Emily McKay: The Lair

Tears are pouring down my cheeks and when I feel a hand on mine, I cry out in alarm and whirl around sword at the ready. But it’s Carter.

I drop the sword and scramble away. Because I almost just killed my friend. And because I just killed a man I thought was my friend.

“Let me,” Carter says. He’s holding out his hands, palm out in a gesture of surrender. I nod mutely and back away.

I don’t look as he slices Roberto’s head off. I’ve had enough of death for now.

Instead I move over to Sebastian, who is still alive. Barely. And gasping for breath. Suddenly, my fury, my rage, is gone. Not vanished, but fading. I look down at Sebastian, at the stake that I’ve driven through his heart, and something inside of me clenches.

I lean over him. “Is there really a cure?”

He’s looking back at me, his expression strangely soft in a way it never has been. Death has softened him. He nods. “At Genexome. The underground storage. If Sabrina hasn’t taken it yet.”

“Sabrina?” I gasp. So, that’s what he traded my freedom for. In exchange for letting me go, he told Sabrina that there was a cure and where it was hidden. It was a risky move on his part. Why bring me to Sabrina in the first place? Why trade his most valuable asset for my freedom? Had he really wanted me to have a choice? Or had he been setting us both up?

Whatever his intentions might have been, he came on this suicide mission knowing that at least one person on the outside knew the location of the cure.

He reaches one trembling hand up to my face and brushes back a lock of my newly short hair. He holds onto the lock and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger, looking at it like he’s confused. “I liked it better long,” he says. A trickle of blood seeps past his lips, making them appear bright red in the dusk. Then he meets my gaze and smiles. “I always knew you had the killer instinct, Kitten.”

I choke on a sudden burst of grief that I don’t even understand. Why? Why would I be sorry that I’ve stabbed him? Why regret killing the man who has risked everyone and everything I care about to satisfy his own lust for revenge? The man who has lied to me, tricked me, and made me a killer? The man who stole the music from me? Why would I mourn him?

But he’s also the man who has given me more choices than anyone else. The man who has always respected my wishes. And who in the end, tried to do the right thing to save humanity.

My hand hovers above the stake. If I pull it out, will he survive? Will his heart start beating again, pumping out the healing powers of vampire blood?

Then Sebastian’s eyes flicker closed, and a wail of grief is torn from my chest. It’s not even out of my mouth when Carter grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me away.

“We gotta go!”

I look around, almost surprised to find myself in the town square. It’s chaos. People are running everywhere. Ticks howl and yip, but the sound is too close. They’ve breached the fence. Carter is dragging me toward a car. A way out. We have to take it now because if we don’t, someone else will. The Ticks are here. En masse. I could see three, four. Maybe as many as six. But there are far more than that. When I listen for them, I count more than twenty distinct sounds. Far more than I could handle.

I know Carter’s right. Mindlessly, I fall into step beside him. Even though my body is aching and bruised. Even though I feel as though I’ve been hit by a truck. Even though I feel as though I’m leaving a chunk of myself behind.

Mel

I am alone. In a way I never have been before. Lily is lost to us. My mother is likely dead. My father has betrayed us all.

Yes, I have Carter. He’s a friend. He will be my companion in the search for a cure for Lily. He is hers in a way that he could never be mine. Not that I ever wanted him that way. I’m not jealous of that. Not jealous of him, but maybe just a little bit of what they have between them. He will search for the cure, he will fight for her, no matter what. He loves her deeply in a way I will never be loved. Could never be loved.

In the Before—when I was just Mel—I was forever apart from that kind of thing. I was okay with that. I didn’t yearn for it. But now, now I know what I am missing. That kind of love is something I can never have. Not with another vampire. I know that berserker vampire rage too well now. It is not something to be toyed with. But I certainly cannot have that love with a human, either. It is a strain even to be with Carter.

I am very much back where I was when I first became a vampire. Only more alone. I have no one now. Not even Sebastian.

He was never a friend, but he was a companion. I briefly consider going back to Sabrina. Throwing myself and Carter on her mercy. Perhaps she would take us in. But I am still not ready to create my own empire and to herd humans like kine. I am not ready for that. Going to her will be my last resort.

So instead, I must truly learn to be alone.

For a long time, we don’t say anything. Carter is concentrating on driving and I’m still shaking from my final encounter with Sebastian.

At some point, I look into the backseat. And see a dog sitting there. It’s huge and fluffy and takes up most of the backseat, but it’s sitting calmly with its head resting on his paws.

“We have a dog now?” I ask, hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up in my throat.

“Yeah,” Carter says. “It belonged to Ely.”

“Who?”

Carter is silent for a second, then he says, solemnly, “Ely was a friend. I couldn’t just leave him. And I thought . . . I don’t know, maybe a dog would come in handy.”

I don’t question his use of the past tense. I know too much about past tense friends. I nod, and let it go. “Do you think Roberto was right?” I ask.

“About what?”

“About Genexome Corporation. Do you think Sebastian really started the company? Do you think he’s the one behind the Tick virus?”

Carter is silent for long enough that I think he’s not going to answer me. Then he says, “I don’t know. Everything that I personally know about Genexome, I heard from Sebastian. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

My mind is racing. If Roberto was telling the truth, then Sebastian had knowingly and willingly murdered millions. I have spent the last couple of months living with and being trained by the most evil man in history. But that is if Roberto has told me the truth. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that vampires aren’t the most trustworthy sources of information. So how do I know which Sebastian I should believe in?

Under his tutelage, I’d been capable of things I’d never thought possible. Good things, yes, because I am physically stronger and emotionally more independent than I’d ever been before, but horrible things as well.

Was this how it began? The long, horrible slide into being a true vampire. Into being a creature so selfish and self-indulgent that I was willing to kill half the world to get what I wanted?

I felt Carter’s hand on my leg. He looked at me, concerned, almost as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “I don’t know what’s true,” he said, “but I can tell you this. If there is a cure out there, we’ll find it. Whether Sebastian had it or Roberto had it, we’ll find it. We’ll find it ourselves. As for who made the virus in the first place, who knows? If I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that you can’t ever trust a vampire to tell you the truth.” A bitter laugh escapes from his lips. “You can’t trust vampires at all.”

His words pierce something deep inside of me. Yeah, he doesn’t mean them. Not like that. I guess he doesn’t really think of me as a vampire yet. But then, he doesn’t know the things I’ve done.