Chapter 51
Purged
We stepped outside. I moved my hand to my forehead to block the sun’s glare.
“If you weren’t already a target you sure as hell will be now,” Ethan said, stalking forward. He yanked open the passenger door. I threw the water, the muffins and Cole’s card on the seat.
“He did it, didn’t he—Katrina, Robert?” I breathed.
Ethan nodded. A muscle in his jaw twitching. His eyes as black as sin.
I kicked at a loose rock, sending it scampering across the ground. I looked back through the diner window. Cole was talking to the businessman, smiling like the fucking world was his oyster. Inside the anger roared like a wave, slamming against my head.
“You still want him jailed?” Ethan asked, following my line of sight.
What he was asking was, do I give him permission to him kill him? I couldn’t think around the anguish in my head. I needed to run to clear it. I wouldn’t admit it, not even to myself, but in that moment, I wanted him dead.
I turned and strode toward the woods. Ethan clicked the door shut and followed behind.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to walk.”
There was a well-worn track that ran behind the parking lot, just inside the tree line. It was littered with rubbish, cigarette packets, empty chip packets and a used condom. I crinkled my nose and skirted around it.
Dead or alive, dead or alive? The question gnawed at my gut like rats in a wall cavity.
Ethan walked behind, soundless as a ghost.
Shattered skulls.
Crushed ribs.
Fractured jaw, cheekbone and nose.
Ligature marks.
What Cole had put them through . . . My stomach churned. If I said dead, he could whip back and kill him. He was the executioner, but I would be the judge who ordered it. It just made me so ropeable he was sitting there drinking lattes and smiling.
Katrina and Robert didn’t get to drink lattes, nor did Cindy and Luke and their precious children, or the Millers.
I felt the flare of anger rising through my veins like black poison. A sudden breeze buffeted the trees. A crow screeched overhead and flapped away.
“Say the word and I’m gone.”
I couldn’t answer that question. It was too much. Ever since I’d found out what they were, I felt like the rest of the world was disconnected. As if it was across a great chasm of water, linked only by a thread of fibre and if I said yes, that link would be severed forever.
To make that kind of decision—I needed time, more information, more—what? Humanity. I needed to remember my humanity. I felt the anger drain away, slowly, like water through a drainpipe.
“Did you do it? And please don’t lie to me.” I didn’t need to tell him I was asking about Raynor.
“Yes.”
One word, and it shattered through my brain. “Jefferson too?” I rasped. I couldn’t stand it if he said yes, those injuries, all that blood. I couldn’t.
“No.” His jaw clenched. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was something Cole orchestrated.
The bear story seems a little too convenient.
Bears attacking people in town is a hell of an incentive to grant hunting permits, but whether Jefferson was the intended target or not I don’t know.
We need Darcy to hack into the laptop. If we’re lucky we might be able to glean some information from there. ”
I thought Jefferson being outside was too big a coincidence to discount that he was anything but the intended target, but I wanted to keep an open mind.
“What, do you think they planted a hungry bear near the ball and let it out?” I shivered, thinking about how alone I was on the bench.
“Maybe. I’ve heard of sneakier plots.”
“If that’s the case, Jefferson obviously wasn’t privy to it.”
“Unlucky for him.” He rubbed at his knuckles like was wiping away the urge to hurt something—Cole. “Or maybe it wasn’t a bear at all.”
There was a long pause as I curled the question around in my head. Dread licked up my spine, did I really want the answer? I couldn’t live in oblivious denial forever. I drew a breath and said, “How did you kill Raynor to mimic a heart attack?”
He looked to a place beyond my shoulder, his lips drew into a thin line. “I didn’t, he saw my face and before I could question him his heart gave out.”
I tried to process it all. The man who faked the autopsy knew they were murdered and covered it up, and now he was dead.
But Ethan didn’t actually touch him, he would have died anyway, at some stage soon I figured.
The line between what was right and wrong was blurred.
It was not as black and white as I had always assumed. It was a sordid shade of murky red.
“Are you angry?” he asked when I made no reply. His brow was drawn deep, like he was worried I would be.
“No, I’m glad you told me the truth.”
His face flickered, and he dropped his eyes away for a beat, then he looked back up.
“So, what’s it going to be?” I know he wanted me to say kill him, the torment twisted in his eyes.
I rubbed my forehead and closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them, I spoke, “Prison for an asshole like that would be hell on earth, let’s send him there if we can. He can spend the next forty years trying not to drop his soap.”
Ethan stared at me, fury licking his iris, it wasn’t the answer he wanted.
Finding evidence that it was Cole would be a challenging task. He’d have covered his tracks. Someone else would’ve done the dirty work. He already had an alibi by being at the party. The bear can’t talk. Other than finding some email or phone evidence he ordered it, it would be tough to prove.
Hopefully, there’d be something on the laptop.
“Let’s get back.” Ethan said, he walked towards the car. I scurried behind him.
When we got to the parking lot I glanced at the diner—Cole was gone.
Ethan took the keys from my hand. “You drive like an eighty-year-old who forgot their glasses and I want to be home by midnight.”
I pulled a face but let him take them. I jumped in the passenger side and popped Cole’s card in my wallet. It would probably be the phone number of his secretary, but it may come in handy.
As we pulled out, I held out a water bottle and a muffin. He looked puzzled.
“If I feed you, you might not want to drink.”
“I wish that worked.”
I placed them on my lap. “Where do you feed?”
“The girls I take home. I don’t only have sex with them.”
“And you mind control them to forget? The blonde last night?”
He nodded. His eyes stayed on the road. His brow furrowed.
I wondered if he thought I’d disapprove, be horrified by the news. I knew he had to feed, if he didn’t, he died. He had no choice.
“I guess they get a few more pricks than they’re counting on.”
He looked at me like he couldn’t quite work out what made me tick. Shook his head and blew out an amused breath. “I guess so.”
“Do they enjoy it?”
“Of course they do.” He grinned like a child.
“Not the sex Ethan.” I rolled my eyes. “The blood sucking bit?” I took a bite of the muffin, raspberry and white chocolate danced across my tongue.
“I mind control them to believe they do, but some girls do naturally. None that live here that I know of though, not that I’ve tried to find out the natural way.”
“I met a girl in the toilets at The Bite, she goes every week, she loves it, she told me.” I took another bite. “She said the bite marks would be gone by the time she left, how do they heal so quickly?”
“We have venom in our teeth that can heal small wounds instantly.”
“Can you heal big wounds too?”
“I can’t, Karson can. But it would also turn you into a vampire. If we inject too much it paralyses you, and you die.” He glanced over at me, gauging my response.
“Why can’t you do it too?”
“I wasn’t born a vampire like him.”
“Did someone bite you?”
He threaded his fingers through his thick hair. “Karson did. I was near death, he saved me.”
“So why can he do it but not you?”
“We’re not sure exactly, it’s not like scientists study us.
But we think maybe his venom is stronger and he needs to use less, or perhaps it’s a slightly different makeup.
Maybe the human body can break it down quicker and convert it before they die.
Others that weren’t born vampires rarely succeed. ”
“What’s it like drinking blood—is it yummy?”
“Yummy?” He looked mildly amused, as quickly as it appeared the smile collapsed off his face. “It’s like drugs to an addict, except if we don’t get our fix we die.”
This question, it was apparent, was not much better. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. “Does anything help with the cravings?”
“Yes, alcohol numbs it.”
“Oh, I just thought you were an alcoholic.” I gave him a little smile. “Do you like it, being a vampire?”
“Yes, I wouldn’t want to be a fragile again.”
I asked the question of which the answer could be the catalyst to the greatest of pains.
It had been spinning through my head since the first night I found out what they were.
Plunged and buried beneath layers of concern and dread.
The absence of answer allowed a counterfeit peace, an easier acceptance of what they are, of how they survive.
“Do you . . . have you ever . . . killed the people you drink from?”
Innocent people.
He turned, hurt and worry scribbled into the depths of his eyes, lines creased heavily on his forehead. “Yes, I have.”
His words landed like a kick to the stomach.
But it was ‘I have’, not ‘I do.' Perhaps he used to, but it was in the past. I decided I didn’t need to know. Talking of murdering barbaric people was one thing, it was a whole other thing to know innocent people were killed.
I didn’t want to lose his friendship. I couldn’t stand to hear anything that may sway my feelings.
I could feel his gaze on the side of my face, waiting for a response.
I met his eyes with compassion, I wanted to reach over and scoop him into my arms. Instead, I turned my attention to outside the window, watching the sun shimmer against tree leaves, the gentle breeze making them flutter like a kaleidoscope of green wings.
And I buried the dark thoughts again to the recess of my mind.
But inevitably I should have known, like all dark thoughts, they’d continue to plague me, raising their heads in the cover of night. I’d wake up soaked in sweat and dread, and eventually they’d need to be purged.