Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (14 page)

Edie

“I never knew that Carl knew so many drinking games,” I slur to Jude. His arm is around me, helping me up the stairs to a room. “He’s only eighteen, you know…”

“And you’re only twenty,” Jude says in an amused voice. “Didn’t stop you.”

“Couldn’t let him win now, could I?”

I’m drunk. Oh so drunk. But it’s calming my shit, and if I stare into space long enough, I can forget that we’re in Atlanta trying to find Graeme and Amelia. I can believe that I’m still a whole person who is in love with the man that’s helping her navigate the stairs. That I’m a woman who knows that, despite everything, he will be a gentleman no matter how much she begs.

Maybe I did drink too much if I’m having these thoughts.

As if sensing them, Jude chuckles next to me. “You’re probably going to regret the last four shots you had,” he rumbles, his voice intoxicating in my ear. “You’re going to be hungover tomorrow.”

“Is Carl okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, we just dropped him off at his room. Remember?”

Oh yeah. I dimly remember my cousin—who seemed drunker than I am right now—stumbling into his room, and Jude making sure that he was set up for the night.

Although Jude said “his room” and we’re heading towards another room and I’m not sure if Gene gave us three card keys or what. What are our sleeping arrangements? Is Jude staying with me?

I hope so, even if he’s just going to stay in the same bed. I want him near me. I want him next to me. I don’t ever want to let him go.

From the corner of my eye, I watch him, the strong cut of his jaw, the lip piercing, his eyebrow piercing, his blue eyes. I gulp nervously, as it seems like the fog of drunkenness has pushed through the walls that I’ve erected around my heart. No one since Mike has been in there. And no one has burrowed themselves as deeply in there as Jude has. Ever.

Jude…Alejandro…

Five hundred years of history that he doesn’t remember, yet he’s this gentle, strong vampire that cares deeply for me.

I’m kicking myself that I didn’t notice five months ago. We could have done something, been more than we were. But my stubbornness got in the way, and I refused to see. Now there’s no hope for my happy ending, and I don’t think we even have much time left together.

“Here we are,” Jude sighs as we reach a door. With one hand, he holds onto me while he fishes the card key out of his pocket with the other hand.

“Another good reason why you should always have two arms,” I mumble into his ear.

“Good for you that you have three arms now,” he tells me wryly.

My mind can’t do math at the moment, but he squeezes me closer, and I realize that he’s talking about himself.

I think my knees get weaker thinking about it.

“That’s a bad joke,” I say through dry lips.

“I know.”

The door swings open and he helps me inside. There’s just a dingy bed and a lone chair in the corner. In any other circumstance, I imagine it wouldn’t get more than one and a half stars from a generous guest. But it fits the strip bar downstairs, and the bed looks mighty comfy. Comfy enough to sleep.

My foggy mind realizes that we’re alone. And who knows how much time we have left. All we have left is the present.

“Listen, Edie—”

I wrap my arm around his head and pull him to me, roughly kissing his lips. At first he doesn’t yield to me, and I cling to him, begging him to kiss me back. For a few agonizing, helpless seconds, he doesn’t do anything, but then his mouth opens and his tongue flicks the inside of mine, and he starts responding. A groan comes from deep inside him as he wraps his strong arms around me.

“Edie,” he whispers raggedly, as he breaks the kiss. “You’re drunk.”

“And you didn’t drink anything tonight.” He’s not getting out of it that easily.

He quirks a smile as he lazily looks at me. “I’m a vampire. Remember?”

Oh, I do. I remember that fact every moment I’m with him. That, as the Harker, I shouldn’t be having these feelings for him, but he’s the only rock I’m able to hold onto. He’s the only thing that’s keeping me going under, that’s making it worth the fight.

I wish I was just a normal girl and that he was a normal guy. That we would have found each other some other way.

But Fate has always been cruel to me. I’m refusing to let it be that way any longer. I make my own choices. And I choose
him.
Just like he chose to come up to me during Meghan’s funeral five months ago.

He’s been here for me through everything.

I love him.

That thought courses through my brain and I pull him to me again, using some of that Harker strength to hold him. I misjudge my own strength and we both stumble onto the bed, and with a loud pop, the legs of the bed break, setting the mattress on a crazy tilt.

A shocked silence passes between us before we burst out laughing.

“I think the bed doth protest too much,” he tells me.

I cup the side of his face, stroking his cheek with my thumb. He leans into it and kisses my palm.

“Do you love me?” I whisper, feeling my cheeks blush as I say it.

I feel the laugh rumble through him before it escapes his lips. “What do you think?”

“I need to hear it.”

He meets my eyes, and I notice the depth of emotion that swirls in those blue eyes. How did I not see it before a few days ago? How did I not notice that he looks at me this way?

“I love you, Edie Harker.”

Simple words, but the meaning behind them hits me harder than I ever thought it would. I hug him to me so he doesn’t see my tears. No matter how long I have, I can treasure him, this moment forever. I don’t know what lays beyond this, but then again, none of us do.

Just a man and a woman who love each other.

“I love you, too.” I never meant it as much as I do right now.

His lips trail down my neck, and I arch my back. I’m not drunk anymore. Suddenly, I feel very much alive, and I notice every detail and every touch of his skin against mine. I arch my back as he tugs at the bottom of my hoodie, working it upwards.

And then I gag, feeling the pain hit me, seizing up my entire body.
No, not now, not during this.

He pulls back, panic in his eyes. “Edie?”

Through clenched teeth, I manage, “Attack,” before my eyes flutter closed and I ride the pain.

No.

I’d just been on the verge of pleasure, and now I’m deep in the throes of pain. Why? Why did it have to happen right now? All I want is to have a happy moment in my miserable life, and then this happens. The spasms take me, and I am no longer able to feel him around me. All I can feel is this world of pain that has taken me by the balls and is threatening to send me into oblivion. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to see, it hurts to
be.

Just another reminder that there are no happy endings for Edie Harker.

When the pain leaves me, I find my head in Jude’s lap as he rocks me back and forth. I blink up at him, and the way he’s sitting in the dimly-lit room, I can barely make out the features on his face.

“Hey you,” I whisper up at him. Ugh, it feels like I had the wind knocked out of me.

“You had another attack,” he tells me.

“I know.”

He combs a hand through his hair, and I can see the shadows move along his jaw as he clenches it. “If I caused you to get hurt, I—”

“
This
,” I gesture between us, “had nothing to do with
that
. My virus is just a bastard and wants to remind me that it’s there at the most inopportune times.”

He’s not convinced. “I don’t want to hurt you, Edie.”

“You’re not,” I whisper.

He watches me for a long moment before nodding. “I think you should get some sleep,” he says. “You need to rest.”

“But—”

He kisses me again, cutting my protest short. “Sleep Edie. That’s an order. We’ll figure this out later, but for now, you’re going to wake up with such a bad hangover.” He helps me get to my feet. “Hang on, I’m going to push the mattress on the floor.”

I look at the lopsided bedframe. “We broke the bed.”

“And nothing
really
exciting happened,” he muses. “Imagine if we had?”

My cheeks redden as he chuckles, and with one easy movement, he pushes the mattress onto the floor, next to the window. As an afterthought, he opens the window.

“Fresh air,” he explains. “I think you’re gonna need it tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” I’m already getting a headache.

As we settle on the lopsided mattress and he spoons his body against mine, I can’t help but think that time is running out and there’s not going to be enough time for me to do everything I wanted. Will I be able to save Graeme and Amelia? Can I make a better future for my niece?

Will I hurt Jude when I leave?

Jude

The hours tick by as I watch Edie sleep. Her chest rises and falls with every breath, and her black and red hair is swept around the both of us like a cocoon. I hold her to me, willing as much of my strength into her as possible.

She has no idea how peaceful she looks when she’s asleep. I want to take a picture of it, and show her what peace looks like on her. She would have been a completely different person if she’d been born into any other family. It makes me wish that she’d been given that chance. It’s hard to imagine my life right now if I had never met her, but I know it would be best for her.

What’s best for me no longer matters.

I’ve witnessed a few of her attacks now and every time is scarier than the last. It feels like she’s slipping through my fingers. She’s going to get swallowed up whole and there will be nothing I can do to stop it.

I didn’t tell her, but her scar had spread a lot this last time. Sitting here, cradling her head in my lap, I noticed that the first veins of her scar have reached her left cheek, like tendrils of dye. It’s on her face now, and I can only imagine that it’s spread much further on other parts of her body.

I’m losing her to the virus. Even before Anthony gets to her, she’s going to succumb to her sickness. The thought terrifies me more than I want to admit, even to myself. I don’t want to do anything to exacerbate it.

I kiss the nape of her neck, committing to memory the feel of her body against me. She may not have very long. In which case, I may not have very long either.

Hang on,
I tell her silently, although for what, I don’t know. We were so close to finishing this, ending Anthony’s reign of terror and crowning a new Progenitor. Esther would have been fine, even if she didn’t want the job herself. That would have cured Edie, and I may not have been a vampire anymore. Then who knows what would have happened?

Fucking hell, I shouldn’t focus on what could have been. Only what is.

First things first, save Edie’s brother-in-law and niece so there is hope for a Harker after
this
. And then we kill Anthony.

I may be a monster, but I’m hoping that I still have a soul and that there is an afterlife. If there isn’t a happy ending in this world, maybe there will be one in the next. Because if Edie’s gone, then I’ll be gone too.

I feel myself tense up at the very thought. I’ll kill Anthony. I don’t care if he was my brother at one point, I’m going to kill the son of a bitch for what he’s done. He deserves to die.

I lift my head slightly as I feel the change in the air.
Sunrise.
We have twelve hours before I have to get up and search more vampire hideouts for Graeme and Amelia. It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve slept, and it seems longer since I’ve properly fed. The weight of my tiredness hits me all at once.

I nestle into the bed and hold Edie against me. That way if she has another attack, I’m here to keep her from getting hurt. Or worse.

As sleep pulls at me, I keep praying my words into her body, wishing that she has longer.

She has to live. Or else I’m going to lose it.

Edie

“You’re drunk.”

I grimace, knowing that voice, that snide tone in her voice. It may also be a symptom of my hangover that’s guaranteed to visit me in the morning. I suck in a deep breath and turn around, fully prepared for the wraith that’s about to head my way.

“Aunt Tessa, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Who knew that she could visit me in the Void?

To my surprise, she’s dressed how she normally was, cocking her head at me like she’s giving me a lecture. She’s not the wraith that attacked me in the parking lot in Houston. In fact, she looks mostly normal.

“I’m not always myself,” she explains, as if she read my mind. “I’m sorry about that attack earlier.”

I scoff. “And trying to kill me? How about betraying me to Anthony? Keeping tabs on me? The list goes on.”

She snickers. “You killed me for it in the end. So I think we’re even.”

I hold up my hands, cutting her off as I shake my head. “Not by a long shot.”

I turn away from her, meaning to stalk off in another direction and get away from her. Was there anywhere else for me to go in the Void? I know that there are different versions of it for vampires, that they’re holding off all the bad that could seep into our world, but I see a white, nothingness in this version of the Void. And I don’t know where I can go from here.

“You can’t run, Edie,” Tessa calls after me.

“I’m learning that, yes,” I shout back behind me. Now would be a good time to wake up, even though I know there’s a bad headache waiting for me in that dingy hotel room.

“I did it for him!” Tessa calls back, her voice breaking. “I did it because I wanted to keep Carl safe!”

“You sure made it safe by ruining our chances for crowning a new Progenitor,” I tell her. I walk back to her now. If I can’t escape, at least I can pick her brain.

Tessa sighs unhappily. “I did what I knew I had control over.”

“And you killed all of us,” I tell her. I can’t keep the accusation from leeching into my voice. I’m blaming her for everything, and that’s fine with me.

“I did what any mother would do when she had no choice,” she says helplessly.

“You always have a choice,” I tell her, my anger rising.

She raises an eyebrow. “A choice? Like you had when you became the Harker?”

She’s pissing me off now, mainly because she’s making some weird, wacky sort of sense, and I hate hearing it in her voice.

“Fuck you,” I say.

It’s amazing how I trusted this woman with everything only a few days ago, and now that I know the extent of what she’d do, I can’t even stand to be in her metaphysical presence.

“Where’s Meghan?” I ask, noticing that I haven’t seen my sister around here.

“She’s around.”

“I’d rather talk to her.”

Tessa smiles sadly. “I know. But I also know that I have some information that you’d want to hear.”

“About what?” I snarl.

My attitude doesn’t deter her for one moment. “I worked for Anthony. I know what he’s doing and how he thinks.”

“Oh yeah?” I highly doubt that. Or that she’d tell me if she did know.

“He’s looking for the Progenitor. He’ll do anything to get him.”

I put my hands on my hips, including the hand that is missing in the physical world. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Let me ask you this, then.” Her eyes sparkle as she regards me. “Why would he lead you to Atlanta? Why would he take Graeme and Amelia here?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Think about it, Edie.”

“I am,” I grit. I hate the condescending tone in her voice.

“You’re falling into his web. You’re a puppet on a string and you don’t even realize it.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“Think harder then, Edie.” Her voice pleads. “Think about all of the reasons why.”

“So you don’t know?”

“I only know that he’s a step ahead of you. You’re in Atlanta now because he wants you to be.”

“To save Graeme and Amelia.”

“Yes, but
why
?” I can’t answer that, but Tessa keeps speaking, knowing that she has my full attention at this point. “He’s set a trap, a noose that is tightening around your neck like a noose. If you’re not careful, you won’t be able to see it coming until it snaps your spine.”

“I know he’s set a trap. The problem is, I can’t see it.” I groan and rub my throbbing temples. I think my hangover is starting here and now. “So you don’t have any idea what the trap is, and you aren’t telling me something I don’t know.”

“That’s not your hangover that you’re feeling,” Tessa tells me.

“It’s not?”

“No. You should wake up.
Now
. Someone’s poisoning you.”

I blink at her, unable to tell if this is another trick or if she’s really telling me the truth. But she pushes me away, panic on her face.

“Wake up and get Carl out of there!” she cries. “Now!”