Her smile grew. “I work the day shift now but used to work nights at the network. And I was there when mercenaries bombed the original network headquarters just before dawn.”
That had happened before Aidan had come to North Carolina. Apparently a mercenary group had learned of the virus that infected vampires and immortals and had decided to use it to create an army of supersoldiers they could hire out to the highest bidder. When they realized that vampires always descend into madness, they ferreted out the location of network headquarters and proceeded to bomb the hell out of it in an attempt to get their hands on an Immortal Guardian so they could find out why immortals don’t.
The damage done had been so catastrophic that Reordon had had to abandon the site entirely and move all operations to a new building.
“I worked on Sublevel 1,” she continued. “Part of the ground floor collapsed before I could evacuate. Something hit me on the head and knocked me unconscious. And when I woke up, I was buried beneath the rubble and couldn’t move.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even have a chance to call for help before the concrete and whatever else above me began to shift and groan as someone lifted it away. The next thing I knew, Cliff was staring down at me, his eyes glowing bright amber while he told me not to be afraid, that he was there to help me.”
“Did you know he was a vampire?” Aidan asked curiously.
“Not with certainty. But I had heard that one of the vampires housed on Sublevel 5 was a brother. And I figured he wouldn’t keep telling me not to be afraid if he were an immortal.”
Aidan peeked into her memories and saw Cliff repeatedly telling her not to be afraid, raising his voice so she could hear him over the barrage of explosions while he checked her for injuries. With preternatural speed, Cliff tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and tied it around her arm where it bled profusely. He then secured the broken arm with a makeshift sling and gently lifted her into his arms.
As Cliff sped over to the elevator shaft, preparing to leap down and take her to the doctors and the evacuation tunnel on Sublevel 5, Emma peered over his shoulder and saw mercenaries entering the building through one of the holes in the ceiling.
“I wouldn’t have made it out of the building alive if Cliff hadn’t saved me,” she finished.
Those mercenaries had been merciless. If they had found her before Cliff had, they would have taken her, tortured her for information, then killed her.
“So that’s how you two met.” For some reason, he had thought the couple had met in the cafeteria at the network.
She grinned. “Yes, but he doesn’t remember it. I was pretty unrecognizable when he found me.”
And according to what Aidan had heard, Cliff had been captured by the mercenaries shortly thereafter and tortured badly enough to trigger his first psychotic break. Cliff had very little memory of that night or the days that followed.
Aidan drew a piece of paper from his front pocket and handed it to her along with a small box.
“What’s this?” she asked as she took them.
“Cliff asked me to speak with you.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“He’s worried he’s going to hurt you.”
“He won’t,” she countered. “I’ve already told him he won’t hurt me. I’m sure of it. But he—”
Aidan held up a hand. “You didn’t see him yesterday, Emma. You didn’t hear his thoughts. And you’ve never seen a vampire who has completely succumbed to the madness and lost all knowledge of right and wrong.”
She shook her head. “Dr. Lipton told me that—even during psychotic breaks—the other vampires have never attacked her or Dr. Machen.”
“Melanie knows about you?”
“Yes. Bastien told her Cliff and I were lovers. And she came to see me, afraid I might not understand the consequences of getting pregnant by him or that I might not understand fully what the virus will do to him.”
“Did she try to talk you out of seeing him?”
“No. She loves Cliff and wants him to find whatever happiness he can. She just wanted me to be prepared.”
Aidan sighed. “Well, Vince asked Bastien to end his life before the damage progressed too far, so we don’t really know if he would’ve attacked Melanie eventually. Cliff has held out far longer than the others and, despite his valiant efforts, is beginning to lose the battle. His greatest fear now is that he may hurt you.”
“He won’t,” she insisted.
Aidan pointed to the piece of paper she held. “That’s my cell phone number.” He pointed to the box. “And that is one of those cell phone wristwatch gadgets with voice activation. If you want to continue seeing Cliff, program my number into it and keep that watch on you at all times. And I mean all times. When the two of you are making love. When you take a shower. Never take it off.”
Her brow crinkled. “Is it waterproof?”
“Yes. And if you have even the slightest fear that Cliff is about to have a break or that he may hurt you, call me immediately. I’m a teleporter, so I can be here in half a second to protect you and help Cliff.”
Clearly she wasn’t happy about it. “He’ll stop coming here if I don’t agree to this, won’t he?”
“Yes. He loves you, Emma. If you love him as much as you appear to, then do this for him and ease his fears. He doesn’t need those on top of everything else he’s facing.”
Nodding, she opened the box and fastened the watch to her wrist. It took a while and several consultations of the instruction manual for them to figure out how to add his number and achieve voice recognition. But they succeeded.
“Call Aidan,” she said.
Aidan’s cell phone chirped in his pocket.
Both grinned.
“Now,” Aidan said, sobering, “here is something Cliff doesn’t know about.” Reaching into his coat, he withdrew two tranquilizer guns.
“Uh-uh,” she said, eyeing them with belligerence. “No way. I am not going to shoot Cliff.”
“These are tranquilizer guns, already armed with darts that can sedate Cliff should the need arise.”
Shaking her head, she held up her wrist. “I don’t need those. I have this.”
“You need to have a defensive measure that Cliff doesn’t know about, Emma. Once the brain damage progresses to a certain point, psychotic breaks can occur without warning. If Cliff flies into a rage and rips the watch off your arm, you’ll have to go for one of these. They’ve been specially designed for vampire hunting by the network’s weapons experts, so each can fire up to five darts. A single dart should calm him. Two will knock him out. Three will kill him. Avoid the last if at all possible.” He placed the guns beside her on the sofa. “Hide these where they will be handy in an emergency but where Cliff won’t accidentally happen upon them.”
She eyed them with dread.
“If Cliff hurts you, Emma, it will kill him. He will end it himself in a heartbeat, even if the wound is so minor you shrug it off. If you want to hold on to him, you need to ensure he can’t hurt you.”