The Lair (10 page)

He just shook his head, hands still twisting on the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead. He was giving her nothing, showing her no emotion. Her breath caught in her chest. Because she suddenly, desperately, wanted to know what he’d been about to say.

“What?” she prodded.

He turned to look at her. He gave his head another little shake, his mouth turned down in self-disgust, his eyes hard.

“I care about you too much.”

“Too much?” she asked, and then wished she hadn’t. Nothing about this was going the way she’d hoped.

“When I thought you were hurt, I didn’t handle it well.” This time he said the words in a rush and seemed to have no trouble at all getting them out. “I wanted to kill that guy.”

“Armadale?”

“Yes. I beat the shit out of him. I nearly didn’t stop.”

“Well, you didn’t kill him. So, it’s all okay, right?”

“No, it’s not okay.” His voice was hard. “If I’m the leader of this rebellion, then I’m making decisions for everyone. Right now, my gut reaction is always to put you first. To protect you. And that’s not right. That’s not fair to everyone else. I can’t be the leader of the rebellion and be with you.”

Her heart slammed inside her ribs. Suddenly, she knew what was worse than getting shot: this. This was worse than being shot. Carter was breaking up with her.

“Look, I messed all of this up when we were leaving the Farm. I didn’t trust you when I should have. I wasn’t honest when I should have been. I lied to you. I tried to do the right thing over and over again, but everything I did ended up not being the right thing and—”

She interrupted him. “Carter, what happened at the Farm, with Mel, it wasn’t your fault. If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine.”

“No. It wasn’t. Think about it. If I’d been honest from the start. If I’d told you everything up front. About Sebastian. About how I felt about you. About my plan to get you out of there. Things would have been different. I wouldn’t have tranqed you and brought you to the Dean’s office. The Dean never would have seen you. He wouldn’t have come after you. He wouldn’t have grabbed Mel. Everything would have gone down differently.”

She wanted to argue with him, even though there was logic to his words. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been playing those same mind games herself. How often had she laid awake at night playing “what if”? Wondering what she might have done to prevent Mel from ending up dead in a parking lot with her begging a vampire to turn her.

It was something of an obsession of hers, so she didn’t know why it surprised her to find out that Carter felt the same way. Carter had an almost painful sense of responsibility; of course he was doing the same thing. Even though they’d never talked about it.

Funny how all this time had passed and Carter and she hadn’t really talked. Oh, they’d made it through their day-to-day lives. They functioned. They certainly functioned on a physical level. Whenever he held her body close to his, whenever he kissed her and made the world fall away, it was easy to lose herself. It was easy to pretend life was normal. This was the way it was supposed to be. That it was okay. That this huge thing hadn’t happened between them—her sister dying, Mel’s influence over them vanishing. Maybe they could both pretend when they touched. Maybe there were just some things that were too difficult to say aloud.

Or maybe she was a coward.

Either way, she had this sick feeling in her gut that had nothing to do with the shot Dawn had given her.

“I don’t blame you,” she told him. And she didn’t. She blamed herself.

His mouth twisted into an ironic smile. “That’s not my point. My point is, if I’d been more honest, maybe things would have shaken out differently. Six weeks from now, I don’t want to be having this same conversation with myself. I’m done keeping things from you because I’m trying to protect you.”

He paused like he was waiting for her to say something.

So she nodded, even though her gut told her she wouldn’t like where this was going. “Okay.”

“This isn’t working.”

That queasy feeling in her gut coalesced into dread. “Okay,” she repeated numbly, even though it was not okay.

“I don’t see how I can do this anymore. I can’t—” He broke off, turning away from her so she couldn’t read his expression at all. “Look, I know you expect me to be this great leader of the rebellion or something. But I can’t do that. I can’t be that guy and be your guy. I can’t do both. It’s not fair. Not to anyone. I’m fundamentally not okay sending you into dangerous situations.”

“Carter, I can take—”

“Don’t tell me you can take care of yourself. I know that.” He plowed his hand through his hair. “Jesus, you think I don’t know that? You handled yourself better than Jacks or Stu. You took care of it. I’m not saying you didn’t. You handled things a hell of a lot better than I did. That’s the problem. Don’t you get it?”

“No,” she answered honestly. Because she didn’t get what he was saying at all. “What’s the problem?”

“I fucked up.”

She wanted to disagree. He hadn’t messed up. He’d made a tough call in a tough situation. He’d done the best he could. No one would ask more than that.

“I will continue to eff up anytime you’re in danger. It’s that simple. You said it yourself. I effed up big time with Armadale. If his kid hadn’t been there . . .” Carter broke off, shaking his head. “When I saw that he’d shot you, I lost it. If his kid hadn’t been there, I might have beaten him senseless.”

“But his kid was there.”

“You think that makes me feel better?”

Her throat tightened. There were a hundred things she wanted to say but none of them were right. So she just sat there, swallowing her fear and her yearning, just like she swallowed the nausea churning in her stomach.

He must have realized she didn’t have an answer, because he stopped waiting for one. “That’s what kills me about this, Lily. Everybody expects me to be the leader of this rebellion, but I don’t have the head for it. When it comes to shit like this, I’m never going to make the right decision. When you’re in danger, I’m never going to be able to think rationally about whether or not the guy holding a gun on you is a potential ally. I’m never going to be able to stop and think it through.”

She turned to face him in the cab of the truck. “That’s only because you’re thinking about it wrong. You just haven’t gotten used to the idea that I’m not an
abductura
. You spent so long thinking that I was special. That I was important. More important than anyone else. You just haven’t adjusted yet to the idea that I’m not.”

He gave her a look hot enough to steam the windows in the cab. “Is that what you think? That you’re not important now? Just because you’re not an
abductura
?”

“I’m not important—at least, no more than anyone else. I’m just another Green.”

“You will
always
be important to me.”

“No, Carter, you just think that because—”

“Damn it, Lily, when are you going to get it? I care about
you
. Not because of what you can do for the rebellion. Not because of what Mel may or may not have made me feel. But because you’re
you
. Because I need
you
. Because you’re smart and you make me think about things I would never think about on my own. Like using Armadale to our advantage instead of beating the shit out of him. I never would have thought of that on my own.”

“On your own, you wouldn’t have been in that position in the first place.”

Even though he didn’t agree with her, she knew she was right.

She just didn’t know what to say about it, let alone what to do.

But no. She did know. There was an obvious solution. She just didn’t like it. “I think maybe we should break up.”

To her surprise, Carter tipped back his head and laughed. The sound was amused and pained and bitter. It made her ache and broke her heart all at the same time.

“You think that would do any good? You think some label is going to make me not care about you?”

Good point. She didn’t want him in danger any more than he wanted her in danger. That would never change.

She hated this feeling of helplessness. Hated knowing that she was bad for him. No matter what else he thought or said, the rebellion needed him. He was the only person everyone trusted enough to lead. And the simple truth was that she was in his way. She made his job harder. Her being here made everything worse.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Carter

We drove for a while in total silence. I stared mindlessly out the front window. Lily stared out the side window. I could tell from the way she toyed with the fabric of her hoodie’s sleeve that her arm was bugging her. She wouldn’t want me to notice, but I’d had plenty of wounds myself. With a close call like that, you were tempted to poke at it. To reassure yourself that it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.

Hell, it was all I could do not to demand she rip off the bandage and show me Dawn’s sutures. I had been in the room when Dawn had cleaned the wound and started stitching it up. Hell, I knew it wasn’t bad. But I wanted to see it. To assure myself.

But I didn’t touch her. I didn’t even talk to her.

What was left to say?

We might have driven all the way back to Base Camp in silence, except the satellite phone rang.

The sat phone ringing wasn’t anything to take lightly. Only a handful of people even had phones, let alone the number to this one. Sebastian had a phone. Base Camp had five others: two that stayed at camp, two that went out with teams that worked the Farms, and one that was used on food raids. The phones were a luxury item. No one would use one if it wasn’t an emergency.

When it started ringing, Lily just looked mutely at the duffle bag holding all the food-raid supplies—the sat phone included.

“Pick it up,” I told her.

She dug through the bag with her good arm, and found the phone only to stare at it for a second before fumbling to answer it. She pressed the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

The expression on her face as she listened said it all. Hell, the fact that anyone had called at all said it all.

I slowed the truck to a stop and set the brake, anxiety churning in my gut. Lily met my gaze as she handed me the phone. For just a second, she cradled my hand in hers.

“Tell me.” Hearing it from her would buy me at least a few seconds to process whatever happened before I had to talk to whoever was on the other end of the line.

Her eyes were wide with shock and fear made her voice tremble. “Base Camp was hit.”

“Gun-toting psychopaths?” I didn’t really believe that’s who it was, but at least if the attackers where human, Base Camp might have had a chance.

But Lily shook her head. “Ticks. They attacked an hour ago.”

“During the daylight?”

“It wasn’t a full pack. Just three.”

“Casualties?”

“Thirteen. Two Elites and eleven Greens. They were cooking lunch out in the yard. The Ticks got nearly everyone who—”

Lily broke off, squeezing her eyes closed. I took the phone from her, and braced myself to hear the rest from whoever was on the other end of the line. From whoever had lived to tell the tale.

I started driving again as I listened to Merc’s sit rep. Merc described the attack in terse, emotionless sentences.

Jesus, it had been a bloodbath.

I drove fast and hard to get back to Base Camp as quickly as I could. So that I could get there and assess the damage myself. So that if other Ticks attacked, I would friggin’ be there this time. And so that I wouldn’t have to be here in the truck with Lily any longer than necessary. Because I couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in her eyes any more than I could stand to hear her quiet tears.

**

Lily threw herself from the cab of the truck as soon as it stopped in the parking lot outside of Base Camp. I hadn’t even set the brake yet and she was already running for the cave.

She hadn’t said a word after the phone call, but I knew she’d want to get to McKenna as quickly as possible. She’d need to verify with her own eyes that the girl was okay. It didn’t have anything to do with needing to get as far away from me as possible. Probably.

Still, it took everything in me to let her go.

Maybe she hated me right now. I could live with that. What I couldn’t live with was how many things had gone wrong today. I was still reeling from the sight of Lily being shot. And I couldn’t even begin to process the attack on Base Camp.

I climbed out of the cab more slowly than Lily.

I tucked the keys into my pocket and tried to tamp down my nausea as I surveyed the damage. When I’d left that morning, there had still been patches of snow and ice around the parking lot. Drifts of bright white near the tree line, piles of gray slush that softened during the day and refroze each night.

Now, there was blood everywhere. The bright splatter of red, hot enough to burn holes in the snow. The rivulets of pink, where the slush had melted and washed away carnage like a grisly river delta. The stench of blood and death and panic hung in the air, suffocating me.

Thirteen people. The loss was unthinkable. Unimaginable. This was the carnage of defeat. Of disaster. It smothered me.

Someone had covered the bodies with sheets, trying to mask the horror, but the result was ghastly. On TV when someone covers a corpse, the body is laid out like an Egyptian mummy. The shape beneath the cloth still looks human. Like someone tucked into bed with the sheets drawn up too high.

This looked nothing like that. Blood had seeped through the cloth, mimicking the appearance of the blood-splattered snow. The bodies beneath the sheets were twisted, broken, and misshapen. The bodies of the Ticks had been covered, also. They were set apart slightly—out of respect for the dead, I guess. But I would have recognized them anyway. There was nothing human about them, just a pile of hacked-up limbs. The survivors here hadn’t taken any chances that the Ticks might regenerate.

And they hadn’t yet thought far enough ahead to realize we would have to take that same precaution with the fallen on our side.