It didn’t.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” The Doctor scolded from the doorway. “We still have two more stops to make before it’s time for your end of the bargain.”
“Feed him.”
“Absolutely out of the question.”
“Feed him or I won’t show you anything.”
This gave The Doctor a moment’s pause. I couldn’t make out his features with the light of the hall behind him, but he seemed to be contemplating my words. “You’re sure you want to ask for favors so soon? I’ve told you we’re not yet done.”
It didn’t matter what he had to show me. I needed to help Holden, and if that meant cashing in whatever chips I had to play here and now, I’d do it.
“Feed him.”
“I want you to remember this, because I think in a few moments time you’ll feel quite foolish.”
I’d regretted a lot of things in my life, but getting Holden food wouldn’t be one of them.
Recalling what The Doctor had told me about blood laced with silver, I added, “No tricks. No experiments. You give him good blood. Untainted blood.”
Through the darkness I saw his smile. “Such a clever girl.”
Minutes later someone entered the room, giving me and Holden a wide berth, and threw a packet of blood at us. Knowing Holden would be unable to open it himself, I raised the packet to my mouth and gnawed through the sturdy plastic with my regular teeth. I needed blood too, and my fangs weren’t reacting the way they ought to when I was hungry.
My stomach growled in protest as I removed the bag from my mouth without drinking and placed it at Holden’s lips. At first it sat, trembling in my awkward left-handed grip, then he licked the opening. Once the first taste of blood hit his tongue, he drank the contents of the bag with greedy ferocity, yanking it from my hands. I’d thought he was done until he tore the plastic open and began to lick the inside of the bag.
Why hadn’t I thought to do that?
It wasn’t enough to fully restore him, not even close, but as the blood coursed through him his face lost its skull-like visage, his eyes became less black, to the point I could see their natural brown again, and he became more like Holden.
A weaker, less robust version of the vampire I knew and loved, but Holden nevertheless.
“What did they do to you?” he asked once his mouth worked properly. “What happened to your arm?”
“We’re running a test on Ms. McQueen at the moment, to see how her unique anatomy adapts to outside influence.”
“He broke my arm to see how long it will take to heal.” I kept my tone flat. I didn’t want to let any of my fear or rage show, so I had to keep a level head. “He knows what I am.”
Holden’s face was mobile enough to register shock. “How is that possible?”
“Peyton,” I said. The Doctor already knew I was on to him, knew I was aware of his connection to the rogue, so I saw no sense in keeping the information quiet now. Besides, Holden already hated Alexandre Peyton. Giving him another reason wasn’t going to change anything.
“Time’s up,” The Doctor told us, coming to offer me a hand to my feet.
Holden snarled, but our captor was unmoved, clucking his tongue as he pulled me into a standing position. “None of that, please. I’ve been very gracious to you this evening, but if you don’t behave, my hospitality won’t continue.”
If this was him being a good host, I shuddered to think what would happen if we made him inhospitable. “It’s okay, Holden. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re not fine,” he said, unable to force himself off the floor.
He was right, and he knew me well enough he was able to see through my lies. I saw the anger on his face and realized I’d failed to do the one thing I set out to do—keep him calm.
“I have to go,” I told him.
We stared at each other for the few seconds we were allowed, and my heart swelled up into my throat, trying to get free for the second time in two days. My lips parted, and a small sob bubbled out. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see him again.
“I love you,” I choked out.
He looked momentarily stunned, and then the gravity of my words hit him, and I saw the understanding in his eyes.
I wasn’t really telling him I loved him.
I was telling him goodbye.
Chapter Thirty-Two
There wasn’t anything in my stomach to throw up, but I managed it anyway, a pink foam soiling my shiny new ballet flats.
“I did warn you,” The Doctor said.
Crouching down, I cradled my head in my good arm, trying to obscure my vision of the room, but where Holden’s had been dark, this one was as brightly lit as a grocery store.
Maxime was strung from the ceiling, bound at four points, caught like a jumping jack in midair. He was stark naked and had been slit down his torso, with almost everything that should be inside him now on the outside.
The only blessing I could see was he was unconscious.
“What the fuck?” I screamed, realizing my mistake a moment too late. The shock from the collar zapped me, making my whole body spasm uncontrollably.
I collapsed to the floor, landing on my broken arm.
I had nothing left as far as screaming or wailing went. My body was spent, and now lying here, looking up at Maxime’s ruined form, I felt my soul shut down. I’d never believed I could feel my soul as a tangible entity, but I did in that instant.
All the hope leached out of me, going down the drain with the vampire’s blood. I lay on the concrete, breathing hard as my arm throbbed in agonizing protest beneath the weight of my body, but I couldn’t make myself move.
“We know complete regeneration is impossible,” The Doctor said, his tone still the same warm, charming one he’d used whenever we spoke. “But I did want to see how long it might take a vampire to heal this kind of wound. The organs are all still there.” He gestured to the trail of intestines spilling out from Maxime’s belly. “I wanted to know if his body would just suck them all back up. Like spaghetti.”
He laughed.
Dragging me to my feet in spite of my efforts to remain a dead weight, he rubbed my back in slow circles I suspected were meant to soothe me. “I did tell you it would get worse.”
He was right. Holden was on a beach vacation compared to what The Doctor was doing to Maxime. I didn’t want to regret getting Holden much-needed blood, but a nagging voice told me I could have saved Maxime from this if I hadn’t been so rash.
“I’m so sorry, Max.” I don’t know why I bothered saying it. If I had any pull with whatever higher powers might be out there, right now I was praying he wasn’t hearing or feeling any of this. His body, at least, had the common sense to shut down mine clearly lacked.
He was better off dead, as much as I hated to think it.
“Come on, then. One last stop.”
“No.”
“You asked for this. You wanted to see your friends, I’m showing you your friends.”
I turned my back on Maxime, not able to look directly at him anymore, the tableau too grim, too hopeless.
“I don’t want to see anything else.”
“I think you’ll like this last one.”
There was only one other vampire he might have who he’d assume I had an interest in, and that was my father. I’d never met Sutherland Halliston, and after this week I wasn’t sure I was ever going to meet him. But if I had any say in the matter, my first introduction to my biological father would not be in this madhouse. I wasn’t going to have that be my first and last memory of him.
“No,” I said.
“Does that mean you’re ready to show me what you promised?”
I nodded, choking back a new surge of bile burning the lining of my throat. “I’m ready.”
“Good girl.”
“But not here.”
He glanced over my shoulder to the suspended form of the vampire, then smiled at me. “I suppose that’s a reasonable request.”
Back in his dining room I found myself staring at the seat I’d occupied during dinner. The tablecloth was still rumpled from where I’d placed my hands, and the chair had been knocked over when I fell out of it. It remained on its side on the Persian rug.
“Let’s see what you’ve got.” He sat in his own chair and placed a small black fob on the table. It looked like a car starter, with a big red button in the middle, but I knew what it really was. He was showing me the remote detonator for my collar. Reminding me what was at stake if I tried anything funny.
“I need blood.”
He snorted. “Nonsense.”
“I need blood,” I insisted. “Maybe if you hadn’t broken my arm, I would have been fine, but it takes a lot out of a girl to rebuild bones in under twenty-four hours.”
He stared at me, his gaze raking over my face, trying to read my intentions from there. I don’t know what he saw, because I was all out of emotions, and my face had to be as blank as the rest of me right then.
Maybe it was the lack he found to be a relief. I wasn’t angry; there was no maliciousness in my eyes. There was nothing.
I felt nothing.
Fingers were snapped, and a glass of blood was soon produced. I wondered how it was his people were able to bring the exact right thing without him ever asking for it, but I suspected we were being monitored constantly. Some eye or ear in the sky was keeping tabs on The Doctor and all his pet projects.
I drank the blood without coming up for air, wishing I could shatter the glass and lick it clean as Holden had done with the bag. That might come across as threatening though.
The pain in my arm dulled, giving me a break from the near-constant, stabbing ache making me want to gnaw it off. I felt lightheaded with the power from the blood, stronger than I had in days. I wasn’t strong by any means, but I no longer felt like a human orderly could best me.
I licked my lips, and they were full and soft. I wasn’t on the verge of falling apart anymore.