Emily McKay - The Lair

“Allies? Is that what you think? These gun-toting wack jobs are going to be our allies?”

“They’re within easy driving distance. Surely there’s someone in town with a satellite phone. We should have given them our number.”

“I’m not giving our number to the guy who shot you.”

“Yeah, he shot me. But it’s barely a scratch.”

“You were lucky. Eight inches to the right and you’d be dead.”

“Yes, I was lucky, but think about it from his point of view. He thought his kid was in danger. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t do the same to protect your family?”

“He shot you with a handgun, Lily. Have you thought about what that means? Anyone who’s lived this long knows that a pistol isn’t going to do jack to a Tick. A half-dozen bullets won’t do more than piss a Tick off. So if he had a pistol, it’s because he intended to shoot people. Humans, Lily. That’s the only thing a handgun is good for shooting. Think about that for a few minutes before you tell me you think we should make these people our allies.”

“He was protecting his family.”

“Jesus, Lily! Would you listen to yourself? Just for a minute? He shot you. Stop taking his goddamn side.”

Lily blew out a slow breath. “You’re right. Everything you’ve said about him is right. But just hear me out, okay? I’m not saying we need to start a book club or anything. But think about the bigger picture. Just for a second. There’s a whole town there. A town that was hard hit, but a town, Carter. An honest-to-God town with close to two thousand people living in it, from what Dawn said. That’s the first sign we’ve had that there’s anything left other than Farms and Ticks. This is huge! This is good news!”

“Seriously?”

“Let’s forget for a moment that he shot me. For the first time, in, like, forever, you get to go back to Base Camp with good news. With hope. With potential allies. Just forget for a second whether or not these allies are ones we actually want. They’re human. That’s . . . a miracle.”

Carter let out a curse and slowed the Hummer to a stop before turning to face her.

“You’re right. I should be thrilled.” His voice was anguished. “And maybe, soon, I will be. But for now, I’m still a bit freaked that you nearly died out there today. And you know what’s worse than that? You getting shot wasn’t his fault, it was mine. I’m the one who charged in. I spooked him. If I hadn’t panicked, you wouldn’t have been shot.”

She sat back against the door of the cab, all her anger slipping away. “Carter, I don’t blame you.”

“ I blame me.”

For a moment Lily just stared at him in shock. Then she said, “Carter, I—”

He whirled on her. “Damn it, Lily, don’t you get it? All this time I haven’t been keeping you at Base Camp because you haven’t been ready to go on food raids, I’ve been keeping you there because I haven’t been ready.”

“But I—”

“People get hurt on food raids.”

“Yeah, sometimes they do, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hide back in the caves. People look up to me. They see me as a leader, and a leader has to be out in the field.”

“Bullshit.”

“ You’re out in the field. The Elites will follow you anywhere because they know you’ll lead the charge. Generals in ancient Rome did the same thing. They were always the first onto the battlefield. That’s what made the Romans the fiercest warriors of their day, and I—”

“I don’t give a crap about ancient Rome. I care about you . I care about keeping you safe.”

Carter looked away from her and glared straight ahead, even though he wasn’t driving and had no excuse to pay attention to the road. Even though there was no traffic or other cars or any reason to even look at the road.

Suddenly that expression she couldn’t read earlier became perfectly clear. Beneath that outward show of bravado was fear. Fear for her.

“People get hurt in food raids. You got hurt. When you were shot, when I thought you might be dead, I—”

His voice broke on the next word. Carter—who was so tough, tougher than anyone she knew. Carter—who had killed more Ticks than anyone. Carter—who had argued with Sebastian and refused to back down. But despite being that tough, whatever he’d been about to say, he couldn’t get it out.

He just shook his head, hands still twisting on the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead. He was giving her nothing, showing her no emotion. Her breath caught in her chest. Because she suddenly, desperately, wanted to know what he’d been about to say.

“What?” she prodded.

He turned to look at her. He gave his head another little shake, his mouth turned down in self-disgust, his eyes hard.

“I care about you too much.”

“Too much?” she asked, and then wished she hadn’t. Nothing about this was going the way she’d hoped.

“When I thought you were hurt, I didn’t handle it well.” This time he said the words in a rush and seemed to have no trouble at all getting them out. “I wanted to kill that guy.”

“Armadale?”

“Yes. I beat the shit out of him. I nearly didn’t stop.”

“Well, you didn’t kill him. So, it’s all okay, right?”

“No, it’s not okay.” His voice was hard. “If I’m the leader of this rebellion, then I’m making decisions for everyone. Right now, my gut reaction is always to put you first. To protect you. And that’s not right. That’s not fair to everyone else. I can’t be the leader of the rebellion and be with you.”

Her heart slammed inside her ribs. Suddenly, she knew what was worse than getting shot: this. This was worse than being shot. Carter was breaking up with her.

“Look, I messed all of this up when we were leaving the Farm. I didn’t trust you when I should have. I wasn’t honest when I should have been. I lied to you. I tried to do the right thing over and over again, but everything I did ended up not being the right thing and—”

She interrupted him. “Carter, what happened at the Farm, with Mel, it wasn’t your fault. If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine.”

“No. It wasn’t. Think about it. If I’d been honest from the start. If I’d told you everything up front. About Sebastian. About how I felt about you. About my plan to get you out of there. Things would have been different. I wouldn’t have tranqed you and brought you to the Dean’s office. The Dean never would have seen you. He wouldn’t have come after you. He wouldn’t have grabbed Mel. Everything would have gone down differently.”

She wanted to argue with him, even though there was logic to his words. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been playing those same mind games herself. How often had she laid awake at night playing “what if”? Wondering what she might have done to prevent Mel from ending up dead in a parking lot with her begging a vampire to turn her.

It was something of an obsession of hers, so she didn’t know why it surprised her to find out that Carter felt the same way. Carter had an almost painful sense of responsibility; of course he was doing the same thing. Even though they’d never talked about it.

Funny how all this time had passed and Carter and she hadn’t really talked. Oh, they’d made it through their day-to-day lives. They functioned. They certainly functioned on a physical level. Whenever he held her body close to his, whenever he kissed her and made the world fall away, it was easy to lose herself. It was easy to pretend life was normal. This was the way it was supposed to be. That it was okay. That this huge thing hadn’t happened between them—her sister dying, Mel’s influence over them vanishing. Maybe they could both pretend when they touched. Maybe there were just some things that were too difficult to say aloud.