Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (17 page)

Edie

I have never run faster. Despite the fact that I nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning only hours before, I pump everything I have into my legs to speed me towards my brother-in-law.

Hallways, stairs, elevators, and doors become blurs to me as I run through the hospital, heading towards the ER.

He can’t die! He’s Amelia’s father. He needs to be there for her, to see her grow up!

Jude keeps pace with me, although at one point, my slower pace must be too slow, because he bends down and scoops me in his arms, and quickens his pace up to vampire speed. There’s a shocked cry behind us as we move through the hospital at an unbelievable clip. I cling to Jude, letting him take care of the traveling.

Because once we get to the ER, I’m going to have to take care of the hard part.

Jude slows down as we get to the archway of the ER. There is a group of people waiting in chairs, a receptionist desk off to one side, an entrance, and people zipping all about as they work around the clock.

And there’s a police officer I don’t recognize waiting for us.

“You Edie Harker?” he asks, almost in surprise.

Jude sets me down and the sudden stop disorients me for a moment. I stand straighter, knowing that the next few minutes are going to be awful.

“Yes,” I say softly.

The office gives me a once-over and raises his eyebrows. “Captain Coolly wanted you back here, but I don’t think—”

“Just take me to see Graeme, goddammit!” I explode. The tension inside of me breaks, and all I want is to see my brother-in-law. Surely, there’s something I can do. He can’t die. He’s the only person Amelia has left, for fuck’s sake.

The officer doesn’t question or get angry about my outburst, which makes it all that much worse in my mind. Police officers don’t get spooked like this. Whatever is wrong with Graeme, it’s bad.

“This way, then.”

I follow him to the back of the ER. The doctors and nurses cast us wary glances, but they don’t say anything. I’m lost in my own head, dreading what I’m going to find when I see Graeme. My senses dull, and I tunnel in on the a curtained off area where I can tell there are a bunch of people shouting. Beside me, because he can sense or smell what’s happening behind the curtain, Jude stiffens and takes in a shuddering breath.

Graeme.

“Harker.” Captain Coolly steps out from behind the curtain. He looks even worse for wear now as he regards me with his beady little eyes.

“How is he?”

He blanches and turns back to the curtains. “He’s…” His voice trails off as he pulls aside part of the curtain, revealing just Graeme’s head and shoulders. The world goes dark around me and the air is sucked from my lungs as I look down at what was once my brother-in-law.

I’ve been around violence and death my entire life. I’ve witnessed it with my family before. But this is cruel beyond all comprehension. I stumble to the trash can and puke up everything I have left in my stomach. I heave over the basket, wondering if I’d ever want to keep anything in my stomach ever again.

I didn’t believe that Graeme was dying. Not really. After all, he was the one who always helped me with my own injuries, who got mad when I was late returning home from a hunt.

I can see into Graeme’s skull, as a good third of his head is missing, including his right eye. A doctor is busily trying to do something to fix it and stop the deluge of blood, but there’s no going back from something like that. I can tell that there’s far less blood than there should be.

How the fuck is he not already dead?

The rest of his face is battered and scraped, and there are multiple bite wounds all over his neck and face and probably the rest of his body. Vampires fed on him, not for sustenance, but to mark him as something less than human.

Right now, Graeme is a
thing
. And he’s dying a painful, gruesome death. I have to fight back and swallow my pyrokinesis, because my emotions are so out of control, I could kill everyone in this hospital right now.

“Sorry you have to see him like this,” Coolly says behind me, oblivious to the war raging inside me. I’m shaking from the effort it takes not to unleash it.

“How did you find him like this?” Jude demands. His voice cracks from disbelief.

“He was dropped off like this,” Coolly says. “In a bundle of bloody sheets.”

“By who?!”

Coolly bristles, which is at least a distraction from what’s left of Graeme on the bed. “We don’t know. Unmarked car. Masked assailants. The hospital staff had no idea. We’re trying to track the van now.”

Jude glares at him, but doesn’t say anything else. What else is there to say? We know who did it. We just don’t know where they are.

“Was a little girl with him?” I rasp.

Coolly shakes his head.

Amelia is still stuck with those fuckers. Did they make her watch her father being torn to pieces? I can only imagine the horror she would have witnessed. Her innocence dying along with her father.

She’s all right. She has to be all right. If there’s any justice in this world, she’s all right.

I lean into Jude, and hesitate before asking the question that I already know the answer to. “Can you turn him into a vampire?” I murmur so softly that the doctors can’t hear. “It’ll cure him and—”

Jude considers my question, which I appreciate before he shakes his head. “No,” he mutters. “Not without brain activity. Vampirism heals a lot of things, but that’s too far gone. They knew what they were doing when they did this.”

My bottom lip trembles. Maybe Graeme isn’t braindead. He’d have a long road to recovery, but surely he can recover and raise Amelia. Like he was always meant to. Amelia needs him, especially when I’m gone. The thought of my niece becoming a full-fledged orphan makes my throat close up.

I shut my eyes, hoping that this is just a bad dream.

No.

“Harker, there is one other thing you should see,” Coolly says, breaking through my thoughts.

I pry one eye open and look at him. “What?”

Coolly nods to a doctor, who, with shaking hands, pulls back the rest of the curtain to reveal Graeme’s naked body.

On his chest and stomach, someone took something sharp like a knife and carved words into his skin, deep enough to cut into his white ribs underneath. I can see the extent of how much the vampires fed on him, as these wounds aren’t actively bleeding. He doesn’t have enough blood left to bleed through them.

Again, how the fuck is he not already dead, and why are they trying to keep him alive and in this pain?

The sob gets stuck in my throat as I read the words inscribed onto his torso, in big, scrawled letters, almost too hard to read. Except they reverberate, loud in my ears.

HARKER CALL ZHANG

“
Fuck!
” Jude spits. He combs his hands through his hair, and turns away, pacing in a three-foot line. “FUCK!”

“Who is Zhang?” Coolly demands, as if this is a line of questioning for a confession.

It all sinks in.

My heart thuds in my ears as I pull out my phone and scroll to Zhi’s number. I have to take a steadying breath before I hit SEND.

Someone picks it up on the first ring.

“I’m surprised it took you that long to get to your brother-in-law’s side,” a familiar voice croons on the other end.

Anthony.
I don’t have the energy to say the three syllables of his name. Instead, I turn my tear-stained face to Jude, who stills as he can hear his brother’s voice on the phone.

“I would have thought you’d gotten my calling card a few minutes ago. Time is ticking by ever so quickly for Graeme now.”

“Why are you doing this?” I whimper. “How did you get Zhi’s phone?”

Anthony chuckles, his voice wrapping around me like a thorn bush. “Tell my brother to turn on his phone. I want to send him something. That way both lovers can see what I’m seeing.”

Jude is already pulling out his phone. He powers it on. The phone dings as a text message comes in to it. He freezes as his eyes widen and all color drains from his face.

“What?” I ask, dreading what I’ll see. Because I know
exactly
what I’ll see.

I tuck my phone into my shoulder and grab his from him. Jude doesn’t fight me. I turn the phone towards me and nearly drop it.

A picture was sent through with the text message. A lone light illuminates a dark space where I see Zhi and Maria are tied up in a corner. Except, Zhi’s throat is slashed and Maria has a stake driven through her chest. Her eyes are open while his are closed.

Dead.

They’re both dead.

“What’s happening?” I dimly hear Coolly ask. I ignore his question.

I can’t hide my cry of anguish from Anthony. He found them in San Antonio. And he slaughtered them like sheep.

“Ah yes,” Anthony says in his bored, satisfied voice. “Your babysitters have been let go. They fought valiantly though, you should be proud. Took out quite a few of my men, who will forever be remembered for their sacrifice.” All religious bullshit for the benefit of whoever is left. He says it all in the same bored tone. “And now I have to watch the Progenitor to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”

The phone beeps again and another picture comes through. This time, it’s a picture of the Progenitor cowering in the corner of the room. The old man looks dirty and wild, wearing a tattered white shirt with blood on it. The William Shatner lookalike seems terrified and small.

Anthony has the Progenitor.

“Turns out I didn’t need your niece after all, Harker,” Anthony continues. “You willingly handed me all the help I needed. And I don’t just mean your hand.”

At the mention of Amelia, I start sobbing. “Please let her go,” I cry. “Please. She’s just an innocent child!”

“Really, I should thank you for your service,” Anthony continues, ignoring my plea. “Which is why I want you to go into the Void. I want you to bear witness to the dawn of a new era.”

“The Void?” I repeat, feeling the exhaustion hit me.

“Edie,” Jude warns.

“Why would you want me to go into the Void?” I ask.

“Just do it,” Anthony says. “Be seeing you there. Don’t make me wait.”

The line goes dead. I set Jude’s phone down, face up so he can see the picture himself, and then I remove my own phone from the crook of my shoulder.

Jude casts his eyes down on the phone, understanding everything that’s happening. He looks up at me, the plea in his own eyes.

“I have to,” I whisper, although my voice has left me.

He starts shaking his head.

“What the fuck is going on?” Coolly says.

“I have to find a private room,” I tell him. “
Now.
It’s a matter of national security.” International security, even.

Coolly looks like he’s about to ask me more, but one glance at my face makes him understand the weight of the situation and he starts nodding wildly. “Okay, okay.” He turns back to the officers. “Can we get Miss Harker a private room,
now
?”

I take Graeme’s hand in mine and give it a quick squeeze, knowing that this may very well be the last time that I see my brother-in-law alive.

I’m so sorry,
I silently plead to him.
I’m so sorry that I couldn’t protect you.

Helpless. I am helpless.

Coolly’s voice echoes around me. “Let’s move, people!”

Jude

No.

This is not how this is supposed to happen. We were supposed to find Graeme and Amelia alive. We were supposed to protect the Progenitor. We were supposed to cure Edie’s sickness. We were supposed to save the world.

And we have failed everyone. Again.

I never thought it would get to this point.

Honestly.

Never.

Not in a million years.

Because we’re the good guys, right? And good guys always win. The megalomaniac never gets to celebrate.

I never realized how much I believed in fairy tales, until this moment, when I realize that they aren’t true. Even in my darkest days before I met Edie, I always held out hope. There is good in this world. Life may not be fair all the time, but it works out in the end.

Unless you’re Jude and Edie. The two most ill-fated lovers on the goddamn planet.

I follow Edie as she’s led to an empty office on the ground floor of the hospital, away from people in case something happens. She had requested it herself, which worries me. She’s quiet, almost shell-shocked by events. Her hazel gaze is a thousand-yard stare, and all I want to do is save her from the pain of life, give her that happily ever after she so desperately deserves.

I don’t like the captain one bit, as he seems all too eager to put her in harm’s way. Then again, as a normal human being, he has no idea what she’s about to do.

Anthony wants her to go into the Void. For what, I’m not sure, but we’ve been pawns in his scheme this entire time. No reason to believe that there’s not a trap for her there now.

“I need space” Edie says, pointing to the empty desk and table. Her voice is hoarse as if she’s been screaming. In her mind, she probably has.

Coolly nods to his two officers and they shove the furniture to the walls, opening up this small room as much as possible.

“Evacuate this wing of the hospital, too.”

“Is that it?” Coolly asks, exasperated at her demands.

Not catching the sarcasm in his voice, Edie nods once, then shakes her head. “I need privacy. I need you and everyone else out.”

What the hell does she think will happen?

The second the cops close the door, I grab her hand. “Don’t do this,” I tell her.

She looks down at our clasped hands and then up at me, her gaze soft. “Jude…”

I grab her and pull her to me, kissing her deep and hard, worshipping her lips like I’m praying to a higher power,
please, please, please don’t let this happen.

At first, she doesn’t yield to me, but then she melts into my kiss. Her mouth opens, accepting my tongue, and I explore it, knowing that this could be the last time I kiss her. The last time I can show her how much she means to me.

I think back over the past five months, all of that wasted time we could have spent together. Maybe she would have been happier before now. Maybe we should have made love before her scar spread too far. Maybe we could have saved Graeme, Zhi, and Maria, and changed how it all ends.

So many maybes, but this is how Fate decides to go.

“I love you,” I whisper to her.

She shivers as she searches my face. She’s resigned to her fate and my heart breaks for her.

No.

“I love you, too,” she says. “Whether you’re Jude, or Alejandro, or anyone else. You are my heart.”

I crumple before her. In the fifty years since waking up in a hospital not too different from this, I’ve never cried.

Now tears are streaming down my face. Some would view it as weakness, but it’s because there’s no hope left for me. Without her, I’m a shell of man, and even less as a vampire. She is my everything, and I can’t help but feel this is it.

As if sensing my thoughts, she kisses my lip piercing and then my forehead. “This is my destiny, Jude,” she whispers. “It always has been. I realize that now.”

“No, no it hasn’t.” She’s always told me that her sister was meant to be the Harker, followed by Amelia when she got older.

“You should get out while you still have the chance, Jude,” she says. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”

“What could happen?” I ask. My attempt to make her smile, in case it’s the last time I ever get to see that sight, fails miserably.

She strides to the middle of the room and takes a seat, wrapping her arm about her knees. She looks gaunt, small, and frightened, and her black and red hair is stringy and lifeless.

“I’m so tired, Jude,” she sighs. “Just so very tired. If something were to happen to me in the Void, I don’t know if I’d be able to keep myself from exploding here. I freeze and get so cold while I’m there, so it has an effect on my physical body. I almost went nuclear when I saw Graeme just now. I think I’ll explode if…
if…
”

“You’re not going to die,” I tell her, although there’s no conviction in my voice. It just sounds hollow, even to myself. I take a spot in front of her and take her hand in both of mine. “Take me with you.”

That snaps her out of her resignation. She looks at me, astonished and a little scared for me. “What?”

“Take me with you to the Void. I’ll protect you with everything I have.”

“No, Jude, I—I
can’t.
” She licks her lips, trying to find any sort of excuse to keep me from going with her. “I don’t even know if that’s
possible
.”

“That night in Dallas with the Progenitor and Esther—they took you to the Void, didn’t they? To show you what’s at stake?” I’ve suspected it for a while now, about something so awful, Edie wouldn’t tell us about it. But the look in her eyes confirms it. “They were able to bring you there. So take me with you. I’ll be your backup.”

“I don’t know how,” she says. “And I don’t know if Anthony wants that to happen.”

I kiss her hand again. “I’m his brother,” I say. “Of course he’ll want to see me.”