Driven (35 page)

"I'm
sorry, Jasmin, the construct backing up the kill command is just too
powerful. Maybe if there were two of me we could rip it out, but I'm
just not strong enough."

"So
we'll find another vampire. Rachel found you, you must know someone
else you could trust, another mentalist who is strong enough to do
what needs to be done."

Geoffrey
shook his head at me. "I've never met another vampire, at least
not another mentalist, who you would want to trust inside of Ben's
mind."

I
tried to stop the tears, tried to keep control of myself, but it was
no use. They trickled down my face despite everything I could do.

"So
there's nothing left to do but just sit here and watch him die?"

Geoffrey
pulled himself to his feet and walked over to me, moving like an old
man, like someone who had given more than they should have to the
fight. He patted me on the arm.

"I
did what I could; I bought him some more time. Sally, you can stop
pumping now, he'll breathe just fine on his own for now. I know it's
not much, Jasmin, but I thought that you'd want a chance to say your
goodbyes."

I
wanted to ask him what he meant, but it didn't matter. Even reaching
up to wipe away the tears on my face was too much effort. I watched
as Geoffrey ushered Sally out of the room and pulled the door closed
behind him.

I'd
been chasing Ben for years now; it just didn't seem fair for things
to end this way. I'd done terrible things in my effort to save him,
and now I was going to be left with nothing to show for it, no Ben,
no hope for the future, just my sins and a knowledge of how much
further I was capable of sinking than I'd ever realized before.

I
reached out and took Ben's hand, but rather than remaining limp he
squeezed my hand in return. I looked up to see that his eyes were
open.

"Where
am I?"

For
a second I thought I was hallucinating, but then I realized that it
didn't matter if I was. If this was some kind of grief-induced
dementia then I never wanted to get better.

"You're
in Minnesota. Isaac and I rescued you, but you went into convulsions
when I carried you out of the shop so I knocked you unconscious and
you've been in a coma ever since."

"How
long?"

"I'm
not sure, I lost count. Weeks, I guess, maybe a couple of months.
I've been trying to bring you out of your coma since before we left
Sanctuary. Alec paid for some of the best doctors to come look at
you, but they couldn't find anything wrong, your body was just slowly
shutting down."

"It
still is, Jasmin. I can feel it like a shadowy spider sitting deep
down inside of me, telling me to just give up and die."

"But
you're here. Geoffrey said that he couldn't save you, but you're
here, he succeeded."

"No,
I could feel him trying to help me. He gave me a transfusion of
strength, but it's already leaking away, I don't have much more
time."

The
tears that had been escaping my eyes one or two at a time were now a
steady trickle, but I didn't care. It didn't matter that I usually
prided myself on not crying, the only thing that mattered was that
Ben was going to leave me again, just like he always did.

"You've
got to fight it!"

"I
am, and I'll go on continuing to fight it, but it's using my own
strength against me. I'm sorry, Jasmin, this is all my fault."

"Don't
say that, please don't try and take the blame for this. It's my
fault. I'm the one that addicted you to my touch, if that hadn't
happened then you would have been fine."

Ben
shook his head, a weak motion, but a definite denial. "No,
Jasmin, you saved me, just like you always have. It seems like as far
back as I can remember you've been saving me. From my dad, from the
drugs, from my own clumsiness, you're the one who's always pulled me
back from the edge."

"No,
Ben, you did that, I helped, but if you hadn't wanted it then nothing
I did would have saved you."

"I
know, but I wasn't strong enough to do it myself, I never have been.
It's always been you who's given me the strength to do what had to be
done. I think that's why I kept running. I never knew why you were
willing to go to so much effort to save me when I knew I wasn't worth
saving."

"But
you are, can't you see that?"

"I
know you think so right now, but I always figured that if I let you
get closer to me, if I ever really let you in, that you'd realize
that you were wrong all along. This is my fault. I knew that I was
taking a risk when I let Jacque into my mind, but I didn't care. All
I cared about was the fact that he made it so that I didn't crave
your touch every single hour of every single day."

I
started to let go of his hand, but he grabbed ahold of me with a kind
of desperately weak strength that couldn't be denied.

"It
doesn't bother me now. I love it, I love that I can touch you without
hating myself for being so weak."

"I'm
going to save you, Ben. Geoffrey said that he bought us some time,
you just said as much yourself. Rachel knows things, she'll help,
we'll find someone who can reverse what was done to you. I'll do
whatever
it takes to bring you back."

"No!"
The denial was explosive, it seemed to take an alarming amount of
Ben's strength, but he grabbed hold of me even tighter. "You
have to promise me. The ends don't justify the means, I know that
better than anyone else. You can try to save me, but don't do
anything that you'll regret later. No torturing, no murder. I don't
want any of that on my head."

"It
won't be on your head, it will be on mine."

"You
say that, but it doesn't change how I feel. Please, Jasmin, promise
me. I don't want to survive if the cost is your soul. Survival isn't
worth that to me."

"It
is to me, not for just anyone's survival, but for yours it is."

"How
would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot and I had to do
those kinds of things to save you?"

I
felt like he was ripping my heart out of my chest, but he was right.
Nodding in agreement to his demand was the hardest thing I'd ever had
to do, but I forced my chin, up and then down in jerky fits and
starts.

It
wasn't pretty, but it was enough for Ben. He gave me a tired smile
and seemed to relax back into the bed.

"Thank
you, Jasmin. I've never told you this, but I love you. I've loved you
for years now. I wish things had happened differently and that we
hadn't been forced to go through all of this, but I'm glad that I at
least got one last chance to finally tell you how I feel."

"I
love you too, Ben. I always have."

The
words came out in a rush, but I was too slow. He'd already closed his
eyes and there was no answering squeeze from his hand.

I
wanted to stay there at his bedside and cry myself out, but there
wasn't time for that. Geoffrey had bought me a few more days and I
was going to find a way to save Ben. I wasn't going to let him slip
through my fingers, not this time.

—The Story Continues in
Lost
—

Curious how all of the pieces of the Reflection Universe fit
together? Check out
the
Reflections Reading Order Diagram
on
my blog.

Publisher's Note:

If you've enjoyed this book, please consider signing up for the
author's
mailing list
.
By signing up you'll receive $10.00 worth of
free books. We'll be offering a special discount to existing fans for
the first week each new book is live, so signing up for his mailing list
will mean that you'll always know about new releases with plenty of
time to take advantage of the new release discount.

Author's Note:

Getting to this point in the Reflections (and Dark Reflections)
Series has been a real learning experience for me. When it comes to
my stories, I think my writing has improved, but that isn't the
only learning that has happened for me.

As I write this, I'm exactly 31 days past the release date
for Bound. Hunted is basically finished save for the cover,
Driven is headed out to my advance readers, Dark Reflections #3 is
off for the first round of editing, and Isaac's book is in rough
draft form. I've written a lot of words—more than 690,000—since
I finished up Riven, but none of those words have been Alec and
Adri
Reflections
words, and that has ended up mattering more than
I expected it to.

To be honest, I gave lip service to the idea that some of my
Reflections readers might not want to read the Dark Reflections
books. I considered the possibility that with Driven, I'd be
releasing another Trapped, another book in the main Reflections
Series that was awesome, but which didn't get the same kind of
uptake that I saw with Forsaken and Riven.

Intellectually I knew that all might happen, but I didn't
believe it, not really. I still have faith that most of my fans
will eventually pick up Bound and Hunted, and I'm confident
that those two books will earn me readers who otherwise never
would have even considered reading Broken or Torn. I know that
eventually most of the people who loved Riven will
buy Driven, but this note isn't about—or for—those people,
this note is for the people who went out and took a chance on
Bound before all of the 5-star reviews started rolling in.

This note is for all of the people who love the Sanctuary
pack enough that they bought Driven on the first or second day
that it was available. This is for my very best fans, the
ones that I've taken to calling—inside the privacy of my
own mind—my rabid fans.

Inside of Dean's world that's some of the highest praise
I can offer, and I'm profoundly grateful to all of you. I know
that there is a degree of trust every time you buy one of my
books, and it requires even more trust for you to buy something
when I do something unexpected like starting the Dark
Reflections books. I will continue to do everything I can to
make sure that each book is a compelling read, and I promise
that I'll never write 'filler'.

These books, crazy though they might be, are the thing
that's going to make Alec and Adri's story epic. I hope you
enjoy the journey as much as I've been enjoying it.

Acknowledgments:

The list of people who help out in this undertaking
doesn't change much from book to book, but that doesn't
mean that their effort is any less valuable as the months
roll by.

RJ Locksley and Amy Jirsa-Smith continue to do
outstanding work when it comes to the editing side of
things, and their help is much appreciated.

My advance readers do great work when it comes to
providing me story-focused feedback and finding the errors
I introduce in the course of fixing some of Amy and RJ's
finds. Mom, Dad, Shalese, Matthew, Mark, Mimi, Britney, Kim,
Chris, Heather Tucker, Janelle Gordinier, and Jenine Anderson
are some of the best readers a writer could hope to have and
I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be able to work
with them. Thank you all.

Lastly, none of this could happen without my wife,
Katie. She edited, provided feedback on the story, and
created the cover all while juggling a ton of other
responsibilities. Thanks, Katie.

About the Author:

Dean Murray is a prolific author with more than 25
titles across multiple pen names and more than 350,000
copies of his work currently in circulation.

Dean started reading seriously in the second grade due
to a competition and has spent most of the subsequent three
decades lost in other people's worlds.

Things worsened, or improved depending on your point
of view, when he first started experimenting with writing
while finishing up his accounting degree. These days Dean
has a wonderful wife and two lovely daughters to keep him
rather more grounded, but the idea of bringing others along
with him as he meets interesting new people in universes
nobody else has ever seen tends to drag him back to his
computer on a fairly regular basis.

Keep up to speed on Dean's latest
projects at
deanwrites.com
. If you
want to interact with readers who love the series as much as
you do, please consider checking out the
Reflections Facebook page
or
Dean's Forum
.

Something powerful is stirring in the darkness. Something so ancient that even
creatures who've been alive for hundreds of years have long since discounted this new
threat as nothing more than myth.

Normal humans will be caught in the crossfire, but then that's always the way of
things. Geoffrey has no memory of his past life or any idea how to survive in the
violent, dangerous world in which he's trapped. Despite his best efforts, he's about to
find himself in the middle of a conflict that threatens to sweep away everything,
and everyone he's been fighting so hard to protect.

The only thing worse than having no family at all, is having a family that is out to hurt you. That would all be bad enough for a normal 17-year-old, but it's even worse for Alec Graves. A shape shifter's pack, his family, is the only thing stopping the other preternatural creatures out there from killing them.

Alec's pack isn't just neglectful, he's pretty sure that his father wants him dead. Alec is about to be sent to the front lines of a war between his people and everything else that goes bump in the night. His only chance of survival is to convince everyone around him that he's the perfect soldier, but there are lines that Alec won't cross, not for any price.