chapter TWELVE
Images of death stabbed at his mind. Reed glanced through the darkness. Liquid red dripped from the ceiling and down the walls bringing forth images of a slaughterhouse. Bloodcurdling screams fractured the silence shrouding the room. He struggled against the bindings holding him secured to the floor.
His eyes widened. Something wasn’t right. How’d he get there? What happened? Where was Denver? He attempted unsuccessfully to sit up. The silver cording cut deeper into his flesh. The screams stopped as suddenly as they began just as the faceless figure moved in the corner of the room.
“What about him?”
“What about him? He’s one of them, the last. With him cast out from the earth I can rest. Do it.”
The voices wavered in and out of his consciousness, distant and then close, but never close enough for him to recognize them. Why did they do this? Who are these people?
“Do it.”
Where was Denver? He struggled more, as figures crowded the room. More pain sliced through his body.
“Do it. Do it. Do it!” the voices chanted in rising octaves until he thought his head would explode.
A lone figure stepped up to him, dropped to knees and gazed down on his helpless body. A knife plunged into his side, just under the last rib. His assailant sliced, twisted and turned the silver blade, pulling a scream from his throat. More hands held him down, covered his mouth. His blood poured from his body, dragging his life with it. His heart pounded, stopped, pounded again. The assailant withdrew the knife, replaced the empty hole with his fingers, digging, probing.
Oh, God. At no time had pain ever been so bad. The hand cradled his heart, squeezed it, and tugged it. More screams circled his head. Where the hell was Denver? He wasn’t sure why he kept asking that same question. He knew she was dead. Had to be. No way would she let them do this unless she was dead. Had she suffered as much as he? He hoped her death was swift.
“Give it to me,” the female voice demanded.
He fought the darkness back and widened his eyes at the sight of her holding his heart above her head, biting a chunk out of it, chewing and swallowing. She laughed as she squeezed his heart between her fingers causing it to explode into a thousand pieces. His own blood splattered his face.
Hands released him, untied his bindings. Was he dead? He didn’t feel dead, but he must be. He battled the pain and reached up and grabbed the woman around the neck. By God, if he was going to die he was going to take her with him. She didn’t cry, only laughed. He squeezed harder and harder until her eyes went opaque, rolled to the back of her head. Relief washed over him as his life seeped from his body.
“Reed!” A new voice permeated his head, fractured the silence of death crowding his mind. She coughed, sputtered, clawed at his arms leaving blood along the length of them. “Wake up,” the voice wavered, became distant. Again she slapped his face making him open his eyes.
“Oh, God.” He froze, every muscle in his body tensed with disgust.
Denver pried his fingers from around her neck. “Its okay, Reed. It’s okay, baby,” she coughed, sat up. Her voice softened to a whisper. Tears glistened in her eyes and fear etched between her brow.
“What have I done?” He threw himself out of the bed, practically crawled to the corner of the room and sat with his back to the wall, his gaze never leaving Denver’s, his head pounding the surface behind him.
“I’m okay.” She pushed off the bed, moved closer to him.
“No.” He shook his head. “Stay away.” His lungs seized with the need for air.
“You had a nightmare. That’s all. A bad dream.”
“I almost killed you,” he growled.
“Not hardly.” She kneeled in front of him, placed her hands on his legs, to comfort, to soothe. “How are you feeling?”
“You mean after I almost killed the only person I--” He closed his eyes and banged his head against the wall.
“Reed. Please.” She scooted closer, sat next to him and placed her head on his shoulder. “I’m okay. I swear to God, I am.”
“Only because you were able to wake me up. What if you hadn’t?”
“But I did. That’s all that counts. I did.” She blew out a long steady breath and relaxed against him. “Tell me what you were dreaming. You were moaning and thrashing about. It was hard to wake you and then you stopped breathing. You scared me, Reed. I thought you were dying.”
“I was-- did.”
“You need more sleep.”
He shook his head. “I’ve gotten all I’m going to get.”
“If you’re not going to sleep, then you’ll eat something.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, not being able to find the right words. He was starved. “I am hungry.” He pushed up and moved over to the small table in the corner, flopping down in the chair he’d earlier vacated. “I’ll go get food… provisions.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
He tensed when her hand touched the small of his back, uneasiness told him he didn’t want the closeness, but his soul told him he did. It was the one thing he did need. Oh, God. His heart continued to pound at the thought that he’d almost killed her, would have if she hadn’t had the strength to awaken him.
Denver slid her hand up and down the plane of his back. The warmth felt good. “I’ll be back in ten. I think I saw a fast food joint and deli market on the corner. Why don’t you lay down until I come back?” She closed the door behind her and left him to the silence of the room and the remnants of his demons, the confusion of his nightmare still niggling away at his gut.
He opened his eyes to the rustling of the keys and paper. Denver stood over the table unloading food from a bag. He was in bad shape. He hadn’t even heard her come in. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, he realized she’d been gone for over an hour. He cursed under his breath.
“Sorry. I was trying not to wake you.”
“It’s okay,” his voice slurred and he hated it. Sitting on the side of the bed, he scrubbed his hand across his face. “Smells good, what did you get?”
“Burgers, rare for you.” She hunched a shoulder. “You need the protein.”
“What ever you say,” he said as he grabbed a burger, ripped the greasy paper away and took a bite. “It’s good. Thanks.”
“We need to come up with a plan.”
He nodded as he chewed.
“Figure out what we are going to do. Where we are going to go? How we’re going to bury these bastards.”
“Eat first.” He took another bite, grabbed the soda she handed him and swallowed half in a single gulp.
She flopped on the bed. Started picking at her food. “Why do you think you’ve never shifted like the others?”
Her question came without surprise. He’d wondered when they would get back to the topic of his inadequacies. He stared at her for a long humming moment, trying to come up with a decent answer. Nothing but the truth came to mind.
“Because, I’m only half a ma--”
“Don’t you ever say that.” Denver dropped her burger on the ripped bag beside her. “You make me so angry sometimes.”
Me too. “You asked and I told you. Or at least tried to tell you.” He wiped his hands on the napkin. “Look, Denver. I can’t tell you why I’m different. Like I said before, my brother… my twin shifted at puberty. I never did. My mother was human. My old man tried to explain that sometimes it just happens like that. Tried to convince me he didn’t care, that he still loved me but I knew, felt differently. I’m not buying it.” Shaking his head, he stood and walked over to the window and peeped between the closed slats of the blinds. “Your explanation was better than any I’ve ever heard.” Just hadn’t gotten angry enough. The emotions not there.
Maybe he hadn’t had the right emotions that were intense enough to trigger what he wanted. Maybe his life hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought. He’d seen many facets of death, on many faces. Maybe it hadn’t been enough. Maybe the energy and anger needed was still bottled up inside, still searching for an escape. He craved the day when he not only tasted his beast on the tip of his tongue but felt the ripping of his skin, the transformation, when he ran his tongue across the thick pelt and savored the feral taste of his own skin and when it happened it was melodramatic to say the least. Reed hung his head, defeat beating at his body in waves.
Denver wrapped her arms around his waist, pulled him away from the window. Her lips pressed between his shoulder blades, sending warmth to his heart. Even with everything that had happened, she wanted him. No one else had ever wanted him.
“You never told me why you refuse to change people.” He sucked in a breath when her hand slid under his shirt and caressed his stomach.
“It’s a curse,” she answered without hesitation.
“No it’s not.” He turned and lowered his mouth to hers.
“Easy for you to say,” Denver said when their lips separated. She backed up to the bed with Reed still in her grasp. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Like?”
She tugged her shirt over her head and then fumbled with his until he was void of it.
“Oh, that.” They fell back onto the bed, a tangle of limbs and sheets. Their mouths connected, molded, danced. He nipped at her bottom lip, trailed his lips along her jaw line until he found the pulse at the side of her neck. Need clawed at his gut, tightened his groin. He desired her like he needed air. She made it better. Life. Death. Uncertainty.
“Wait,” her words, breathy as she shoved her pants down her legs and kicked them free. She moaned when he captured her nipple between teeth and the silk fabric of her bra. “Oh, God, Reed. Wait a minute.”
Her fingers struggled with the button on his jeans, then the zipper. She gasped for air when he pushed his pants past his hips. He was already hard, ready.
“When I finish with you, you will answer my question.”
Denver’s eyes widened. Her body tensed. She shoved at his shoulder pushing him away. “Damn it, Reed.” Grabbing the sheet, she tugged it up and across her chest.
He reached for it and she jumped out of bed. Dragging the sheet around her body, she moved over to the chair and flopped down, her expression angry. Disgust swamped him. He sat up, threw his legs over the side of the bed and stared at her.
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Aren’t you?”
Denver shifted, looked across the room at the blank television set. “We’ve always done it that way.” She cut her gaze back to him for a second and then diverted it to the floor. “One turns the next and so forth. I’ve hated that. People should have choices, that’s all.”
“Did you?”
“No. I was born from a vamp mother and father who was half vamp half human. No. I had as much of a choice as you.”
This he understood. Life was strange and full of unexpected truths. Sometimes you make your own paths. Other times the paths are made for you. “With that said, I want you to know, I choose, if at all possible, to not die.” He hoped she understood what he said, wanted.
Denver shook her head, rapidly. He stepped up to her and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her up to face him. “It is my choice.” He leaned down, kissed the cheek where a tear had fallen. He knew he was asking a lot, maybe something no one had ever asked before, but he had to get it out for once and for all. If he were to die, then maybe, just maybe there would be some hope of tomorrow. Maybe she could give him that hope. That tomorrow.