It was nightfall. Briar and Reaper had entered the warehouse, where they'd spent the day, too near to dawn for there to be any opportunity for sex, or for the annoyingly deep and sickeningly emotional conversations he seemed to prefer to have beforehand. And afterward. He would probably try to analyze her during sex, too, if she stopped kissing him long enough, she thought.
But it hadn't mattered this morning. This morning, there had been no time. They'd leaped through the window and barely had time to search the place, find a comfortable, dark closet-sized room with a lock on the inside and settle onto the floor before the day sleep had claimed them.
She hadn't expected, however, to wake in his arms.
He was sitting semi-upright in a corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back supported by two walls right in the very corner of the tiny room. She remembered sitting down beside him, but not close enough to touch, though. No point touching him if she wasn't going to fuck him, she thought. Anything else was just mush. At any rate, she'd sat down beside him, and she supposed she must have fallen asleep before he did, because she woke snuggled up close beside him, the big jerk. His arm was around her shoulders, cradling her so that her head rested in the crook of his neck.
When she came awake and found herself there, she didn't move right away. She stayed very still, taking stock, smelling him and feeling him. The way his arm tightened just a little bit as he came awake. The way his fingers moved, then stopped, as if he'd been sort of caressing her arm for a moment there, before he'd caught himself.
She lifted her head, looked him in the eyes. "Romantic bullshit doesn't work on me, you know."
"What romantic bullshit would that be?" he asked.
"The way you held me all day as I slept. The way I woke to find my head on your shoulder, and your hand stroking my arm and your lips close to my hair. That romantic bullshit."
"It wasn't a conscious effort to...work on you."
"No? What was it, then?"
He shrugged. "Instinct? I don't know. You felt good in my arms. Feeling good is a big deal to vampires."
She frowned at him, but he broke eye contact and got to his feet, then leaned close to the door to listen, before opening it and stepping quietly out of the tiny room. She followed suit, keeping quiet, being alert. But the place was pretty much empty.
He went straight to the window where they'd come in. "Let's go find Crisa," he said.
"I'm all for that." She didn't try, though, to home in on the girl. Not just then. Best to get on the ground before she risked another episode of crippling pain.
Reaper jumped from the window, landed easily on the ground, and rose from a crouch to turn and await her.
She jumped, as well, landing a couple of feet away from him. As soon as she rose and got her balance, she closed her eyes and felt around in her mind in search of Crisa.
The pain came like a blade driving down through the center of her skull.
She didn't drop to her knees on purpose but that was where she found herself. On the ground, kneeling, head bowed, hands pressing against her temples. And then in his arms as he scooped her up and carried her against his chest, through the rain, to the car they'd abandoned the night before. She could only assume he'd scanned the area and found no hint of ambush.
He lowered her onto the front seat and smoothed her hair away from her rain-spattered face. "We'll get to her. We'll fix this, I swear."
She nodded. "I think we'd better hurry."
She didn't try to look at him. She couldn't open her eyes just then, and she was fairly certain she knew what he looked like, anyway. His eyes would be worried, searching her face, looking for all the world as if he cared.
It was tough to understand the way those eyes of his could look, sometimes, when they met hers. She knew damn well no one could feel about her the way those eyes seemed to be saying he felt. No way. Not about her. She wasn't the kind of woman to elicit a feeling that... deep. Tender. Powerful.
It couldn't be real. She was glad she hadn't opened her eyes to see it.
A moment later the car was moving. She fumbled for her seat belt, then said the hell with it and left it off.
"We meeting Dwyer now?" she asked.
"Yeah."
He sounded grim. No wonder, if he was as doubtful about this as she was. It was probably a trap. She needed to buck up and be ready.
"Is it far?" she asked.
"Five minutes. We should stop and give you time to get yourself together before we get there."
She lifted her head and opened her eyes to meet his, forcing herself to appear normal. But she knew the pain showed. She could see its reflection in his eyes.
He cupped her cheek.
"I'm fine. I'm ready. Let's go."
He nodded, and then he drove.
Five minutes later they were pulling into the parking lot of a motel that looked even cheaper than the last one she'd seen.
"I want you to wait here," he said. "In fact, it might be a good idea to take the car and drive a ways a-"
"Bullshit." She shoved her door open and pushed her hair off her forehead as she got out.
He got out, too, and they met in front of the car, and continued forward. "You're in pain."
She shrugged. "Doesn't mean I'm going to curl up and shiver while you get your ass killed. I'm a bitch-vampire, not a delicate flower, Reaper."
He watched her as they walked, but finally sighed and focused ahead.
"Room number?" she asked.
"Sixteen."
Nodding, she turned her throbbing head and spotted it. "There we go."
They walked up to the door together. Reaper lifted his hand to knock, but Briar jump-kicked the door right off its hinges before he could rap his knuckles even once. She sprang inside, moving as if she felt like a million bucks, despite the debilitating pain currently ripping her skull apart. She mentally congratulated herself-just before she spotted the mortal.
Reaper was beside her one second, then crouching close to the barely conscious CIA agent the next. "Briar, what did you-"
"Hey, it wasn't me. And it wasn't the door hitting him when I kicked it, either. He was like that when we got here." She sensed something, wrinkled her nose and turned slowly, no longer paying any attention to Reaper or his backstabbing friend.
"Dwyer, come on. Snap to attention. Tell me what happened," Reaper was saying. "Who did this to you?"
"Crisa did," Briar said.
Reaper's head swung around, eyes no longer focused solely on the confused and dazed man on the flood.
"I feel her. She's been here, and recently. And...and someone else." She lifted her brows. "One of the Chosen."
"The boy?" Reaper asked.
She'd been trying to shield her mind from Crisa's as much as possible, to prevent the inevitable rush of pain, but she was going to have to open herself to the other woman in order to answer that question.
Or she thought she was, until Dwyer answered it for her.
He lifted his head weakly and said, "How do you know about the boy?"
Reaper's brows arched, and he slanted a quick look Briar's way before returning his attention to Dwyer. She could tell by the slight bend of his brows that he was concentrating hard, trying to read the man's thoughts, and while Dwyer was well-trained in blocking them, Briar rather hoped he would forget or waver, given his injuries and recent trauma.
"We've know about him all along," Reaper said. "Crisa thinks he needs her protection. Why do you think that is, Dwyer?"
"I wasn't goin' to hurt him. I swear. Yeah, I threatened to, unless Gregor turned himself in, but I would never have gone through with it."
"And did it work?" Reaper asked, thinking before speaking.
"No. He wouldn't surrender, not even for his own son." Reaper's eyes met Briar's quickly and briefly, but Dwyer kept right on talking. "He's huntin' me, I've got no doubt about that. And Crisa, too, now that she has him."
"Crisa has the boy?" Briar asked.
"Yeah. She took him from me."
"Where does she want to take him?" Briar went on.
Dwyer shrugged, then pushed himself up straighter against the wall and glanced at Reaper. "Help me up, will you?"
Reaper gripped his forearm and pulled the man's full weight upright. Once Dwyer was standing, he braced an arm on the wall and rubbed the back of his head with the other hand. "The kid wants to go back to his mother. That's all he talks about. You know that bastard told him she was dead?"
His mother. Ilyana. Briar didn't guard her thoughts, and Reaper heard them clearly. He nodded in confirmation. "You say that as if you think Crisa wants something different."
"Crisa doesn't know what she wants," Dwyer said.
"Maybe it's time you told me exactly what's going on with her. I know you know. And I'm pretty sure you're behind it."
Reaper's voice was low and calm, but vibrating with barely contained rage.
Briar wasn't even trying to contain her own, and she was sure Dwyer could read it in her eyes.
Dwyer nodded and made his way to a chair, then sank into it. He sighed. "It's a long and rather complicated story."
Briar stood over him, close, menacing, and leaned closer. "Give us the short, simplified version."
He looked up at her, then looked away quickly and nodded. "When you were in Mexico, you had a run-in with my agents. The agents took Topaz captive from that makeshift vampire clinic in order to force you to trade yourself for her."
"Your agents. Working under your orders," Reaper said.
Dwyer nodded once. "Look, Reaper, I've been under intense pressure to get you back into the fold. My life was on the line. It still is. If the agency finds out I'm helpin' you, I'm as good as dead."
"And if you keep stalling, you're already dead," Briar said. "Finish the damn story."
Dwyer lifted a hand to rub the back of his head. "Your people were tranquilized. So was Crisa. They implanted a microchip into her brain."
"There wasn't time-" Reaper began.
"It was a simple procedure. The chip is minuscule, the implantation accomplished with a small bore drill and an injection. It only took minutes. The idiots were supposed to put it into one of your people. Seth or Vixen. But they didn't know who was who. It was just dumb luck that you took Crisa with you when you left there."
"We didn't have a choice. She was bleeding out."
"She shouldn't have resisted," Dwyer muttered.
Briar had him by the front of his shirt before he could blink, then lifted him out of the chair and bared her teeth as she stared up at him, her eyes gleaming red.
"Briar," Reaper snapped.
She hated the CIA bastard with everything in her, but she let go. He landed hard in the chair, grunting in pain.
"Tell me about this chip," Reaper said. As he spoke, he moved closer to Dwyer, put a hand on Briar's shoulder and moved her a few steps away, effectively putting himself between her and his former boss, an act that irritated her no end.
"It feeds a signal that's picked up by satellite and transmitted to a receiver that feeds into my computer. Through it, I'm able to literally see through her eyes. Hear what she hears. I can communicate with her, tell her what I want her to do. It's extremely difficult for her to refuse."
"Because pain results when she does?" Reaper asked.
Dwyer slid a quick glance at Briar. "Yes. But that's not the only reason for the pain. There are other things goin' on." He shook his head. "I didn't understand at first why I kept catchin' glimpses of Gregor's son in her mind. It was as if he was there, too, competin' for her attention. It's like they have a bond, and I think it might mean-"
"That part we understand," Reaper said. "And you don't need to know any more about it than you already do. Let's stay focused here. So you used this chip to command Crisa to come up here?"
"No. No, I didn't. The extent of my interest was to use her to find out where you were, to track you down. I was goin' to remove the chip just as soon as I caught up to you. I swear it, Reaper."
"Then what the hell is she doing up here?"
Dwyer lowered his head. "Gregor tricked me, captured me, then went to my place and stole the equipment, the notes, everything. He's in control of her now, and even though she's with Matt and probably wants to do whatever he asks of her, she's not goin' to be able to refuse Gregor. Not while he's on the other end of that chip."
"Then we'll just have to get to him first," Reaper said. "Where is he?"
Dwyer swallowed hard. "I'm goin' to need...protection."
Briar released a bark of disbelief. "Yeah. From me, you bastard."
He ignored her, staring up at Reaper. "I knew you were comin' here tonight. I didn't have an ambush waitin'. I didn't even inform the agency you'd be here. I've told you things that are highly classified, Reaper. They'll kill me for this. And Gregor-"
"Gregor's my problem now. I'll deal with him. As for protecting you-"
"Don't you even think about it, Reaper," Briar whispered.
He glanced at her, held up a hand. "You've used and basically tortured one of my own, Dwyer. Crisa's an innocent. You nearly got Jack and Topaz killed in Mexico. Your men tortured Jack so badly I wasn't sure he would survive."
"I didn't sanction that."
"Your men. Your responsibility. You've gone too far to ask for my help now."
"It's more than that, Reaper," Briar said.
Reaper turned and met her eyes. "Don't-"
"We can't leave him alive, and you know it."
Reaper closed his eyes briefly, and Briar felt the tiniest stab of regret, knowing this man had been his friend once. But facts were facts, and she was too practical to ignore them. "His cronies will catch up with him before this night is out. He'll tell them where we've gone, what we're doing, and they'll be on us before we know it. Who the hell is going to save Crisa then? What's going to happen to Ilyana's kid if Gregor gets him back again?"
Reaper's eyes narrowed as he studied her.
"If you kill me, Crisa will die," Dwyer said.
Briar felt her eyes widen, and with a swing of her arm she shoved Reaper aside and gripped Dwyer by the nape of his neck, jerking him to his feet. "I'm getting really tired of listening to your bullshit, you know that?"
"It's the truth!" He didn't struggle, probably knew it was useless to try. His eyes were wide with fear, though. He knew he was staring death in the face. "The chip is beginning to deteriorate, releasing toxic metals into her brain, into her bloodstream. It has to be removed, and soon, or it'll kill her. And I'm the only one who knows how to do it."
"I'm sure we can find a qualified surgeon to take care of Crisa," Briar said, and she bared her fangs, tilted her head, opened her mouth.
Reaper's hand landed on her shoulder. "Are you willing to bet Crisa's life on it?" he asked her softly. She hesitated. He felt her wavering and went on. "Briar, we need him. At least until she's safe."
"If we leave him alive-"
"We'll take him with us," he said.
"He'll slow us down."
"It's...not that far. Honestly," Dwyer said. He was begging for his life, and Briar knew it.
She straightened her head and looked him dead in the eye. "I'm going to kill you for what you did to Crisa. And I'm going to enjoy it. Don't you even doubt that.
You're on borrowed time, Mr. Dwyer." She released her grip on his nape and his head snapped backward, he'd been pulling so hard against her hold.
Fear in his eyes, he rubbed his neck with one hand and said, "If you're going to kill me anyway, then what reason do I have to help Crisa at all?"
"You son of a bitch!" Reaper whirled on him, but it was Briar who stepped in front of him, preventing the assault.
"Because if you let her die, your death is going to be far less pleasant, my friend."
"I'm no friend of yours."
Pushing a hand through his hair, Reaper turned his back to them both. He was shaking with pent-up rage and frustration. And something else.
Briar started as she probed his mind and realized what it was. It was fear. He, Reaper, the lone hit man, the most fearless bastard she'd ever met in her life, was freaking afraid of this weak, wounded mortal.
And then it hit her why. Dwyer knew the trigger words. The one that would send Reaper into an uncontrollable rage, and the second one, the one that would pull him right back out of it again. He could control Reaper as surely as Gregor could control Crisa through that chip in her brain.
"Where is Gregor?" Reaper asked Dwyer, focusing again on the business at hand, pushing his own fear aside, though the awareness of it remained at the forefront of Briar's.
"He's staying out at the old Marquand Mansion, on the peninsula."
"The Eric Marquand Mansion?" Reaper asked.
"Yeah."
Reaper nodded slowly. "All right, then. Let's go."
"He'll probably be expecting you."
"Of course he'll be expecting me. That's been his plan the whole time, hasn't it? To get his hands on Crisa in order to lure me to him? Looks like it's worked. But he's not getting out of this alive. Not this time." Reaper slid a look at Briar. "I'm sorry, Briar, but that's the way this has to end. Gregor has to die."
She frowned and tipped her head to one side. And another revelation came clear to her. He really believed she cared about that bastard.
Well, hell, that was what she'd wanted him to think, wasn't it? It was a way to keep him at a distance, a way to convince him that his desire for her was never going anywhere. That she would never feel anything for him.
And that was still true. She couldn't feel anything...for him or for any other man. Men had taken that ability away from her.
She'd given it up willingly, as her only defense against them. They could take her physically, yes, but nothing more. There would never be anything more.
Not for her.
Matt drove as best he could, but he wasn't doing great. He could barely see over the steering wheel, and even at his age, he knew thirty miles per hour wasn't going to get them very far very fast.
Crisa sat in the passenger seat, her head in her hands, moaning more loudly with every mile that passed.
She kept lifting her head every little while and staring into nothingness, saying the word no. Like she was having some kind of inner argument with herself.
At length he pulled the car over into a wide spot on the side of the road that looked as if it were meant for that purpose. Not a real rest stop, of course. No rest-rooms or maps or vending machines. Just a worn dirt semicircle off the side of the road and boasting a beat-up payphone.
When the car came to a stop, Crisa lifted her head. "Why are we stopping?"
"Because the highway is up ahead. And I don't know which way to go."
"South." She blinked slowly. "I said no!"
Matt frowned. "Crisa?"
"God, it hurts," she whimpered. Tears were streaming from her eyes, flowing like rivers down her face.
"Crisa, I'm sure my mom will be able to find someone who can help you. But we have to figure out how to get there. 'Cause if we take the highway, I think we're going to get pulled over pretty quick. I mean, I can't go faster than thirty or so, and the cops are bound to notice us crawling along when every other car is going seventy."
"North Carolina," she whispered.
"Okay, but where in North Carolina?"
She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Matt grabbed the road atlas he'd found on the backseat and flipped to the first big map in the thing, a map of the entire United States. He found Connecticut, then looked for North Carolina. And then he blinked.
"Man, it's a long, long ways to North Carolina, Crisa. Farther than I thought."
"I know."
"I don't think I can drive that far."
"I can't drive at all," she said. "I can barely see. Every time I tell him no, the pain gets worse."
He frowned and reached out to touch her shoulder. "Maybe you should stop telling him no, then." He sighed. "Derry says that with vampires, there's always one person-one of the Chosen-that they feel closest to. Sort of connected to, you know? He thought I was that one for you."
She squeezed her eyes tighter. "That makes sense, I guess."
"Well, that explains why you knew I needed help. And why you're letting my dad hurt you like that, instead of just doing what he says."
"He's bad," she said. "I know he's bad. I can feel it."
"What's he telling you to do, Crisa?"
She grimaced and began to sob softly.
Matt rubbed her shoulder. "Come on, you can tell me. You have to tell me, right? We've in this together now."
She nodded, sniffled. "H-he says I have to bring you to him before morning."
Matt felt his heart trip over itself inside his chest.
"He says he'll make the pain worse until it kills me if I don't. He says he can. He says we're going the wrong way. He says we have to turn around. But I won't. I won't, Matt. I won't take you to the bad man. No matter what he does, I won't."
Matt's eyes got hot, as he watched her there, suffering. No one had ever cared about him that much, at least no one besides his mom. God, he wished she were there to tell him what to do.
"Maybe we should just do what he says," he said softly.
"He'll hurt you."
"No, he won't. He won't hurt me. He'll hurt you, though. Maybe you should take me back. Just...not all the way. Just partway, and then you can hide out someplace, and I'll go the rest of the way alone, and maybe-"
"No."
"But, Crisa, you're sick. You're getting worse."
She shook her head from side to side, very slowly. "We can't even be sure it is your father. What if Derry was lying? What if it's someone else? Someone who would hurt you?"
He drew a deep breath, sighed, and decided to share his secret for the first time ever. "Crisa, I'm kind of...special."
She opened her eyes wider and gazed at him as if she were looking at the baby Jesus lying in the manger or something. "I know you are," she said, and she ran a hand over his hair.
"I mean, more than you know. I can kind of...read people's thoughts sometimes."
She frowned at him. "I thought only vampires could do that."
"No, there are regular people who can do it, too. I've always known how. As long as I can remember, anyway. Mom knew about it, but no one else. She told me to keep it to myself. So I never told anyone. Not my dad, even."
"It's probably smart not to tell. People can be... awful...when you're different."
"Have people been awful to you?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yeah. Before. You know, before I was a vampire, and before I found Rey-Rey, He took care of me. But then he died, and I went with Briar."
"Briar?" He frowned. He'd only known of one woman named Briar. A vampire, part of his father's gang. And he'd only glimpsed her from a distance, but from what he'd seen, she was dangerous. Evil.
"I was dying, and she saved me," Crisa said.
"Huh. Must be a different Briar than the one I was thinking of."
"She and the others took me with them. They looked out for me, the way Rey-Rey used to do. But then all this started, and...I left them." She lifted her head. "Your mom is with them, too."
"And they're vampires?"
"All but your mom and Roxy. Roxy and your mom are pretty close."
"So these vampires...they've got my mom and this other woman? Roxy?"
She frowned at him. "Oh, it's not like that. They're friends. They're all friends."
He narrowed his eyes, trying to picture friendly vampires and failing miserably. Dwyer had said there were good vampires, but Dwyer had said a lot of things, and he had trouble imagining any such thing could exist. Except for Crisa. But she was different.
"Crisa, since we have this...connection and I can read thoughts, maybe I could listen in when this guy is talking to you. Then we can tell for sure if it's my father. Do you think that would work?"
She blinked at him. "Maybe. Only he's stopped talking now." She frowned hard. "And the pain has stopped, too."
"Ever since we stopped the car, I'll bet."
"Yes! How did you know?"
"He must know where we are, where we're going." Eyes widening, he asked, "Can he hear what we're saying?"
"Only when I'm talking to him-thinking at him, really."
"You stopped heading away from him, so he must think you're changing your mind, thinking about taking me to him, doing what he says."
"Oh." She thought for a minute. "So if we start driving again, he'll talk to me again. And make it hurt again."
"Yeah, but I don't know if I can listen in while I'm driving."
"What if we were walking?" she asked.
He swallowed hard. "I kind of want to stay right here. As long as you're not in pain, it seems silly to make it come back."
She blinked and nodded. "I don't like the pain, either, Matt. But we can't stay here forever."
He sighed, nodded. "Okay. Let's try it. Are you strong enough to walk?"
In answer, she nodded and opened her car door. She got out, so he did, too, taking the keys and putting them in a pocket.
Then he walked to her side of the car and took hold of her hand. "Just think about me, and I'll focus on you and see what happens. Okay?"
"Okay." She tightened her hand around his, and together, they began walking.
They'd gone about ten steps when Matt felt it. A pain like nothing he could imagine shot through his head, and with it, his father's voice, booming and angry.
I told you to bring the boy to me. Do as I say, Crisa. Do it now. Or die!
Matt clapped his hands to his eyes, and his attention was driven right out of Crisa's mind. It curled up in a corner of his own brain like a puppy that had been booted across a room.
The pain and the voice vanished immediately. He lowered his hands, lifted his head and opened his eyes.
Crisa was lying on the ground. Her eyes were closed, her face was wet, and her body was shaking visibly, but other than that, she didn't move at all. The pain must have been too much.
Matt knew he had a choice to make, and it wasn't one he liked, but right now, he didn't have to think very hard to make it.
He could put her in the car and try to drive all the way to North Carolina, but if he tried that, he knew two things. He would never be able to drive that far, and she would never survive long enough to get there, even if he could.
He could take her back to Derry. But Derry had been thinking about killing him. And he knew that was still a possibility.
Or he could call his father.
He knew his father would come for him. He didn't know if he would help Crisa or not, though. He also didn't know if he would punish him for leaving in the first place, or believe him when he said he hadn't been given a choice. But he did know his father wouldn't kill him. And he also know his father could help Crisa, if he wanted to. He knew that because there really wasn't anything his father couldn't do.
It might mean losing his only chance to see his mom again. But the alternative was to let Crisa die, and he sure as heck couldn't do that.
Sighing, Matt left her lying there in the rain and slogged over to the payphone. He called his father's cell-collect.
On the other end, he heard the tinny sound of a ringing phone, followed by the operator's question.
And then he heard that hateful voice that made him shiver just a little, "Well, it's about time."