Strange Trouble (23 page)

She stood frozen when they were gone, afraid to move. She
didn’t hang up the phone but let it dangle against the wall. Just in case
hanging up would be the trigger.

But beneath her feet she saw the line where the floor had
been cut. The explosive was right below her.

Maybe.

It didn’t really matter.

It would go off and if she could move faster than she’d ever
moved, there was a chance she would live.

The house was silent and watchful. She heard nothing but her
own breath, rushing through her ears as adrenaline built.

Fast.
Faster than I’ve ever been.

Faster than a bomb.

She didn’t want to try for the door—even though it was only
a few feet away, it was still too far. There was a window to her left, and it
was closer.

Even if she’d wanted to follow Z from the world, she wasn’t
going to let COS be responsible for her departure.

She inhaled life, pulled it deep, and as her lungs expanded
as far as they could, she vaulted off the floor, her stare on the window.

Faster than she’d ever been.

Faster, maybe, than anyone had ever been.

The house exploded.

It was something she’d never felt—it was as if in half a
second, her body was ripped apart and various parts of her violently swirled in
space before ramming forcefully back together again.

She
was the blast. She was the heat and the energy
and the force, and she exploded through the window, her body battered as it was
flung into the side of a neighboring building.

She
lay
in a boneless heap, blind,
deaf, and so disoriented she had no idea where she was or what had happened.

Then red, licking flames appeared in the blackness.
Scorching wind whooshed around her, cradling her in a burning bed of chaos.

She was alive.

Wasn’t she?

She cackled, half-crazed but joyful, and fought her way back
to the daylight.

The crew needed to know she was still there.

Still fucking there.

As she crawled away, trying to stand, a burning board hit
the side of her head. Blood, hot and angry, gushed down her face.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, and climbed to her feet.

She heard sirens in the distance. Even in the Moor, a place
in dire need of a cleansing fire, the firefighters would rush to the rescue.

It was what they did.

Rune tottered in the direction of the destroyed house.

The crew would be watching for her.
Hoping.

The street churned with people. “Bring on the zombies,” one
of them yelled. “We’ll have us a barbecue.”

And in a line, as close as they could get
to the burning house, stood her men.

She kept her stare on their backs as she made her way toward
them, ignoring the shock of those who caught sight of her as she pushed through
the crowd.

“Watch it,” a man said, when she bumped into him, and turned
with aggressive anger toward her. His yell of terror caused those near him to
turn around to look.

A woman screamed.

Rune walked on.

Ordinarily she would have been more concerned about their
reactions, but her mind was on only one thing. Letting Strad, Jack, Raze, and
Owen know she was alive.

They’d been through enough—she didn’t want them thinking they’d
lost her, as well.

She wasn’t in any pain. Her body was numb. She realized she
probably looked like death, burnt and broken with seared skin and a bloody
face.

But she had no idea how bad she actually looked until Owen
turned and saw her.

She grinned, but his immediate shock and the horror in his
eyes made her smile disappear.

Her crew, alerted by Owen, spotted her then.

The crowd quieted as they watched.

“Unreal,” someone said. “Is that Rune Alexander?” The voice
echoed inside her skull, coming from far away and yet,
right
there,
right beside her.

Maybe inside her.
She didn’t know.

She stood still then, letting her men come to her.

“I’m alive,” she said, when they reached her. “I’m alive.”

Strad reached out,
then
withdrew
his hand. “Fuck, sweetheart.”

Jack murmured, “Rune,” then turned away. It was the first
time she saw him cry.

“But I’m
alive,
” she whispered, a little confused.

Owen crossed his arms, then swallowed, and also turned away.
“If you can,” he said to Strad, “you need to fix this.”

“How can that be alive,” someone called. “How can that be
walking?”

Rune sighed, fed up. She didn’t need another fucking
delay—COS waited in Hawthorne and it was time for retribution.

She lifted a hand to Strad. “Feed me,” she said, then fell
silent as she realized, finally, what all the shock was about.

Her clothes had been burned away, as had much of her skin.
She was a walking skeleton. Bits of scorched flesh clung to the bones of her
hand and arm as she reached out to the berserker.

 Unable to help herself, she looked down at her ruined
body.

Many of her bones were visible. Skin had been melted away by
the blast, and the bones gleamed through gaping wounds.

And when she saw it…

She screamed and stumbled back, unable to process it.
“What?” she asked.

But she knew. She could live with damage like this, because
she was immortal.
An immortal monster.

Shamed, she hid her chest with her crossed, bony arms.
“Cover me,” she begged.

They moved fast then, competent but shamefaced, awkward as
they tried to touch her without hurting her.

They surrounded her and walked her gently toward the
arriving EMTs. When the emergency workers backed away with horror-filled eyes,
her men ignored them and loaded her into the back of the vehicle.

Strad climbed inside with her.

“Fix her,” Jack demanded, before he slammed the doors shut.

She sat on the edge of the cot and then leaned back
gingerly, her gaze glued to the berserker’s face. He barely fit inside the
vehicle.

She didn’t want to feed, but knew she had to. “I feel different.”

Strad leaned over her. “I know, sweetheart. I’m afraid to
touch you. Can you drop your fangs?”

She tried three times before she gave up.

“No matter.”
Strad pulled a shiv
and sliced through his wrist.
“Drink.”

She closed her eyes and ignoring her protesting stomach,
drew his blood inside her.

And when, with each suck, the pain became more and more
real, she kept Lex’s tragic image in her mind, and that gave her strength.

She concentrated on the twins’ faces, on their smiles.

She thought of Ellie and his devastation.

And COS…

She would annihilate them.

Nothing else mattered.

But then, she realized why she felt different.

Her monster was no longer inside her.

And quite suddenly, something else did matter.

It mattered a lot.

She pushed Strad’s arm away, feeling infinitely better, but
strangely empty. She held up her hand and stared at the bones still visible
through the slowly knitting flesh.

“How do I look?
Better, Strad?
At all?”

“You’re not dead.” His voice was gruff, and he refused to
let her see what was in his eyes. “You’ll heal. You just have to give it some
time, like you always do.”

“Not this time. It’s different. I don’t…my monster. He’s
missing.”

He met her gaze, finally. “Your monster is you, Rune.”

“No. It’s something else. He’s gone.” She shook her head,
whether in denial or slowly dawning horror or an almost overwhelming relief,
she couldn’t have said. “I can’t fight without my monster.”

“You fought before. You’ll fight again.” He smoothed back
her hair. Despite the damage to her body, her hair, she realized, was still
there. “I’m taking you to Willowburg, to Dr. Haas. She’ll take care of you
until you’re better.”

“No.” She sat up. “We’re going to Hawthorne. Move over, Berserker.”
She waited until he had awkwardly moved his big body out of her way before she
held her hands in front of her and tried to shoot out her claws.

They wouldn’t come.

“Gone.
My monster is gone.”

She looked at Strad and silently dared him to argue.

He didn’t say a word, but the flinching sympathy in his eyes
was nearly too much for her.

She stared at her hands, watching as slowly, the flesh began
to mend, trying to repair the damage it had sustained.

Regrowing
.

She blew out a tired breath, a puff of air that burned her
throat. “I was mistaken. I’m always going to be a monster. For a second, I
thought…”

But still.

She felt empty. Something was different, less.

Something…

“I feel almost human,” she said, suddenly. “I feel like I
did before I recognized my monster.
Before I let him out.
Before the claws and fangs.
Back when I was letting
Jeremy
tie
me to a bed and beat the shit out of me.”

The berserker growled.

She looked at him. “What does this mean? My monster was
always there. I just refused to acknowledge him.”

“Maybe now he is the one hiding,” Strad said.

She knew he was managing her, humoring her. Knew, but didn’t
care.
Because he was right.

“How do I look now?”

“Like you’ll heal.
How bad is the
pain?”

She’d always healed after Ellie brought her blood. But she’d
never been as damaged as she was right then, not even when she’d carried the
berserker’s child through the burning church. Not when a COS member had hit her
with the evil vaccinator. Not even when Jeremy Cross had sliced her up and left
her to die.

“I feel less numb,” she told him. “There’s pain but it’s as
though my nerve endings have been burnt away.”

“A gift,” he said. “We’ll take it.”

She held out a hand for him to take. “I’m ready now. Let’s
go to Hawthorne and end this thing.”

He caressed her hand with his thumb. “Okay.”

“I need clothes.”

He dragged the sheet off the gurney and wrapped it around
her. “We’ll get you some clothes.”

“And some coffee.”

He laughed.
“Yeah.”

He stepped out and helped her down. When her feet touched
the cold pavement her legs gave out.

“Shit,” she said. She was too weak to fight fucking COS.
“It’s going to take a little while.”

“You’ve been through some shit,” Owen said. “You take all
the time you need.”

Her crew gathered around her, keeping back the crowd, the cops,
the media.

She spotted the reporter, Sam Cruikshank. She ignored them
all.

“Where do we take her?” Jack asked.
“The
clinic?”

“She wants to go to Hawthorne,” Strad said.

“Like this? Not possible.” Raze crossed his big arms and
stared down at her.

“I just need a minute. I fed. I may have to feed again.
Ellie can…” She had to pause to get her breath. “Ellie can get me more blood.”

No one answered.

She stared them all down. “I’m going to fucking Hawthorne.
You don’t want to try to stop me.”

“Well okay then,” Jack said. “Okay.”

“Call Ellis.”

“I already did,” Strad answered. “He said he’d have a bag at
RISC in less than half an hour.”

They arrived at RISC in twenty-five minutes—she asked Strad
to stop for a coffee. She couldn’t drink it, the one sip she tried burned all
the way down. Still, the scent of it was enough. It brought her comfort.

And she needed all the comfort she could get.

Raze would meet up with them later. He’d stayed in the Moor
to talk to the cops. It wouldn’t take long.

She walked into RISC unaided, but it was an effort. “One
more bag of blood,” she kept murmuring. “One more bag.”

It would heal her. It had to. She wasn’t sending her crew to
Hawthorne without her.
Unless she had to.
Unless she absolutely had to.

Ellie waited in one of the employee overnight rooms—sort of
an “on call” room. She suspected Elizabeth had spent a lot of her nights in
those very rooms. She rarely went home. Maybe there was nothing to go home to.

Ellis stood stiff and expressionless, the bag clutched to
his chest.

Strad urged her into the room, his arm protectively at her
back.

Ellis’s expression didn’t change when he saw her, but his
eyes did.

She glanced at him and then had to look away.

“Someday,” she told him, trying to keep her voice light,
“I’ll stop tormenting you.”

“No,” he said. “You won’t.”

Then, his face bright with shame, he ran to her and threw
his arms around her, still holding tightly to the bag.

“Easy,” Strad said. “She’s—”

“I can see what she is, Berserker,” Ellis snapped. “Now move
aside and let me take care of her. I’ve been doing that a lot longer than you
have.”

Strad lifted an eyebrow but said nothing.

Rune grinned. Ellie sounded more like his old self than he
had in a long, long time. “I’ll be okay.”

“You always are. Do you want to drink this, or…?”

She shook her head, stopping when the movement made her
dizzy. “No. I don’t think I could keep it down.”

He moved brusquely, ordering Strad to hold the bag while he
pushed the needle into her arm.

“You’re becoming less and less human,” he said suddenly.

He clamped a hand over his mouth and stared down at her, his
eyes wide with horror. “What’s
wrong
with me?” he whispered between his
fingers. “You know I adore you. Why am I so angry?”

“You’ve reached your limit. Give me the blood. I’ll go get
your love back.”

He nodded wordlessly and blinked tears from his eyes.

He was a mess. They all were.

As she lay there, piping blood into her system, Ellis’s
brutal words echoed through her mind like ominous bells of doom.

“Less and less human…”

The thought was terrible.

But he was not wrong.