He mumbled and shook his head. “I don’t... I don’t understand.”
“You’ve murdered women, haven’t you?” She studied him: heart slamming against his bony ribs, breathing irregular, tremors in his eyes. A guilt-ridden mask lay deeper than the creases in his pockmarked face.
“You’ve murdered little girls—haven’t you?” Her tone chilled to ice.
Their eyes met. The sneer of his lips and the prideful gleam in his eye gave her all the answer she needed. She had seen faces like his. Arrogant. Cocky. Disturbing.
“What’s it like to be you?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“All alone.”
She didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought. You know, the world is full of people trying to live their life the best way they can. And then there’s you. All alone without a care for anyone or anything. Admit it. No one wants you. That’s why they keep you locked up.” He winced and squeezed his blood-covered hand into a fist.
“I don’t need anyone,” she growled.
“Like hell you don’t. I can see it in your damn yellow eyes. The only thing that could make it worse is if you weren’t fully vampire, and I’m willing to bet you aren’t. I know they pumped those chemicals into you. Made you strong. Agile. Quick as a rattler. Probably stuck some wolf fangs in your mouth. But they couldn’t do anything about that deep hole inside you that everyone’s born with. Hell, even a coyote needs a pack. You think you’re the exception?”
“I don’t want to be wanted or needed, because I don’t need anyone.” Her cheeks grew hot.
“You keep telling yourself that. I know you’re hardly killable, but face it. Someday you’re going to die, and ain’t nobody coming to your funeral. Hell, you’ll end up under a lump of dirt without so much as a stick or two to mark the occasion.”
Her heart thrummed. She flexed her hands, freezing drops of rain melting against the heat of her face.
“I’ll help you out. I got another aurorium shell in that forty-five Colt. Why don’t you do yourself a favor? Put it between those fangs in your mouth—”
She snapped his head around, and his body folded.
She walked away with a gnawing pressure flooding her chest. She raised a fist up to her mouth, squeezed her blurry eyes, and sat at the edge of the pier, legs dangling over. The ocean rose and fell beneath her in perfect rhythmic beats. She stared at nothing. The rain returned.
“What’s it like to be you?”
Her mind grappled with his challenge. What was the answer? Was it different than his assessment? She turned her head and eyed the handgun lying near his body. It took too long to turn away.
She pulled one knee up and rested her chin against the shredded leather and stared at the water. The last time she had looked out over the rolling ocean, she’d been searching for her little sister. Her throat had grown hoarse from her calls, to the point of bleeding. She cried out to God, to the sea, to anyone listening. But nothing and no one brought Embeth back.
A lump broke through the surface and her bleary gaze focused on the corpses drifting along with the swell of the ocean. All of them floating on crimson clouds until they were collected by ships or swallowed in the depths of the sea.
What if Embeth had been floating like that? And for how long? Did someone collect her remains? Or was she still—out there?
Her mind wrestled with the fact that these men in the ocean were dead because of her. Just like Embeth.
She took a deep breath, held out her open hands, tilted her head back and squeezed her eyes shut against her bitter reality. Frozen air rushed over her skin. Her palms filled with water, daring her fingers to endure another moment. It was difficult to smile—and honestly, what was there to smile about?
The rain filled her palms. She made a fist, squeezed the water out and opened them again. But it wasn’t water she was looking at. She was squeezing out the blood she had spilled over the years. It filled her palms before she squeezed it out again. Open and close. Death after death. Curse after curse. And if she’d killed her sister, then that’s what she was.
A monster.
A killer no one believed existed. A whisper in the dark no one suspected. She was covered with transgressions that came along with the curse, stains on her conscience that would never wash away.
Without another thought, she stood and picked up Drake’s gun. The aurorium bullet inside pricked her skin. She clicked the cylinder into place and sat at the edge.
“What’s it like to be you?”
A lot of things and nothing good, she should have said. She was fast, but not with answers.
The gun was heavier than it seemed. She was out of the iron cage, but still a prisoner. She wanted out, and this bullet was the closest thing she had right now. No more guilt. No more gnawing emptiness. Her finger rested against the trigger. The slightest squeeze would be all she needed. She took a deep, cleansing breath. Her last.
“What are you doing?”
She turned and stared at the little girl sitting next to her. She wiped her eyes and blinked.
“Embeth?”
Chapter 2
Embeth wore her favorite dark green dress with the extra frills. She was almost an exact replica of the vampire, though her dark hair was longer, brushed back over her small ears. Her dark brown eyes were round, mousy, always curious. Her thin legs dangled over the edge of the planks. Not a drop of water on her. Fang looked at her sister and couldn’t decide if this was a hallucination or—
“What’s that?” she asked Fang, pointing at the floating corpses.
“Don’t look down there. Embeth, I... I thought you would never want to see me again.” Fang slid the gun away, unsure if she was
