She wanted to argue with him. She wanted to ask how a wounded, infected human was going to stand any sort of chance against a mass murderer who could summon the form of any animal he had ever seen.
But she couldn’t. She needed him to believe that he had won. That she was never even going to contemplate abandoning him for his own safety.
“You’re right, babe, I’m sorry. I just… I want to protect you.”
He looked at her through the rearview mirror and she only saw love in his gaze. “I know, but let me protect you.”
“I,” She took a long, deep breath, calming herself. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” He let his head fall back and she saw his eyelids flutter before she had to turn her attention back to the convoy. “That’s what I like to hear.”
*
An hour passed, and then another.
At first David was sleeping soundly, but at the ninety-minute mark he started to mumble something. A quick glance backwards revealed that he was drenched in sweat, and when she scented the backseat, she could smell a virulent fever burning just under his skin.
“Crap,” she hissed, resisting hopping into the back with him and instead keeping her eyes on the road.
She reached for the walkie-talkie and pressed what she hoped was the talk button. “How long until we reach the exit?”
“You’re the one with the GPS, you tell me.”
“Oh. Right.” She looked to the display in the middle of the dashboard then punched in for points of interest. A few seconds later, a route popped up. “Dammit, we’re still about half an hour away. Why did this all have to happen in the backwoods of nowheresville?”
“What’s the rush? Did something happen to David?”
“He’s taken a turn for the worst.”
“Right, well we’ll pick up the pace then. Feel comfortable going a hundred?”
Normally, she would say no. She had never felt the need to be in a vehicle going faster than sixty-five miles per hour as the sound itself was terrible, but this was obviously a special case.
“Do it,” she said, voice firm with resolution.
“I’ll send the order through the convoy. Accelerating in one minute.”
“Gotcha.”
“Oh, and Jaella?”
“Bradley?” she parroted, calling back to the retort that he liked to use so much.
“Be careful.”
The line cut off and she had the faintest of smiles on her face. For being in such a terrible, stressful situation, she was lucky that she seemed to have happened across the nicest, most helpful Hunter in existence. Either the spirits were on her side, or that was one hell of a coincidence.
Her foot went on the gas, weighed down by each second that passed. When the exit finally appeared in the distance, David’s moans were coming more often and the smell of his sickness had filled the entire jeep. She could hear that his heartrate was elevated and could practically feel him burning up behind her. She wished she could stop and give him some water to make sure he stayed hydrated, but stopping meant risking him getting closer to death, and death was utterly unacceptable.
Then the moment came where she separated from the group. For the briefest of moments, she was sure one of them was suddenly going to start firing at her, or maybe even jump out of their vehicle and lung themselves at her in animal form. Instead, her walkie just beeped.
“Here’s your exit. Be safe.”
“I will,” she answered.
And then she was turning off and they kept driving into the distance.
“Hang on, David. You’ll feel better soon.”
He groaned something, but it was incomprehensible even to her enhanced hearing. Well, at least he couldn’t argue with her about taking him to get medical care.
But with how fast the infection had suddenly set in, she was growing increasingly worried that they wouldn’t make it. In the span of two days he had gone from tolerable to a sweating, shivering mess, and the acceleration seemed exponential. If the infection reached his head or his heart…
She shook her head and concentrated on the road. According to the GPS they were one hour from their destination. But that was if she went the speed limit, which she certainly wasn’t going to do. And if a cop crossed her path, they would just have to follow her all the way to the hospital with their sirens blaring.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
“Come on, come on,” she urged. Who she was urging, she didn’t know. The car, herself, David? Maybe all three of them. No matter what, David had to survive. He wasn’t going to die in the back seat of some stranger’s jeep. He deserved more. He deserved a life.
Even if it was a life without her.
Her heart throbbed at that, but the reality was sitting right in front of her as she raced along. The life of an Aberrant was one of death and danger, and she didn’t want that for him. She wanted him to have peace, happiness and be able to come home every night to put his feet up on some tacky ottoman, not bleed out because of a battle wound or worry that his girlfriend was being ripped to pieces by a mad murderer.
And then, as much as her mind had been agonizing and debating itself, she suddenly knew.
She loved David. As much as she could love any one person. In the past few months, he had taught her things about herself that she never thought were possible. But her as much as she loved him, she needed to let him go. The thought of causing his death was too much, and in the end, she just wanted happiness for him.
And the truth was, he would never find true happiness with her.
Chapter Twelve: Bitter Goodbye, Unwelcome Reunion
Jaelle pulled into the parking lot utterly exhausted. She didn’t realize how tensely she had been holding herself until she slammed on the breaks and jumped out of the car, but she didn’t have a moment to rest.
She threw open the door and medics were already running out of the doors. Thank god David had insurance. She’d hate to think she was trying to save his life only to leave him with several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of debt.
She nearly ripped the side door off its hinges but remembered to keep her strength in check just in time.
“What’s the situation, ma’am?” a medic asked, coming along beside her and peering into the back of the vehicle. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped. At least she didn’t have to hold herself back. She could be hysterical or rude and it would play into the excuse she had created on the frantic drive to the hospital. “I wasn’t the one hurt.”
“That’s good. You can step aside now, ma’am.” The medic turned away from her and back to the other people rushing out. “Get me a gurney!” Why they hadn’t come out with one, she didn’t know, but Jaelle supposed it was possible people sometimes either walked or wheelchaired themselves in. …was that the right word for it? Wheelchaired? Or was it rolled?
Jaelle shook her head. She was letting the potent mix of panic and stress within her get her off track. She needed to focus.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“We were out camping. I was falling asleep in the tent and he said he was going to use the bathroom. The next thing I know, there was this awful, terrible scream. I ran out with my flashlight, and when I found him, he was lying in a puddle of blood.”
“Did you see what attacked him?”
“No, but there were some prints in the mud around him. Looked kinda like a cat. A very big cat.”
“Thank you. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him now.” Finally, a team of people arrived, all armed with the various medical equipment one might expect given the situation. “You’ve been a great help already, but I’m going to have Christie take you aside and check you out just in case. We’re a long way from any campsites or woods around here.”
“Yeah, about three hours total with breaking the speed limit.” She was fine, of course, but she couldn’t exactly refuse their care. And it made sense that they wanted to double-check her. Even if she
hadn’t been in the “animal attack”, having elevated levels of adrenaline or stress could make her pretty sick on her own right. You know, if she was human.
“That’s amazing. You should be proud of yourself. But you can finally rest now, and I’m going to need you to promise me that you will and won’t give Christie here a hard time.”
She imagined his tone was amazing for people who were traumatized or in pain. But she was neither. She was just a girl who was indirectly responsible for the possible death of the only man who had ever loved her.
Well… maybe she was a little bit traumatized. She was sure she would be carrying the emotional guilt until the day she died. And who knew, that could be quite soon.
“This way please, ma’am,” one of the medics – she assumed Christie – said, guiding her into the reception area. It went against Jaelle’s every instinct to leave David behind, but she needed to trust the hospital staff. After all, she had brought him here for a reason. He needed better care than she could provide, and these were the folks who could get him just that.
“Would you like some water?” Christie asked, setting her down in a chair in the corner of the waiting area.
“Yeah, that’d be nice.”
The medic gave her a gentle nod then crossed to a water cooler opposite of them. Jaelle sighed, leaning back against the wall. But as she closed her eyes, the faintest hint of familiarity tugged at her.
She was bolt upright in a second, drawing in a big draft through her nose. There it was again, the faintest hint of a smell just beyond her perception. She stood up, trying to follow it, but the waft was tenuous at best.
“Ma’am, you should probably sit down for a bit. You’ve earned some rest.”
“Oh, yeah, uh…” Jaelle looked to the other woman, realizing she was drawing a bit too much suspicion. The last thing she wanted was to be ID’d then have them admit her. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“To the left, immediately around the corner.”
“Uh, thanks. Be back in a minute.” The Aberrant rushed off, trying not to look like she was running, but definitely kind of running. As she rounded the corner, the smell grew a bit stronger. What it was lingered just at the edge of her brain, similar to a word at the tip of her tongue. She knew that scent, it was just too weak, too vague to give her any info beyond the fact that it was familiar.
Jaelle gave a quick look over her shoulder to make sure that the glorified babysitter she had assigned to her wasn’t following, then continued down the hall. It was still an area for the general public, and according to the signs led to the pick-up area for patience as well as some sort of main lobby. Jaelle had no idea that an E.R waiting area was different from a lobby, but she was learning all sorts of things about humans.
She would think that it would be easy to pick up the errant smell in such a sterile environment, but it really was anything but. Her nose burned from the amount of bleach and cleaner that were used throughout the sprawling building. Then there was the smoking spot just a few yards away from the front entrance. Huffing on a cigarette just outside of a hospital seemed like a very particular type of irony, but Jaelle guessed that everyone had their vices. And finally, there was the vast myriad of injuries and sickness that filled each room. She could pick it all up. Cancer, the bitter burn of chemotherapy, blood, bile, pus. Old people, young people. Just a mess of death and healing all in one place.
She reached the lobby and didn’t have any better idea of where to go. She stood there, lost in a sea of people, wondering why she was getting so worked up over a single smell.
But then the front doors slid open and another strain of it wafted over her. In that moment, realization washed over her like a tidal wave. Suddenly, she knew exactly what that smell was.
The Aberrant.
Her head whipped in the direction of the doors. Normally, her first instinct would be to run, as hard and fast as she could in the opposite direction. But she couldn’t. David was here, and she needed to say goodbye. She couldn’t just leave him thinking she had ditched him again. And, if that weren’t enough, she couldn’t imagine what he would do to all the humans in the fifteen-odd stories of the hospital. There were newborns here, just thrown into the world and experiencing their first gasps of air. There were people who had been given a second chance after surviving something they shouldn’t have. There were mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, even Shifters. She couldn’t let some madman with a killing streak use them as a way to hurt her, or delay the Hunters.
This was her territory, it was time she defended it.
She threw any last thoughts about Christie, or keeping her cover to the win and hurriedly walked through the automatic doors before they slid closed. Once she was out, she took another deep breath of the air, searching for a hint of her enemy.
How had he found her hear, and so quickly too? Were his tracking abilities that much more advanced than hers? The thought was unnerving. Almost as unnerving and the resounding proof that he definitely had a fixation with her.
There, to her right. Toward the parking garage. She strode toward the distinct scent, picking her pace up to a jog.
It was dark within the concrete building, twilight providing very little illumination for all the hundreds of cars. It was strange to think that every single vehicle in the entire structure had its own story. People who came here for help, people who came here to say goodbye to their loved ones for the last time, people who came to save other people.
But she didn’t have time to ponder all of that. She had to focus on her own story, and right now, she was about to meet her big bad.
Despite casing the entire perimeter, she came up with nothing. The trail was going increasingly cold, mixed headily with the carbon dioxide and exhaust fumes. And what would the Aberrant do in a parking garage anyways? He couldn’t drive – if Bradley’s info was correct – so the rows and rows of vehicle were about as useful to him as oversized rocks.
Onto the second floor then.
And then the third.
As she progressed higher and higher, so did her stress levels. She could feel herself growing just as tense as she had been in the truck all over again. For all the times that she had faced the Aberrant, she had never actually tried to fight him or run him off. Chances were, she wasn’t going to survive the effort.
Just a couple of months ago, she never would have considered risking her life for strangers, let alone knowingly walking toward what was probably her death. Funny how times changed.
Less funny was that he wasn’t on the fourth. Or even the fifth level. Sighing, she looked at the last ramp leading up and sighed. Of course, he would be on the roof. The boy had a thirst for dramatics almost as intense as his one for blood.
Composing herself, she caught her breath and continued upward.
If it weren’t such a terrible situation, she might have enjoyed the beautiful view. The sun was sinking down below the skyline, melting into pastel oranges and pinks as the gentle lilac of the night sky crept upwards. It was almost peaceful.
“There you are, it took ya long enough to make it.”
Her eyes followed the sound to see the Aberrant sitting atop the mini-building that housed the elevators she hadn’t taken.
“How’d you hide your scent so well?”
“Well, that’s not much of a greeting.” He looked down at her with a broad grin, offering a hand. “Why don’t you come up here and we’ll have a chat?”
“I don’t want to have a chat with someone who almost killed me.”
“Aw, come on. I didn’t think La Fuerza would be able to do any real damage. Plus, how was I supposed to know that you’d end up running with the Hunters with your little human boyfriend? You gotta admit, that was definitely a plot twist I couldn’t anticipate.”
His reaction was so far from what she had been expecting for the second time. Maybe she was wrong about this guy being so evil. What if he wasn’t the mad murderer she had been told he was? Her gut told her he was dangerou
s, but had she ever seen him kill anyone beside the Hunters?
Oh, yeah, and entire town of innocent Shifters.
Then again, in his eyes those Shifters were all complicit in the execution of his people. He had a reason. A shit reason, but a reason nonetheless.
Sighing, she took his hand and let him help her up onto the little elevator hut. “You never answered my question.”
“Yeah, we have a habit of doing that to each other.” He flashed her a smile and opened a small box next to him. Jaelle flinched away before realizing he was handing her some water and-
“Is that a sandwich?”
“Yeah. I figured you’d be hungry for some non-gas station fare. I know when I get on the road, something homemade can hit the spot just right.”
“So, of all things, you chose a sandwich?”
“Hey, I only know how to make about three things and a grilled cheese is one of them.”
“Yeah, I imagine cooking lessons weren’t a big part of your childhood.”
“Not at all.” He pulled out another sandwich and ravenously bit into it. As delicious as the bit of bread and cheese in her hand smelled, she couldn’t get over the disjointed nature of what was happening.
She was having a picnic, a goddamned picnic! The man before her was supposed to be some heartless, mad killer, but at most, she had experienced overly philosophical young man with a penchant for setting up cinematic scenes.
“So, are you going to explain the scent thing to me or…?”
“Oh, yeah, that. I got a blood transfusion.”
She set her sandwich down at that, her eyes going wide. “You had a what?!”
“A blood transfusion. It’s easy enough. Just a little bribe or intimidation with a fake face shifted on, then I get one unit of regular, boring ol’ human pumped into me. It only lasts for a couple of days, and still doesn’t mask me completely, but it does a pretty good job of making me hard to notice.”
“So, you weren’t here for me?”
“Nah, not originally. I was on my way out of town when I caught your scent. You sweat a lot, you know that?”
The Aberrants Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 22
