Blurred Memories (14 page)

Moments later, after she had
rinsed her mouth and splashed cold water over her face to refresh
herself, she stepped out of the bathroom to find Daniel, Simon, and
Marc in the hallway. All three looked at her with concern, and all
three, she thought, would have asked how she was if she hadn’t
spoken first.

“
We have to do something to
help those people.”

She had known Daniel for
years and could usually read his expression well enough to know
what he would say before he did. She had also pretty good insight
into Marc; she hadn’t known him as long, but the intimacy they
shared made up for it. At that moment, however, both of them were
closed books to her as they looked at her with the same inscrutable
eyes.

“
You mean…” Simon gulped
loudly. “You want us to go there? To the demon
dimension?”

Kate hadn’t put it in those
terms in her own mind, but hearing Simon say it, she knew there was
no other way.

“
I don’t
want
to go
there,” she said slowly. “But I don’t think we have a choice. We
know what they’re doing to these people. If we just close the
breach and leave them there…”

She shook her head. In her
mind, it wasn’t twenty strangers in that prison. It was Blake. They
hadn’t known how to help him, but they could help these
prisoners.

“
We’d be just as bad as the
demons,” she finished, her throat tightening so that she ended in a
murmur.

Her words seemed to strike
Marc. He nodded at once, and she knew he, at least, would side with
her. As for Daniel, he still wasn’t reacting.

“
Come on, Daniel,” she
said, her voice a little higher as she became more animated. She
stepped forward and took Marc’s hand. “You can’t tell me you
weren’t thinking the same thing as soon as you heard
her.”

“
It doesn’t matter what I
think. I need to tell my superiors about this, see what they say.
It’s their choice, not mine.” Daniel frowned as his gaze turned to
Marc. “And don’t you try the whole Sire thing on me. This isn’t a
vampire issue. It’s a squad issue.”

He was still frowning when
he looked at Simon, and Simon started visibly.

“
The demons won’t be able
to track her, right?”

Simon glanced at the closed
door. “I don’t think… I mean… I’ll have to redo the spell in a few
days but until then—”

Daniel sighed. “Simon. Will
they be able to track her? Yes or no.”

Simon gulped.
“No.”

“
Good. I want to see you
first thing tomorrow and hear about the breach again.” Simon looked
as though he would interrupt and Daniel raised a placating hand.
“Yes, I know, you didn’t figure it out yet. But maybe talking about
it will help. For now, get some sleep.” He looked at Kate and Marc
again. “We should all get some sleep.”

He and Simon walked away,
Simon to the elevators and Daniel toward the soldier who was
leaning against the wall, arms crossed and a bored look on his
face. No doubt Daniel would have him guard the door. Kate started
after Simon, her hand still holding Marc’s, but she quickly
realized he wasn’t following. She turned a questioning look to him
and found him considering the closed door with a thoughtful
expression.

“
Marc?”

He looked at her with a
small smile. “Why don’t you go ahead? I want to talk to her some
more.”

Bile rose to the back of
Kate’s throat again. She didn’t know the full story, but she had
pieced together that Marc and Jen had had some kind of
relationship. She didn’t like the idea of leaving them alone in the
least.

“
I’ll stay with you. We can
talk to her together.”

Marc’s smile thinned, and he
leaned in to press a brief kiss to her lips. “It’ll be easier if
I’m alone with her. I won’t be long.”

Kate had two choices: dig
her heels in and look like an insecure child, or smile and go to
their room.

She left. But smiling was
beyond her.

* * * *

When Marc returned to the
room, Jen’s eyes were closed, although he doubted she was sleeping.
She opened her eyes as he directed the soldier to set the cot
against the wall and then told him to leave again. Marc leaned back
against the door and observed her. She was a handcuffed prisoner;
nonetheless, she managed to look as if she were a full-fledged
Mistress welcoming him into her lair.

Silence stretched between
them. A few years ago, when Marc had finally figured out she was
lying to him—betraying him and the humans they were working with—he
hadn’t known what to say, and the same silence had weighed on them
until she had fled the camp.

She finally broke the status
quo with a sigh. “It’s late, Marc. Get to it.”

“
Tell me one thing. Why did
you come to us? What do you
want
from us?”

Jen considered Marc. In her
cool gaze and the tilt of her head, he could almost see again the
woman he had known—the woman he had thought he knew, before he had
realized she was a traitor. The woman he would have followed into
battle anywhere, because he had been so sure that they shared the
same philosophy about helping humans like vampires had during the
age-old times of Pacts. And he
had
followed her, hadn’t he?
He had left Blake because she had asked him to, and spent months
trying to help close a breach while, unbeknownst to him, she
sabotaged every attempt.

“
From
you
, nothing,”
she said with a sigh. Marc wasn’t sure whether he saw real regret
in her eyes or if he was imagining things. “You can’t help me.
You’re lucky to still be alive, actually. Alive and
sane.”

Marc started to shake his
head, not understanding, but she was already continuing.

“
They’re after you, Marc.
They want you, either dead or working for them, they don’t care
which. They’ve wanted you since Louisiana. They blame you for that
first breach being closed and starting it all.”

“
For figuring out you’re a
traitor, you mean.”

Jen stilled, and this time
Marc was sure he could see regret in her, even detect it in her
scent: a faint, elusive, bittersweet smell that wafted from her.
When she said, “I told them about you. I wish I hadn’t,” he
believed her.

He inclined his head once,
but redirected her back to his initial question. “You still didn’t
tell me why you came here.”

She let out another, deeper
sigh. “Because I’m tired of being a…a traitor, as you say. Tired of
being their puppet. For a long time, I thought that I didn’t have a
choice, but maybe I do.”

Marc arched an eyebrow. “How
so?”

“
Your mage. He did
something to Blake. Something that stops the demons from being able
to localize him unless he’s within a hundred feet of a rip. They
wanted to use him to get to you, but they can’t. Simon blocked them
from finding me for now, but he said it won’t last. If he did the
same thing to me he did to Blake, all I’d have to do is stay clear
of anywhere where there’s fighting. And then I’d be
free.”

Marc observed her for a long
moment until she started to squirm under the intensity of his
gaze.

“
So it was
all
a
lie,” he finally said, the old anger coming back to the surface. “I
thought maybe you had believed in the Pacts at some point and had
lost your way. I wanted to think that. But you never gave a damn
about the fight, did you?”

Her posture changed. She sat
up in her chair, her back rigid and straight, and somehow managed
to look down at him while he was still standing over
her.

“
When I became a vampire,
there was no use for the Pacts,” she said, her words icy. “No
demons for us to fight. But our Sire taught us the old ways anyway.
We learned to respect human lives and—”

“
Respect human lives?” Marc
cut in, incredulous, with a bark of laughter. “How many people did
you lead straight into a trap? How many—”

“
Two hundred and
thirteen.”

Marc blinked twice, his
mouth falling open, though no sound came out.

“
And I remember every one
of them.” Her voice remained level, but her throat bobbed up and
down before she continued. “You think I liked doing it? I didn’t
have a choice. If I hadn’t followed orders, the demons would have
found me. They wouldn’t have killed me. That would have been too
easy. They’d have thrown me back into that cell.”

She finally broke down on
the last word and took in a shaky breath, closing her eyes tightly
for a few seconds.

“
You don’t understand what
it was like,” she said, her shoulders slumping little by little.
“No one can get it unless they’ve been there. I watched my Sire and
all her Childer die for this war, I lost two of my own Childer, and
I would have been proud to die the same way. But that prison…that
cell…”

She shook her head, and her
voice firmed again despite the tears he could see gleaming in her
eyes. “I lost everything I had fighting for the Pacts. I even lost
myself. So don’t you
dare
tell me I didn’t believe in any of
it.”

“
Then prove it,” Marc said,
his voice as cold as he could manage. “Prove you care about someone
other than yourself.”

Her eyes were sparkling when
she glared at him. “Prove it how?” she spat.

“
Help me go
back.”

He didn’t care whether
Daniel or his hierarchy approved, nor did he want Blake or Kate to
step into the demon dimension. He only knew that he had to do
something to help those twenty strangers—and try to make up for not
being able to help the one person that mattered.

“
Help me free the
prisoners.”

Chapter 12

After walking through the
city for what felt like an eternity, Blake finally returned to the
hotel two or three hours before the first light of day. He was
mentally exhausted. The fight earlier that night had tired his
body, but it was his mind that needed rest. The night had been full
of bumps, and he wanted two things: a shower and sleep. Maybe then
the screaming echoes in his head would start to calm down. Maybe
he’d be able to look at Marc again without wanting to hurt him. It
would be hard to sleep in the same bed, though.

That last point didn’t turn
out to be much of a problem. When he went back to their room, the
door was propped open with one of Kate’s shoes. They would need to
get key cards for each of them if they stayed there very long. He
pushed the door open without dislodging the shoe and stepped inside
warily. He expected to find both Kate and Marc, but only Kate was
there, sitting cross-legged on the bed and holding a pillow to her
chest. Her eyes were red as though she had been crying. Blake’s
insides twisted painfully.

“
Hey,” he said quietly as
he approached the bed. “You okay?”

Kate’s arms tightened a
little more around the pillow. “I was worried. Where were
you?”

Blake didn’t like the tiny
edge of reproach in her voice, but he understood it. He, too,
worried when he didn’t know where she was. He always had flashes of
her in a demon cell when it happened. He wondered if the same
thoughts plagued her.

“
I’m sorry. I just needed
some air.”

She held her hand out toward
him, inviting him to join her. “Are you feeling better?”

Blake’s fingers twitched at
his side. He wanted to ask where Marc was, but at the same time he
didn’t want to know; he didn’t want to care.

“
I’ll be better when Jen is
dust,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose Daniel saw reason and decided
to execute her?”

Kate winced, and he could
tell that she was trying to pick her words—and they weren’t going
to be the words he wanted to hear. He shook his head, stopping her
in her tracks.

“
Never mind. I don’t want
to think about her anymore.” He didn’t want to think, period. “I’m
going to take a quick shower before bed.”

He turned away and hadn’t
taken a step before Kate asked in a quiet, shaky voice that didn’t
resemble her, “Can I join you?”

Blake’s body stilled, but
his mind whirled too fast for thoughts to rise to the surface.
Instead, emotions rushed through him. Surprise that she would ask
for such a thing when she had been so cautious, probably wary of
asking for more than he was ready to give. Fear that it
was
too much and that he would lose his mind again. Anger that his fear
stopped him from being as close to the woman he loved as they both
wanted.

“
I…” he started, but didn’t
know how to continue.

Kate slipped out of bed and
came to him, slowly raising her hand to touch his shoulder. “Just a
shower,” she murmured. “It doesn’t have to be anything more. We’ve
done it before, remember?”

Blake looked at her hand on
his shoulder. His gaze followed her arm then slid up until he met
her eyes. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember showering with her,
and it must have showed in his expression because Kate swallowed
hard and pushed a crooked smile to her lips.