As the Vampire Killer started taunting her victim in earnest—prey teasing its failed hunter—Eva raised her head again, eyes on her family.
“If your friend is a slayer—if you’re all slayers—this Vampire Killer might go after you next. This is what you would have to face if you went back out there.”
“Thanks to you and your Underground,” Dawn said.
“You really think I had some sort of hand in this?” It sounded like Eva was on the cusp of tears again. “You truly believe I could ever be a part of this perversity?”
A perversity? Didn’t that describe vampires in the most basic language?
Instead of starting another useless argument, Dawn glanced up at Frank. His face was a mask of horror as he watched Breisi, but his eyes…His eyes were bloodshot, full of love, proving that he didn’t fully belong to Eva.
“Do you see how much he loves her?” Dawn said to the vamp.
And that’s when she saw a revelation on her mother’s face: Eva yearned for Frank to close the book on his old life, and Breisi’s death would do that, hopefully bringing him to her once and for all. That’s why she was showing them this broadcast, to let him know Breisi was truly out of the contest.
“You want her dead,” Dawn said.
“No, I don’t. I don’t want this to happen at all.” Eva stopped, shocked, as if realizing how much she did want it. But then she vehemently shook her head. “I hate what’s happening!”
“Do you know that standing by and just watching—whether you want it to happen or not—makes you dead to me? As dead as you’ve been my whole life? Or…it’s even worse, because now I know what kind of…person…you really are. You’re nothing like the mom I always wanted.” Dawn bent closer to Eva. “I wish I didn’t have any part of you inside of me.”
“Don’t say that….” Eva came forward to touch her daughter, just as she’d done when she was masquerading as Jac. Comfort from a false friend. It wasn’t going to work this time.
Dawn dodged the vampire actress, near tears again.
“You and your Underground,” she added. “Dead.”
Eva raised her arms and wrapped them around her head, covering her ears. “Do you realize how much it hurts to hear you talk like that?” She was sobbing now.
Frank was still watching the TV, as if he could protect Breisi with just a look. Prayers were probably running through his head, blocking out his daughter and wife.
But as Dawn watched her mother cry, the little girl inside of her was weeping, too. Mommy, I love you. I’ve idolized you so much that it hurts to know I’ll never be as good as I thought you were. It hurts to know my perception of you was never real.
Furiously, Eva sprang to the remote and pressed the TV off. The image of Breisi disappeared, retracting into the center of a blackened screen.
11:44.
Frank went stiff, sweat dampening his T-shirt against his skin. “Where is she, Eva?”
Taken aback, Dawn looked at both her parents. They were watching each other as if they were in one another’s heads. It went beyond a “parent look.” It was something much different….
“Eva.” Frank’s body was visibly wobbling. “Tell me. If it’s the last thing I ever ask, please tell me where Breisi is.”
“You know I can’t.” There was a fear in her gaze. “The Master wants this. I can’t risk disobeying him a—” She cut herself off.
Had she just about said “again”? What did that mean?
“And if you don’t obey,” Dawn said, “your punishment would be mortality—you’d get old, just like the rest of us, God forbid.”
A greater level of terror filled Eva’s eyes, but Dawn wasn’t sure if it was because of her mom’s ego or because Dawn was firing a round of hate bullets into her chest.
Frank fell to his knees in front of his wife, wrapping his arms around her legs and burying his face in her dress.
Now, Dawn felt the tears pushing at her. They weakened her more than all the physical crap she’d already suffered. “Mom…” She deliberately used the endearment. “If you can stop this from happening, please, tell us now. If you really, truly don’t want this to happen, convince us by putting an end to it. Please.”
But when Dawn reached out for her mother’s hand, it was out of pure love. For Breisi.
Eva clung to the touch her daughter had finally allowed, resting a hand on Frank’s head at the same time. Then she raised Dawn’s fingers to her cheek, leaning against them and wetting Dawn’s skin with tears.
“I know you have enough power to help,” Dawn whispered.
Eva jerked, not looking at her daughter.
“And if you did it,” Dawn said, encouraged, “you’d at least give us a chance to have some kind of relationship from now on.”
“If I helped,” Eva said, “you wouldn’t fight me anymore?”
“I’d do anything.” Even march into hell.
As Eva peered up, a decision balanced in her agonized gaze.