Jennifer Rardin - [Jaz Parks 1] - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Crap in a bucket! We had only traded spit, that's all, and now he thought he deserved an explanation. Worse yet, so did I. I took a deep breath. His hands, exhausted from thumb wars, rested on the table. I put mine over them.

'Cole—' I stopped. Had to. Memories exploded out of the suitcases I generally kept them locked in. Voices. Screaming. Blood—some of it mine. A surging black hatred that nearly swallowed me whole. No way could I put all that into words, no way would I take anyone else back into the hell I still visited in nightmares. So I gave Cole a sketch, knowing he could never imagine the full picture.

'About 14 months ago, I was a Helsinger. Are you familiar with that term?'

Cole nodded slowly. 'Yeah,' he said, straightening in his seat as if I'd just called him to attention. 'Helsingers are elite teams of vampire killers, named for Dracula's nemesis, Dr. Van Helsing.'

'Excellent,' I said. He responded to my praise like any good student would, with a smile and a satisfied little nod.

'We didn't start out as a tight-knit group,' I told him, 'but we ended up that way. There were ten of us in all. I fell for a hard-charging former Green Beret named Matthew Stae. My brother, David, was on the team too. That's how he met Jessie Diskov. And when he married her it seemed perfect, because we were already like sisters.'

Cole turned his hands so they held mine and squeezed. It was a little depressing holding his hands, because he would soon come to understand why I was too dangerous to touch.

'Some of what happened to my Helsingers on the night my life changed forever is classified. Some I just don't remember. Here's what I can tell you. We'd spent the day clearing out a nest in West Virginia. But we missed the Vultures. That's what we called the leaders. They'd holed up so deep we couldn't find their resting places before dark, and we didn't dare stay longer without our own vamps there to back us up.'

Tangents, ah, I love 'em. Keeps you at a safe distance from painful subjects. But this was one train I needed to keep on track. 'Anyway, they came back for us that night, before we had time to regroup. By the next morning the only crew members left breathing were me and my twin. And David only survived because he wasn't there. He was in the hospital, sidelined with two broken ribs from a previous mission.' Jesus.

'Oh, you can bet I stopped talking to him that night. I lost my team, my fiance, my sister-in-law. And my brother blamed me for all of it. It was my crew after all, my responsibility to see they got home safe after every mission.' Like a tired, old dam, my throat began to hurt from holding back the torrent of tears that threatened to drown me if I released them. I finished as fast as I could. 'So you can see why I can't have a relationship with anyone, especially a nice, normal guy like you. A guy stays with me long enough, he will die.'

'Unless he's a vampire,' said Cole.

Cole stopped my fabricated reply with a raised hand. 'I know Vayl's a vamp, Lucille. I can smell it on him.'

'You… you're a Sensitive?'

'Yep.'

'But… how? I mean, were you born that way, or—' I stopped because he was shaking his head. His own bad memories were beginning to make his palms sweat. He squeezed my hands and faked a smile.

'I was born in New York,' he told me, 'just outside of Buffalo. Lived there 'til I was six, in an old white farmhouse with an actual barn and a pond out back. My brothers and I were skating on that pond one fine January afternoon when I fell through the ice. I was under the water for fifteen minutes before the firemen fished me out.'

'So… you died?'

'Yeah.' He was trying to act casual, in case I began to scoff at his life-altering experience. As if I could after what I'd survived.

'Was it… awful?'

He shrugged. 'I don't remember. The doctors said kids will do that when an event is too traumatic to bear. I guess it's still too much for me. But afterwards,' he leaned forward, eager now he knew I'd listen, 'it was like you hear about in church, Lucille. There was a light, and then my grandpa was there waiting for me, and he had my dog, Splinter, with him. It was,' his eyes shone, making me smile, 'absolutely fabulous.'

'And when you came back…'

'I could sense vampires, and other things, that ran in the woods east of my house. Between that and the horror of almost losing me, my parents decided for a new, ice-free scene.' His gesture encompassed the whole state when he said, 'So here I am.'

I nodded, my neck creaking under the weight of this new information. I wanted to ask a dozen more questions, because Cole was the first of my kind I'd ever gotten to talk to like this. But he beat me to it. 'So why did you let him bite you?' he asked.

My hand flew back to the bandage as if it was magnetized. 'That's none of your business.'

He took the time to blow an orange bubble and pop it before he said, 'No, but it's the price I'm asking if you want me to help you out.'

I stared at him, reframing this new picture of him so that it fit with what I'd already seen. 'That's very personal,' I said.

'I know.' Cole dropped his eyes to our intertwined hands, feeling a little guilty, maybe, but not enough to back off. 'Tell you what, you give me an honest answer and I'll tell you the real truth about why I'm working for Amanda Assan.'

Suddenly I felt like it was my bet in a game of high stakes poker. I looked closely at Cole, trying to interpret his intentions. But his face, usually so much more expressive than Vayl's, gave nothing away. Did he have a straight flush or a pair of twos?

'Okay, Cole,' I said, 'I'm all in. But if I get my butt kicked on this deal, I'm sharing the pain.'

'Fair enough,' he said, trying to hide his triumphant little smirk. 'So why'd you do it?'