Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Why is he talking to me like that? I don’t know him. “You, who? Gage?”
“Yeah.” He stops on the other side of the monument. In military greens, he blends in well with the landscape, the trees losing leaves and going dormant.
“I don’t know you.” I grip the cold marble.
“You do.” He puts his hand over mine, and I yank it back. He winces, looking almost wounded.
Do I know him? He seems certain I do.
“Were you in the cage?” I ask.
“The cage?” His brows draw together.
“At the Black Cavern?”
His mouth presses into a tight line. “No. I tried to rescue everyone from that hellhole several times, but we never had a chance. Lost a lot of troops in those attempts.”
“Then you know me from before?” I ask.
“Yes.” His eyes search my face. “You really don’t remember?”
“No.”
His jaw tightens. “When Valen told me you’d lost your memory, I couldn’t be sure if he was lying. You never know with them.” He says it with unfiltered bitterness.
“The vampires?”
He nods. “Are you all right?” He grips the stone where my hand had been. “He told me you are, but again—”
“They lie,” I finish for him. “But yes, I’m mostly okay.” I glance around. “Any chance you could take me with you?”
His eyes soften. “I wish I could.”
“Oh.” I tuck my hands in my pockets. At least he let me down easy, I suppose. None of the gruff Valen hatefulness that I’m used to.
“They say you’re a spy.” I try to test him, to figure out if he, like the vampires, is also a liar.
“I am.” He gives me a half-smile.
“Wait, is that a ‘haha I’m a spy’ or an ‘yes, I’m really a spy’. Mixed signals here.”
“Would a real spy tell you?” he asks.
“Fair point.” I glance at the sullen sky. “I suppose David knows you’re here.”
“Of course I do,” David calls from somewhere beyond the rose tangle.
I stare at him, at Gage. “Were we friends?”
“Yes.” He glances at my mouth.
Were we more? That question stays in my mind. It’s just a random thought, given his familiarity with me. But there’s nothing in my memory that sparks as I look at him, no heat, no vivid emotion.
“What’s happening out there? How many dead?”
His expression darkens, his posture turning a bit more rigid. “I don’t have numbers. Suffice it to say we’ve been hitting them back hard, but we’re at a severe disadvantage.”
“The plague?” I ask. “Are those numbers bad, too?”
“We don’t know anymore, but it’s still raging. We don’t have the luxury of hospitals or infrastructure. People hunker down at night, even if that means sheltering with people who’ve been exposed to the virus.”
My heart sinks. “So more people die.”
He nods, his expression grim.
“What about the CDC? There have to be some scientists left. The ones you hid in Atlanta.”
He looks away. “All dead.”
“What?” My throat closes up, his words like a physical blow. “All of them? But that’s not possible.”
“The vampires are very good at what they do. Hunting and killing. Everyone you worked with, they were found. The vampires …” He doesn’t have to explain. I know what the vampires do to their enemies, which now includes all of humanity.
Bitterness seeps into my heart, turning that shattered organ black. “Have you found a way to kill them? Other than sunlight? I’ve witnessed silver through the heart—” I repress a shudder at the memory— “and beheading, but what else?”
He moves closer, now the monument the only thing separating us. “You must remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Georgia, you—”
And then he’s gone, flying back through the rose bramble and crumbling in a heap as the ailing arbor crashes down on him.
My brain can barely do the math as I step around the monument to get to him. “What the—”
Valen yanks me back, shoving me behind him as he faces Gage. “I warned you, Captain.” Valen’s voice is dark and low. Lethal. His familiar scent washes over me, the outline of his broad back now familiar. If I had a silver blade, would I plunge it through his nice black shirt and into his even blacker heart?
“Fucking hell.” Gage sits up and presses a hand to the back of his head.
I step around Valen. He blocks me. I try again. Blocked.
“Move!” I shove at his back. “I’m a doctor. He’s injured.”
“He’s fine.” Valen glances at me over his shoulder. “Stay.”
“Fuck off!” I yell and dodge around him again.
This time he faces me, and I run right into his chest.
I glare up at him. “He’s hurt!”
“I’m fine, Georgia,” Gage calls.
“See?” Valen smirks. “He’s fine.”
“What was that about? And where the fuck have you been? Fatima was in my room!” My voice is rising right along with my emotions. Everything is always too much, and then Valen pours more gasoline onto the bonfire.
“I’m aware.” He glowers.
Valen whirls, again cutting off my view of Gage. “I told you never to speak with her, Captain.” He’s gone icy, the tone of his voice a few degrees colder than the grave. “I warned you.”