The Lola Chronicles (Book 2): A Day Without Dawn (14 page)

Back From the Dead

“Lola, I didn’t come here
to hurt you.” Spreading his hands apart and turning his palms towards me, Maximus stepped onto the bridge. “I came here to warn you.”

“You came here to warn me?” I snorted again. “I think you’re a little late. Now give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow your head off.” I knew I should have shot him then and there, but it was one thing to kill someone in the heat of the moment. It was something else entirely to stare into their eyes and make the cold, calculated decision to end their life.

Even if it was for the second time.

One corner of Maximus’ mouth lifted in a half grin that didn’t reach his eyes. Eyes that were watching me with all the intensity of a hawk. “Still the Lola I remember.”

“I’m counting to three,” I warned him. “One. Two. Th–”

“I know about the farmhouse.”

My initial surge of surprise was replaced immediately with disgust. “Of course you do. Why wouldn’t you? You’re one of them. A
drinker
.”

There was no flicker of reaction on Maximus’ face. “I also know you’re planning a rescue mission. I came here to warn you that it won’t work.”

Did he think I was an idiot?

“And why’s that? Oh, wait – I know. Because you brought me out here to kill me just like you killed Travis, is that it? Well?” I demanded when a muscle bulged in his jaw. “Am I close?”

“Not very. Lola, they know you’re coming.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No it isn’t. They have a leader. A leader stronger and older and far more dangerous than any drinker you’ve ever faced. He is waiting for you and your friends to attack so he can butcher every last one of you. It won’t be a rescue mission,” Maximus said flatly. “It will be a slaughter.”

My stomach twisted. Why was Maximus telling me this? What could he possibly gain? I wanted to believe him. Before he revealed himself for what he truly was I would have, without question. But things were different now.

“You’re lying.” 

“Am I?” he challenged. “If I was lying, why would I risk leaving you a note? Why would I even bother telling you all this in the first place? What would I possibly have to gain?”

“Because you wanted to lure me out into the woods and torture me to death?” I suggested.

Duh.

Anger flashed across his face in a dark rippling wave. “I would never hurt you.”

Refusing to acknowledge the tiny twinge in my heart that his words had caused I readjusted my grip on the gun to keep it level with his chest. My arm was starting to ache but there was no way I was lowering the gun and leaving myself defenseless. Maximus could talk until he was blue in the face and I still wouldn’t believe him. He was a liar and a traitor and a murderer. Nothing he could say would change that.

“You already
have
hurt me,” I said through clenched teeth. 

“Because I lied to you. Lola, I–”

“
Because you killed Travis
!” My shout startled a pair of crows out of a nearby tree. They cawed down at us in disapproval as they flew away, the flapping of their black wings echoing in the tense silence that followed my outburst.

Maximus stared at me without blinking. I stared back, desperately trying to keep the conflicting emotions I was feeling from showing on my face. They were swirling around inside my head like a black storm cloud, growing bigger and more overwhelming with every passing second. Anger, fear, hatred…and hope. The teeniest, tiniest sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, Maximus was telling the truth. Except that would be the sort of happy ending you read about in fairy-tales and this wasn’t a fairy-tale.

It was a nightmare.

“Lola, I swear to you that I did not kill Travis.”

“Maximus, I
saw
you. I saw – I saw your silver fangs.” I swallowed hard, forcing saliva down a throat that had suddenly gone dry as dust. “And I saw the blood.”

Just thinking about all of that thick red blood pooling around the body of my best friend was enough to strengthen my reserve. Maximus wasn’t my ally. He wasn’t a hero in disguise. He was the villain, plain and simple.

“I know you saw me.” His eyes narrowed. “You shot me.”

“Evidently not well enough,” I snapped.   

“You forgot the golden rule, Lola. One in the heart.” He tapped his chest before pressing a finger against the side of his temple. “And one in the head.”

I opened my mouth to object, only to swallow the words back at the last possible second. I knew I’d shot him in the chest. I had watched him fall. Watched the blood spurt from the wound. Watched his eyes slowly dim. I had watched him
die
. Except he hadn’t died. Not really.

Because I had forgotten the goddamned double-tap.

“Fine. Whatever. I still know what you are, Maximus. You can drop the act. There’s no point in lying anymore.”

“What I am doesn’t change anything.”

“Are you
kidding
me?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It changes
everything
, Maximus. Everything. You’re one of them. A drinker. Which makes you the enemy. I never should have trusted you. I never should have…” My throat convulsed, trapping the rest of my ‘never should haves’ deep inside.

I never should have believed you. 

I never should have held your hand.

I never should have wished you would kiss me.

“I am not your enemy, Lola.” The bridge creaked beneath his weight as he took a step towards me. “I know why you think I am, but you did not see what you thought you did. I didn’t kill Travis.”

“Stop saying that!” I cried. My index finger trembled on the trigger. “You can say it a hundred times and it won’t make it true. Do you think I’m an idiot? I know what I saw Maximus, and it was you, covered in blood, standing over Travis’ body.”

His jaw tightened. “You’re right. I was covered in blood. And I did go to the basement to kill Travis.”

“So you admit it.” I should have been happy that I’d finally gotten a confession out of him. Instead I felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of sorrow.

“I’m Lola.” I didn’t offer my last name and Maximus didn’t ask for it.

“Sorrows,” he said instead.

I blinked at him in confusion, certain I’d misheard. “What?”

“That’s what the name Lola means. Sorrows.” Those stormy gray eyes studied me intently. “Are you sad, Lola?”

Was I sad that the boy I’d been falling for had just admitted to murdering my best friend in cold blood?

Yeah.

You could say I was sad.

I didn’t
want
Maximus to be the bad guy. I didn’t want to hate him. I didn’t want to be standing here with a gun in between us while I tried to gather the courage to pull the trigger.

But since when had I ever gotten what I wanted?

“I admit that was my intention,” he said quietly, his gray eyes intent on mine. “But I did not kill him.”

A frustrated hiss of breath escaped between my teeth. Why couldn’t he give me this? After everything he’d taken, why couldn’t he give me one small piece of satisfaction and finally tell me the truth? “You’re a real asshole, you know that? A real freakin’ asshole.”

His stony expression didn’t waver. “I did not kill him because he was already dead. I was trying to get to him before the process began, but I was too late.”

“The process?” I repeated. “What process? What the hell are you talking about?”

Maximus’ sigh was heavy. “I don’t know when he was bitten. I suspect early on. I should have seen the symptoms sooner, but I was…distracted.” His mouth curved in a faint smile as his gaze fell and then lifted. “By the time I got to the hotel basement it was too late. He was already turned.”

Bitten? Turned? My forehead creased in confusion. Nothing Maximus was saying made any sense. It almost sounded like he was trying to say that Travis was a–

“There was nothing I could do. I’m sorry.” His eyes flashed with regret even as a muscle pulsed high in his cheek. “I hoped he wouldn’t survive the resurrection. It would have been better – kinder – if he didn’t. But he’s strong. Stronger than even I could have anticipated.” 

The gun trembled in my hand as it all clicked together. What Maximus was trying to say.

And what he wasn’t.

“No,” I whispered. “You’re wrong. Do you hear me? You’re wrong and you’re sick and I don’t believe you.
I don’t believe you
.”

“I know this must be hard–” he began.

“Hard?
Hard
? Try impossible. Travis is not a
drinker
.” I spat the word out like it was a dirty curse which for me it was. Especially when I used it in the same sentence as my dead best friend. Travis as a drinker made about as much sense as Travis as a circus performer or an astronaut or a guy who could speak in complete sentences when talking to a girl. “I don’t know what kind of twisted game you’re trying to play this time, but it’s not going to work. Now back the hell up!” Sunlight reflected dimly off the barrel of the gun as I waved it in the air, reminding me of what precious little time I had left before the darkness came and the hunter became the hunted.

“Are you going to shoot me again, Lola?” Maximus asked in a soft, soft voice that prickled the tiny black hairs hairs on the nape of my neck. Instead of stepping off the bridge he stepped further onto it and every muscle in my body tightened as adrenaline poured through my veins.

“Stop,” I warned. “I’m not kidding, Maximus.”

“I don’t think you will.” His gray eyes steady on mine, he took another step. “Not again.”

Wouldn’t I? I might have fallen for the bad boy once, but I wasn’t about to make the same mistake again.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, I blow your damn head off.

I might have still felt a connection to Maximus, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do what needed to be done. It would have been nice to be able to turn my feelings on and off like a light switch but the heart didn’t work like that. Well, unless you were a serial killer. It was because of my lingering feelings that I hadn’t pulled the trigger already. But when it came down to it – when it came down to me or him – I was going to choose me every single time.

No questions asked.

“Turn around,” I said evenly. “Turn around and walk away and I’ll forget this ever happened.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Lola.”

“Why?” Frustration raised my voice an entire octave. Maximus was more than halfway across the bridge now. I had seen how fast drinkers could move. One leap and his hands would be wrapped around my throat. One mistake and I was as good as dead.

“Why?” he echoed. “Because the only way I’m leaving you is if you put a bullet in my heart and another in my head.”

“You don’t think I’ll do it?”

“No. I don’t think you can.” He took another step.

“Then you really don’t know what I’m capable of.” For the second time I closed my eyes and I pulled the trigger.

Maximus

The bullet went high and
to the right, just like I’d intended. But it was still close enough to cause Maximus to flinch and duck into a crouching position, fingers splaying across the bridge. When he stood back up there was a hint of temper in his stormy, tumultuous gaze that hadn’t been there before.

“You could have shot me,” he growled.

“Trust me, if I wanted to shoot you I would have.” Lowering my arm – but still keeping my hand wrapped firmly around the grip – I rolled my shoulder to ease the ache in my muscles as the knot of tension in my stomach slowly began to unravel.

I knew I was gambling with my life and the odds were definitely
not
in my favor, but if there was a chance – no matter how small – that what Maximus had said about Travis being a drinker was actually true then I needed to see it for myself. It was the only way I would be able to believe him. The only way I could start to trust him again.

Yes, Maximus had lied about what and who he was. But if he really wanted to kill me he’d already had a thousand opportunities to do it. Instead he’d risked his own life again and again to protect mine, including killing one of his own kind to save me. I didn’t think he was innocent – I wasn’t that naïve – but maybe he wasn’t quite as guilty as I thought.

“I want you to take me to Travis.” 

Still sulking like the big baby that he was, Maximus crossed his arms. “No.”

“This isn’t up for negotiation. I still have three bullets left. That’s one more than I need to drop you.”

One dark eyebrow shot up. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yep.”

“I do not know why I would expect anything less from you.” He walked to the edge of the bridge and stopped on the last wooden plank, bicep muscles rippling beneath his black t-shirt as he braced his arms on the railings. I couldn’t help but sneak a peek. Now that I knew what he was I should have been repulsed by him, but apparently no one had gotten the ‘Maximus is a Drinker’ memo to my hormones yet. “Unfortunately – for you – I don’t respond well to threats. The answer is still no, Lola. It’s too dangerous.”

“Well that’s just too damn bad because the only way I am ever going to believe a word you’re saying is if I see Travis for myself. I
buried
him, Maximus.” Tears, as unexpected as they were unwanted, burned the corners of my eyes. With one hand on my gun and the other in a sling I was helpless to wipe them away. “How can he be a drinker when I buried him?”

“Lola I…” Jaw clenching, he averted his gaze. “I know this is difficult for you to understand.”

“Then help me!” I stomped my foot on the ground like an angry toddler. “Take me to Travis. After all the lies you told me, you owe me this much and–”

“Fine.”

“–I really don’t think it’s too much to ask for you to… What? What did you say?”

“I said fine.”

Well that was easy. A little
too
easy.

“You’ll really do it?” I said suspiciously. “You’ll take me to Travis?”

“No.”

“But–”

“He isn’t the Travis you remember. If I brought you to him he would kill you in an instant.” Maximus’ eyes darkened. “Or worse.”

“Travis would never hurt me,” I said confidently. Even
if
Maximus was telling me the truth and Travis really
had
been turned into a drinker there was no way he was a blood-thirsty monster. I mean, Travis? Red-haired, freckle-faced, bucktoothed
Travis
? Give me a break. The guy had cried when he’d run a frog over with his bike. “Bring me to him and you’ll see.”

“The only thing I will
see
are his fangs sinking into your neck. No. It’s out of the question.”

“Then how am I supposed to be believe you?”

“I will take you to his grave. His empty grave. That will have to suffice.”

“That won’t prove anything!” I waved my hand in the air, belatedly realized I was still holding my gun, and quickly stuck it back in its canvas holster before I did something stupid like shoot myself in the face. “He could have been dug up.”

“By whom? The drinkers would have no use for a dead body.” Maximus’ mouth thinned into a stubborn line I recognized all too well. “If you truly require evidence of his turning then I will take you to his grave, but that is all.”

If that was the best I was going to get…

“Tonight,” I said. “I want to go tonight.”

Maximus’ gaze went to the sky where the sun was making its final stand. In a few minutes it would be completely dark and I’d be stuck out in the middle of the woods with a drinker who may or may not have killed my best friend.

Let’s face it. Did you
really
think my decision making was going to improve this time around?

“Tomorrow morning at first light,” he countered. “It will be safer.”

“Either I go with you or I go by myself, but either way I’m going tonight. I have plans tomorrow morning.”

Maximus’ jaw clenched. “I told you that your attempt to rescue the prisoners in the farmhouse will fail. You will be going up against a drinker more powerful than any you’ve ever faced and you will suffer great casualties as a result.”

“How can you possibly know that? Oh wait,” I sneered. “Because you
are
a drinker.”

Faster than my weak human eyes could track Maximus leaped off the edge of the bridge and landed directly in front of me. His arm whipped out, fingers sinking into my flesh as he held my chin in his hand and forced my head up. Not hard enough to hurt, but definitely hard enough to let me know that if he wanted to cause me pain he could.

“You’re right.” Even though his voice was soft the angry flecks of silver burning in his eyes revealed he was anything but calm. “I am a drinker. A predator. A monster. And if I wanted I could crush your skull to dust. It wouldn’t be hard.” His grip tightened. “Just one squeeze and my face would be the last thing you ever saw.”

I trembled as all of my false bravado was stripped away beneath his dominant gaze. With my cocky attitude and my gun and my never-ending sarcasm I had grown accustomed to feeling in charge, but this was all it took to remind me that of the two of us Maximus would always be the strongest. I was like one of those antelopes on the Discovery Channel. So fast and sleek and clever. Until a lion came out of nowhere and ripped my stomach open.

“I - I get it, okay?” I hated that I stuttered, but what else was I supposed to do? A drinker literally had me by the throat. “You’re badass and I’m just an ordinary human. Message received.”

Something flickered in Maximus’ eyes before he abruptly released me and stepped back. “There is nothing ordinary about you, Lola. You are unique.”

Yeah, uniquely idiotic.

What the hell was I thinking? I should have shot him when I had the chance.

“I’m going back to the gym.” Without waiting for him to respond I turned around and started walking. After a few seconds he appeared beside me, his footsteps eerily silent despite the fallen leaves and overgrown brush.

“You can’t go to Travis’ grave tonight.”

I stared straight ahead. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘
stubborn female
’ before he reached out and closed his fingers around my wrist. Without breaking stride I tried to yank my arm out of his grasp, but I might as well have been trying to pull it out of concrete.

Stupid drinkers and their stupid super strength.

“If you insist on going tonight then I will accompany you. But only if you promise to call off the attack on the farmhouse tomorrow morning.”

“No way,” I said flatly.

Maximus gritted his teeth. “Lola…”

“My dad could be in there!” I stopped so suddenly that Maximus shot past me. Unfortunately he didn’t let go of my wrist and I stumbled straight into his chest as he whirled around.

For a split second the only thing my stunned brain could register was the hardness of his body pressed against mine before my instincts kicked in and I plowed my elbow straight into his gut.

“Stop manhandling me, asshole!”

He let go of my wrist with a sharp grunt. Satisfied that I’d managed to inflict at least a little bit of pain I resumed my determined march back to the gym. I half-expected Maximus to give up and go away, but I’d forgotten how persistent he could be.

“You are going to get yourself killed,” he said as he fell in step beside me. We’d almost reached the edge of the woods. The sun was all but gone and the moon had taken its place, casting silver shadows across the soccer fields. I’d been gone way longer than I should have been. Hunter was going to be
pissed
. I could hear him now, lecturing me on the stupidity of my actions and the danger I’d exposed everyone by rushing out into the woods by myself and blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. I was so sick and tired of people telling me what to do! The only person who had any right to boss me around was my dad and he was the only one who had never tried. Maybe if he had I wouldn’t be so reckless and prone to self-destructive behavior.

And if that wasn’t irony I didn’t know what was.

“What do you care?” I flung back over my shoulder. Evening dew clung to the bottom of my sneakers as I stomped across the middle of the soccer field.

“I care because finding you unconscious and bleeding in a dirty alley was not…pleasant for me. I do not wish to repeat the experience.”

“It was you?” Stunned, I slid to a stop on the slippery grass and spun around to face him. “You were the one who carried me back to the school and bandaged me up?”

Maximus inclined his chin ever-so-slightly. “Yes.”

“But…
why
?”

“Do you mean why you thought it would be a good idea to go up against a crawler by yourself? Or why you continue to put your life in danger? Or why you–”

I held up my hand, cutting him off. “Alright, alright. I get it. I take stupid risks. But I’m still alive, aren’t I? So I must be doing something right.” My eyebrows darted together. “And what’s a crawler? Is that what the drinker zombies are called?

Maximus’ brow lifted. “Drinker zombies?”

“That’s what I’m calling them. Catchy, right?”

“Call them whatever you like. It does not change the fact that even though they may seem slower, they are no less dangerous than a drinker. In some ways they are even more deadly as they can hunt during the daylight.”

Something clicked in my head. Something that should have clicked a long, long time ago.

“Like you,” I said slowly. “The sunlight doesn’t affect you like it does the other drinkers. Why not?”

“That is not important.”

“Why not?” I insisted. “If you want me to believe you about Travis you’re going to have to start answering some questions, Maximus. How can you go out during the day? And how can you retract your fangs? And why–”

“
I don’t know!
” His unexpected shout caused me to jump. Without another word he turned and stalked away into the darkness. Just when I was beginning to think he’d left for good he abruptly returned, nostrils flaring and chest heaving with the force of his ragged breaths. “I have always been different from the others. I do not know why and it is not something I wish to discuss.”

Clearly.

“But why–”

“Enough,” he growled. “We are not talking about me.”

“Fine.” I might not have known Maximus’ deepest, darkest secrets but I did know arguing with him would be nothing more than a waste of time. “Are you going with me to Travis’ grave tonight or not?”

A vein pulsed in his forehead. “No, and neither are you. It is far too dangerous.”

“And I repeat: what do you care?” Tossing hair out of my eyes I pinned my hand to my hip and glared up at him. Who did he think he was to tell me what to do? “I don’t know what we are Maximus, but we’re sure as hell not best buddies. I don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe me anything. So if you’re not going to help me you can just stay the hell out of my business and go back to being dead.”

Okay, so maybe I should have been a
little
more grateful seeing I’d just found out he’d saved my live for the fourth time. Not that I was keeping track. But if we were to have a relationship on Facebook it would definitely be listed as ‘It’s Complicated’.

Maximus may have saved my ass more times than I could count, but he’d also lied straight to my face and he still couldn’t give me a straight answer when I asked him a simple question. Even now he was hiding things behind those dark, mysterious gray eyes of his. Truths. Secrets. Answers to questions I didn’t even know to ask.

This time when I started walking again he didn’t follow me. By the time I reached the edge of the soccer field and looked back he was gone.