Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

I allowed myself to hope that there was a cure for me, and now I’m crashing back down. I have to do the right thing for the rest of the world. And a side effect of that is allowing myself to die.

Life sucks and then you die.

“Holy shit,” Carl says.

I can’t look at Jude. I don’t even want to go there right now, because of all the revelations that have happened in the past half hour. My world’s been turned upside down and I don’t know if it can be righted. Even Carl’s gaze has softened, the anger of his mother’s death diminished by my own impending fate.

I stumble to my feet. Jude gets up to follow me, but I fiercely shake my head at him.

“I need air,” I whisper. Actually I need a cigarette to stop the shake in my body. I’ve never felt so alone.

“Harker,” Hannah says after me. “Death is not the worst thing.”

“I don’t want this for Amelia,” I whisper.

“I know,” the vampire says sympathetically. “Trust me, I know. We’re all losing those we love.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?” I ask icily. “What do we do now?”

“We take it a step at a time.”

I snicker. “Like a diet?”

“No,” Hannah says, her lip twitching. “We go talk to that vampire that you brought here.”

“Reiko?” Carl asks.

“Yes, her,” she says with a nod. “We ask her what his next move is, and we go from there, one step at a time. What do you have to lose?”

Now my own emotional turmoil is conflicting within itself again. Jude saved her when I wanted to kill that bitch. Now, she may hold the key to our next move.

As our eyes meet, I can tell he’s thinking the same thing.

“Let me have a cigarette first,” I declare to the whole room. “If I have to talk to her, I want to be calm.”

Hannah nods. “There’s a smokers’ deck on the seventh floor.”

“On the same level of the gym? Seems like a contradiction.”

She snickers. “Seems we’re all full of contradictions, eh?”

I couldn’t contradict that.

Edie

“Uh, Edie? Can we talk?”

That’s a voice I didn’t expect to hear. I take one long drag of nicotine-courage before I turn around.

“Yeah, Carl?”

My cousin stands in the doorway leading out to the deck. His hands are stuffed in his jean pockets as the wind whips his Sublime shirt around his body. I know my cousin well enough to see that he’s nervous, as he keeps shifting to the balls of his feet, and he won’t look at me directly. He looks so young and I feel so paper thin right now.

“About Ma.”

I frown and lean against the railing, using it for more support than I’d like. “I know it’s never going to be enough, Carl, but I promise, I did everything I could, but she—”

“I know.”

Those two words catch me off guard. Carl lets out a breath of air and takes a spot next to me on the railing, facing the skyline. He looks out over Houston below, the city light glittering in his eyes. If I thought he looked young before, now I know for certain that he’s aged years in the past day. He has been through things that no eighteen-year-old ever should.

I know, because I’ve been through some of them myself.

“I don’t forgive you—not yet—but I know why you did it. It’s hard to separate the two. Ma being killed and you defending yourself. She was still my
Ma…”
His voice hitches in his throat.

“She was trying to protect you,” I say sympathetically.

He grimaces and angrily swipes at his eyes, trying to hide the tears that I clearly see reflected in his eyes. “Why didn’t she talk to us? Why didn’t she try something different?”

“People do crazy things for people they love. Even when her ghost attacked me in the parking lot, she did it because she was worried about you.”

Tears fill his eyes. “And I blasted her away. Showed her what kind of son I was.”

“You did what you thought was right at the time.”
I did too.

He hangs his head, and for the longest time I think he’s done talking to me, but then he says, quietly, “What’m I supposed to do now? I’m not a vampire hunter, not like you. I’m not a witch like…” He licks his lips unhappily, “…like Ma
was
. A little, but I’m just not good at anything. I’ll only drag you guys down.”

“You should be happy, Carl,” I tell him simply. “Your Ma would have wanted that.”

“And what would make me happy?”

“That’s not a question I can answer. You’ll have to figure that out yourself.”

He frowns, then combs a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I don’t know.”

“You’ll figure it out,” I tell him.

I reluctantly throw my cigarette on the ground and stomp it underfoot before putting my hand over his. He looks at me so forlornly that my heart breaks just a bit more for him.

“I hate feeling helpless,” he says.

“I know exactly what you mean.”

My comment surprised him. “You? But you have super strength and super powers. You’re
the Harker
, Edie. You’re basically a superhero.”

“A superhero isn’t shit if she can’t save the ones they love,” I admit. “I’ve watched my sister die in front of my eyes. My dad died of cancer and I couldn’t stop it. Even your ma. I couldn’t save her.”

His face crumples and the tears finally fall.

“Our entire lives, I always thought you were the lucky one,” he said, “because you got to be the Harker.”

“I’d consider anyone who’s normal to be the lucky one.”

“Normal.” He scoffs. “What does that even mean?”

I smirk. “Good question.”

We stay like that for a few minutes, Carl looking out at the skyscape, while I’m lost in my own thoughts, looking back at the gym and the building. How many more of these quiet moments will I have before I die? I can still feel the virus roiling in my blood, wreaking havoc on my system, killing me slowly.

I don’t have much time left, and I have a vampire to kill and another to figure out what to do with. Because a part of me is falling deeper in love with Jude, piece by piece. I love him. Even if his past had a lot of unsavory moments. He’s a different person now. I’ve told him that myself.

I just have to believe it.

“I guess we should get back inside. I’ve had my cigarette.” It didn’t help my jitters, but that’s probably all that I can do to calm them.

“Okay,” Carl agrees.

“Are we all right?” I ask him suddenly.

He blinks at me and chews on his bottom lip. The hesitation was to be expected, but it still stabs me in the chest. After a few agonizing heartbeats, he nods finally. “Yeah. We’ll be all right.”

I guess that’s all I have to go on for right now.

Jude

Too much is happening too quickly. I feel like I can’t keep up with it, and there’s no slowing down. Just a few hours ago, I didn’t have a past, and now I find out that I’m the twin of a very evil vampire, and that I once did very evil things myself.

Maybe I’m beyond redemption. Maybe I’m always supposed to be Alejandro.

We’re out in the main room of the Marrow, waiting for Edie to finish up her cigarette. Dean stands with his hands in his pockets, ill at ease. He hasn’t talked a whole lot since we arrived, and I want to pick his brain about what’s happening, except we don’t have a chance for me to talk to him alone. It’s not like we’re best friends or anything, but I want to know his role in this whole thing and how he got caught up with Hannah and the Marrow.

Did he know who I was this entire time? The thought sickens me. I could be talking to anyone who knew me before, and they could use my past against me.

“All right, I’m back.”

I look around Dean to see Edie coming back from her cigarette break. Her coloring looks less green than it did before, so it must have helped a little bit, even though I know that it’s not the healthiest of habits. If she survives this, she’ll have to stop.

If…

“Hey,” I say, unsure of what else there is
to
say. I’m trying to give her space at the moment for her to digest the revelations of my past. I’m sure it’s as confusing for her as it is for me. “Ready?”

Her lips pull up into a sad smile. “Yeah.”

“I’m not,” Carl grumbles.

I don’t know what they talked about on the balcony, but he’s at least looking in Edie’s direction now. I consider that progress. I think the incident with Reiko really freaked him out earlier. Edie told me that she has tried to protect him from the worst of vampire hunting, but I think having two fangs in his neck just confirmed that Carl is powerless against a lot of these monsters.

Monsters like me.

“Are you ready to talk to Reiko?”

We all turn our heads as Hannah appears next to us. Thankfully, I notice that she’s keeping her distance from me, as if she knows that being too close to me will set Edie on edge.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Edie answers quietly.

Hannah nods, and gestures for us to follow her.

As we walk, Edie’s fingers link up with mine and give me a quick squeeze. The touch surprises me, but I relish her skin against mine.

Stay with me
, I silently tell her as I give an answering squeeze.

Hannah leads us to a heavily-armored door at the opposite end of the floor. She nods to the vampires standing guard: the young one named Amy that took Reiko from Dean when we first arrived and a weathered, old man that I don’t recognize. They both step out of the way to give us access.

“An interrogation room?” I ask wryly.

“Where else would you keep her?” Amy snickers.

I don’t know what it is with vampires, but everyone seems to have an interrogation room or a holding cell of sorts. Zhi has one, and I know that Twin Fangs in Austin has one, along with a few other places. We can add the Marrow to that list now. Hell, maybe
I
had one when I was Alejandro.

Hannah nods to the older guard. “Open the door.”

He inputs a number in the keypad, blocking it from view. Like we’d want to go in here ever again after talking to Reiko.

The door slides open with a hiss, revealing Reiko sitting in the middle of the floor, ankles bound and hands chained behind her back. She seems placated for the moment, but I know from seeing her as a bouncer at the Hive that she hides her ferocity very well.

“She was a bit hard to get in here,” Amy says. She saunters up to the vampire on the floor and removes the gag from Reiko’s mouth. “Let’s see if she’ll talk.”

Her mouth unencumbered, Reiko spits for effect, but none of us flinch. She looks up at Edie, accusation in her eyes. “That was faster than I expected.”

The anger rises in me, but I stomp it down as Hannah speaks, taking control of the situation.

“What was faster?” Hannah asks.

Reiko regards her as a slow smile comes to her lips, her black teeth showing like some sort of dark sunrise. “My interrogation date. I figured you guys would try to…I don’t know,
starve
it out of me, or something.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Edie says. I cringe at the desperation in her words. We’re going to have to avoid putting all our own cards on the table while we try to pry this information from Reiko.

Reiko catches on and cocks her head up at the Harker. “Oh?” she teases. “That’s what sucks about being mortal, right? Running out of time.”

“Being immortal didn’t stop your sister from being killed,” Carl pipes up behind us, his voice shaky.

Fury passes over Reiko’s face like some sort of vicious answer. Her sister’s death is still fresh on her mind. It’s probably what Hannah felt after Esther died.

Hell, for all I know, maybe Anthony felt something similar when I disappeared.

“The Harker bitch killed my sister,” Reiko sneers. “And I’m going to kill you for that.”

To Edie’s credit, she holds her ground as she looks down at the vampire. “Tell us where Anthony is.”

“Bite me.” She explodes into a flurry of giggles. “You should have killed me when you had the chance, Jude. I’m going to get out of here and suck the Harker dry,” Reiko continues. “Not even leaving a drop for Anthony. He can have the young girl. What’s her name again?” She pretends to think for a moment and then widens her eyes as if the thought just came to her. “Ah yes.
Amelia.
”

Edie sucks in a deep breath, her cheeks flushing. As the Harker, I’m sure she endures a lot of threats from vampires, but probably never any directed at her niece.

“Struck a nerve, did I?” Reiko says, picking up on her distress. “Nerves don’t matter when you’re dead.”

“Where is Anthony?” Edie asks. Her cheeks hollow, showing that she’s grinding her teeth.

“You’re going to have to ask nicely,” Reiko says. “I’m just afraid these shackles are choking the memories out of me. Maybe
Jude
has shackles around his mind too. Would explain the memory loss, eh
Ale
?”

So she does know who I was. I wonder how long she’s known. Maybe she’s known for years and was keeping an eye on me. Fuck, now I’m paranoid about everything.

To my utter surprise, Amy walks up and backhands Reiko across the face. The chained up vampire coughs, spluttering up some blood, before she chuckles and clucks her tongue.

“Oh now we’re resorting to violence,” Reiko sighs. “I guess you’ll never get anything out me.”

Edie’s breath catches before Hannah puts a hand on her arm, lightly restraining her.

“So that’s your answer?” Hannah asks.

Reiko manages to shrug. “You’re going to kill me anyways. I’m prepared for that.”

“What about pain and torture?” Hannah asks. I get the feeling that she won’t resort to measures like those. At least I
think
so. My judgment in people seems to be off lately. Up until a few hours ago, I thought that Reiko was just another bouncer.

“You’re not going to do that to me,” Reiko challenges. “But yes, I’m prepared for it.” She grins. “Do your worst.”

She’s calling our bluff. And winning.

Hannah stills for a long pause before sighing. She flicks her eyes to Amy, who puts the gag back into Reiko’s mouth. The Japanese vampire, however, looks triumphant in her predicament.

Without saying anything, Hannah gestures for us to leave the room. Reiko stays very still, watching us go. When the door slides shut, Hannah lets out a long sigh and leans against the door.

“That could have gone better.”

“So what are we going to do with her?” Edie asks.

Hannah frowns, and her eyes flick to me for the briefest time. “We’ll keep trying. I have the feeling that there’s something she can tell us. There’s a reason why Ale kept her alive.”

She’s giving me too much credit. It’s not that I willingly kept her alive, it’s because I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. I doubted she would ever speak, and her demeanor right now only confirms that.

“I’m tired,” Edie finally says. “Is there a place for us to sleep here?”

Hannah nods. “Of course,” she says. “There are a few places for you to stay for the day.”

“I need one.”

Hannah only smiles at Edie. “I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

***

“So
you’re
Alejandro? From the Spanish Inquisition?”

Zhi laughs, loudly. I grimace and pull the phone away, as the volume is way too loud for that. He sounds way too amused for how shitty I feel.

After questioning Reiko, I’m back in the privacy of Hannah’s office to get Zhi back up to speed with everything that has happened in the past few hours, including telling him my past.

“Oh man,” he continues. “That’s a trip. Do you realize what all you did as Alejandro? Whole towns disappeared wherever you went. You were fucking brutal, man. If I had known that when I first met you, I would have killed you on the spot.”

“Wonderful,” I agree sarcastically.

I still don’t remember any of it, except for that name resonating within my mind. It’s like we’re talking about someone completely separate from myself.

That couldn’t have been me. That just couldn’t.

“How did the Harker take that?”

“Not well.”

Everything came all at once, too terrible and too all-consuming for any of us to process. The confirmation that Anthony not only sired me, but he’s my twin brother.

I feel like the biggest sack of shit. Ever.

And then the revelation about the Progenitor. Actually, I haven’t even told Zhi that yet.

“Do you still have the old man under lockdown?” I ask.

There’s a pause on the other end. “Yeah,” Zhi says suspiciously. And I get why he’s being suspicious. None of us are to know where the Progenitor is. Especially if I’m Anthony’s
brother
, then my own alliances may seem to be shady to anyone.

I press a palm to my temples and sigh. “Bad news about him.”

“What?”

“Esther was his last direct child.”

“So that means…?”

“It means that there’s no one to take his place.”

I hear dead silence on his end as Zhi takes this in. “But he could…”

“Apparently, if he turns a human into a vampire and then they descend into the Progenitor, it’s too big of a risk.”

“A bigger risk than Anthony becoming the Progenitor?”

“I guess. I don’t know.”

It still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Other than the fact that it sounds like there’s no way for Edie to be cured and have what she deserves: a happy ending. Whether or not that’s with me is beside the point. She deserves so much more than the cards she’s been dealt in her life.

“Surely.” Zhi says. “Surely there’s something else.”

“I don’t know.”

“So what do we do then?”

I clench the hand holding the cell phone, not enough to break it, but enough for me to wonder if my Otterbox case will hold up to my strength. “We kill Anthony.”
My brother.

“Heh.” Zhi doesn’t sound too enthusiastic at that idea. For good reason too, because Anthony nearly killed all of us only last night. He’s not going to go down without a fight.

Neither will I.

“What about the Harker then?” Zhi asks.

My reply dies in my throat. I can’t even say it.

Zhi understands though. “I-- I’m so sorry man. I know how you feel about her.”

It’s funny. A few days ago, he was willing to kill me on the spot. He didn’t trust me, and now, it sounds like we’re bonding over girls and broken hearts. Except it’s just one girl. And it’s my broken heart.

Being through a lot in a short amount of time tends to bring people together.

When I speak, I sound strangled. “We have to make sure that there’s a good chance for her niece to reach adulthood as the Harker, and have enough descendants for the Progenitor to finally find someone else worthy of being the Progenitor.”

“And what about you?”

I don’t answer. The honorable thing would be to swear fealty to Edie’s niece and protect her into adulthood. Join the Marrow again and watch the world from the underground, alongside Hannah, to make sure that the vampires are under control.

But I don’t want to think of a world without Edie. If she dies, I know I’m not far behind her. I remember the fifty years I had before her, and I’ve never felt as alive as I do when I’m with her.

She makes me Jude. A good vampire. A better man.

A man that loves her.

I swallow self-consciously. “We’ll just see,” I say simply.