by Anna Abner
The witch looked sick to her stomach as she held the axe like it was a sleeping rattlesnake.
“It won’t take long.” He raised the pistol.
“I can’t do this!” Roz threw the axe at his feet and ran toward the clinic, shoving Ali out of the way to get inside.
Connor didn’t watch her leave. His gaze fixed on the axe.
Ali quivered like a bunny, afraid to shift in either direction, afraid to make a noise. She was alone with him. And he couldn’t be more unpredictable or less trustworthy.
Infected. Vampire. Monster.
“I need your help,” he said quietly. His shoulders dropped slightly, as if he was overtaken with exhaustion.
“This can’t be happening,” she breathed.
“I can’t do it by myself, or I would.”
She was afraid to ask. She had to ask. “Do what?”
“I can shoot myself in the head, but I’ll heal. Eventually.” Connor played with the pistol, transferring it from one hand to the other. “I need you to separate my head from my body and burn me to ashes.”
This is my fault. If he hadn’t saved her life on the side of the road, he wouldn’t have been almost killed today. He wouldn’t be infected. I did this.
Ali’s mouth dried out. “No. No.” She was back to repeating herself like Roz, but she couldn’t form any other coherent thought. An image flashed in her mind of him sprawled in the dirt, bleeding, and her swinging the axe. Ugh. Never gonna happen.
Connor glanced up at her, and then away. But his stare wasn’t wild and bloodthirsty. He wasn’t tensing to leap on her. Nothing about him screamed monster. More like wounded animal.
She ran her gaze up and down his frame. There might have been a new intensity behind his eyes, but otherwise, he was Connor. The same guy who’d saved her life, the same guy she’d resuscitated with her own hands not five hours ago.
“I—” Ali’s voice squeaked. She swallowed, and then tried again. “But you’re not like them. You’re—”
“You saw Maksim Volk. You know better than most.” He gripped the pistol so hard the muscles in his arm bunched. “Infecteds are mindless murdering fiends. It’s only a matter of time. Minutes, maybe. And I won’t be able to control it.”
This couldn’t be happening. “But you’re not trying to hurt me.”
“It’s only been a few hours. The change isn’t complete. Can we not argue about this? I don’t know how long I have and I can’t,” Connor scowled, his brow furrowing, “hurt either one of you. It cannot happen.” He picked up the axe and offered it to her.
Ali refused to come any closer. “I’m not doing anything until I’m convinced.”
“Convinced?” Something in him snapped. He pivoted and catapulted the axe, sending it spinning end over end a dozen yards through the air. It eventually crashed into a block wall, chipping a wedge of concrete from the structure. “I’m infected.” His voice broke. “I’m—” He stalked toward the trashed Dodge faster than humanly possible. “I can’t be—” He slammed his fist into the boxy hatchback, crumpling it. “That dumb kid lied to me!” He punched the rusted metal over and over again. Bam! “It’s not supposed to turn out this way!” Bam!
His knuckles split and, with his next swing, blood arced up and behind him. “It’s not supposed to be like this.” He staggered back a step. “It’s all supposed to be different.” His knees buckled, and he sat down, hard, in the dirt.
His hand pulsed blood, the bones misshapen. He’d broken it, possibly all the way up his forearm. Ali rushed forward to help, but thought twice. His blood was infected. Connor was infected.
“I can’t be like them,” he said quietly. “I can’t hurt anyone. I can’t hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
“Did you really not know you’re Anya from Nadvirna?” he whispered. “Tell me the truth.”
She shook her head. She still didn’t believe any of that prophecy business, but her destiny was a problem for another day. Right then, Connor needed her to be strong. Something Ali was really, really good at.
“I’m not a bad guy,” she assured. Then, quieter, “You can trust me.”
His hand stopped bleeding. The bones, though, remained fractured and crooked under his skin. It would be hours before they healed. The mutated cells taking over his body would fix each digit to keep him strong enough to feed it blood. Lots and lots of blood.
“I know.” He bobbed his head, his eyes on the ground. “I know you’re not a double agent or whatever Roz thinks. You’re too nice.”
Connor’s words fanned something achy inside her, something akin to hope. It wasn’t fair that millions, maybe billions, of infected cells were wrecking him from the inside out, annihilating everything human about him. But he wasn’t trying to hurt her, and he didn’t stare at her like filet mignon on legs, the way Volk had.
“Maybe,” she ventured, “you won’t become like the others.”
“I will. It’s only a matter of time.”
She lifted her gaze from his injury and was stunned by the heat in his expression. Roz may have thought he looked at her a certain way, but he’d never, ever, looked at her like this. Like he was seeing into her. Like he was working out the mechanics of the cosmos in her eyes.
She blinked first. “But, uh, but it’s already affected you. Maybe—”
“No.” Connor shook his head. “The infection corrodes your brain, eats away at conscience, at reason.”
“But Oleksander isn’t mindless,” she said, a crazy idea taking root, “is he?”
Connor didn’t answer, just stared at her.
She ignored the tingles and searched her brain for anything she’d read or heard about the Destroyer. “He plans stuff. He leads people. He drives a car. He wrote a manifesto and e-mailed it to the press, for God’s sake. He has higher level thinking.”
“She’s right.”
They both glanced up as Roz approached, her hair in disarray as if she’d been speaking some wickedly strong spells. She carried a wad of papers in her hands and several colored folders stuffed under one arm.
“I have a new theory,” Roz said, slightly out of breath. “If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Olek and his three brothers are just a bunch of assholes. Volk, and all the lieutenants, as far as we know, were normal after being infected.”
“What lieutenants?” Ali asked. She was so unprepared. Why couldn’t she have been obsessed with vampires like every other girl at her school? She might have memorized this stuff already.
Connor wiped blood onto his jeans before answering. “Twenty-five years ago the Destroyer took the lead over his younger brothers and infected twelve men to be his army of destruction, his lieutenants.”
Roz sifted through her papers, smoothing some of the wrinkles. “A year later he murdered his army, except for his three brothers and Maksim Volk, his pride and joy.”
“Why?” Ali asked.
“They were a colossal disappointment,” he said.
“So I started asking myself,” Roz continued, “what would so disappoint him that he’d kill them all?”
Ali glanced at Connor. “Maybe because they weren’t war-hungry maniacs. Maybe they were regular people.”
“But you’re forgetting—”
“There aren’t enough facts,” Roz exclaimed. “It’s mostly urban legends and rumors. Who said the infected were mindless murderers? The army that captured them for study?”
For the first time, Connor’s expression registered a flicker of doubt.
“You’re not a killing machine,” Ali said. “You’re Olek’s child.”
“One of only two in existence, since Olek killed the others,” Roz said. “I want to go to the library at UNLV and do some research in their supernatural collections room.”
“I’m not finished here.” He rose in a single, smooth movement and reached out his clean left hand for Ali. She hesitated to touch him, but he grabbed her hand with his much larger one and lifted her to her feet. He didn�
�t release her right away, but squeezed her fingers, sending little lightning bolts up her arm. He was so warm.
Roz cocked one hip. “No one here is going to assist your suicide. You don’t have a choice. We’re going to town. Together.” She stressed the last word, giving him a look.
Okay. Right. They were off on some new adventure. This was Ali’s signal to back out gracefully before she got any deeper into their drama. Connor was up and walking around. She could leave with her secret intact and not feel guilty.
“So, I’ll be on my way,” Alina said.
Connor shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Why not?” She’d put in her time. She’d jumped through their stupid lie detector hoops. Enough was enough.
Roz shuffled her papers. “Because you’re walking vampire catnip. You’re not going anywhere until we figure out why.”
“If I leave the country tonight, none of this matters.” No vampires in England. Problem solved.
“You could help us get to the Boss Man. Your prophecy, remember?”
If they refused to release her, she’d be forced to ditch a newly infected vampire and his very pissed off bestie to get out of the country. Not exactly a simple proposition.
Truthfully—Ali wouldn’t admit it to Roz, though—she was a tiny bit curious about this Anya stuff. It could have something to do with her dad’s super secret, off-the-books safe deposit box. And she wasn’t technically due home for another four days. What was a couple more in search of her dad’s secrets and her uncle’s motive for linking her to a vampire prophecy?
Roz read the indecision in her eyes. “Let’s go, then.”
“You can find out what it means?” she clarified. “You can tell me for sure if I’m Anya?”
“That’s the plan. But in the morning,” Connor said, his gaze lingering on Ali’s face. “You haven’t slept.”
She shrugged. Not since her uncle’s house. A lifetime ago.
“So we’ll camp here and hit the road in the morning,” Roz said.
Ali forced a weak smile. “Okay. I’ll give you another day.”
The clinic was dark and deserted when they ambled back in. A tumbleweed could have blown by and it wouldn’t have been out of place. Maria must have put together the clues behind Connor’s speedy recovery and made a break to safer ground. She’d left a note, though, on the inside of the front door.
If you’re not all gone by morning, I’ll be back with a grenade launcher.
—M
“I like her style.” Roz chuckled, wadding the note and tossing it behind the desk in the general vicinity of a trashcan. “I can sleep out here.” She gestured to the dumpy chairs reserved for visitors and waiting patients.
“You two will sleep in an exam room,” Connor said, in a do-not-fuck-with-me tone. “One with a lock on the door.”
Ali’s eyebrows rose sharply. “Where will you be?” He expected her to go beddy-bye while a brand new infected roamed around the building? A single, hollow door wouldn’t keep him out for even a second if he wanted to get in. She remembered the hatchback car folding like cardboard under his attacks.
“The truck.”
“Oh.” Still not cool. And totally not safe.
Connor held up a hand for quiet, tilting his head to the side. And then she heard it, too. An engine. Footsteps. Her pulse kick-started. Please, no more trouble. The front door swung open and a uniformed medic strolled in. Connor’s ride was here.
Connor inched around Ali, putting himself between her and their guest. But the driver didn’t look threatening. In fact, he wore very shiny black shoes and about half a gallon of gel in his combed hair, but he had a nice face. He acknowledged each of them, but spoke in Spanish to Connor. Roz stepped forward and answered for him.
Ali whispered, “She speaks Spanish?”
The ambulance driver said something in an exasperated tone and thrust a clipboard at Roz. She signed it, and then he left.
“That was the transport from Vegas?” The one meant to drive a critically ill Connor to a real hospital for recovery. Except things hadn’t worked out that way.
“What did you tell them?” he asked.
Roz crossed the room, headed out. “I told him the man he came for is dead and buried.” She rushed past them, shutting the door behind her. Something like pain flashed in Connor’s eyes, and then he followed his friend outside.
Ali sat in one of the waiting area chairs, not even wanting to know what those two were up to. Besides tying her to some random prophecy, of course. Anya from Nadvirna. Why would her father take one secret to his grave, literally, but her uncle seemingly reveal another? Had her family really believed she and Anya were the same person?
Connor stomped back in hauling sleeping bags, blankets, and a couple backpacks from the truck. And then he chose a room.
It was surprisingly cozy. Warm, butter-colored paint. Tile floors. A faint smell of cleaning fluid. Ali could handle it for one night.
The witch called dibs on the gurney, not even pausing a split second to check if Ali minded. Nope, just dumped her packs on the bed and claimed it. Ali put together a pallet against the wall farthest from the door. It wasn’t so bad. The tiles were hard, but they were cool to the touch.
Connor inspected the space like a man obsessed. He quietly double-checked Roz’s loaded weapon. Just in case. Then he fiddled with the door. It had a lock, but not a deadbolt, so he broke apart a table and created a wedge to barricade the door from the inside. Then he packed and re-packed a canvas sack full of toiletries. When he stood up again, he had a gun in his hand.
“Ali,” he said quietly, edging into her corner. “This is for you.”
She stared at the thing, not even wanting to touch it. She wasn’t a gun lover, had always believed owning weapons led to dangerous accidents.
“No more pretending,” he said, deadly serious. “The infection is stronger than I am. Everyone gets a weapon, and everyone carries it at all times.” He swallowed. “Do you know how to use this?”
She shook her head. Of course not. She worked in a jewelry shop not a firing range.
“K.” He took another step, moving in close enough that she felt the heat coming off him like a stove. “This is a Ruger LCP. It’s semi automatic, so it’s fast, and it fires six shots from a magazine. .380 caliber. It’s easy to use. I’ll show you.”
He released the magazine, clicked it into place, and then chambered a round. “Now you show me.” He handed her the gun. It was pretty, if handguns could be considered attractive. It was blue and small, about six inches long and half as tall. She went through all the steps, finally placing her finger lightly on the trigger.
Connor whispered, “If the door opens, shoot at it until you’re out of ammo.” He was so earnest, his eyes dark and sincere. He didn’t look like a killer at all.
The intruder she pictured wasn’t him, but Maksim Volk beating down the door. After all, anybody could stumble upon them. Somebody like a vicious, bloodthirsty vampire. Oh, wait. She was going to camp out with one of those. Right. Her life was on a great trajectory. Just super.
“You think that’s going to happen?” she asked.
“I might…do something.”
Her stomach dropped, and she backed away, bumping into the wall. He’d only woken up infected hours ago. And he hadn’t fed. How bad were his cravings?
“To us?”
“No.” Connor looked aghast. “To myself. To keep me out for a while.”
“You mean hurt yourself?” Oh, God. Ali imagined him shot, bleeding, or hanging from a tree.
“Nothing permanent.”
He’d already been hurt today. Horribly hurt. She couldn’t stand the thought of him in more pain. “Please don’t do that. I’ll never be able to sleep if I think that.”
“It’s all so surreal.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s like I’m just standing around waiting for the switch to flip. Boom, I’m a monster.”
The switch had been flipped. The monster was out. �
�If Olek and Volk can control it, so can you.”
“But they’ve had decades of practice. I’ve had a couple hours.” Connor squeezed her upper arms, maybe harder than he knew. “Get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Okay.” What she really wanted to say, was, You scared me today. When you went down, when you wouldn’t wake up, when you stopped breathing—I thought I was watching you die.
All trace of humor gone, she set the Ruger on the floor beside her pallet of blankets. He tsked, picked it up, and showed her how to easily conceal it in the front pocket of her borrowed shorts. But it was cold and heavy against her leg. Besides, it would be exactly her luck to shoot herself through the crotch. As soon as he settled down, she’d stash it in a backpack or something.
Ali wasn’t going to shoot him anyway. He could give her all the lessons he wanted to. He could certify her a professional sharpshooter, but it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. She’d become a vegetarian for a reason. Violence wasn’t in her blood.
Connor hadn’t even passed out of sight before Roz descended. She caught up to him in the hallway. If they started kissing, Ali was out of there. Just friends, her ass.
She listened to their hushed voices through the open door.
“This isn’t working. We need a new plan.” Roz.
“What are you talking about?” Connor.
“You almost died today.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“It’s not the first time I lost a fight.”
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
“You knew what you were signing up for.”
“I didn’t know you’d run off the first chance you got to face Oleksander by yourself.” Roz’s voice rose by degrees, as if she’d forgotten they had an audience. “Haven’t I proven myself?” she complained. “I thought we were a team. We attacked the army base together. Why would you run off and leave me like that?”
“I couldn’t risk getting you hurt, too.”
“I’m here to help you. Let me help!”
Shuffling feet. Ew. Please say they’re not holding each other.
