Bite Marks (22 page)

“Yeah. We begged her to dump him. But she said he’d cried afterward and promised never to hurt her again.”

“They always do.”

“It did take him a while.” I went on. “Maybe two months later she came into our room after a date.” I dropped my forehead onto Vayl’s shoulder. “She looked like hell,” I murmured. “They’d had another fight. She’d ordered something at the restaurant that she hadn’t ended up liking, so she didn’t eat much.

And he was pissed that she was wasting his hard-earned money by leaving a full plate. Then he was mad because she’d insisted on paying for her share. In the parking lot he brought up the Chem lab guy again and as soon as they got into his car he started hitting her. She cracked her head against the window before she could finally get out. A couple of her friends were in the same restaurant, so she ran in and got them to bring her home.”

“Did she break it off then?” The snap was back in his voice. Angry at him for dishing it out. At her for taking it. I’d felt exactly the same.

“Yeah. That was when the death threats started. We got the cops involved, but the state we were living in had crappy harassment laws at the time. And Evie was so scared. He’d stare at her from the other end of the hallway at school, and when nobody was looking he’d slide his hand across his throat. He left a dead squirrel in her gym locker. It just went on and on, until she was half crazy from fear.”

“What did your mother do?”

“She didn’t want to take any of it seriously, but Granny May kept nagging her, so she finally decided to move us in with Gran until Dad got transferred again. We tried to keep it quiet, but news gets around.

And Bret found out. The Friday before we were supposed to move, Stella had to work. She left Dave, Evie, and I at home to finish up with the packing. Then Dave got a call. One of his buddies had been in a bad car wreck and they were all gathering at the hospital to support him. So he left.”

“Was his friend really hurt?” As if he knew. I stared into those old eyes, saw the rage, and knew it wasn’t just for Evie.

“No. But by the time he figured it out, Bret had already broken into the house. I’d gone into Stella’s bedroom for more boxes when I heard a weird sound from our room. A thump, like somebody had fallen. I don’t know why I didn’t yell at Evie about it. Maybe just the fact that we’d been so freaked for so long. Or maybe because she’d suddenly stopped singing along with Christina Aguilera.” She still went white whenever “Genie in a Bottle” came on the radio.

His hands had moved back to my hips. They pushed at me, like he wanted to stop the replay, because he knew how much it hurt. But he also knew it had to be done. So he asked, “What did you do?”

“I put the boxes down. Looked around Stella’s room for a weapon. Which was when I saw Albert’s gun cabinet. I grabbed the key from where he kept it in his desk drawer and pulled out his Winchester.” I paused, licked my lips. “I was scared shitless, Vayl. My heart was pumping so fast I was afraid I’d pass out before I found out I’d just been imagining things. My hands shook as I loaded the rifle from the box he also kept in the cabinet. I was terrified the sounds I made echoed through the house like a bell. I was afraid my imaginary intruder was real, and that he’d walk in before I was ready. Mostly I feared I was too late. That Evie was lying in our room, bleeding to death while I tried to remember everything Albert had taught me about shooting.”

I began to shake and Vayl pulled me close. I breathed in his scent, trying to calm myself as Teen Me yanked the doors wide open with a shrill screech that made my head ache.

As Brude’s attention riveted on a vulnerability he might be able to exploit, Vayl said, “Stop. You should not—”

“No. I have to finish.” I licked my lips, unable to prevent myself from falling back into that time, looking out at the familiar scene through the fear-glazed eyes of the teenager who’d joined the crew inside my head.

I crept through the living room, listening so hard I was surprised I didn’t hear the neighbor’s TV

blaring. A choking sound. An angry whisper, way too low to come from a girl’s throat. As soon as
I knew Evie was alive and in trouble, I stopped feeling altogether. I brought the rifle up to my
shoulder. Moved to the edge of the door. He’d left it open. Maybe he figured to find both of us in
there. I heard another thump.

“Where is she?” he hissed. Evie whimpered, a sound that cut into my heart like a surgeon’s
scalpel. The sounds put them in the corner diagonal to the door. In my mind I saw them standing
next to the closet under the poster of Ricky Martin that Evie blew a kiss to on the mornings she
was in a really good mood.

Next to them would be a waist-high bookcase Granny May had given us that had been packed
with Evie’s books before she’d boxed them. Then her bed. It still had a canopy, which might block
my shot if I got my angles wrong. My bed stood across the room, directly opposite the door. We
kept our stereo and speakers on a narrow table along the wall next to it. The floor was cluttered
with book bags, piles of clothes, and Evie’s purse collection.

I stopped. If the lead-up had been hard, this would be excruciating. But Brude had taken the bait. I could sense him looming, making Teen Me clutch at the door handles like a big wind might come and blow her away if she didn’t hold on tight enough.

“Finish it,” Vayl said, gripping me like he thought I might fall.

I cleared my throat.

I stepped into the room. It only took a second to work out what had happened. He’d caught her
while she was unloading the closet for the next round of packing. Shoved her face-first into the
wall so hard some of the paint had flaked onto the floor. Used the butcher knife in his hand to
shred the back of her shirt, leaving a couple of bloody lines where he’d gotten too eager.

He stood with his back to me, but his face was turned to snarl into hers so he caught my move
peripherally. And I knew. I had to act before he could think. Before either of us could, really. I fell
into drill-sergeant mode instinctively. Because it had always gotten immediate compliance for my
dad.

I screamed at my sister first, “Evie! Nuts!”

Her heel flew up, striking Bret in the groin. Not a solid shot, but still hard enough to make him
grab at himself with the hand that had been pinning her.

“Duck!” I bellowed, using the tone Albert saved for only those dire moments when he thought we
were about to pull some ultimately stupid stunt like running into traffic or jumping off a bridge.

She dropped, screaming as she went because Bret had caught her by the hair.

“You fucking bitches!” he rasped. “I’ll slice you both into tiny little piec—”
His knife hand punched toward Evie’s back. But I took the half second I needed to aim. And
when I fired, all I felt was the kick of the gun butt against my shoulder. I watched blankly as
Bret’s skull shattered and parts of his brain sprayed across the closet door and the floor, Evie’s
clothes, and Evie herself.

Without looking at him, she scrambled away, screaming so loud my ears started to pound. I
pointed the rifle to the floor so I wouldn’t accidentally shoot my sister, just like Albert had taught
me to do.

And that was when I started to cry. I’d made somebody stop breathing. Forever. Even after the
police came, after the newspaper stories and the inquest, where people I’d never seen or met
before cleared me, I cried myself to sleep. Not because I was a killer. But because something so
horrible and final, something only God should have charge of, had felt so right. I had come
face-to-face with my inner monster. And she fit me like a second skin.

“And now?” Vayl asked, running his hands up to my shoulder blades. “Have your feelings changed?” I looked at the window, like the world on the other side of the faded brown curtains might be different if I could give him the answer I wanted to.

“Some,” I said. “I know in my head that what I do is vital to my country. And I’ve saved the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people who run to the grocery and Wal-Mart and football practice, blissfully unaware that I’ve just offed the scumbag who wanted to turn their kids into nuclear waste. But…”

“Yes?”

I winced. Made myself meet his gaze. “I know something is broken in me. Not so bad that I can’t see what side I should be fighting on. Or where I need to draw the line. But enough that I’ll never be right. I’ll never”—I drew in a breath—“be normal.”

The doors in my head swung wide. Brude swept in, howling with glee. All he saw were the walls, covered in scars, some of them so new the blood was still drying on the floor beneath them. All he felt was the dull, unrelenting ache of hopelessness beating out a rhythm that sounded horribly close to the words, “Loser, loser, loser,” repeated with the conviction of an eyewitness.

I grabbed Vayl’s shoulders, dug my fingers in, and willed the tears away.
Now.
I gave him my fiercest look.
Help me, Vayl.

For a moment he didn’t move. A spike of terror drove itself into the back of my neck.
You said I could
trust you! Don’t let me down, dammit!

Then he yanked me against his chest and in one swift move, rolled me onto my back. His lips met mine with a force that blew the doors closed on Brude. Every touch, every stroke, the winding of our tongues and bodies set another lock into place.

Between caresses he said, “Someone as remarkable as you should never reach for normal. I know the word appeals to you, but the existence would bore you into committing real mischief. If you change, I swear to lock you in my castle until you return to your usual strange ways.”
He has a castle!
shouted Teen Me, who immediately discovered a huge wooden bar that she slid into place just at the point where Brude’s relentless door pounding wouldn’t even bother me in my sleep.

I sighed. Relieved. Strung-out. And increasingly excited by Vayl’s wandering hands and lips. Which was when my stomach began to itch. I tried to scratch, but he pulled my hand away, raised the hem of my shirt so he could see the double-heart belly ring he’d given me surrounded by blotchy redness.

“I was right. It is improving,” he said. “But not enough for me to put you into further misery.”

“But I
want
to be miserable!” I protested as he rolled off me and propped himself up on an elbow. I sat up. “Wait. That didn’t sound right.”

“Jasmine, you are rubbing your leg against the side of my boot. And I am certain at least half of the writhing you were doing was to set your back against the comforter just to relieve the itching there.”

“Ah. Uh.”

He reached over and kissed me on the forehead. “When you have recovered, I promise to make up for every moment we have missed. And then some.”

I smiled. How lovely to have snagged a dude who kept his promises. Once I would’ve said there wasn’t more than one in the world. Now I knew there were at least two. And I had fallen for both of them.

Iwanted to spend more time celebrating. Let Vayl know what he’d really done for me in this tiny bedroom whose bare white walls seemed to sparkle with silver-pink now that I knew Brude was trapped. But maybe I should wait. Yeah. Make extra sure I had control back before I started the festivities.

So I let Vayl return to the living room to check on Ruvin without saying a word about our success. And then, the moment I stepped into the hall, it dropped to the bottom of my priority list. Because, despite Vayl’s reassurances that Cole knew how to take care of himself, when I heard his chuckle thread around Kyphas’s laughter, I lost it. Just a little.

I called for Astral. “Snoop time,” I whispered to her as I knelt between the doors to my bedroom and the bathroom. “I want you to spy on Cole and Kyphas. But don’t you dare start singing. In fact, don’t talk at all. Don’t even record any audio.” There, that should cover all the bases. Besides, it seemed a little too invasive. “And above all, don’t get caught!”

Astral slipped into Kyphas’s room and began streaming video, mostly of Cole sitting by her bed, talking, sharing spoonfuls of pudding, smiling with his usual übercharm. He looked so comfortable! Didn’t he know demons had no net of values to prevent them from stealing the souls of great guys like him? When he helped her turn over, because her back had already healed that much, I nearly growled.

That’s it. The next time Raoul threatens to behead her, I’m handing him an axe.

I joined Vayl and Ruvin in the living room, but the waiting around we were forced to do didn’t improve my mood. We discovered that late-night television in Australia consists of crappy old movies or infomercials that none of us wanted to veg out to. With nothing to distract us, we took turns throwing a tennis ball down the hallway so Jack could race after it. How he managed not to smash into the wall I never could decide, but he always retrieved it without causing any damage.

In the kitchen, Bergman had finished centrifuging the blood. But the next part of the test would still take a while and Ruvin had started checking his watch.

“Are you sure this plan will work?” he asked Vayl for the third time. “The Odeam team did say they wanted me to pick them up at two a.m. That only gives you fifteen minutes to identify the rest of the infested.”

“It will be fine,” he said with a confidence I would’ve had to fake.

“Why are they leaving so early?” I asked.

He shrugged. “When they first called to book a ride from the airport, dade explained that they were just supposed to stop over at the guesthouse for a nap, to sort of rejuve after the flight. And then he wanted me to drive them to the Complex early, he said so they wouldn’t be tying up everyone’s computers during the busiest time of the workday.”

“Makes sense,” I told Vayl. “But that means if Bergman doesn’t get the tests done on time—”