Blood Dark (38 page)

C
aitlin was
conscious enough to know she was in a car.

And she was conscious enough to know it was moving at a hell of a speed.

She opened her eyes to the roof, to Kane whose arms she lay nestled in, his right hand clutching her side, the side he’d barely let go of as he tried to help stem the blood flow behind the saturated tourniquet.

She could tell by the look on his face, by his wary glances over his shoulder out of the rear windscreen, that there was trouble.

But there was also that grit in his jaw, let alone the determination in his eyes that told her it was far from over.

They swerved corners, ascended and descended ramps, went through dark passages and tunnels before hitting intermittent streaks of light.

She glanced up at long dark ringlets.

‘Swallow,’ she heard Kane say, the urgency clear in his tone. There was something warm and wet trickling against her lips, a female arm blurred above her. ‘It’s angel blood. Jessie’s. It’ll start to repair the damage.’

She blinked away the tears in her eyes as she licked the warm, metallic sensation on her lips.

As they swerved another corner, Kane kept a firm hold on her.

‘Left and a right then another left!’ she heard Kane say to whoever was driving.

The car skidded and swayed.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d passed out for, but she stirred to the cool breeze on her face.

She felt herself in Kane’s arms again.

He was striding. Fast.

She heard the slamming of car doors echoing around some vast space.

She felt herself being handed over, looked up to see familiar brown eyes gazing back down into hers.

‘You always were one for demanding attention,’ Eden said.

But his smile was strained.

She heard the grating of metal.

Eden lowered to his knees. She felt herself being handed back into familiar arms.

‘Still with me?’ Kane asked, his navy eyes darkened with concern.

‘It hurts,’ was all she could muster, too numb, too delirious to feel any sense of panic.

‘You’ve got some serious damage in there, sweetheart,’ Kane said. ‘We’ve just got to give Jessie’s blood time to work.’

It was dark down there. And cold.

So cold.

She could hear the echo of footsteps as she stared up at the low brick ceiling, at the narrow walls. She knew they were in some kind of underground tunnel. Pipes ran overhead as they descended the subtle decline, a door then another door grating open before slamming and locking behind them.

She felt the floor beneath her as she was laid on something soft.

She felt Kane’s arms braced either side of hers.

‘More blood, Jessie,’ she heard him say. ‘We need more blood
now
.’

K
ane’s nails
scraped against the concrete to the right of Caitlin’s shoulder.

Jessie fell to her knees beside him. She pumped her hand, encouraging the blood flow from her wrist, but the concern still lingered in her eyes, confirming what she’d warned him about in the car: that her blood wouldn’t penetrate Caitlin’s system quick enough.

And she certainly couldn’t garner enough tears in time.

‘She’s safe,’ Eden said, clutching Kane’s arm. ‘She’s with
you
.’

Kane knew what he meant. He knew what he was intimating though neither he nor Jessie dared say it.

And he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear either of them state the inevitable.

‘Caitlin, you keep fighting,’ he said as he clutched the back of her head. ‘What would I do without you, huh? What would I do without my favourite stalker?’ Taking hold of the hand furthest away from him, he interlaced his fingers with hers. ‘I’m too good-looking to die celibate,’ he remarked, her faint smile evoking tears in his eyes. ‘There are ways,’ he said, leaning closer. ‘Keep fighting, Caitlin, because there
is
a way for us to be together. It doesn’t have to be like you think.’

He slid her hand up under his T-shirt to lay it over his heart.

She was going to be too weak to navigate independently, but he could take her there. He could take her deep into his shadow because some sacraments were made to be broken. He would do whatever it took for her to finally know, truly understand, see with her own eyes through his, what she had come to mean to him.

He was not losing her without her knowing she had become everything in his world. That she didn’t skirt the periphery as she believed, but that she had become the very core of it. She would feel the extent to which he had come to love her in a way he could never express. And he would give her whatever hope and strength he could: the only thing he had left to give her.

As he flattened her palm over his heart, laying his above hers, her eyes flared as she understood what he was doing.

She tried to pull back her hand but he wouldn’t let the connection be broken.

‘Trust me,’ he said, holding her gaze. He bit into his thumb, his incisor piercing deep. He placed his thumb gently between her lips, ensuring his blood along with his consent, would allow her safe access. ‘Caitlin,
trust
me.’

C
aitlin tried
to focus on the warmth building beneath her palm as she waited for that heartbeat.

As it finally came, it generated a pulse that rushed right through her.

The floor beneath her shuddered as if her surroundings had, at the same time, generated a heartbeat of its own.

This was the doorway – the doorway into Kane.

As another heartbeat came, it wasn’t just the floor that shuddered, the whole tunnel she was laid in did.

On the third beat, the high-pitched whistling became a distraction, by the fourth beat, it was as if a trapdoor had collapsed beneath her.

She nearly yanked her hand away, but Kane kept it firm to his chest as she felt as though she’d been dropped into a pool of warm water.

Engulfed, the blood thrummed in her ears as she felt as if she was being drawn full speed down a tunnel, the walls flitting past at breakneck speed. Things were coming at her: people, places, objects, events – the sensation of free-fall eased only by the solid feel of Kane’s body above hers until all she could hear was his heartbeat, his breathing.

She was so used to controlling the shadow read, that it felt alien being led – because that’s what he was doing. This was Kane taking her on a tour through his life, his knowledge, his experiences, his memories, his dreams. Years, decades, four-centuries worth, all coming at her in a million flashing images, in a thousand voices.

Every time she felt her will try to pull him one way, she’d feel him pull her another as he managed the pace, managed the direction, pushing memories and thoughts aside.

She saw green fields, the muted sunlight catching on the roof of the solitary house in the distance. She saw the little girl, maybe no more than two years old, stumbling forward through the long grass, her arms outheld, her smile wide and broad, her long wavy black hair flowing behind her – and those eyes: those rich, navy eyes that were the image of her brother’s.

She saw the little girl being swept up in a young boy’s arms, the distant call of Arana’s name. A woman and a man were heading down the garden path, their smiles as broad as Arana’s had been. And despite the breeze in the air, she could feel warmth on her back – the warmth, the comfort, the security, the door to the house a welcome sight.

But then she jolted as the flames burst towards her.

It was all around her – the fire. She heard the thuds above. She held the child in her arms, her hand clamped over her mouth so she wouldn’t cry, so she wouldn’t scream. She looked down into her large round eyes to see them gazing fearfully up through the gaps.

And she covered those eyes. She whispered in her ear.

And as she heard the sound of crashing wood, the cry, the droplets of blood falling through the gap in the floorboards and anointing her forehead, she felt the fear Kane had felt.

She felt the anger.

She was suddenly running – running through a tunnel, leaving behind the smell of smoke, of burning flesh, the sounds of laughter, the cracking and splintering of wood as she held Arana in one arm, something weighty, something metallic in the other.

As she entered a room of blood-soaked bodies, she clenched Kane’s shirt with all the strength she had left.

But it was no longer a boy’s hand holding the knife; nor was it a boy’s hand that drew back the bowstring, or wielded the sword. It was a fully-fledged male who traipsed through mud and shale and blood.

She could hear music in her ears.

She could feel the crowds around her.

The mood changed. The atmosphere changed. She saw faces – smiling faces. And there was a beautiful young woman who smiled back her: Arana. Tall, slender, shapely, her dark hair then falling below her waist, she danced and played and laughed.

And the warmth was back.

Until there were crowds and jostling and outcries. Walls were being built. Chain-link fences were being erected. There were protests. There were fights.

Dereliction.

Dark rooms.

Tunnels.

Time elapsed at a mind-blowing rate amidst card games, clouds of cigarette smoke, meetings with countless nameless faces, laughter, sex,
so
much sex.

She was holding a cold, limp body.

Because the girl with the navy eyes wasn’t smiling anymore. She wasn’t laughing. Arana lay like a ragdoll in her arms, her clothes torn from her body, the blood masking her thighs, her chest ripped open to reveal the empty cavern where her thriving heart had once rested.

The bloodied, beaten, abused body of that same little girl he had carried through the tunnels as nothing more than a boy himself.

And she saw those female fingers being kissed. Fingers that were ripped bare of their nails in her struggle to survive; slender wrists red raw to reveal bone where flesh once was, the lengths she had gone to in order to free herself from her attackers.

The blur of images came hard and fast: the buildings, the people, the tunnels, the drinks, the alleys, the clubs, the booths, the bars, the females, the naked flesh, the gasps, the cries, the smiles, the dark and sordid rooms, the bright lights that shone a multitude of colours.

And the fights. The overturned tables. The grazed knuckles. The blood in the sink. The bloodied clothes.

And then she saw herself.

She saw herself looking in on herself. She saw
his
fingers run through her hair, his thumb brush her lips.

And she felt it. She felt the heat inside him as he looked back at her.

She felt the depths of it.

She felt the tear trickle down her cheek as a result.

And she smiled.

K
ane held
her hand firmly over his heart; her hand that now felt lax in his. But he wasn’t letting it go. Not for anything was he letting her go.

He closed his eyes. He squeezed them shut. He squeezed as tight as he could to stop all the broken pieces inside of him from shattering to dust.

But he could hear it in her pulse.

He could feel it.

She was growing colder.

Weaker.

He couldn’t believe he was crying. He couldn’t believe he was bent over her crying. And he didn’t care that she saw it. That Eden and Jessie saw it.

He wanted Caitlin to see it. He wanted her to know. He wanted her to understand.

‘No,’ Kane said firmly, his grip on the back of her neck tightening. ‘Caitlin,
don’t
,’ was all he could muster. ‘Keep holding my hand. Don’t let go of my hand.’

But her consciousness was lost. Jessie’s blood was taking effect, he could see it in the stemmed blood flow: something inside Caitlin was healing, but she wasn’t healing fast enough. He slammed his hand over her heart to feel what his ears could already detect: the lower ventricles of her heart were beating too fast and irregular.

‘She’s going into cardiac arrest,’ he said. ‘It’s not working quick enough.
Fuck
.’

‘Defib her,’ Eden said.

Kane looked up to see Eden wasn’t addressing him – he was staring at Jessie.

Kane’s attention flitted between the two as Eden and Jessie’s eyes locked as if in some unelaborated-upon understanding.

‘Defib her
now
!’ Eden said firmly. ‘Like you did with me in the lock-up.’

‘But that was in attack,’ Jessie declared. ‘I don’t know how to temper it. Caitlin’s too weak. It could kill her.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Kane demanded.

‘Jessie can generate static.’

And Kane understood.

He looked Jessie in the eyes. ‘Do it!’

Her gaze was wary, uneasy. ‘Kane …’

‘Do it!’ he snapped.

The first shock was the hardest to see. He clawed concrete, hating having to keep his distance, hating his own helplessness.

He lowered his head when Jessie placed her hands over Caitlin’s heart for the second time, the white sparks igniting the dark space, Caitlin’s fragile body jolting from the force.

But her heart wasn’t responding.

Three, four, five times he saw Jessie make the attempt.

He counted the seconds in between rests.

Jessie looked across at Eden, the distress clear in her eyes.

‘You try again,’ Kane said firmly. ‘You
don’t
give up, you try again!’

Moments later Jask skidded into position beside them. Kane could see it on his friend’s face as much as he could see it on Jessie’s, on Eden’s.

Kane’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding. He looked down at Caitlin still laying unconscious, her beautiful head having fallen lax.

His throat was tight. He could barely breathe.

He’d shown her but he hadn’t told her.

Jessie went for the sixth attempt.

The seventh.

He felt Jask grip his hand, his other hand squeezing his shoulder.

He’d shown her but he hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told Caitlin he loved her.

That he would always love her.

He looked at Jessie’s cheeks wet with tears as she sank back on her haunches, as she looked from Eden to Jask for guidance.

He felt his friend’s grip on his hand tighten.

Everything fell to silence. Nothing moved.

Kane stumbled forward and braced his arms above Caitlin’s soundless, lifeless body.

Blink.

All he wanted her to do was blink – the simplest of acts – but her glossy eyes stared into the distance, somewhere beyond him, somewhere beyond everything.

Untouchable.

Unreachable.

He gently caught hold of her jaw. He looked down at her blue-tinged lips, his tears forming tiny droplets on them.
He looked back into her rigid eyes.

Something inside of him died.

Even Jask shed a tear for their loss.