FIFTY-FOUR

As Assail sat in the training center’s break room, he contemplated all of the evil things he had ever done or thought. He started from the very beginning when he’d stolen from his cousins the sweets made for them by his parents’ staff…and continued all the way up until he had murdered that female Naasha, who had kept Markcus chained in her basement—as a blood slave.

Oh, wait, he had burned down that house, too. With Zsadist’s help.

That Brother, as a former blood slave, had had an abiding reason to participate in the destruction, although Assail had been the one to kill the female as she had sat in her beauty chair, prepared to be pampered.

After which the flames had been ignited, and Assail had resolved to stay in the midst of the blaze. At that time, with Marisol gone from his life, incineration had seemed a very reasonable end to the pain of missing her. The Brother had been determined upon another course, however—and had dragged him out of there.

And so he was here again, he thought as he stared across at the Coke machine. Missing Marisol as if she had died even though she was well enough and very much breathing.

Sitting forward in his chair, he put his head in his hands. Two hours had passed since he had told her, since she had run from him, since the truth he had not wished to share had shattered them as glass beneath the head of a hammer—

As the door opened, he sat up to attention and felt a bolt of something like hope light the cold meat locker behind his sternum.

“Oh, ’tis you, Vishous,” he muttered as he sank back in the chair.

“You’re about as cheerful as I am.” The Brother took out a hand-rolled, lit it, and grabbed an ashtray off a table. “Listen, Jane told me what’s going on with you and your girl.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Good, because that’s not why I’m here.”

As V settled into the chair next door and crossed his legs ankle to knee, Assail realized there had been a further reason why he’d come clean instead of just wiping away Marisol’s memories of him. There had been a treacherous optimism, deep down inside of him, rooted in the place where his love for her had grown from, that she would somehow understand and accept him. That she would rise above the surprise, fear, and disgust, and see him not for his species, but as one who loved her to his very soul.

He should have known better.

“So we’ve got a problem,” the Brother said as he put his ashtray on his knee and tapped his hand-rolled.

Don’t talk to me about problems, you sonofabitch, I’m bleeding out over here, Assail thought.

“Yes?” he intoned.

“The species is facing a new threat and I need hollow-tip bullets.”

“I believe they are sold at all gun outlets—”

“I need a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of them.”

Assail blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” V exhaled. “A bulk sale of that size? No way the human authorities won’t get their panties in a wad. So I want you to make it happen, just like you did for those guns you—”

“I’m out of that business, I’m afraid.” Assail waved a dismissive hand. “I am retired.”

“So un-retire.”

Assail sat forward again and rubbed the back of his neck as it began to ache. “Forgive me, but as much as I respect the Black Dagger Brotherhood, I am fairly certain I have not been conscripted into your ranks. Neither you nor Wrath may order me to do aught—”

“I just put three bullets into the skull of an innocent kid to keep him from turning into a monster after he died. So you can get off your sanctimonious high horse and help us out, true.”

Assail frowned. “Has the Omega endeavored to wield a new weapon?”

“As far as we can tell, that’s what’s up.”

“And hollow tips stop them?”

“If they’re dipped in the fountain of my mahmen’s private quarters and sealed up they do. Or at least they do a better job than conventional bullets. I want to offer them to the civilian population. Phury and the Chosen have agreed to help me—and even though I hate the idea of those females touching anything that’s part of this war, if it’ll help people stay alive, I’ma do that shit.”

Assail thought of the phone call he’d received on the burner he’d previously used to conduct business with, that female who had inquired as to whether he was satisfied with his shipment. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but clearly after Benloise’s demise, a new supplier had found a way to get into contact.

“All right,” Assail said. “But I’d prefer, if you don’t mind, to put you in touch with the distributor directly. That way you can get what you want and I can stay out of it.”

V took a drag and spoke through the exhale. “Kind of a change for you and your capitalistic mores.”

“Money means little to me now.”

Vishous frowned, his dark brows sinking low over his bright white eyes, those tattoos at his temple shifting shape. “Yeah. I know that feeling. It sucks when you lose your female.”

“I told you, I’m not talking about it.”

The Brother got to his feet. “I need you to do what you have to in order to set things up for me and your supplier, but move quick. These attacks are happening regularly.”

“Aye. I shall have to get home to arrange things, however. The phone that I use is there.”

“I’ll have someone drive you out—”

“Actually, just send someone to the house, will you? Tell my cousins that the burner is in the left top drawer of my desk.”

“Roger that. Thanks.”

As Vishous strode to the door, his heavy boots marking the path with hard strikes, Assail envied the Brother his purpose…but it was rather in the way one might view an artifact from an ancient civilization, a leftover from a period in history long, long ago.

An anachronism that was naught but a curiosity without current relevance.

Before Vishous opened the way out, the Brother looked across the break room. “You know, you don’t have to strike her memories. You can keep her, if you want. Wrath’s a lot more lenient about that shit—and he should be, considering his Queen is a half-breed.”

Assail thought about brushing the conversation point off, but instead he shrugged. “A fine piece of advice, and much appreciated. However, my female is summarily horrified by me, so I’m afraid that will not be a course of action which will be available to me now or in the future.”

“That sucks.”

“You know, I find you have put together two most salient words on the subject.”

When Vishous left without any expression of heartfelt emotion or deep, male-tinted commiseration, Assail began to truly like and appreciate the Brother. And as for this new threat to the species? There was a time when it would have at least moderately intrigued him—insofar as it might possibly have affected his ability to garner income. Now, he was providing an introduction only out of a lukewarm obligation to…

Hell, he didn’t know why he was bothering at all. The idea some innocent had been killed by the Omega was not a newsflash, and he certainly wasn’t scared of the Brotherhood retaliating against him if he chose not to honor his word. That fear, after all, would have required some interest in staying alive, and he had none—

As the door opened again, he didn’t bother to look up. “More advice? Or another demand.”

“Neither,” Marisol said.

Assail whipped his head up. “Marisol…”

She frowned at that, and he guessed she didn’t want her name rolling off his lips ever again. But instead of setting that boundary, she cleared her throat.

“I need to go to your house at some point. I want to get my things and the car. There’s no hurry, though. At least not until my grandmother is released.”

She was so beautiful as she stood there in her casual clothes of winter, the black fleece bringing out that blond hair she’d given herself, her blue jeans loose and comfortable, her shoes practical for the season.

To him, she might as well have been in a ball gown and draped in jewels—

Abruptly, her weight went back and forth, and she crossed her arms around herself as if the way he were looking at her made her uncomfortable.

“As you wish,” he said, lowering his eyes. “Whenever you want to go, just let me know—and if you don’t feel comfortable with me coming along, then you may of course go with whomever you wish.”

“Except during the day,” she said bitterly. “Isn’t that right.”

After a moment, he replied, “That is correct.”

---

You know, Sola thought, it would be so much easier to be angry if the guy didn’t look so hollowed out and defeated.

Across the break room, Assail sat in a chair that, under different circumstances, she would have said was far beneath his standards: For all the time she had known him, he had had the air of a wealthy man. No, it was more than just wealthy. It was rich-for-all-of-his-life, the arrogance and intelligence he had worn along with his handmade clothes the kind of thing that she suspected came only when generation after generation of a family had had tremendous assets.

The kind of thing, for example, that Ricardo Benloise had tried to approximate, but had never quite gotten right.

“I should go,” she muttered.

Yet for some reason, she just stood there. As opposed to retreating out into the corridor and…well, just standing out there.

She and Jane had talked for only a little bit longer after she had laid down the law about leaving—and then, whether it was that tea or just exhaustion, Sola had leaned back and crashed for a good hour and a half. When she’d woken up, Jane had been texting on her phone and looking worried—and the woman had seemed relieved to be able to come back to the clinic and return to work. Or maybe it was something else.

Who knew, and Sola most certainly hadn’t asked. She already had too much banging around in her brain.

“Is there anything else you require?” Assail said without lifting his head.

Yeah, actually, can we go back to when you were just a recovering cocaine addict who had given up a life of crime and the two of us were going to off-into-the-horizon together to live happily ever after with my grandmother?

“I can’t decide whether I wish you had told me sooner or not at all,” she heard herself say.

“I can answer that.” He moved his head back and forth as if his neck were sore. “Not at all would have been better.”

“So you like being a liar.”

“When it comes to you”—his moonlight-colored eyes looked up at her—“I do not. Which was how you and I have come unto this estrangement. No, I say that rather because you looking at me as if I am a dangerous stranger is a far, far worse reality than even my deepest stretch of paranoia.”

“Don’t guilt-trip me.”

“ ’Tis a statement of fact. And besides, there is no guilting you about anything. I know you far too well for that—”

“You don’t know me at all.”

“Indeed? That is an incorrect statement. I believe the correct one is that you wish I didn’t know you.”

His eyes shifted away and yet did not seem to light on any concrete object.

“I want to throw things at you,” she blurted. “I want to curse you and punch you, and if I had a gun, I would shoot you.”

“I can get you a weapon, and there is a gun range down here.”

“Do not mock me.”

“I am not. Trust me, death is preferable to this state I am currently in.”

As he rubbed his palms together, she couldn’t tell whether he was trying to warm that which was cold or was regarding with glee the prospect of a grave.

“Do you have any idea how hard this is?” she said abruptly, tears forming in her eyes. “To be here, once again.”

Assail looked up in alarm, and she spoke before he could ask anything. “My father…” She brushed her cheeks impatiently. “My father was everything to me when I was young. He was my hero, he was my protector, he was…my world. He worked outside of the home my grandmother and I lived in, and I didn’t see him very often—but when he came to stay with us from time to time and brought us money for food and blankets and clothes, I idolized him.”

Well, shit, she thought as her eyes refused to get with the program and dry the fuck up.

“I was twelve years old when I found out what he was doing—what his work was, what he was. He was a thief. He stole things from people and for people—and worse that than, he was a druggie. The shit he gave us? He didn’t buy any of it. I found out later it was always handouts he got from shelters or churches. He never took care of us—he just wanted it to seem like that was the case.”

Her tears were coming so hard now, she stopped bothering to try to mop them up. “When he got arrested and was put in jail the first time, he sent word to my grandmother in the village we stayed in. He had a stash of money he kept in the walls of our shitty house, and she got it out and gave it to me. She told me to take it to the jail and bribe the officials to let him out.”

Sola sniffled hard and then marched off to a napkin dispenser, snapping a bunch free and cleaning herself up.

When she felt like she could continue, she turned back around. “I was twelve years old, walking twenty-five miles on my own with more money than I had ever seen in my life. My grandmother regularly went hungry to make sure I had food—and yet there was all that cash in the fucking walls of that fucking house! And it was for him!” She blew her nose again. “I made the trip. I gave the money over. My father got out—and as we were leaving the jail, I remember him stopping and staring at me.”

Sola closed her eyes. “I can still see us, clear as day, standing there together, in the hot sun. I was thinking he was going to break down in front of me and apologize for being what he was. And stupid me, I was ready to forgive him. I was ready to tell him, Papa, I love you. I don’t care what you are. You are my papa.”

The scene played out in her mind. And all she could do was shake her head. “You know what he said?”

“Tell me,” came Assail’s rough reply.

“He said he could use me if I wanted to earn some money. You know, to take care of my grandmother.” Sola popped open her lids, got another napkin or two, and pressed them into her eyes so hard, her sockets hurt. “Like that wasn’t his job. Like that woman who had stood by him all her life was my problem if I wanted her to be. And if I didn’t man up, and she starved or got ill as she aged? Then that was an oh-well.”

“I am so sorry,” Assail said softly. “I am…so sorry.”

Eventually, she let her arms fall to her sides and pivoted to face him. “I decided to become the very best thief I could be. ’Cuz that’s what twelve-year-olds who are scared and alone and need someone, anyone, to help them in the world do. I learned how to steal and break and enter. How to lie and cajole. How to evade the authorities and get jobs done. It was a hell of an education—and I guess I should be grateful that he never tried to sell me as a prostitute—”

The growl that percolated up out of Assail’s chest was such a sound of warning, it pulled her out of her emotions for a moment.

“Forgive me,” he said as he lowered his head once more. “I cannot help but be protective. It is my nature.”

She stared across at him for the longest time. “And that’s why I want to hurt you. You were…another everything to me. You were my world, up and walking around on two feet. But it was a lie. It was all…a lie. So here I am again, reeling from a truth that is too ugly to understand or accept. The only difference is that I’m not twelve, and I’m done with trying to contort myself into someone else’s reality. I refuse to do that ever again.”

“I understand.” Assail nodded his head. “I accept all responsibility, and I will not implore you for a forgiveness you should never have to give.”

As a profound silence ushered out all sound in the room, she wished he would fight with her. Argue with her. Give her something to rail against.

This stoic sadness of his was so much harder to handle.

Because it suggested, as much as she wanted to feel to the contrary…that this man—no, vampire—might actually truly, deeply…

…love her.