Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (16 page)

Jude

“Carbon monoxide poisoning?” Zhi asks on the other end of phone, shocked.

“Yeah,” I tell him.

“Holy shit! Are you guys all right?”

It takes a lot to shock Zhi, and the past few times I’ve called him to let him in on what’s been happening with us has shaken him to his core. I’ll bet he’s glad he got babysitting duty for the Progenitor. They seem to be having a much easier time than us and that’s saying something.

I rub my temples as I hold my phone to my ear with my shoulder. Thankfully, I’d fallen asleep with it in my jeans pocket, otherwise it would still be back at the hotel. Now that the fog has cleared from my mind, I know that there was no way I’d have had the presence of mind to grab my phone. I don’t know how long it takes to get your belongings back after a contamination like that, but I’m glad I don’t have to find out.

“We’re alive,” I tell him simply.

“Where are you now?”

“In the hospital. Edie’s cousin.” I hesitate. “He’s not doing too well.”

In fact, he hasn’t regained consciousness since we left the hotel and bar. The doctors have him in the ICU hooked up to a breathing machine and so many beeping monitors, I had to leave because it was giving me a headache. Lorne is here too, in a similar state, and while I wish we could have gotten the old man out, we barely got out as it is.

All in all, the responders found eighteen people either unconscious or suffering the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Poor Carl. Being a human without Edie’s superhuman abilities, he’s getting the brunt of the poisoning. I only hope that there are no lasting effects from it.

Who knew that we were in the hotel last night? Hell, do they know that we are at the hospital now? I’m running through every possibility in my head, wondering if Edie had placed her trust in the wrong people again. Lorne comes to mind, but he’s here with carbon monoxide poisoning himself, so I strike that thought from my mind.

I glance up and down the hallways, and while nurses and doctors are flitting about, I don’t sense any of my kind here, so once again, I feel like a mouse in a maze. Just going round and round in circles, unable to figure a way out.

We’re exposed. We’re being played. And I have no idea how to stop it.

“Fuck,” Zhi says, echoing my sentiments.

“Yeah,” I agree.

“How’s the Harker?”

“She’s not handling it well.”

“That must be rough for her,” Zhi says. “She doesn’t like being helpless like this. I mean, tracking her on social media, and the V Boards—”

I freeze. Something about that rings warning bells in my mind.
Tracking her.

I pull the phone away from my face and look at it, expecting it to jump out at me and bite me. My phone. Have I always had my phone with me? Has Edie or Carl?

I look up and see cameras pointed at me, and the paranoia hits me like a tidal wave.

Shit.

Tessa had cast spells that tracked our movements, but we’d just been with people in Houston who had a hacker in their ranks. Someone who could have put something on our phones to track us.
Hannah.
Was she double-crossing us? Or was it someone in the Marrow who was working for Anthony alone?

I try to remember any time that I hadn’t had my phone with me. There were a few instances, from being in the bathroom with Edie, to interrogating Reiko where I couldn’t remember where my phone was. And with so many vampires in the vicinity, I wouldn’t have been able to tell when one got closer.

Is that what happened?

“—hey, Jude!” Zhi shouts, trying to get my attention.

I put the phone back to my ear. “Get out of San Antonio,” I tell him. “Take Maria, your grandma, and your charge with you. Don’t tell me where you’re going. And turn off all your phones. No—
throw them away
. Drop them in the river on your way out of town.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it. We’ll find a way to get back in touch.”

I end the call and turn off the phone for good measure. I stand up from my seat in the waiting room so abruptly, people jump and look up at me. I jog down the hallways. Edie’s here somewhere, talking to a police officer.

We may have been broadcasting our whereabouts this entire time. No wonder they’d been able to poison us. No wonder there were vampires who gave the DJ Graeme’s phone at the bar. They were two steps ahead of us.

I’m running through a labyrinth that keeps changing with every step. Deeper and deeper, I’m spinning into the trap Anthony has set, along with Edie and Carl.

And I know the trap is about to spring.

Edie

“Who cut the pipes and poisoned the Paramount?” Captain Coolly’s eyes flash in anger at me, as if he’s blaming me. He’s a man in his fifties with a bit of a potbelly and rank breath. We’re in an office in the hospital, as I refused to go “downtown” to make a statement. Coolly didn’t like that, but I pulled rank on him and he backed down. Sometimes, it’s good to be the Harker; you can make ornery men like this bow to your whims. It was pure, dumb luck that I have an insider on the Atlanta Police Department and that he’s the head of his own unit.

Yet, once he found out that I was the Harker, he placed the blame squarely on me. If I hadn’t been staying at the Paramount, there wouldn’t have been retaliatory measures against me. And there wouldn’t be eighteen people being hospitalized for carbon monoxide poison.

My very presence here puts everyone at risk.

“A vampire named Anthony,” I tell him, trying to keep the anger from my voice. “I already told you about him.”

“And how the fuck am I supposed to put out an APB for a vampire?” the captain thunders. “My officers are only human.”

I clench my jaw. “You don’t put them out looking for Anthony,” I tell him. “He’s are only after me.”

“And whoever else stands in his way, right?” Coolly scoffs.

“I’m trying to stop him.”

“You think you’re above the law.” He shakes his head. “You know that vampires are the reason I can’t sleep when my teenage daughter isn’t home? I’m too afraid that she’ll be drained by one of those blood sucking demons.”

I clench my hand, using every bit of restraint that I have to not bash his face in. Apparently, I’m feeling much better physically, but with Carl in the ICU and my family still missing, I’m in a pissy mood. I don’t want this man thinking he can boss me around.

I understand why he’s upset, but my patience is wearing thin. Every second I waste here is another where I’m not doing the important things.

“I’m trying,” I tell him. “And that’s why I wanted you to put out a search for Graeme and Amelia. They’ve been missing twenty-four hours. You should do it.”

Coolly throws his hands up in the air. “There you go again! On what evidence do you think they’re missing?”

I dig Graeme’s phone out of my purse and hit the Home button. I put it on the table and spin it towards him. The man looks down, and all of the color drains from his face. On the screen, plain for him to see, is the picture of Graeme and Amelia tied up.

“They’re human beings like you, kidnapped by a murderous vampire,” I tell him. “Now, I don’t know what your officers can do if there’s a vampire with them, but if the girl and the man are alone, or hurt, or
anything
, I want to know that someone is looking for them. ‘To serve and protect’, isn’t that your motto?”

The captain gives me a hard look before turning away. I hold my breath as he takes out his walkie talkie and hits the button.

“This is Captain Coolly, Code Seven.”

I know enough about police chatter to know that he’s asking for help and he continues with the APB for Graeme and Amelia. I sigh and rest my head in my hand. Finally, I’ve gotten through to him.

“Mind if I get this pic for evidence and ID?” Coolly asks gruffly, holding up the phone.

I wave him forward. “Just give it back to me when you’re done.” His eyes bulge at my request and I huff. “I know it’s evidence, but I need it,” I add.

I know it’s unorthodox, but fighting vampires is a little unorthodox in the first place, so I really don’t care. He’s not taking Graeme’s phone from me.

Coolly gives me another suspicious glance before he turns away from me and continues barking into his walkie talkie at the dispatcher on the other line.

“Copy that,” Coolly says, finishing his APB for Graeme and Amelia. He scowls at me.

“Thank you,” I tell him honestly.

“You’d better know what you’re doing, Harker,” he warns, pointing a finger at me.

“I know.”

That’s a lie; I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.

He huffs one more time. “Don’t leave Atlanta.”

I give him an unimpressed look. “Look, I’m not leaving this hospital. Not until my cousin wakes up. You know how to reach me if you need me.”

The muscles in his face twitch. “Good.” He leaves the room with just that one word.

I stare into the space he’d been standing in for a long time. I understand where the animosity is coming from. He’s the big dog on the police force here, and I’m upsetting everything. I’m making my own demands and he’s not used to having to concede authority. But we’re both trying to protect innocent people, so we should be on each other’s team.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

“Ugh, Meghan,” I whisper, hoping that she can hear me across the void. “Please tell me what to do.”

As expected, there is no response, and I briefly entertain my options of asking for help from my mother or Aunt Tessa, or going into the Void myself for some advice. I could sure use it, because I have no idea what to do from this point. It seems like no matter what I do, Anthony is always a step or two ahead of me.

“Ugh, fuck,” I grunt. Antsy, I get up from my seat, and slip out the doorway and into the hallway. Carl’s in the ICU, probably still in his coma.

Jude’s somewhere out there too, waiting for me. I almost lost him last night. I almost lost my own life, but the prospect of losing him scares me more than anything. For the past five months, I’ve resigned myself to my fate, but I’d always assumed that Jude would make it through this, to continue his life without me.

I can’t bear the thought of him dying. It terrifies me more than the monsters in the night. I’ve never let myself get close to anyone for that reason, and I let a vampire in, of all people.

I move down the hallways. As much as I’ve been to the hospital in Austin, mostly because Graeme was a nurse and I ended up there every other weekend because of my own injuries, I don’t have a feel for this hospital in Atlanta.

My vampy sense twinges before I see him.

“Edie!”

I turn to see Jude jogging towards me, frantic. He’s wearing a baby blue hoodie that he bought at the hospital gift shop to shield himself from the sun, but he looks absolutely ridiculous in the color and the print that says, “It’s a Daddy!” Seeing the tattooed, pierced vampire dressed like this brings a smile to my face.

Then I see his expression.

“Jude, what’s wrong?”

He hesitates and meets my eyes. “I think I know how they found us last night.”

I shiver. “How?”

He holds up his cell phone, which is dark. “I think they’ve been tracking us.”

I narrow my eyes looking at it. Carl knows more about this stuff than me, but who could possibly would be following us. “I’ve been keeping mine on, but I hid myself on Find My Friends.”

“No,” he says. “I think we had a mole in the Marrow who must have put tracking software on our phones.”

“Who?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I was talking to Zhi, and—”

My blood runs cold as my mind skips two steps ahead. “Could they track where he is when you call him?”

Jude gives me a hard look. “I don’t know.
Maybe
. We should throw away our phones, just in case.”

Oh fuck.

How often has Jude called Zhi? Have they moved from their hiding spot? Because if they know where Zhi and Maria are, they could find out where the Progenitor is.

I comb my hand through my hair, trying to process this. “So you’re saying…”

“I just turned mine off and I told them to hide, but I don’t know if Anthony knows where they currently are. All I know is that I called Zhi before I took you upstairs last night, and they knew where we were. There’s the possibility that we were followed from the Elephant Room earlier, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Do you think Anthony is on his way back to Texas?” I whisper. My hand starts shaking as I realize the implication of what that means. “Do you think Amelia and Graeme are with him?”

Indecision grips me, as I realize that I can’t leave my cousin here on the little information we have. For all we know, Graeme and Amelia are still in Atlanta. Or they could be heading to San Antonio with Anthony. Or we could be completely wrong, and Anthony found out about us another way and is still here in Atlanta.

All very different options with very different consequences.

“Edie.” Jude wraps me up in a hug, and I lay my cheek on his chest, trying not to let my sobs shake my shoulders. I’ve cried too much in the past five months. Hell, in my entire lifetime. I can’t let my tears cloud my next decision.

“We’re going to figure this out,” he whispers into my hair. “Don’t give up.”

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anything left.”

He kisses the crown of my head. “Just don’t give up. But you have to turn off your phone. Hell, we may have to destroy them. I don’t know if they can track us with them turned off.”

I stiffen in his arms. “That will end all communication with Anthony then.”

He pauses before speaking. “We’ll figure something out.”

I don’t want to do it, and lose everything. If there’s a chance that I will get more information about Graeme and Amelia, the risk is worth it, right?

Maybe not.

I break away from his embrace and dig in my bag for my phone. I thumb it on and prepare to turn it off, perhaps for the last time ever.

Then the phone call comes in, a 404 area code.
Atlanta.

“I think this is Captain Coolly,” I tell Jude, who opens his mouth to protest my taking the call, so I turn away from him, my heart beating erratically. This could be a good phone call or a bad one, and with how everything has been going, it could be very bad.

“This is Edie,” I say into the phone.

The officer’s voice is neutral and composed when he speaks. “Harker, you’re looking for a Graeme Harker, right? Aged thirty-three, five-eight in height, brown hair—”

“Yes, that’s him,” I exclaim, louder than necessary, but I can’t contain the worry and the excitement behind the words. Jude puts a hand on my shoulder and offers me a comforting squeeze.

“I think we found him.”

Just Graeme. No mention of Amelia.

I bite my lip, steeling myself for the worst. “Where is he?”

“He just came into the ER here. Someone dropped him off. You need to get here quick.”

“What happened?”

“He—” Coolly hesitates and clears his throat. “He’s dying.”