Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“Better not die.”

“Yeah, you better not.”

All I could do was sit there and touch Alex’s hand. A few drops of blood leaked from his nose and pooled on the cement. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were barely open, but his hair was still solid brown. Maybe I’d get away with only killing him once.

“You,” he said.

I shook my head, not understanding. “Alex?”

“You did this.”

A gunshot to the stomach would have hurt less. Agony squeezed my heart so tightly I couldn’t breathe. He withdrew his hand and left me grasping for air.

“Alex, don’t. I’m sorry.”

He closed his eyes.

“Please!”

His chest stopped moving. I stared, my entire body trembling. Silence pressed down, louder than a thunderclap and deadlier than a lightning strike. He didn’t stir. I’d let him die. It was my fault. I’d done it, and he knew it.

“Alex.”

I dissolved, sobbing harder than I’d done in my life. Curled into the tightest fetal ball I could manage, I wrapped my arms around my knees and wept. Hatred and sorrow and loss and helplessness, all rolled into one broiling emotional cauldron. Rising above the rest was despair, sharp and painful, a thousand splinters in my heart.

“Evy, please, come here.”

I heard Wyatt’s voice, but couldn’t conjure the energy to respond. Crawling five feet to his side of the cell was too hard. Staying on the floor was easier. Pretending it wasn’t happening was easier still. Maybe if I stayed there long enough, the floor would open up and swallow me whole. End it all. Stop the suffering and doubt.

The hysteria subsided on its own. Choking grief was replaced with faint whimpers. My head weighed fifty pounds. My nose and eyes hurt, and my throat felt raw. Every muscle ached from lying on the cement ground. I wiped my face. I didn’t sit up.

“Evy.” The alarm in Wyatt’s voice parted the fog in my brain. I uncurled and lifted my head. He stared past me, lips parted, eyebrows knotted. His eyes widened. “Evy, move!”

I followed his barked order without thought, rolling toward him, over and over until I slammed into the bars of our shared barrier. I pulled into a crouch too quickly, and nearly keeled over. Then the dizziness passed, and a nightmare came into focus.

Alex smiled from his side of the cell, straight-backed with hands clasped in front of him. Cuts and bruises littered his chest, but he seemed not to feel them. He ran one hand through his hair. Brown powder streaked his fingers and dusted his shoulders, revealing the blond peppering beneath. He wiped his hand on his shorts. Eyes finally open wide enough to show a flash of lavender, he grinned like a fool satisfied with a cruel joke.

I waited for more anger to bubble up and spill over. Righteous indignation at his deception. Hatred for the show he’d just put on. Already a Halfie, pretending to die, just to hurt me. Instead, I only had pity. Alex was gone. The half-breed creature in front of me didn’t change that fact. Vampiric infection irrevocably alters a person, not just physically, but also their brain chemistry. His little show had only proved how much the vampire had already overtaken the human.

Alex Forrester was dead, in all ways except physically. The creature in front of me was just another rogue that needed putting down.

Slowly, I stood up. Wyatt hovered behind me.

“You should see your faces. This is priceless,” Alex said.

“What was the point?” I asked.

“Boredom. The fellows upstairs don’t have much to keep them entertained while they’re guarding your sorry asses. I was only interesting for a short while.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? Getting me into this? We had that conversation, remember? I’m still Alex, just a little improved.”

“You’re not Alex.”

“Sure I am.” He strolled out of his cell and came around to the front of mine. “I still remember everything, Evy. I’ve just never felt like this before, like I could run a marathon and never get winded. Like I could take down an armored car with my bare hands.”

“But you can’t, because you aren’t a vampire. You’ll never be one, you’ll never have their strength or their powers. You’re infected by a saliva parasite that’s altering your DNA. You’re a half-breed, nothing more.”

“It’s better than being dead, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes dead is better.”

Wyatt grunted.

“Do you really think that?” Alex asked.

“More than ever.”

“Cheer up, sweetheart. Your clock runs out in thirty hours, and then everyone gets what they want.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Wyatt asked.

Alex gave Wyatt a hard stare. “She talks so highly of you, and you still haven’t figured this thing out? That’s pretty pathetic.”

“I’ll give him one thing, Evy, he’s got the cryptic-speak down pat.”

“I’ve got at least forty hours left,” I said.

“Wrong,” Alex said. “Hate to break it to you, beautiful, but your boyfriend forgot to clarify one point when he made his deal, and that was when precisely the clock started.”

Wyatt made a strangled sound.

I gaped at Alex, quickly doing the math in my head. It came out to an answer I should have anticipated, and that instantly infuriated me. Had Tovin somehow fucked up the resurrection spell? “Son of a bitch, he started the clock at the time of death of the host body.”

“Bingo. Sucks for you, doesn’t it?”

“So we’re supposed to do what now? Just sit down here until my time is up? That’s the plan?”

“In a nutshell. But just think, Evy, it’s your fondest wish. You get to spend the rest of your life with him. Short though it is.”

“Step into this cell with me, asshole,” Wyatt said, “and we’ll see whose life is going to be shorter.”

Alex laughed—a hard sound lacking warmth or mirth. “Please, I’m not that stupid. I may be reborn, but that doesn’t mean I suddenly know how to defend myself. You’d wipe the floor with me, help your girlfriend escape, and then he’d be pissed.”

“Who’s he?”

“Nice try, but no. It’ll ruin the surprise, and trust me, no one’s going to see this coming.”

More questions died on my lips. He wouldn’t answer them. Asking was a waste of time. The Halfies wanted us down here until my time ran out. They had a crystal in place that interfered with Wyatt’s Gift. It had been planned meticulously. Yet as simple as it all seemed, I couldn’t see that final piece of the puzzle. The final “who” and “why” that completed the picture.

“And lucky you,” Alex said to Wyatt. “You get to watch the love of your life die twice.” Wyatt growled; Alex laughed. “But you two won’t be alone. An old friend will be back around midnight, and she’s bringing her favorite straight razor. That healing thing you do fascinates her.”

My stomach trembled. Anger flared bright red in my vision. Kelsa had been here recently, and she was coming back. Passing threats against her health to Alex was a waste of breath, but it didn’t stop me from thinking them. If she even pointed her razor at me or Wyatt …

“We probably won’t meet again,” Alex said. “Good-bye, Evangeline Stone.”

“Fuck off, Halfie,” I said, offering him a one-fingered salute.

He smirked and strolled back to the iron door, as breezy as a man on an afternoon stroll. He hit it twice with his fist. The door opened, and he disappeared through it. The lock squealed back into place.

“Evy?” Wyatt said.

I retreated to the middle of my cell. “If you ask me if I’m okay, I’ll belt you, I swear it.”

He offered a wan smile. “Sorry.”

“He never should have gotten involved in this shit, Wyatt. I kept trying to push him away, but he wouldn’t go. This is what friendship got him.” I sat down, exhausted and hungry and verging on the need to pee. “So what do we do now? A rousing game of I Spy?”