This Side of the Grave

  “It’s not sacrifice if it doesn’t mean something, and if one friend’s life isn’t precious to you, then there’s no loss involved in offering it up,” I countered.

  His gaze flicked to my right, where Mencheres watched the two of us with a hooded expression. If I judged him by past actions, I knew Mencheres was ruthless enough to agree with Vlad that the risk to Dave was acceptable without bothering to look at other options first. Hell, if he wanted to, Mencheres could force me to stay right here, waiting helplessly while Dave took that irrevocable step. One snap of his telekinetic power, and I’d be unable to move, let alone leave the house to get my friend.

  Of course, one snap of my new, borrowed power and I could give Mencheres a whole new topic to ponder. I locked eyes with the Master vampire, seeing from the faint narrowing of his gaze that he knew what I was thinking. The scant space between us seemed to lengthen into a long, ominous road as we stared at each other across the room.

  My fangs slid out, concealed by my lips, their sharp tips touching the edge of my tongue. One swipe and I could call forth Remnants with my blood, making both Vlad and Mencheres helpless to stop me from getting Dave. The question was, could Mencheres wrap his power around me fast enough to prevent that tiny movement? And more importantly, did I want to use the Remnants as a weapon against my friends, even if it was to help another friend?

  After several moments, Mencheres gave me a slight smile, inclining his head. “The life of a friend is indeed too precious to risk unless it is a last resort. We will stop Dave from doing this while we explore other options.”

  I still remained tense. Was this a trick? If I retracted my fangs, would Mencheres slap his power around me while smirking about how gullible I was?

  Vlad obviously didn’t think it was a ploy. He let out a frustrated growl. “Kira’s made you soft.”

  “She opened my eyes,” Mencheres coolly refuted. “And you, my friend, protest too much. Before you knew of her new ability, you could have snatched Cat away to kill her with adequate vampire and ghoul witnesses. Then Apollyon wouldn’t be able to refute her death. Bones would kill you afterward, and I myself would be furious with you, but your people would be protected and the war stalled. So if you truly believed the life of a friend wasn’t precious enough to protect, you wouldn’t be here scowling at me now.”

  Vlad muttered something in a language I didn’t recognize. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like “Well played, sir!” and the glare he threw the other vampire warned that Vlad might combust at any moment.

  “Aww, who’s really a widdle softie on the inside?” I teased him, feeling some of the dread leaking out of me. It would be tough, true, but we’d find another way to bring down Apollyon, Scythe, and all the other hateful warmongers under them. Hadn’t Bones repeatedly told me in the past that there was always another way?

  “Actually, Reaper, the thought of your death isn’t bothering me a bit at the moment,” Vlad ground out.

  I ignored that. He could huff and puff all he wanted, but Vlad kept proving that he was only brutal when the circumstances required it. Despite his frightening reputation, loyalty was Vlad’s strong suit, not viciousness. I turned to Fabian, who’d stayed silent the past several minutes.

  “First, we’re going to get Dave. And then”—I glanced at Mencheres—“you and I get to reunite with our spouses, because with Scythe and the gang pulling out of Memphis, there’s no reason for us to stay anymore.”

  I’d gotten on both boots and was busy stuffing them—and other parts of me—with weapons when my hip pocket vibrated in a familiar way. I pulled out my cell phone, answering, “Yep?” without bothering to look at who was calling.

  “Cat.”

  He only said my name, but something in Tate’s voice made me freeze as abruptly as if Mencheres had unleashed the full force of his power upon me.

  “Is it Don?” I breathed, my chest tightening in a painful way. It can’t be. I just spoke to him a couple days ago! my denial screamed.

  “Yeah,” Tate replied shortly, but his tone sounded as raw as I felt. “Go to the Marine Safety office in Memphis. A chopper’s waiting for you.”

  I had to swallow twice before I could answer him. “I’m on my way.”

  I hit end with fingers that felt nerveless, looking up to meet Mencheres’s dark, compassionate gaze. He’d obviously overheard the call.

  “Go,” he said. “Vlad and I will retrieve Dave and meet you there.”

  Vlad gave me a short nod of confirmation. I stopped piling on weapons and went upstairs. On the dresser was my red diamond ring. It was so distinctive that I hadn’t been able to wear it while out ghoul hunting, but I put it on now, taking comfort in its familiar weight. Then I grabbed the pet carrier. I knew I wasn’t coming back, and aside from my wedding ring and my cat, everything else was replaceable.

  Chapter Thirty

  You’ll get there in time.

  I chanted that to myself the entire way in the car and in the air. Even though the compound wasn’t far away—just on the opposite side of Tennessee, in fact—I was still stiff with fear that I might, indeed, be too late. The chopper landed a little less than two hours after Tate’s call. Barely a tick of the clock, all things considered, but it still seemed like the seconds dragged by with pitiless disregard for my urgency.

  A vampire waited for me on the roof, dark hair whipping around from the rotor blades. Not Bones, though I’d called him and he was on his way. It was my mother who wordlessly took my hand when I jumped out of the helicopter, keeping pace with me as I strode inside the building. My mental shields were up as high as I could crank them, because I didn’t think I could stand it if I overheard a stray thought telling me that Don was already gone. I couldn’t even bear to look at my mother as we went straight to the elevators, let alone ask the question that burned a hole in my throat. I was too afraid of what the answer might be.

  “He’s still alive, Catherine,” she said quietly.

  I choked back the sob of relief that threatened to claw its way out, managing to nod while tears blurred my gaze. The elevator doors opened and I went inside, part of me registering that the last time I’d been in an elevator was when I was ambushed by ghouls at the Ritz.

  “Is it his cancer worsening, or did something else happen?”

  Something else better have happened, I added silently. I’d called Don every few days to check in on him, plus got regular updates on his health from Tate. No one had even hinted to me that he was going downhill. If Don had been steadily growing worse over the past few weeks and everyone lied to me about it, I’d stop speaking to every last fucking one of them, my mother included.

  “He had a heart attack a few hours ago.”

  I closed my eyes, absorbing the swell of pain as it came. Heart attacks were lethal enough all on their own. Add one to Don’s already-ravaged health, and I knew what that meant.

  Cool fingers squeezed around mine. “He’s still hanging in,” she said. “He knows you’re coming, too.”

  “He’s awake?” I was surprised, but how else could he know I was on my way?

  She glanced at the ground, shifting uncomfortably. “He was when I last saw him.”

  Even amidst my fear, worry, and grief, I caught an edge in her voice that I well recognized. Defensiveness. The elevator doors opened on the second sub-level where Medical was, but I didn’t budge.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Mom?”

  She let go of my hand to gesture to the pet carrier. “It’s not sterile for an animal to be in the same room with Don. All that hair. I can take your cat to your old office while you—”

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I repeated, slapping a hand on the elevator door when it started to close.

  “Crawfield.”

  Both our heads whipped up, but Tate’s indigo glare was only for my mother as he approached the elevator.

  “Get off this floor, Crawfield. I told you not to come within a hundred yards of Don again. Cat.” Tate’s vo
ice softened. “Come with me.”

  “Not until someone tells me what’s going on, and as we all know, I’m in a hurry,” I growled. My mother was forbidden to come within a hundred yards of Don? What the hell had happened?

  “She directly violated Don’s medical orders,” Tate said, his gaze now flashing emerald at her.

  “And he’d be dead now if I hadn’t!” My mother stopped glaring at Tate to give me a pleading look. “That’s the only reason I gave him the blood—”

  “Which you had no right to do. You knew he had a DNR,” Tate snapped.

  Fresh tears filled my eyes as I put together what happened from the fragments of their argument. “Don had a ‘do not resuscitate’ on his medical orders, but you gave him some of your blood when he had the heart attack to bring him back?” I rasped, looking at my mother through a haze of pink.

  She dropped her gaze. “I knew you’d want to see him one last time.”

  I let go of the cat carrier to wrap her in a fierce embrace, hearing her surprised “oof” even as Tate let out a disgusted noise.

  “You can hug her all you want, but she’s suspended indefinitely, so get off this floor, Crawfield, before I throw you off.”

  I let her go to round on Tate. “You can’t even stop being a dick under these circumstances? What is wrong with you, Tate!”

  My voice was loud. The medical staff paused in their activities to glance our way before quickly going back to what they’d been doing.

  “I’ll take your cat to your office, like I said,” my mother muttered, stepping back into the elevator and hitting the close button.

  Tate took my arm, leading me down the hall, and it was only because I didn’t know if Don was awake and could hear us that I didn’t send him flying along the polished sterile floors.

  “Regardless of the circumstances, she defied orders,” Tate stated, keeping his voice low. “If she wants to be on the team, then she needs to learn to obey orders even if she disagrees with them.”

  “Some things are more important than orders,” I hissed back, stopping before we got too close to my uncle’s room. “Don might be nothing more than a boss to you, but he means a little more than that to me. At least my mother recognized that, even if you refuse to!”

  “Don’t you dare,” Tate breathed, coming closer until we were nose to nose. “Don’t you dare stand there and pretend you’re the only one losing a family member here. I grew up passed from foster home to foster home until I turned eighteen and joined the army. Spent the next five years trying to forget everything that happened before enlisting. Then Don took me under his wing when I was twenty-three. First fucking person to ever truly give a shit about me, to look up my birthday and send me a card. To remember that on the holidays, I’d be alone unless he stopped by pretending to talk about work. All this was before you ever met him.” Tate’s voice thickened with emotion. “I’d kill or die for that man, don’t you ever think I wouldn’t.”

  “Then why are you letting him just die?” I demanded, the last word cracking with the grief frothing inside me.

  “Oh, Cat.” Tate sighed, his entire body drooping as though something inside him had magically deflated. “Because it’s not my choice. It’s Don’s, and he made it. I don’t like it, I don’t agree with it, but I sure as hell have to respect it.”

  And so do you hung heavy in the air, even if he didn’t say it. I glanced down the hall toward my uncle’s room, hearing the beeps from the EKG machine that weren’t the steady rhythm they should be.

  “I’m going to ride your mother until she learns that she can’t ignore orders again, but, Cat . . .” Tate raised his hand as if he were going to touch me, then dropped it. “Despite the fact that she shouldn’t have done it, I’m glad you got here in time,” he finished, looking away with a shine in his own gaze.

  My anger deflated with the same abruptness with which his posture had slumped. It would be easier to hold on to it, I knew. Easier to whip myself into a rage over this and every other thing Tate had ever done to piss me off, but that would only be trying to camouflage my grief over losing someone I loved. Tate loved Don, too, I knew that. Knew it even as I flung the “boss” comment at him before. Aside from me, Tate was probably hurting the most right now, but he was handling his pain the way he always had—by being a good soldier.

  And I was handling my pain the way I always had—running from it with denial and anger. Of the two of us, I had the least amount of room to throw stones over coping mechanisms.

  Slowly, I reached up, brushing my hand across Tate’s cheek and feeling the light stubble that said he hadn’t shaved today; very unlike his military regimented, impeccable grooming habits.

  “Don loves you, too,” I whispered.

  Then I walked away, leaving Tate to go into my uncle’s room.

  Chapter Thirty-­one

  I knew how critical Don’s condition was. Understood that, if not for my mother’s intervention earlier, he’d already be dead now. But somehow, I hadn’t truly accepted that he was dying until I walked into his room and the final shreds of my denial were ripped away from me.

  It wasn’t the bluish paleness of Don’s features as he lay, eyes closed, on the bed. Not the hospital gown he’d previously refused to wear, the EKG machine that showed his shockingly low blood pressure, or the heavy scent of what I now knew was cancer. It wasn’t even his erratic heartbeats that drove home the reality that this would be the last time I would ever see my uncle. No, it was the rolling tray pushed into the corner of the room—naked of a phone, laptop, or any files—that tore through my heart with all the pain of a thousand silver blades.

  You just talked to him a few days ago! a voice screamed inside me. How could it come to this so fast?

  I shoved back the sob that threatened to break free and went over to his bedside, very softly running my hand over his arm. I was afraid to disturb him by letting him know I was here, and afraid not to. He was hooked up to an EKG, but aside from the tubes in his nose, he breathed on his own in small, shallow puffs that didn’t give him enough oxygen, judging from his pallor.

  I sat there in silence for half an hour, watching him, thinking back to the first time I met Don, all the way to the last time I saw him before now. We had both good and bad history between us, but the mistakes of the past faded underneath my belief that Don had always tried to do what he thought was right. That hadn’t always made him a good uncle, but it made him what we all were—flawed people who tried to do their best under rough circumstances. I had no grudges over our past. Only gratitude that he’d been in my life at all, and a wish that he didn’t have to leave it now.

  “Cat.” The faintest smile ghosted across Don’s mouth as he woke up and saw me next to his bed. “Didn’t think I’d get to see you again.”

  I took in a deep breath. It was that or I’d lose the fragile hold over my emotions that kept me from breaking into uncontrollable tears.

  “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t, except I hear you’re having obedience problems with your new recruit,” I said, managing a smile even though it felt like my face would splinter.

  Don let out a small, pained laugh. “Turns out your mother obeys orders just as well as you did.”

  His wry comment served to underscore our history, intensifying my grief at the thought of losing him. The only emotion my father and I shared for each other was mutual loathing, but Don had found his way into my heart even before I knew I was related to him.

  “You know what they say about the acorn and the tree,” I replied. Then my composure cracked and a few tears slipped out despite my best effort to hold them back.

  Oh, Cat, don’t cry.

  Don didn’t say it out loud, but I heard in from his thoughts as clearly as if the words were shouted. His hand drifted over, patting mine before his eyes closed.

  “It’ll be okay,” he whispered.

  And I heard the other thing he didn’t say, but it echoed across my mind with more clarity than I thought I could stand.

/>   So glad the pain will be over soon . . .

  “Don.” I leaned forward, stroking his hand pleadingly. “You said no before, but it’s not too late if you’ve changed your mind. I can still—”

  “No,” he interrupted, opening his eyes. “I’ve lived longer than I should have as it is. Promise me you’ll let me go, and that you won’t bring me back.” I’m tired, so very tired, his thoughts sighed.

  A piece of my heart broke, but I held his gaze and nodded as I forced the words out, whisking away another tear that slipped down my cheek.

  “I promise.”

  Good girl. Proud of you. So proud.

  I got up and began to pace so he couldn’t see that more tears rushed out at hearing that from him. I’d been in countless battles before, but letting him go would take the kind of strength I didn’t know if I had.

  “You don’t know how much I’m going to miss you,” I whispered, keeping my back to him, trying to wipe away the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing no matter how hard I tried to stuff them back.

  He grunted softly. “I’ll miss you, too.” Love you, niece. Wish I would have gotten to know you sooner. Shouldn’t have waited so long . . .

  A choked noise escaped me hearing that. I stabbed my fingernails into my palms, hoping the slight physical pain would distract me enough to control my raging emotional anguish. It didn’t. My heart constricted, aching from an injury that no amount of supernatural healing abilities could soothe.

  Moments later, I heard a familiar booted stride and felt power in the air that I’d recognize anywhere. God, Bones had gotten here fast. That only further hammered away at my fragile control. He’d come quickly because he knew how devastated I’d be, and I loved him more for it even as it reminded me of how much I’d hurt when Don was gone.

  Then Bones was beside me, his dark gaze raking the room to take in everything in an instant, hard arms reaching out to pull me to him. I allowed myself a few precious seconds to sag in his embrace, not needing to pretend I was strong with him, before turning around to give Don a forced cheerful smile.