Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (15 page)

Edie

“Ugh.”

I roll over on my stomach and gag as the headache pounds in my temples. It’s so intense I almost wish I could pass out to get away from the brain-splitting pain. Regret over the night before slams into me at the same time as my hangover. I shouldn’t have had as much as I did. I should have just gone to bed, rested while I could. Maybe I wouldn’t have had an attack last night if I’d just restrained myself.

Restraint has never been one of my strong points though, so it’s to be expected.

I open my eyes and blink several times. My vision is blurry, and it seems like the scenery around me moves, like I’m watching a movie in slow motion, only there aren’t enough frames to keep up.

What the fuck is happening?

“Ugh,” I say again. It feels like my tongue is too big in my mouth. Something’s not right, something’s not right at all. It’s not that I sense that there are vampires around, except for Jude, but there’s something off about our situation. Very off.

The heavy blinds over the window keep the sun out, although I can tell based on the intensity of the light behind them that it’s midday. Thankfully, the light breeze from the opened window doesn’t blow the blinds enough to burn Jude. I take a deep breath of the fresh air from the window and glance at the digital clock on the nightstand. It’s two in the afternoon.

I turn my head to look at the sleeping form next to me.

“Jude,” I whisper through my swollen mouth. I nudge him. “Jude, wake up.”

He doesn’t stir, and it’s not because it’s daytime for a vampire. There’s another reason, one that my confused brain is trying to grasp.

Warning bells go off in my mind, spurring me to push myself to a sitting position. The world tilts underneath me as I sit up and barf everything up from my stomach.

No, something is incredibly wrong.

Luckily I’m still in my clothes from the night before. Where’s my purse? I spot it strewn across the floor, probably thrown there from when Jude and I came in from the bar. I dig through it and grab my cell phone. I dial Carl’s number.

After five rings, it goes to voicemail. I try again, but get the same result. Then I try Lorne’s number, but there’s no answer there either.

It’s as if Jude and I are the only ones left alive in this world.

My mind slowly remembers that Tessa had warned me to come back here for a reason. And I’m just now realizing that she was right.

I sniff the air. There’s no odor to it, but that makes my heart stutter to a thud in my chest. Headache. Nausea and vomiting. Blurred vision. Confusion.

Carbon monoxide?

The only reason why the thought occurs to me is there was once an incident on the V Boards that involved vampires and carbon monoxide poisoning (some vampires wanted to secure a whole dorm of food for the night by killing the tenants). Someone’s trying to kill me while I’m drunk.

Aunt Tessa’s words echo in my aching brain. There’s no other explanation for what’s happening.

“Jude!” I hiss, shaking him again. He doesn’t move. Does carbon monoxide affect vampires too?

With shaking hands, I pick up the old, corded phone on the nightstand and dial 911. I don’t know how many people are in this hotel, but I don’t want them dying on my watch.

A southern-accented man’s voice fills the earpiece. “911, what’s your emergency?”

“Carbon monoxide leak,” I gasp.

There’s a beat on the other end as the dispatcher takes in my words. “Ma’am, are you still inside?”

“Hotel,” I say. My mind reels and I try to remember the name of the hotel. “The Paramount Lounge. I need to get everyone out…”

“Ma’am get yourself outside and wait for emergency services.”

I nod, then realize that he can’t see me doing it. Confusion is definitely an appropriate symptom. “Yes.”

Without waiting for a reply, I set the receiver down. I’m not leaving without Jude and Carl. That much I know for certain, and my foggy brain isn’t going to get in the way of that.

Damn, it’s daylight outside. How the hell am I going to get Jude outside without burning the shit out of him? He’s sleeping like the dead, and between my hangover and the carbon monoxide poisoning, my Harker strength seems to have left me.

Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.

“Jude.
Jude!
”

I wince at what I’m about to do and slap him hard across the face. He doesn’t even make a noise, and my smack echoes throughout the room, along with my panicked heartbeat.

No, no, no, no.

In a fit of inspiration, I drag his deadweight body closer to the window. It isn’t easy with just one arm but there’s no way Jude is dying on my watch. I bite my lip and throw open the blinds. The sunlight streaks in, catching him across the face. His flesh sears instantly, bubbling up into hard blisters and third degree burns. I accidentally let in too much light, but it has the desired effect.

He jumps and opens his eyes.

“Fuck!” He drops his head and grimaces, pressing a hand to his eyes. “Fucking hell…” He sounds drowsy and out of it, like I am.

I sob in relief and coax him to a sitting position as much as I can. “Jude, stay awake. We have to get out of here.”

He grimaces at me, his eyes fuzzy in their focus. “Edie?”

I cup his face and will him to look me in the eyes, to keep him here with me. “Stay with me, Jude. We’re being poisoned. Carbon monoxide, I think. I think the entire hotel is affected.”

Jude’s eyes flutter open, the fog passed from his mind. “Shit,” he says. I can see the panic rising in him as he says that. “Shit.”

“We have to get out of here. We have to get Carl. We have to—”

He lets out a shuddering breath. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

I help him get to a standing position, and as I get to my feet, I grab my purse, Graeme’s phone in it. Even though this is a life or death situation, I’m not going to leave my one connection to Anthony behind. My confused brain knows exactly what’s important at the moment; our lives, and getting Amelia and Graeme back.

“Shit,” Jude mutters, staggering a bit.

I take him under the arm. “We have to keep it together,” I tell him. “We have to get Carl, and get out of here. Stay with me.”

“I’m with you.” The conviction in his voice makes me believe him.

We stagger to the door, and I put my mouth and nose within the neck of my hoodie to try to block out any of the carbon monoxide. I don’t know if actually works. Between the two of us, we make it to the hallway and head towards Carl’s room. There’s no movement and we don’t meet anyone else on our way down the hallway. Is the entire hotel poisoned? Please don’t let it be so. I don’t want innocent people dying because someone was trying to get to me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

That one word pounds in time with my heart as I stumble into the wall, trying to keep one foot in front of the other.

“Edie!” Jude calls after me, blindly reaching for me. He pulls me against his chest and holds me there. I can hear his heartbeat in his chest, thudding like a metronome. Still strong. Still my Jude’s.

“I’m all right,” I tell him. I’m not all right, but we’ll have to believe that for now.

As I was drunk last night, I don’t know where Carl’s room is, exactly. Thankfully, now that Jude is on his feet, he seems to know where to go.

“This is it,” he says raggedly. “We’ll have to hurry.”

I pound on the door, screaming Carl’s name.

“Hang on,” Jude says, moving me out of the way. I grasp the wall, as he rams the door with his shoulder.

The wood splinters and cracks off its hinges, giving us direct access to Carl’s room. I thank my lucky stars that Jude’s vampire strength hasn’t left us, like my superhuman strength. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get out of this alive.

“Carl!” I scream, stepping over the broken door. “Carl!” The form on the bed is motionless, and for a horrible second, I think he’s dead.

I run to the window and open it, wishing that I could take the roof off this place to allow all of us to breathe. Except I can’t use my pyrokinesis, otherwise I’ll blow all of us straight to hell with the gas leak. Jude hisses in warning, as the light filters through the room. Luckily, he avoids the beams of light; he already looks like shit.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

“Just get Carl,” he tells me.

I inhale a breath of fresh air and turn back to the bed.

“Carl!” I reach him and shake him. “
Carl
!”

My cousin’s head lolls back, like he doesn’t even have a neck. His color is pinkish and his lips are bright red. He looks dead. Tears start streaming down my face as I shake him, not caring if his head snaps back painfully.

“Edie,” Jude says, taking Carl by the shoulders. “I’ve got him.”

I don’t know what he means exactly, except he takes Carl and throws him across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Sweat breaks out across Jude’s face, showing how much of an effort it is for him to stay on his feet.

“Let’s go,” he manages.

“Are you going to be all right?”

He gives me a sideways glance and cracks a sardonic smile, then winces as it pulls the skin of the blistered parts of his face. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I’ll be fine. Carbon monoxide won’t kill me. It’ll just make me tired.”

No time really to second guess him. I grab a sheet and throw it over his head, shoulders and Carl. It’s not much protection, but it’s better than nothing. He grunts as thanks, and we make our way out the door.

I try not to think about how lifeless Carl’s body looks. How very dead he could be. We’d only just reconciled. I haven’t told him how glad I am to have him in my life. First my mother and father, then Meghan and Tessa, now Amelia, Graeme, and Carl. I can’t lose him. I’ll go insane.

We emerge from the room and Jude nods with his head to follow him down the hallway towards the elevators.

I punch the button and it dings for our floor.

“C’mon.”

The three of us crowd into the elevator, and it becomes the longest descent in the world, as I wonder how long we have until there’s irreversible damage to our brains from the carbon monoxide poisoning. Until the point of no return.

We reach the ground level. I push past Jude and Carl and open the emergency exit.

As soon as I hit the bar on the door, the emergency alarm goes off, an annoying loud cricket-sound that sets my teeth on edge. If I had been ready to pass out, this is now keeping me from doing it, so for that, I am grateful.

We burst out into the daylight, and I can’t tell if Jude is covered up enough or if Carl is still breathing. A part of me doesn’t care, because I’ve done everything I can to save him and I’m so damn tired. As we make our way to the parking lot, the ambulance shows up, along with a fire truck and some police cars.

I collapse to the hard concrete ground.

It’s up to someone else now.

Jude

Nothing sucks worse than not being able to help the one person you swore to protect.

Edie’s unconscious body is strapped to a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, and the vehicle bounces as it heads down the highway towards the hospital. Carl’s strapped to a board next to the stretcher and he looks lifeless compared to Edie. Both of them have masks fitted around their faces, giving them oxygen.

The EMTs had been shocked that I’m still up and walking around. Despite the blisters and burns on my body from the sunlight, I’m slowly getting better and the fog is clearing, thanks to my own vampire healing powers. I refused any sort of oxygen therapy or help, wanting the EMTs to focus on Edie and the other humans. I’m not worthy; they are. And if they can help Edie, then it’s worth it.

As we head to the hospital, I sit, holding Edie’s hand, praying to whatever presence there is upstairs that she’ll be all right. I kiss her knuckles, trying not to pay attention to how cold and clammy her skin feels against my lips.

“You saved me,” I whisper to her. “You saved all of us.”

By some lucky twist of fate, I’d opened the window so she could get fresh air if she woke up with a bad hangover. And now, I’m realizing that those breaths of fresh air may have kept her from slipping into a coma.

The EMTs sit in the back, administering to both patients. They glance at me, the questions in their eyes about what happened and who we are. I don’t offer them explanations. I just want these two to be safe.

The ride to the hospital feels like it takes too long. Edie could be slipping away.

I try not to pay attention to how the skin on the right side of her face and neck is red and bunched up like a keloid scar. In the daytime, I can see that her mark has spread across her body further than I’d ever seen it travel before. Her attack did this.

She doesn’t have long left, and the thought tightens my chest.

“Please. Come back to me.”

I love you. I can’t continue without you.

As if sensing and being able to read my thoughts, her face scrunches in pain. My heart shudders to a stop, afraid to hope, afraid that I’m imagining it.

She opens her eyes and looks up at me, her eyes questioning. “Did we get out?” she whispers.

I smooth her hair back and kiss her forehead. “Yes,” I whisper. “You saved us.”

She smiles, satisfied. “All of that, and I didn’t have to be a Harker to do it.”

“You’re my hero.”

“Good thing we didn’t bring Purl with us,” she murmurs sleepily.

Her comment about her cat makes me chuckle lightly as I kiss her hand again. Trust her to worry about that beast in a time like this. I hope she’s doing all right back in Houston. Even though I don’t know Hannah that well, I feel as if I can trust her to take care of the cat. Regardless of anything else, Purl is safe.

The thought is almost absurd.

Edie closes her eyes, and murmurs, so softly that only I can hear it with my vampire-hearing, “I’m going to sleep now. Wake me up when we get to the hospital.”

“As you wish.”

Her mouth turns up in a smile.

I wish I could let her sleep as long as she needs, but if someone tried poisoning us, then we have to keep moving and keep our eyes and ears open. And I want to kill the ones who are trying to hurt her.