White Winter (The Black Year Series Book 2) (12 page)

“She’s not dead,” Edward said, frowning.

“Yes, she is, Mr. Green. You drank over four pints of her blood, and she died of exsanguination a few minutes after you left her on that bench in Balboa Park. If you’d called an ambulance or gotten help, she might have survived. It would have been difficult to talk to emergency services with her blood in your lungs, but hardly impossible.”

Edward gripped the bench. His body trembled.

“None of that was a crime, however.”

“It wasn’t?” Eve asked.

“No,” the director answered, his eyes on Edward. “He was starving. Mr. Green couldn’t be expected to overcome his nature, therefore her accidental death falls under exigent circumstances.”

Eve clenched her fists. He’d just gotten away with murder. Edward exhaled, though Eve couldn’t tell if he felt relieved or guilty. He looked at the director and asked, “If she’s dead, why is she still in my head?”

The director looked at Eve. She sighed. “A person’s barrier drops and their memory unravels in the moment they die,” she said.

Edward looked at the director, then back at Eve. “I don’t-”

“Their life flashes before their eyes,” the director said, then nodded to Eve. “Continue, Ms. Gallagher.”

“If a vampire is inside someone’s head when they die, the feedback can overwrite part of their brain. It’s called imprinting, and it’s particularly dangerous for young vampires like me. It’s also one of the first things I learned.” She shook her head. “How does he not know this?”

“Mr. Green has led a sheltered, directionless life, Ms. Gallagher. Spare a moment to feel sorry for him later. More importantly, what does the severity of his condition tell us?”

Eve wasn’t thrilled about getting quizzed in front of her quarry, but her eyes widened when she thought about it. “He watched her die.”

“Yes. And?”

“She wanted to live. She wanted it so badly she burned herself into his mind.”

The director smiled. “Excellent, Ms. Gallagher!”

Edward looked like he was going to be sick.

“But even if she’d been a vampire as skilled as Ms. Gallagher, she shouldn’t have made such an impression on you, Mr. Green. Imprinting is dangerous to young vampires because their identity can be swallowed by an adult’s memories. Despite her enthusiasm, Kaja Gorecki lived a fraction of your years.” The director leaned forward. “You starved yourself on purpose, didn’t you, Edward?”

Edward jerked back, raising his hands toward his chest but the handcuffs stopped him short. He swallowed, then looked down at his lap. “I was just so tired,” he said.

“You…” Eve gaped at him. “Why didn’t you just walk out into the sunlight?”

His face turned red. “We’re not all as brave as you think you are, Miss. I lost a leg to sunlight, once. My body remembers the pain.” He shrugged. “This seemed easier. I didn’t have to make myself do anything. I could just… fade away.” He looked up, face pale and lips pinched. He’d confessed Kaja’s murder was his fault. There was a kind of nobility to him in that moment Eve almost respected.

The director set the clipboard down on the bench. “Despair is also part of a vampire’s nature.” Eve started to protest, but he raised his hand to cut her off. “We can discuss it once you’ve lived over a century, Ms. Gallagher. Exigent circumstances still apply.”

Edward seemed to sag inward, and any warm feelings Eve might’ve had deflated with him.

The director retrieved the clipboard and cleared his throat. “With Ms. Gorecki’s imprint spurring his survival instinct, but afraid we would kill him, Mr. Green sought out less reputable help. He was taken in by a non-militant branch of the group you faced in New York, Ms. Gallagher. Of course, they had no idea how to help him, so he quickly found himself in the custody of one of their militant cells.”

“The Order kidnapped him?” Eve said.

“And experimented on him. At first they starved him and locked him in a room with new girls, but that took too long, so they strapped him down and killed them in front of him. He imprinted them all.”

“She didn’t want to be alone,” Edward said softly.

The director looked up. “She’s not real, Mr. Green.”

Edward nodded. “Of course. My apologies.”

“What were they trying to do?” Eve asked.

“They were trying to create a puppeteer. Tell me, Ms. Gallagher. Did they succeed?”

She looked at Edward. In some ways, the imprints let him think like her, but he was as brittle as a puppeteer after decades of service. “No. A puppeteer can split her thoughts. He’s just… broken.”

“Which the Agency already knew would happen. Every attempt to create puppeteers through trauma has ended in disaster. When the Order discovered the same, they cut him loose. Kaja’s personality was dominant; he was a prisoner of his own mind when he attacked Julie Simms.”

Eve sighed and sat back. “I understand, sir.”

“Good.” The director set the clipboard down again and pulled a small pair of keys out of his inner breast pocket. He unlocked Edward’s handcuffs. Eve saw Edward rub his wrists in her peripheral vision. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

The director banged the metal wall of the van twice with his fist, and Eve flinched as the rear door swung open. One of the Agency werewolves grabbed Edward by the arm and dragged him outside.

The sun was almost above the horizon. Edward’s skin turned red and splotchy. “What are you doing?” he asked the director. The werewolf held him by the upper arm.

“Executing you.”

“But you said-”

“I’m sorry Mr. Green. While your actions were not your fault, they were public. Your continued existence is a threat to the Balance.”

Edward struggled. “But that’s not fair!” he said.

“It is not the Agency’s job to be fair. It is the Agency’s job to preserve the system that has allowed our kind to flourish.”

Edward looked to Eve, but she said, “It’s fair to your victims.”

“But I saved them!” he said. “Can’t you see none of this matters? In a few months, we would have been like gods!”

Eve didn’t answer. His skin was bright red, and she could see all the veins on the right side of his face.

“Strengthen your barrier, Ms. Gallagher.”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on Edward Green. The sun rose. As soon as direct sunlight hit him, his body flashed to ash.

♘

Eve tapped the send button on the touchscreen, submitting her report, then yawned. She was tired, sore, still riding the high. She felt a little worried, but that was probably mild claustrophobia. It was complicated. And if she ever left the Agency, the Los Angeles director had made it clear she had better keep her word to Ravi. But for now, happiness was a line of fire sweeping Edward Green from head to toe.

She tapped the screen a few more times and “Sunny came home” started playing on the coffin’s sound system. She could feel the light vibration of the plane’s engines through the padded sides. One down, she thought, and smiled.

CHAPTER 15

Jonas disentangled himself from her memory and grinned at her.

“What?” she said.

“I just can’t get over how much of a badass my girlfriend is.”

Eve stared at him for a second, then pinched the bridge of her nose and said, “No.”

“What-”

“Just no. ‘There may be something I should have told you’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Jonas bristled. “You didn’t tell me you were going to LA.”

“Yes I did! I told you seconds after I found out!”

“But-”

She threw a pillow at him. He lifted his hand to his ear, blocking the blow without thinking.
Huh,
he thought, pleased with himself.
Guess all that practice is finally-

“I went on a training mission to apprehend
one
rogue, Jonas! You leveled half a small town!”

He felt a lump form in his throat. “I didn’t… It was supposed to be a milk run.”

“It wasn’t!”

“I didn’t really want to talk about it over the phone,” he said, feeling his world shrink in.

“Okay, then what stopped you from-”

“It wasn’t just-”

They stared at each other for a moment, then Jonas said, “Go ahead.”

Eve crossed her arms. “No, you go. I can’t wait to-”

“They checked the other towns in the Peacekeeper program. Most of them were corrupted in some way, starting five years ago, and my mom recalled the puppeteers that were still loyal and sane. She… uh… she was pretty worked up about it. I guess it was my dad’s program.”

Eve’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah,” she sighed. “It’s… it
was
the only good job for a puppeteer once their spillover got too bad.”

Jonas looked at her. Sometimes he forgot most puppeteers went insane at a relatively young age. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. How many people died?”

“42,578 dead, 276 missing,” he said, reciting the numbers.
Perks of being a vampire, you don’t get to forget anything.

“That’s a lot.”

“That’s an understatement,” he said, deadpan, and managed to get a small grin out of her, even if he didn’t feel like laughing.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the whole prophecy thing?”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Honestly? Because I don’t have a clue what to do about it. I mean, I’ve been working with Damien and doing my best not to destroy the world every day,” he said, and she rolled her eyes at him. He smiled and continued, “But I just have no idea. My mom’s pulled me from anything but training; the priest said it could be years before any of this stuff happens. I thought I might get a pass.”

“So when you saw Jim with Viviane…”

“Right. Because I did not see that coming. I mean, she’s a puppeteer. No offense, but Jim’s not exactly a fan of puppeteers.”

“Apparently he is.”

“I know, I just thought-”

“I get it,” Eve said, folding her hands in her lap. She rubbed her knuckles with her thumb.

He’d felt bad for staring at the two of them. They were both pretty broken people, and he was glad they looked happy. It was just that their happiness meant he had less time.

“And you can do magic?” Eve asked.

He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. A chill spread down his arm, and a bright, orange sphere like a flaming ping-pong ball hovered over his palm, rippling, bathing them in warm light.

She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. He didn’t often see genuine wonder in her eyes. He closed his hand and the flame disappeared.

“That’s awesome!” she said.

Jonas grinned.

“Oh, and tell Amelia we can hang out tomorrow night,” Eve said.

“Wait, what?”

“She texted you.”

Jonas rubbed the back of his head. “Oh, crap! I was late for training and I completely forgot.”

Eve patted his leg. “Good boy. I might keep you.”

♘

Awkward didn’t begin to describe it. He’d half hoped his mom would say no, that he was still grounded, but he didn’t even have to ask her because Eve did it for him. Eve and his mother were apparently best friends now.
Okay, that’s probably not true,
he thought. She’d probably asked the question after getting debriefed on what happened in LA, and his mom said yes, but only for a couple hours.

Maybe Amelia will be late,
he thought, reaching into his pocket for his phone.
Maybe she won’t show up at all.

The front door of the apartment building opened and Amelia stepped out, hesitating only briefly before shutting the door behind her and walking down the stairs. She’d never been late in the two years they’d dated. Probably too much to hope for she’d start today.

“Hi, Jonas,” she said, her breath fogging.

“Hey, Amelia,” he said. He wasn’t sure if they were supposed to hug or shake hands, or kiss each other on the cheek, so they just stood there, ghosts of familiar gestures felt but unseen.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked. The temperature was just below freezing, the warmest it had been all week. She was wearing a black puffer coat that went down to her knees with earmuffs and knit gloves. He was wearing jeans and a cotton hoodie.

“It’s easier for me to stay warm than cool off,” he said. Still, not the smartest choice he’d made; it made his inhumanity about as obvious as a cape.

“It’s been a while,” she said.

He shrugged.

“Like, a month.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” he said, hands in his pockets.

“I don’t,” she said, shrugging, and then she laughed. “I mean, you dumped me, and you almost got me killed, and then you used me as bait,” she said, her hands tight around her purse strap. “And life goes on, except you’re one of the only people I can talk to about this stuff, and it’s finals’ week, and I’m not sleeping well.”