Shudder Page 22

  “Wait,” I said. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

  Boone arched an eyebrow at me. “Did Jason convince you to give up on the whole thing?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m still in. But this is huge. We need time to plan.”

  “I thought you were going to be computer guy,” said Jude. “You can’t be blowing things up. We’re going to need you to be unlocking doors and monitoring things.”

  “He’s right,” I said.

  “Fine,” said Boone. “But don’t you think we should take out the blood supply?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I can do it,” said Jude.

  Which would leave me going in without backup. Still, that was probably okay. I wasn’t sure how much help Jude would be anyway.

  “What are you guys talking about?”

  We all looked up to see Grace at the door to Boone’s room. No one said anything.

  She walked further in. “You’re going to go back and getting everyone out, aren’t you?”

  “We’re ironing out logistics,” I said.

  “I want to help,” she said.

  Boone stood up, folding his arms over his chest. “No. No way.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “No way? You don’t get to tell me what to do, dickface.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” said Boone. “You need to sit this out.”

  “Look,” said Grace, “if Jude is blowing up blood, and Boone is manning the computers, and Azazel’s in there killing vampires, then who’s helping the Nephilim get away after they’re free?”

  This was why we needed a detailed plan, going over every possibility. I had forgotten about freeing prisoners, which was really the primary objective of the whole mission.

  “I can do that,” said Grace.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Boone turned on me. “I don’t want her anywhere near that place.”

  I cocked my head at Grace, sizing her up. I hadn’t been that much older than her when I’d started learning how to take care of myself. “You ever shot a gun?”

  She shook her head.

  “I can’t believe you’d even consider that,” said Boone. “She’s not going.”

  “If you’re coming along,” I said, “then you have to get some target practice in first.” I looked at Jude and Boone. “You guys too. I want everyone armed. We can work on using the leaves inside bullets. It seems like a pretty good weapon against them.”

  “Azazel,” said Boone. “Not Grace.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you care anyway.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said. “So we aren’t together or whatever. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about your safety.”

  I held up a hand. “Grace doesn’t go in.” I took a deep breath. “In fact, none of you except me actually goes in.”

  * * *

  I needed to go shopping. I wished I was going shopping for fun things, considering I’d been telling myself I needed a break to do girly stuff, but it wasn’t going to be that kind of shopping. Instead, I was going to be buying cell phones and surveillance equipment and possibly guns. I needed to check with Hallam to see what kind of weapons he still had. Back when we lived in abandoned metro tunnels, we had lots of guns. I wasn’t sure what had happened to them. Anyway, I’d need to probably take a few trips. Boone was coming with me, and I’d told him to sit tight until I asked Mina if I could borrow her car. Hallam and Marlena were both at work. Mina was home watching Kenya.

  I found Mina in the living room, but she wasn’t alone. Jason was talking to her. I could have just interrupted, but I was curious about the conversation, so I flattened myself against the wall outside the doorway and listened.

  “He’s your son,” Mina was saying. “I don’t have any legal right to him, and if you want to take him back, I’d understand that.”

  “No, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about at all,” Jason said. “He’s yours. He’s yours always, and I would never take him away from you. You’re a much better parent than I could ever be.”

  “But you should still be part of his life. You’re his father.”

  “I...” I was sure he was running his fingers through his hair, not meeting her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I haven’t really seen him since we got back.”

  “I know,” said Mina. “Chance keeps asking about you. I told him you’ve been through a lot, and that you’d be ready to see him soon.”

  “That’s the thing,” said Jason. “Could you not tell him stuff like that? I don’t want him to get attached to the idea, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready.”

  Mina made an exasperated sigh. “You’re living under the same roof with the kid. You honestly think you can avoid him?”

  “I’ve been doing okay thus far.”

  “So, what am I supposed to tell him? His dad isn’t ready to be a dad? Great, Jason, just great.”

  “Don’t be like that. It’s complicated.”

  “I don’t think it is,” said Mina. “You have a child. No one’s ready to be a parent. I wasn’t ready when I got pregnant at sixteen. Neither was Chance.” A pause. “Big Chance, I mean. My Chance.”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “Well, we stepped up, anyway. It’s what you do. It’s part of being human.”

  It was Jason’s turn to sigh. “This isn’t about me being selfish, you know. It’s about who I am. You know me, Mina. When we lived in this house together all those years ago, you know about all the fights I got in, all the guys I pulverized. You remember that the reason I left was because of what I did to your Chance .”

  Mina was quiet.

  “Are you sure you want someone like me having influence on your son? Because I don’t think I do. I want him to have a good life. I want him to be well-adjusted and kind and happy. And I’m just not sure that exposing him to something like me is a particularly good idea.”

  “Jason, things aren’t like that anymore,” she said. “No one’s after you anymore.”

  “Someone’s always after me,” said Jason. “And if not, then I’m after someone. No one was after me when I paralyzed your boyfriend from the waist down, were they?”

  “I heard...” She took a deep breath. “Hallam said that while you were away, you stopped all of that. That you weren’t hurting people anymore. He said you changed.”

  “I want to change,” said Jason. “I don’t know if I can.”

  There was more silence.

  Jason’s voice, soft. “Will you keep him away from me?”

  “What am I supposed to tell him? He’s been waiting for you to wake up from this coma for so long. He knows about you. I can’t tell him that his own father is some violent psychopath. That would mess him up too.”

  “Maybe I should leave, then,” said Jason.

  At that, I burst into the room. “Leave?”

  He whirled to see me. “Azazel?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was coming to ask Mina something, and I couldn’t help but hear.”

  Mina was twisting her fingers together. “Do you think it’s true, Zaza? Is he really too dangerous to be around Chance?”

  “I don’t think it’s true,” I said. “He doesn’t even want to hurt the jerks who captured us.”

  “Is that what you were talking to Boone about?” she said. “After he took you guys away at breakfast?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I was actually coming to see if I could borrow your car to go shopping for some things we’re going to need.”

  “So, you’re going to do it,” said Jason.

  “We have to,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t have to help,” I said. “I’m going to do it without you. If you think you won’t be able to handle the violence, I trust you. You can stay away from it.” This is it, I thought. Jason wouldn’t want me to put myself in danger without him. He was going to agree to help, now that he’d seen how det
ermined I was. He’d be annoyed about it at first, but he’d come around.

  But he only backed away, his head down. “You do what you have to do, I guess.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I returned to the house several hours later with a car full of really expensive electronic stuff. I was lucky that my grandmother had left me so much money. Killing vampires wasn’t cheap. Boone and I unloaded everything. He was excited about his new toys. I told him to get everyone together in about twenty minutes. We had a lot of preparing to do.

  I stopped in my room first. Jason was in there, stuffing clothes into a duffel bag.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’ll come back,” he said. “I need to think.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Not forever,” he said.

  I glared at him. “Oh, this is so like you. When things get tough, you run off.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I actually only ran off once. Every other time, you’ve kicked me out.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He was bringing that up? Seriously? He deserved to be kicked out. He knew that.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m only saying that I need some time to sort things out.”

  I threw some shopping bags on the bed and dug through them. “Well, I got you a cell phone. Which is a good thing since you’re going AWOL.” I handed him a package containing a phone.

  He took it from me, and he studied it, not meeting my eyes. “I’ll be back before the blood wears off.”

  “When the blood wears off, Jason, I’ll be long gone, off somewhere waiting to die. So, if you go somewhere, you’re going to miss the last month of my life.” I said it to hurt him. I wasn’t sure about it anymore. Last night had shaken my resolve. If Jason was willing, even eager, to give me blood, I thought maybe I might be able to learn to live with the need.

  His shoulders sagged. “I won’t let you kill yourself. But I can’t help you with your issues when I can’t figure out my own screwed-up head. I need to think.”

  “No,” I said, “you need to stop thinking. It’s the thinking that makes you crazy.”

  He tapped the phone package against his palm. “You have the phone number for this?”

  “It needs to be activated.”

  “Well, let’s do that. I want to be out of here before Chance gets home from school.”

  * * *

  I couldn’t convince him to stay. He was gone in minutes, and when he left, we were still arguing, so I refused to kiss him. I felt like I was being immature, but he was being immature too. What was his problem? He needed to learn to stop running from his issues.

  But since he hadn’t given me the choice of working through anything with him, I threw myself into planning for the attack on the vampires. Hallam was able to dig up fire power, and between the two of us, we began training the other three to shoot. They made progress, but there wasn’t enough time for them to really master techniques. Which was fine. As long as everything went according to plan, they wouldn’t have to shoot anyone.

  I poured over the information Boone had dug up. We made plans and went over them again and again, trying to anticipate any possible contingency. We assembled explosives to blow up the blood supply. We spent hours at the kitchen table, stuffing rolled up herbs into bullet casings.

  One night, as we were making bullets, Hallam offered to come along. “You might need someone else in there with you. What if something goes wrong?”

  Marlena was across the table. She set down the leaf she was using. “We talked about this. You promised.”

  Neither Hallam nor Marlena was any stranger to danger and action. The two of them were both skilled and lethal, and I’d have them on my side any day. But the circumstances weren’t good. If they were being attacked, I’d expect them to defend themselves. I didn’t expect either of them to go running into danger.

  “I don’t need you,” I said. “I can’t risk something happening to you.”

  “What if something happens to you?” said Hallam.

  “I don’t have any children,” I said. I didn’t add the part about already being dead, because I was trying not to think about that.

  Marlena sat back in her chair. “When Kenya was born, and the world was safe, we made a pact we wouldn’t go looking for trouble again.”

  “We didn’t,” said Hallam. “Trouble found us.”

  “Not you,” I said. “It found me and Jason.”

  He sighed. “If something happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “She’s invincible,” said Marlena. “A bullet hits her, she lives. That’s not what would happen to you.” She turned to me. “I’m not a coward. And if things were different, we would help you. But we left all that behind.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask it of you.”

  “Maybe you should,” said Hallam.

  “Do you remember what you said to convince us that you should be the one to go to Edgar Weem all those years ago in Shiloh?” I asked him.

  “Uh... I was the best man to do it,” he said.

  “You said that there was a certain responsibility a man took on when he began a relationship,” I said. “A responsibility to live. You said that you should go instead of Jason because if you were killed, it wouldn’t hurt anyone, but if Jason died, it would also hurt me.”

  He massaged the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ, Azazel, I was twenty-two, and I’d never even been in a relationship. I didn’t know what I was talking about. Besides, if I’d followed that advice, half the things Marlena and I have done—”

  “You haven’t had the luxury to follow that advice,” I said. “The world fell apart. But you have the luxury now. And I won’t be responsible for Kenya growing up without a father.”

  Marlena squeezed my hand. “Thank you.”

  Hallam continued to protest for a little bit afterwards, but he seemed to realize he was beaten, and he eventually gave up. He did insist that we call him the minute something seemed to be going wrong, and to be close by when we make our move. Marlena agreed to it, and I did too.

  * * *

  The days flew by quickly, and before we knew it, the time to act was upon us. We were making our move at night, since we knew that the vampires were more vulnerable then. During the day, it seemed that we finished all our preparations very early, and that we had everything in place. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

  When watching the time, it always seems to creep slowly. We were anxious as well, on edge. It seemed like an interminable afternoon.

  Grace couldn’t sit still. She paced, agitated, snapping at everyone and calling them colorful names. She and I hadn’t spoken about anything besides the preparations for days, and when we did speak, I could tell she was still angry with me.

  Because of that, I did my best to hold my tongue, even though her nervous energy was starting to annoy me.

  Boone and Jude went out to double-check some equipment. Actually, they’d already checked in three times. Quadruple-check? Perhaps they were actually worried about it. Maybe they wanted a break from Grace. At any rate, I found myself alone with her.

  She flung her body down next to me, where I was sitting on a couch.

  “When we were locked up, you said you thought Boone liked me,” she said. “Why’d you say that?”

  I was astonished. “I thought you and Boone had decided to call it quits.”

  “There was nothing to quit,” she said. “We made out, like, twice. Big deal.”

  “You were sleeping in the same bed when I broke you out of general population,” I said.

  “That was the second time we made out,” she said. She leaned her head back against the couch. “I guess I’m confused sometimes. Because I think about what might have happened if we hadn’t escaped.”

  “Between Boone and you?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “And I think we would have been together. Sometimes, I almost wish we didn’t get out.”

  I ra
ised my eyebrows. “Really?”

  “I said almost ,” she said. “I hated being locked up in there.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m sorry I rescued you?

  She studied her hands. “I think I was mad at you because of that. Because I blamed you for stuff between Boone and me. But I was being stupid. It wasn’t your fault.”

  I still didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  She shrugged. “So, we’re cool, then?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Really? That was easy.

  She smiled at me. “I hope stuff works out with you and Jason.”

  I was trying not to think about that. “It will.” It always did, one way or another.

  * * *

  I adjusted the earpiece and squared my shoulders. “I’m in position.” I was in the shadows outside the office building where the vampires had kept us. They hadn’t fixed the glass door yet. It was repaired with an ugly slab of wood.

  Boone’s voice in my ear. He was waiting in the car, all his computer equipment set up so that he could help as needed. We were all wired in to him, and he was monitoring everything on the cameras inside. “Okay, great. I’m waiting for a check-in from Jude.”

  Jude needed to be in place before I made my move. He was going to set the bomb that would destroy the blood supply.

  I twisted to see Grace, who was about ten feet behind me. She’d stay outside waiting for the Nephilim. It was her job to usher them to safety.

  “All right,” said Boone. “Jude’s ready. I’m unlocking the front door for you.”

  “Copy that,” I said. I gave Grace a thumbs up, and she returned it. I moved forward, put a hand on the door, half-expecting it to be locked. But it gave under my hands, swinging inward. All right, Boone!

  Inside it was dark and quiet. I took my gun out of its holster, eased off the safety, and began working my way further inside. As I walked, my gaze darted from side to side, searching for any signs of life. “I’m inside,” I whispered.

  “You close to the elevator?” he asked.

  “Almost there.” The elevators were the one thing that didn’t work under automation. A key was required to open them. I still had the one that I’d stolen from Foster.