Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“Vampires?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Halfies. I didn’t even see them until they brought you two in a few hours ago. No questioning, no talking.”

It was still the same day, probably evening. Not as much time had passed as I’d thought, but that still didn’t explain—“What do Halfies want with us?” They’d gone through a lot of trouble to capture us alive—just a little more proof that they had, in fact, been targeting my partners at the train bridge. Not me.

“I’m not sure, Evy. The Halfies aren’t organized enough to be the brains of this, whatever this is. They’re following someone else’s orders.”

“Orders like setting me up, getting me hunted down, and keeping us locked down here for God knows how long?”

“Something like that.”

“What about your Gift, Wyatt? Why haven’t you used it to summon a key or something?”

He pointed toward the far wall of the corridor. At first, I saw only more cement blocks. But dangling from a nail, wrapped in twine, was a slender orange crystal. “It’s blocking me,” he said. “Every time I try to do something, it zaps me like a cattle prod. I’ve never been cut off from my power source before. It’s so strange, like I’m missing an arm or something.”

I realized the distant sense of static I’d felt since my rebirth was, likewise, gone. The crystal cut us off from the sources of magic—what Isleen referred to as Breaks—but how in the blue blazes did a Halfie get hold of one?

“Well, if they haven’t questioned you, why take Alex?”

“Dinner?”

I slapped him harder than I intended. He stared, hurt sparking in his black eyes.

“I’m sorry, Evy,” he said.

“He’s a nice guy, Wyatt. He didn’t have to help me, but he did.” The idea of Alex surrounded by Halfies, each one taking a bite out of his arm or neck or leg, enraged me. “So what do we do now?”

“I don’t know. Have you remembered anything new?”

“Boy, have I.” I fed him the details of my Mo’n Rath experience, complete with visuals on Kelsa and the reason behind Max’s strange reaction to me. I left out some of the torture details, not wishing to relive them or inflict them upon Wyatt, but I saw the anger spark in him—fury at what I didn’t say, horror at what I did.

“When you didn’t come back to the hotel by noon,” he said, “I knew something was wrong. I should have started looking for you sooner.”

“You wouldn’t have found me. Wyatt, is it possible that the alliance we’ve heard about isn’t with the ruling vampire Families, but with the Halfies? They’ve always been outsiders, hunted by us, and treated like shit by the Bloods. It makes sense that they’d try for a power shift, if they made out good on the deal.”

“I’ve considered that, too. It certainly puts Ash and Jesse’s deaths into perspective. The Triads are too busy chasing you to see what else is happening.”

“Something still doesn’t make sense.”

He tilted his head. “What’s that?”

“Me.”

“What do you mean?”

“They could have picked any Triad to attack, Wyatt, but they chose yours. They chose me. Kelsa said someone was paying a lot of money for me, but not in the way I assumed. Whoever wanted me paid her to do what she did, and to ensure that you were the one who found me. But why? All they had to do was kill me and hide my body. You would have kept the Triads looking for me for days or weeks until I was found. Why set it up the way they did?”

“I don’t know. I really wish I did, but I don’t. And it isn’t the only thing that doesn’t add up.”

“Like why keep you down here, alive, and not torture you?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Are you advocating violence against my person now?”

“No, jackass, just a logical ordering of events. They killed Wormer and Tully this afternoon while they were capturing us. Shot them dead. But they used tranqs on us. Why do they want me alive?”

Aggravation mounting, I stood up on shaky legs and started pacing the narrow length of the cell. Confusion, anger, and remnants of despair all bubbled up through my mouth before I could censor myself. “Why the fuck did you bring me back, Wyatt? Why didn’t you just let me rest in peace? Hell has to be better than this.”

He wilted in front of me—every bit of light, every scrap of fight in him fled. I didn’t regret the words. I only hated that they were true, and how precisely they reflected my feelings. Overwhelmed and frustrated, I took it out on my only available target—a man who’d given up everything for me.

“Why?” I grabbed the bars separating us. He had to say it. I had to hear it.

He retreated to the corner of his cell, as far from me as he could get. Worse still, he turned his back. I had no way to make him face me. He couldn’t disappear behind a bathroom door, but he could still escape.

My knuckles ached. I loosened my death grip on the bars—a wall that might as well have been solid rock. I was livid, but not at him. I was furious at myself for not mounting the rescue I’d hoped for. For failing at the happily ever after he so desperately needed to believe in.

“I really am a self-centered prick, aren’t I?” he asked. His tone was so mild I thought it was a rhetorical question. He turned his head, showing me his profile and nothing else. “Aren’t I?”

“You’re not a prick,” I said. “A little selfish, but not a prick. Hell, you did what you thought was right. You need to know what I know.”

His profile disappeared. He grasped the bars in front of him. Tension thrummed through his shoulders and back. “I convinced myself that was the reason. I convinced everyone, even you.”

Nausea struck me so hard and fast my knees buckled. Only my hold on the bars kept me standing.

“Now I’m not so sure anymore.”

“I knew something.” I repeated words I’d been told and believed to be true. “I had information we needed about the alliance.”

“I hoped you did.”

“Wyatt, stop!”

“I told myself that was why, that I wasn’t bringing you back because it hurt too much to lose you. That a lifetime without free will wasn’t worth three more days with you. That wasn’t good enough. I had to do it for the right reasons, you know. For them, not for us.”

Rage rippled through me. My skin flushed. My hands continued to shake. “You bastard! Do I know something, Wyatt? Do I?” My voice grew louder, angrier, and he flinched away. “Do I fucking know anything, or was remembering it all for nothing? Did I just relive the torture and the goddamn rape for nothing?”

“You never should have lived it the first time.”

“That’s not a fucking answer!”

“I don’t have one for you, okay?” He finally turned. Color suffused his face. His eyes sparkled, but no tears fell. “I don’t think I remember the truth anymore, Evy. I’ve been sitting here for hours with nothing but time, and I can’t seem to think straight. I don’t know the difference between what I told myself and the actual truth. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

“I know you don’t love me, and that’s probably the worst of my crimes. I betrayed your trust, Evy. I had no right.”

He looked so lost, like an abandoned child. Compassion had never been my strong suit, but even furious as I was at his deceptions, I found myself reaching for understanding. Intention did not outweigh the cost of what he’d given up for me. I had easily accepted the notion of him sacrificing his free will—becoming a slave to Tovin’s own will—in order to serve a nobler cause; I had trouble with the idea that he’d done it all for three days with me. I wasn’t that special. I wasn’t worth the price tag.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How can you still be in love with me? With this person? I’m not the same as I was before.”