Blurred Memories (5 page)

“
Stop the car.”

Marc did so before turning
in his seat to look at Blake. Kate had awakened and she sat up,
yawning widely before she asked, “Are we there already?”

Blake didn’t answer. His
fingers scrambled over the door, trying desperately to work the
handle. At last he managed to get the door open and stumbled out
onto the asphalt. His stomach was heaving as though the blood he
had drunk earlier was trying to come back up. Stumbling to the side
of the road, he took big, gulping swallows of fresh air and tried
to chase away the smell of rotting flesh that seemed so fresh in
his mind.

He fell to his knees in the
grass, hands closing into fists over his thighs, and didn’t try to
stop the tears. They were long overdue.

Chapter 4

Several minutes passed
before the car doors opened behind Blake, and distantly he was
grateful they had given him a moment to himself. The footsteps on
the asphalt sounded far too loud, like the heartbeat he didn’t have
but that he could swear was thumping in his ears.

“
Stay in the car,” Marc
snapped.

For a second Blake thought
he meant Kate, but while a car door did slam shut, Kate soon
stepped around him and kneeled in the grass in front of
him.

He hated seeing her on her
knees.

Her expression was grim and
turned even more somber when she took a look at him. She started to
raise her hand toward Blake’s face, but he jerked back. Belatedly
realizing what he must look like with tears running down his
cheeks, Blake scrubbed at his face with both hands. Shame still
burned him, and he couldn’t look at her.

“
I don’t care,” Kate
murmured. “I don’t think any less of you because you
cry.”

Blake shook his head
jerkily, though he didn’t say a word. Of course she didn’t think
any less of him; she couldn’t. What could possibly be lower than
him, pathetic and useless and broken?

At least, and it was a small
mercy, Marc hadn’t seen him cry. He walked to Kate’s side with slow
steps. He was always wary when Blake stumbled, no doubt remembering
that Blake’s mind was sometimes so muddled that he attacked Marc as
though he were the enemy. Blake could feel Marc’s gaze on him,
heavy with all the questions Marc wasn’t asking—all the questions
Kate asked instead.

She said Blake’s name
quietly to draw his eyes to her. He forced himself to look at her
and even tried to give her a smile.

“
I’m fine,” he said before
she could ask. “I fell asleep. I had a dream. Better
now.”

Dream, not nightmare. He
never said that word anymore. It didn’t change the nature of the
dreams, but it made him feel…not better, but not as bad, maybe.
They knew what he meant anyway, however much he wished they
didn’t.

“
What was it?” Kate wrapped
both her hands over one of his and drew it to her mouth. Her lips
were soft and warm. “What did you… What triggered it, this
time?”

Blake tried to pull his hand
free, but she wouldn’t release it. If he pulled any harder, he
would hurt her.

“
I don’t know,” he lied.
“It just happened. Let it go. Please.”

Blake could tell with a
glance that Marc knew he was lying.

“
How can we help you,” Marc
said, his voice as dark and grim as his eyes, “when you won’t tell
us about it? If you would just talk—”

“
And tell you what?” Blake
cut in, more tired than angry. “I already told you. You were there.
Both of you. Or at least I thought it was you. The fake Marc hurt
the fake Kate to get to me. What else is there to say? Do you want
a blow by blow, too? Do you want those images in your head? Isn’t
it bad enough that they’re in mine?”

The look they exchanged
reawakened Blake’s anger. He
knew
they talked about him
behind his back and compared notes about his behavior, his
‘recovery’ as they called it. He hated that they did and that they
knew he was still messed up. His only saving grace was that they
had no idea how messed up exactly. They’d never have let him leave
Riverton if they had known. And he had needed to leave. He couldn’t
spend the rest of his existence hiding from demons, metaphorical or
literal. He couldn’t prevent his lovers from fighting, not when he
knew how much it meant to both of them.

He had felt the same way
once, what seemed like an entire lifetime ago. He hoped he would
feel that way again some day: that having a sword in his hand
again, fighting the same creatures that had imprisoned and tortured
him would help him reclaim bits of himself.

He hoped, but he wasn’t sure
he really believed.

“
I’m fine,” he said again,
more strongly now, and pushed himself back up to his feet. Kate was
still holding on to his hand, so he pulled her up with him. He
struggled to talk when all he wanted was to be left alone to sort
through the images cluttering his mind and heart, but if it helped
them accept that he was all right, it was worth the effort. “We
should go. We’re too exposed out here.”

Kate squeezed his hand and
offered him a smile that never reached her eyes. “You’re right.
Let’s go.”

She glanced at Marc as
though inviting him to come with them. Marc nodded, but his gaze
remained somewhere behind them.

“
You two get back in the
car. I’ll join you in a minute.”

A flash of dread slid like
ice down Blake’s spine. Marc was good at masking his feelings, but
Blake knew this one too well not to recognize it. His Sire was
angry.

As Blake returned to the
car, it was all he could do to keep in mind that it wasn’t his
Master he had just disappointed and angered.

* * * *

I’m fine
.

The words continued to echo
in the night and in Marc’s mind. Blake had repeated them so often
since he had regained his voice that they didn’t seem to have any
meaning left.
I’m fine
didn’t mean a thing anymore in regard
to Blake’s mental or physical state. All it signified was his
frustration that, no, he wasn’t fine; if he had been, Marc and Kate
wouldn’t have needed to ask so often, even when they knew that the
answer would be a lie.

It was undoubtedly a lie
now.

Blake said he was well
enough to keep going, but Marc hesitated, unsure how to proceed.
They were close enough to the squad’s latest hunting grounds to
reach the town before morning, but that also meant they were close
enough to a breach to come across demons before they reached the
safety of the fortifications.

With Blake still shaking
from his latest trip into his memories, coming across demons was
the last thing Marc wanted, even if killing something might have
helped Marc get rid of the anger that he didn’t let himself show.
It was getting harder to hold on to his temper and hide his
frustration, even though he knew it was crucial for Blake’s sanity
that he stay calm.

He remained outside the car
after Blake had climbed back inside and slammed the door behind
him. Kate lingered outside, but she didn’t say anything before
finally joining Simon and Blake. Marc took deep breaths that were
perfectly useless as far as oxygen was concerned, but the regular
in and out, even so many decades after he had stopped needing to
breathe, was still as calming as it had been when he had been
human.

He could feel eyes on him as
he stood beside the car. Kate had to be worried, and even without
looking at her, he knew that she was biting her lower lip, the way
she had recently started doing whenever she was upset and was
trying not to show it. As for Simon… Marc didn’t really care what
he thought, but he supposed Simon must be afraid; it seemed to be
his default mode. Marc cared a lot more about what Blake was
thinking, although he had no idea what it might be. Would Blake
realize that Marc was trying to get rid of the acrid scent of
anger? Or was he still too shaky to put it together yet? The old
Blake, the Blake from before the demon dimension, would have known
immediately what was going through Marc’s head. The thought did
nothing to appease Marc, far from it.

Then again, nothing would
appease Marc but the absolute certainty that Blake was completely
fine, and they weren’t anywhere close to that point.

With a last deep exhalation,
Marc pushed away his worries and finally returned to the
car.

Kate was behind the wheel,
so Marc climbed into the back with Blake. Neither of them said a
word; Blake didn’t even look at him and kept his forehead pressed
against the window.

* * * *

After decades of neglect,
the best that could be said about the road was that it was there.
Potholes peppered both lanes, and the asphalt was cracked in long,
zigzag lines. Weeds and even sometimes tree seedlings grew in the
cracks. With humans too busy fighting—too busy trying to survive—to
care much about the conditions of roads they rarely used anymore,
nature was reaffirming its rights. It made for exhausting driving
during the day, since the driver’s attention needed to be
constantly focused. At night, with potential obstacles shrouded by
the darkness, it was even more tiring.

Somehow, though, Kate was
glad for the state of the road that night. She had to be so
attentive to what was in front of her wheels that there was no
place left in her mind for other worries. No place to wonder what
had set Blake off this time, or to point out to herself that she
had been curled up against him at the time, and maybe she had
caused it all.

Every few minutes she caught
herself sneaking a glance at the rearview mirror. She knew she
wouldn’t see Blake or Marc—vampires didn’t cast reflections—but
still she looked and ached when her eyes found nothing but
emptiness. She had been away from them for so long that she
couldn’t bear the thought of losing them again—either of them. Yet
when things took a turn for the worse like tonight, when the three
of them stood together, close enough to touch but barely daring to
do that much, let alone say what was truly on their minds, she felt
incredibly lonely.

She and Marc had been
tiptoeing around Blake for a long time, afraid to further hurt him
if they pushed too hard and demanded answers from him. But would
they ever get anywhere if they didn’t talk? How could they help
Blake when they could only guess what was hurting him? How would
any of them get what they needed from the others if none of them
dared to ask for it?

Somewhere on that dark,
treacherous road, Kate made a decision she had been avoiding until
then. Leaving Riverton was going to be the fresh start they needed.
From now on, she wouldn’t accept Blake’s refusal to talk anymore.
She would push, even if it hurt him—even if it hurt all of them.
They couldn’t let things fester anymore.

As soon as they arrived, she
told herself, things would change. She would sit down with Blake
and Marc, and they would
talk
.

Her plan lasted up to the
moment when she parked the car in front of the squad’s headquarters
in Newton Falls. She shook Simon awake and flashed a smile at Marc
and Blake. They both returned it, but their smiles were strained.
Kate’s heart ached, and her resolve strengthened. It would hurt
even more when she started to push, but they would all be better
for it in the end.

When she stepped out of the
car, however, she realized that the long night was not anywhere
near over yet. Daniel came out of the building to greet them. He
offered Simon and Marc a handshake, Kate a brief hug, and Blake a
nod, and with that the social time was over.

“
I’m glad you arrived so
early,” he said. “Let’s have a briefing right away, and we’ll get
into the thick of things tomorrow night.”

‘
Early’ was not the word
Kate would have used. It was three or four hours past midnight,
after all, and while she had had no intention of going to bed yet,
a briefing wasn’t anything she’d have chosen. No one protested,
however, and Marc even asked Daniel a few questions about the
situation around Newton Falls. Simon was yawning widely but
following nonetheless. And Blake… Blake still looked half caught up
in the bad dream that had shaken him earlier.

Kate slipped her hand into
his and squeezed lightly when he looked at her. He squeezed back,
but moments later when they entered Daniel’s office, Blake let go
of her hand and let her enter before him. When he followed, his
hands were deep in his pants pockets. He remained standing, leaning
against the wall on the side of the room while the rest of them
took seats around Daniel’s desk. Kate wasn’t the only one who
noticed that Blake was standing apart; she caught Marc’s gaze, and
they shared a brief, worried look. Daniel, however, was already
spreading out a map on his desk and talking about the demon attacks
and the breach.

With a shake of her head,
Kate focused on what Daniel was saying just as Simon leaned forward
in his chair, eyes wide and expression eager.

“
What kind of magic is it?
Does the breach start closing at all? Did the other mages find out
anything about it?”