getting on my nerves.

  “What, Wyatt?”

  “It’s just something you mumbled while you were unconscious. You were asking someone to forgive you. Was it Alex?”

  “No.” I should have gone along with it and pretended. Opening up wasn’t my strong suit, but I had to tell someone. Wyatt would understand. “I shot an innocent today. He got in the way, and I shot him.”

  “Did he die?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “But it was an accident?”

  “Yeah, but he’ll never know why he was shot, or what that thing was that was chasing us through the streets.”

  “He’s better off not knowing.”

  “Doesn’t take away my responsibility.”

  “In my eyes, it does. You can’t dwell on one mistake, Evy.”

  “Like you?”

  He grunted, not pleased by the reversal. “I’m your Handler. Dwelling and self-indulgence are job prerogatives—especially when you’re the only surviving member of a team that I led for four years, surviving intact longer than any other Triad. I have put everything into this job, and everything else on the line for you. Forgive me for being self-indulgent with my emotions.”

  I quirked an eyebrow. For someone usually so reticent with his feelings, he was doing an awful lot of sharing. Getting things off his chest and airing some dirty laundry. It had to feel great. He watched me for a minute, mouth pulled into a taut grimace. I wiggled my eyebrows. His mouth twitched. I crossed my eyes.

  Wyatt laughed out loud. He tugged me forward, and I initiated our awkward, bar-infested hug. His hands were warm around my shoulders, protective and loving. I never wanted to let go, but cold metal was digging into my left breast. I grunted; he loosened his grip. I pulled back a few inches.

  Our faces were so close, mouths nearly aligned. His breath was hot on my cheeks, gently caressing the skin. I stared at his lips and remembered how they felt, how he tasted. The fire his kisses had lit in my belly. I wanted it again, that consuming ache. Knowledge that every inch of his body wanted me, every muscle thrummed with need. I had never felt that before, in my first life. As a Hunter, I didn’t have time for anything personal. Life was about work; pleasure was always secondary. And pleasure with a co-worker was forbidden.

  I leaned back on my heels, putting cold distance between us. It wasn’t the time or the place to indulge in such things. An inch of solid steel every four inches was an unbeatable obstacle. Not to mention a painful one.

  “No more self-pitying. Right?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Right.”

  “Good.” I made a show of looking around the cell, pretending to admire my surroundings and take in every (nonexistent) detail of the spartan space. “So, what do you do for fun around here?”

  “Shadow puppets.”

  “I’m amazed you’re still sane, Mr. Truman.”

  “You could count the number of cement blocks that make up your back wall. I’ve done it twice.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Strangely, my count was off by one the second time.”

  Once again, his delivery was perfectly deadpan. “I’d only start worrying if it’s off the third time, too.”

  “Want to count with me?”

  “I’d rather go around my cell
and test every single bar for a weakness I might be able to exploit.”

  “I tried that, but good luck.”

  “Have fun counting.”

  * * *

  The jail cells were old, probably hadn’t been in regular use for fifty years, but they were still solid. Not a single bar jiggled or shimmied, and the lock on the door was sturdy. No scraps of metal to pick it with; nothing but a bucket waiting to be pissed in. My diligence paid off in exhaustion and an hour of time wasted.

  Wyatt lounged on his back in the middle of his cell, staring at his cement wall. Probably counting the blocks, as he’d said. I couldn’t tell and didn’t much care. I was geared up, and nudging inches closer to claustrophobia. I couldn’t stand being caged. Tied up was one thing, but walled in was quite another. Just enough room to move around, but not enough to truly stretch my legs.

  Metal clanged nearby. Wyatt scrambled to his feet, and we moved to the front of our respective cells. At the far left of the corridor, the cells ended with a steel door. It had a handle on our side, but no lock or window.

  More noise from the same direction.

  “Someone’s coming,” Wyatt said.

  A lock clicked back. I winced at the tight squeal of rusty metal. The door swung inward, casting a rectangle of yellow light onto the bare cement floor. Three figures entered the room.

  The two standing upright were Halfies, easy enough to recognize. True vampires look like Isleen: tall, willowy, white-blond, with pronounced fangs and lavender eyes. The process of infection cannot change a person’s height or build, but it does change hair and eye color. Halfies end up with mottled hair, like a peroxide job gone bad, and opalescent eyes that look purple from one direction and their natural shade from another. Half of two worlds, but welcome in neither.

  Between them, they supported Alex by his arms. His head hung low, and his bare feet dragged along the floor. He’d been stripped down to his boxers. Bruises, welts, and dozens of shallow cuts covered his torso and legs. There was little blood. I imagined the Halfies didn’t waste a drop.

  A guttural snarl tore from my throat. This seemed to startle the Halfies. They paused and exchanged a look. Teenagers, I’d guess, with less than a week’s experience in their new lifestyle. They looked better suited for a homecoming football game than doing interrogation dirty work. Fury hit me so hard that my stomach ached. I clenched the bars until my knuckles cracked. If I could have escaped my prison, I would have gleefully ground their faces into the floor.