Evolution (14 page)

Something screamed, loud and shrill, so loud it hurt my ears. My eyes wouldn’t open. I heard a terrible hiss, like an angry cat, followed by the sound of feet pattering past me to the window. A scuffle of scratching and banging. Then silence blanketed the room.

A prickly tongue licked my face. Sight came back to my eyes, everything else still hurt, yet almost felt detached. The dark mass was gone. Mikka crouched between me and the window, glancing back a few times as if to make sure whatever had been here was gone. I wanted to hug her and thank her.

Keys jingled in the door somewhere close. I knew the weight of Kerstrande’s step when he slid inside the apartment, slipped off his shoes, and hung his coat. So organized. I was the chaos in his life. Unnoted music yet to be set to a page, still so insanely connected to him, I might as well have been Van Gogh sending an ear to a lover. Mad.

“Genesis?” he called. I loved how he said my name. A soft touch, good pronunciation, gentle ending. “I bought groceries. Have you eaten?” His voice came from the kitchen. He paused near the doorway to the bedroom. “Genesis?”

His jeans hugged his hips. A fitted red sweater wrapped his broad shoulders, flushing out the highlights in his hair, which fell haphazardly around his pretty eyes. He was so beautiful. Tonight he stood shadowless, normal, and so utterly perfect I felt inadequate. Maybe it was right to die here on the floor. He had to be an angel, and I, the devil sent to spin his world into destruction.

Finally, his eyes dropped downward, he frowned and moved all at once, while I tried to remember ever seeing him smile. Maybe I didn’t have that kind of power over him. How awful did that make me?

He dropped to his knees beside me. “Genesis?” He paused, listening for a minute, then his eyes widened. “Shit, breathe!” He bent over me, tilted my head back and parted my lips, not for a kiss, but to force air into my aching lungs. Twice, three times, then he pressed on my chest in rapid succession. “Breathe, damn you!” He forced air back into me, and some of the pain eased, allowing me to suck in a breath.

He lifted me in his arms, encouraging me to keep breathing while he carried me to the living room and set me on the floor. Kerstrande’s expression became an odd mix of colors, light, and rainbows dancing, then finally starlight when unconsciousness took me again.

The world swung me back fast. He held me close, deep voice talking to someone. No—on the phone. It was unlike him to touch me like this. Where was my snarky lover? His lips pressed to my forehead, feeling hot enough to burn. “Stay awake for me, Genesis, please. Something’s wrong with you, but the ambulance is on the way.”

“Hai,” I mumbled absently.

His eyes became a kaleidoscope of color when I dragged my eyes open again. So pretty, like a dream of magic might be. Every time I tried to let sleep take me back, he shook me awake again. I was talking, but couldn’t remember what I said.

“You’re speaking in another language. I don’t understand what you’re saying, but stay with me until the ambulance comes, okay?”

“Gomen,” I mumbled. So tired. “Sorry.”

“Gomen means sorry? Okay. I’ve got that one. Teach me more.”

The pounding of the door made him jump. He hesitated leaving me to answer. The sweetness of that moment wasn’t lost on me. I just didn’t have enough energy to enjoy it. Mercifully, when his arms let me go, so did the rest of the world.

Chapter 14

Kerstrande

T
HE
clock over the nursing station ticked into the new day. I’d been sitting here forever. From the moment I’d found him lying on the bedroom floor, not breathing, heart not beating, everything had become a slow descent into madness.

His blond hair, so unnaturally stunning with those slanted violet eyes, haunted me with memories of running my fingers through it. He fought for his life behind some forbidden door, and all I could think about was how his hair felt. How I’d gone from simple uncomplicated guy to a crazy stalker, I didn’t know, but it must be the normal path for being with him. He made me want to lock him up a cage forever, just to protect him from the world. No one had that kind of innocence anymore, except he did.

I rose from the plastic seat and stretched, muscles straining and aching despite a feeding and some healing time. The last confrontation with my sire had not been a good one. He’d beaten me senseless for taking Genesis by force. At least he’d let me go in time to get back, before Gene awoke from the unnatural sleep that had taken him.

Selfish bastards, my sire and I.

The windowed area of intensive care kept germs from visitors, and kept me out. I didn’t fit the profile of family, even claiming to be his lover. All I could do was stare at him from a distance, hoping the repetitive blip-blip of the heart monitor would keep flickering in that monotonous pattern. A steady pattern was good, or so the nurse had been kind enough to point out when she passed. I’d watched that line of peaks fall flat twice. Doctors raced to revive him with machines and technology I’d never seen. The beat returned each time.

I watched them reinflate his lungs twice. His white blood cell count dropped more than two-thirds below healthy levels. Everyone from the orderlies to the doctors speculated as to what might have happened to him. His temperature had peaked at 103 degrees. Veins had burst, and one lung had nearly detached from his ribcage.

A minor concussion kept him almost completely unconscious. Yet he was healing faster than others. Body reknitting itself like the stuff of sci-fi novels. The doctors whispered things about antibodies, and cellular repair that made no sense to me. Science had never been my strong point. If his blood levels hadn’t already been low they would have sent off countless samples to their labs for testing.

Genesis looked frail, pale, and nearly lifeless. Certainly not the exuberant young man I’d come to crave over the past few weeks. My heart beat in tandem to his, slowing when his did, speeding up each time the doctors restarted it.

I was too attached.

Hadn’t planned it that way. In fact, nothing had gone as planned since the day I met him. He didn’t forget when I told him to, didn’t do what I commanded, even his wounds wouldn’t heal. Not like the rest. Each time I’d taken from him, he’d slept. Over the weekend I’d hacked into his medical files to search for a history of anemia or some less common illness. Nothing.

This was all my fault.

My feeding from him did this. He would be safe without me. Not on my sire’s radar. Not lying in some hospital bed fighting for life. All my fault.

This last time I couldn’t remember. Not the taste, the smell, or hardly any of the evening until I held him unconscious in my arms. Vague flashes of women cycled through my head. They’d been an attempt to satiate a hunger that only craved one thing now. Clarity hadn’t arrived until I had fed from him.

I truly was a monster.

The safety glass shattered, and a dull throb from my right hand snapped me out of the daze. The ICU window crumbled around my fist. Blood spurted from the broken veins, glass jutted from the flesh, mixing with the white of bared bone. This was the monster I truly was. Couldn’t he see it?

People moved around me, creating voices and pulsing hearts, bodies filled with blood. I yanked myself away, running for the door. Several tried to stop me. None succeeded. After all, the monsters always got away. Heading off into the night, with only the barest of pain in my body, most of it in my chest, all I felt was guilt.

Chapter 15

Genesis

S
OMEONE
stroked the back of my hand. Then a bright light shone into one eye, blinding me and forcing tears to squeeze out. Again to the other eye. I blinked away spots until the familiar brown hair, red highlights, blue eyes, and bright smile focused above me. Rob.

A man in a white coat moved away from us toward the door. “Don’t push him. He needs rest.”

Rob pulled up a chair beside me and leaned on the edge of the bed. “They took out most of the IVs and stuff earlier. You’ve been in and out for a couple of days, and you keep asking the same questions, so I don’t think you remember any of it.”

I’d lost more days? Where was Kerstrande?

Rob gripped my hand, massaging my palm. “That Cris guy is down in the cafeteria. Your mom left to get some rest about an hour ago.” He gave me a forced smile. “You should have said you weren’t feeling well at the studio. I’d have taken you home in a flash.”

My throat felt like burnt cotton. I glanced around the room. A mass of flowers bloomed from one wall some with balloons attached. Even with all the crazy bright colors, they didn’t make the room cheery.

“Mr. Tokie sent the orchids. They’re in planters, so you’ll have to take them home. Mr. Lewis sent the tulips, and Mr. Shuon sent the four dozen roses.” Rob rolled his eyes. “A little extreme, that one. None from me. Figured I’d take you to the next Yankees game and buy you all the chili-cheese dogs and nachos you can eat. Deal?”

I nodded.

“Thirsty?”

Again a nod.

Rob poured a glass of water from a pitcher beside the bed, then held it to my lips so I could sip. Once half the glass was gone, the nasty taste in my mouth lessened a little. “Better?”

“Thanks.” My voice sounded like sandpaper put to metal. Guess I wouldn’t be singing again anytime soon.

“Don’t look so worried. You’ll be fine. The doctors say you’re healing fast. If it weren’t for you cracking your skull when you fell, you’d have been out of here days ago.”

The fading of the day brought memories of that writhing mass beside Kerstrande’s bed. Would it follow me here? What would it do to me without Mikka to protect me again? “Don’t want to stay here.” Shadows already began to stretch across the room.

“Okay. Let me see if I can talk them into letting you go.” He disappeared through the door before I could reply.

Cris appeared before Rob returned. His relief, reflected in his aura, felt like the sun blooming over me. He looked so different without the eyeliner and big hair. More boy-next-door, but still hot. “You look like shit,” he teased.

I flipped him the finger, which just made him laugh. He yanked a bag off the floor near his feet and began pulling out clothes, stuff I usually only wore when I went to my mom’s or my grandfather’s temple. The clothes made my mixed blood stand out, my almond-edged eyes and pale skin, but the taste of home would be welcome. A visit to the temple could help me recharge, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make the nearly two-hour drive north.

“You need to take better care of yourself.” Cris sat on the edge of the bed while I struggled out of it to pull on something that didn’t bare my ass to everyone.

“Something attacked me, Cris. Something not from this world.” I knew he’d understand.

He appeared to be thinking for a while but helped me tug on my clothes and button everything in place. “There’s a lot of not-nice things in the world, Gene. Many are attracted to your power.”

“The whole dead people thing? They can have that.”

Cris stifled a laugh. “That is part of you. Would you be who you are now without that power?” He brushed the hair out of my face. I’d so need to dye it again. “That
curse
, as you put it, is what makes you care so much about everyone else. We all question what happens when we die. You actually know.”

“Not really. Just the violent ones stay, and I don’t know what happens when they move on.”

He nodded. “But it gives us hope for something more, right? Not just one big final stop.”

“I guess.” I kind of hoped the whole reincarnation thing was true and if I came back I’d come back as a happy house cat.

Rob opened the door. “You’re free. Just some papers to sign!”

R
OB
didn’t bring me home to Kerstrande’s place, or even to my mom’s. He drove me to his small apartment in Manhattan, a one-bedroom with a real bed in the bedroom and a futon in the living room. He acted fairly cold around Cris but lightened up when my friend left. We weren’t even to the door before I asked, “Where’s Kerstrande?”