Bring Me to Life (13 page)

“Now, damn it!”

She winced and snapped her eyes shut, making sure to hold the image of his angry face as she clung to him. The world suddenly felt like a spinning carnival ride. Her insides sloshed, and she was sure she was going to be sick, but they hadn’t moved when Vincent let her go.

“Vincent!”

“Open your eyes,” he murmured in softer tones.

Bryna hesitated for a moment, and then opened her eyes. She blinked a few times and then turned in a circle, trying to get her bearings. They were in the center of an open stone structure in what appeared to be a tropical paradise. Sheer white fabric flowed in a light breeze, and a large bed sat in the middle. “Where are we?”

“Home,” Vincent said. “Or, at least where I stay when I’m not working.”

“Why are we here?” She turned to face him.

He rubbed at the back of his neck. He gave one of those cocky grins he always had when he was doing something that would get him in trouble. “I need time with you that isn’t about the end of the world.”

Bryna opened her mouth to object, and then closed it. He wanted to say goodbye. Not wanting to give it to him didn’t change the facts. He could not stay with her when her life was saved. She did need to do this with him, no matter how much it hurt, or how much she wanted him to go back and save him. Her lower jaw trembled. “What about the howlers?”

“They can’t follow us here.” He moved in front of her. The back of his knuckles skimmed down the side of her face. “Felix will have a fit if he knew I brought you here, but I need…time.”

Time was the one thing they could never have again. “How angry is this Felix going to be if he finds me here?”

Vincent let out a breath and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. The worst he’ll do is send me for a judgment. Then my ass will be sent right back here because I’m too good at my job for him to allow me to be sent to Hell.”

He was the Wraith. Bryna pulled up the lore she knew of him. He was the terror who hunted and slaughtered vampires—demons trapped in human flesh and bound to human souls. True, it wasn’t the same as being a demon hunter, but…how many times had he saved the world only to return to this beautiful and lonely place? “This can’t be good for either of us.”

Vincent linked his hands with hers and started backing toward the bed. “Maybe not, but we need a chance to end this right, or as right as we can. We might not get another opportunity.” He sat when the back of his legs hit the mattress. His dark gaze fixed on hers. “I’ve missed you so much.”

She moved between his legs, her eyes closing against the pain welling in her chest. “How can you say that? We don’t even know each other anymore.”

He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

She opened her eyes.

He traced a finger along her jawline. “You’ve always been beautiful and strong. You held on, long after I abandoned you.”

She climbed onto his lap, straddling over him. “You died. Not exactly the same thing. I don’t even know how to process that you’re the biggest vampire-slaying badass out there.”

A half-smile curved his mouth. “I think it’s a side gig until Felix unleashes me on the demon population.”

She dropped her head onto his chest. “I don’t want you fighting them, not if they can send you somewhere I can’t follow.”

He lifted her chin. His dark eyes burning with intensity. “If you live, we don’t know what happens after. Caleb talks like we are married in some reality, and I don’t understand it. This can’t be it, but if it is, I need this moment in time with you.”

Could dead people get married? If time walkers moved through time, then…did she and Vincent somehow get married after life? It didn’t explain why she’d learn how to bake cookies if dead people didn’t need food. “Then maybe we should be less worried about keeping me alive, and more worried about this demon-Oblivion problem I seem to have.”

*

Vincent wanted it to be that easy, but he was supposed to keep her alive, or, he interpreted his instructions that way. Never in all of his years as an active time walker had he ever been instructed to allow an innocent to die. There was no reason to believe Felix would let him break the rules now. No matter how much he wanted to go back and save himself, it wasn’t allowed. Hell was not a good place to go when Bryna needed him and all the skills he’d gained over the last two hundred years hunting vampires. It was a lame response, but he didn’t have a better one. “You deserve a good life. You can’t have that if you die.”

She looked up at him with those soulful green eyes. “Let’s find a different topic. I’m not sure I can be saved at this point.”

His chest constricted. “Don’t say things like that.” He banded his arms around her. This wasn’t going to make anything easier, but he didn’t want to let her go. If anything, the last day proved to him what he’d known about Bryna in life hadn’t changed much, despite her best efforts to end her existence. She loved with her whole self, and she would do anything to help a person in need. She accepted her fate without anger or bitterness. In her eyes, her life was over and there was no reason to fight it. If only he could find the strength needed to accept things as they were—but he had to try. He had to find some way to show her life was worth living.

She touched the side of his face. “Maybe this isn’t goodbye, and the start of something new, just different.” Her hands stroked down his shirt-covered chest. “What did Felix say you needed to protect me from?”

“He wasn’t specific,” Vincent said. He captured her hands so she wouldn’t distract him. “But he was adamant that I had to save you.”

“Maybe we should ask him.” Her head tilted back and her lashes fluttered as she looked at him. “You’re dead. Caleb implied we are together in some other future. That only happens if I am also dead.”

This was a bad topic. If he asked Felix and Bryna’s suppositions were correct, it meant he’d have to stand by and do nothing while a vampire killed her. He wasn’t strong enough to do it. “You said you help people. Why don’t you tell me about that?”

“Andy, who is just a friend”—she bit her lip and canted her head to the side—“does the demon hunting thing, and he helps me when I’ve attracted one, or a group of vampires. They always seem to find me and want me to join their cause of taking over humanity. Sometimes it’s more than he can handle alone, and since I can pulse, he kind of uses that to his advantage.”

He wasn’t sure he liked this Andy, but he’d deal with it. “And the elderly in your apartment building? Do you help anyone else like that—or in a way that isn’t going to make my head hurt?”

She shrugged. “I do a helpline call center to talk trouble youths out of making the same mistakes I’ve made.”

He fell silent. What did he say after he believed the worst of her for so long, only to find out she’d managed to stay true to her core no matter how she punished herself for a crime she hadn’t committed. If he wasn’t already in love with her, he would fall for her all over again. She strived for a better future for others, even when she didn’t think she deserved one for herself.

“Vincent?”

He looked into her eyes. “Yes?”

“I wish I could give you the ending you want for this.” She let out a soft sigh. “I just don’t think it’s death Felix wants you to save me from. Caleb was pretty clear. We are together at some point in the future, and for that to happen, I need to die.”

“No. Don’t talk like that,” he said through gritted teeth. She had to live. If there was only one thing he could do right for her, it had to be helping her find the desire to live the kind of life she deserved to have.

She shook her head and touched the tips of two fingers to his lips. “I’m not afraid to die, not anymore, not when I know you are waiting for me on the other side. Maybe it’s not a glorious sacrifice on my part because I want it, but if it saves humanity from that demon always pulling me into Oblivion…” She shrugged. “I die without having a happy life. There are worse things.”

His heart hurt. There was nothing more he wanted than to be with Bryna, in life or in death, but it was better for her if she lived. If she survived and got over him and found someone else to make her happy and give her everything in life he’d never gotten to have. He stood up with her in his arms, and then he set her on the floor. It was time to take her to meet the others. He hoped seeing the reality of her death would help change her mind. “It’s time to go.” He wrapped his arm around her. “Concentrate on staying with me.” Then he closed his eyes and envisioned where they needed to be.

This time Bryna was prepared when her insides felt like they were sloshing as they moved through time. When her insides settled, she opened one eye. And then another. Whoa, she wasn’t anywhere close to home. It looked like the city she lived in, but it wasn’t. All the buildings were crumbling. Garbage littered the streets. There was the stench of death and decay wafting in the breeze. It was some foreign dark landscape she had no idea how to comprehend. People scurried around like frightened rats. Fires burned in anonymous places in hollowed-out areas. “Where are we?”

“Welcome to the future,” Vincent said.

She glanced up at him quickly. There was no humor in him.

Her lower jaw started to tremble. “How far into the future?”

He looked at his watch. “About fifty years.”

She whimpered and moved in closer to him. “But this can’t be right. The world wasn’t this bad in my time.”

He ran his hand down her back and started her down the long dark street to wherever they were going. “This is what happens after the apocalypse. I guess we haven’t figured out how to save you yet.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” And she regretted the words as soon as she said them.

Vincent’s hand found hers and went so tight she was pretty sure she could feel bones grinding against each other. “Bryna, we talked about this.”

“But you’re still dead.”

“This is what happens because of your misplaced need for death.”

She jerked her hand out of his. “Yeah, I get that, Vincent, but I am supposed to be with you.” It was something she knew in her bones. From that very first moment in the school cafeteria, she’d known her place in the world was with Vincent. Then she’d killed him, and everything she knew went to shit. On a level, she knew she hadn’t pulled the trigger, or in her case, created the pulse, but he was still dead. When her life was saved, they would no longer be together. It wasn’t fair, but more than that, she didn’t see any way out of this stark future without him.

He made that growling sound and dragged a hand through his thick mane of jet-black hair. “Yeah, got that memo, too, babe, but that can’t happen anymore. I didn’t mean to die on you, but this is what we have to deal with.” He led her to a side street, and then they went into a dilapidated building. He moved her up against the wall as they started up a crumbling staircase.

“Where are we going?” she asked, but before he could answer she rounded on him. “No. I get to live with your death. You don’t have to. You can jump around in time and come and see me whenever you find it convenient. You get to recklessly risk your existence any way you damn well please because you’re allowed to be dead. I was happy with you! I didn’t care what the future held because I knew that as long as we were together, it would be all right. But it’s not all right. You’re not here.”

*

The ache in Vincent’s chest grew. He wasn’t going to point out Felix would have a fit if he just dropped in on his living girlfriend on a whim, because he figured she was probably right. Now that he knew how much she loved him, he wasn’t sure he had it in him to be noble and leave her the hell alone so she could find some semblance of a real life again.

He turned her around and propelled her up the steps. “I’m right behind you. Get your ass up those stairs before I make you.”

“And what, exactly are you going to do?” She moved up the two steps he’d made her move and then rounded on him again. Her hands planted on her hips. She seemed fully prepared to see how much Vincent might have changed since he’d been dead.

He leaned over so his face was right in hers. “I’ll toss you over my shoulder and haul your ass up there. There is a faction of humans in this time with awesome demon fighting ability. We’re going to see them.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I kind of like Caleb. I’ll be pissed off if your stubbornness gets him sent to Oblivion.”

*

“You’re a jerk,” she declared. It wasn’t fair of him to bring other people into their problems.

“Didn’t say I was anything different.” He didn’t bother to tell her again. He moved up the steps, putting his shoulder down and scooping her up onto it. He clamped his arm around her legs to keep her from falling—and from kicking him. “Now you can continue to upbraid me without slowing down progress.”

She knotted her fists. While she seriously considered pounding on his back, this staircase didn’t feel at all stable and knocking him off balance would be stupid. Then she scowled at his back as she bounced off him with each step he made. Since when did she care if a move was stupid enough to possibly cause her death?

“Damn idiot,” she muttered. It was all Vincent’s fault. How dare he come back for a week to try to save her life and actually make her do things she’d never have done before all because he said he wanted her to live. The nerve of him.

“Was that me or you?” he asked as they crested the landing.

“Both,” she snarled at him. “You’re an idiot for not trusting me, and I’m an idiot for letting what a dead guy thinks matter.”

He snorted at her as he headed down a dank, filthy hallway. “I’ll agree with the first one.”

Aww, how cute, he was trying to get himself out of trouble. “Put me down, you big brute!”

“Not yet,” he said smoothly. “I kind of like your ass where I can look at it easily.”

She huffed. That was so Vincent. How could a man be so different and yet so the same? “What are we doing here anyway? Are we worried the vampires are going to get me?”

“Supposedly, Draven is already dead here, so he won’t be able to kill you. I am hoping for some time to think before we go back.”