Brigit was dead.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Hospitals didn’t smell like death.

I’d spent enough time around the dead and dying to know what real death smelled like, and the hospital waiting room didn’t smell like any of that. It reeked of antiseptic and hopelessness, but not death.

Desmond and Lucas, having followed the trail of blood from my apartment to the cafe, were sitting across from me, looking larger than life in the tiny, badly abused chairs. I hadn’t spoken to them the entire time we’d been here, and they’d proven to be exceptionally patient up to this point.

“Secret…” Lucas hazarded to be the first to speak.

“I want you to kill them all,” I replied, my voice raspy from all the sobbing.

“What?”

“Mercy’s pack. I want you to kill them. All of them.” My initial request was going to be for him to drive them out of my city. Now banishment didn’t seem nearly suitable enough.

Maybe he was wishing he hadn’t spoken. “I can’t—”

“You can. You will. You owe me this. You owe her this.” I hugged my cardigan over my blood-stained sundress. One of the nurses had offered me a pair of scrubs to change into, but they were sitting on the chair beside me, untouched. I wasn’t ready to take the dress off yet.

I also didn’t know why we were waiting.

We’d been taken to a human hospital. Brigit should have been declared dead on the scene, but I think they’d recognized Lucas and wanted to make a show for him of how dedicated they were to saving lives. It was horseshit anyway. She’d been undead first. Now she was just dead.

A new wave of tears started streaming down my cheeks. I’d stopped trying to fight them, and the boys had stopped asking if I was okay. I wasn’t, and there wasn’t much anyone could do to change that. Unless Lucas killed Mercy’s pack.

When he killed Mercy’s pack.

A short man with round, ruddy cheeks and circle-framed glasses came into the waiting room. With his tousled receding hair and boyish face, I couldn’t help but think of Radar from M*A*S*H, a show I’d spent much of my youth watching with Grandmere. Lucas, ever the one to take charge, rose to his feet to meet the doctor.

“I’m Doctor Nicholas,” he said, then removed his glasses.

I swore doctors only wore glasses so they could take them off to heighten dramatic moods. Dr. Nicholas needn’t have bothered, there was no more room for drama here.

“You’re Miss Stewart’s…friends?”

“We were her family,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. She’d been my family.

“You were the one who carried her to the coffee shop.” The way the doctor phrased it, there wasn’t a question. Since he already had his answer, I didn’t bother replying. “That was a very brave thing you did,” he added with admiration.

I didn’t have enough emotion left in me to appreciate his sentiment.

“Doctor,” Lucas said, trying to get the conversation back on track. “About Brigit?”

Dr. Nicholas reached to his face before realizing he already had the glasses in his hands and couldn’t remove them a second time. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

Across the room, Desmond’s shoulders sank and his face grew sullen. That was the first time it dawned on me he had actually been holding out hope. Until the moment those words were spoken, Desmond thought there was a chance we were getting Brigit back.

Seeing his face now, it was like she had died all over again, because for him she had. I wanted to go to him, to hold him and tell him everything would be okay, but I couldn’t. Nothing was going to be okay, and I couldn’t pretend to feel something I didn’t. I’d told Brigit everything would be okay, and look where it had gotten us.

“Brigit sustained a serious gunshot wound to the chest. The bullet lodged near her spine and did incredible damage to her heart. She lost a great deal of blood, and by the time we were able to get to her, she was already gone. I’m very sorry. If it’s any consolation, she likely didn’t suffer—”

“What did you say?” I asked, suddenly shaken from my zombie state.

“I said she likely didn’t suffer.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Is there a guide they give you?” At some point I had gotten to my feet and was a few steps closer to the doctor than I had been a moment earlier. “Some sort of suggestion list you receive from med school that tells you what to say to a grieving family?”

“I’m only trying to help.”

“What help is it to lie?” I screamed. Lucas moved closer, prepared to step between me and the doctor if I lashed out, but he was smart not to touch me, or I would have unleashed all my violent urges on him instead. “She suffered. She suffered.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice going soft.

“She suffered.”

Desmond came from behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tight against his warm, hard chest. He smelled comfortable and familiar, but I was in no mood to be comforted. When I started to struggle, he held me tighter, shushing me quietly and pressing light kisses onto the back of my head. He was providing me the support I had been unwilling to give him only a minute earlier.

“She suffered,” I said again, tears flowing so freely they were wetting the tile floor at my feet.

The doctor gave Lucas an apologetic look, and the werewolf king patted him kindly on the shoulder. “We know you did everything you could, Doctor Nicholas, thank you.”

“He couldn’t do anything,” I wheezed. “She was already dead.”

“When she’s ready, there’s an officer out in the hall who’d like to ask her a few questions. I kept them out until I was able to speak to you all, but they’re quite insistent.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

After the doctor left he was replaced by two uniformed officers who asked routine questions which I answered with routine lies.

Did you see who shot her? “No.”

Did you hear anything unusual? “No.”

Would anyone have a reason to kill Miss Stewart? “Of course not, everyone loved Brigit.” I wanted that one to be true, but she was a vampire after all, and not always a popular one thanks to her role in my life.

Were you aware there was a missing person’s report filed for Miss Stewart over a year ago by her parents? “I was not.” Though it shouldn’t surprise me, since that would coincide with the time she’d really died. I’d often wondered about Brigit’s life before I’d catapulted her into the vampire world. I pictured her doing beauty pageants and painting her nails next to swimming pools. I knew she was originally from California, but that was it. All my knowledge of Brigit Stewart came A.V., After Vampirism.

I guess now her family would have closure.

But where was my closure?

The officers asked Lucas and Desmond some questions, but since they hadn’t been at the crime scene they couldn’t offer much help. I was told not to travel out of state and asked to call the police if I remembered anything else.

Once they had left, Desmond finally let me go. I’d stopped shaking, and for the time being I wasn’t crying. The moment I was out of his arms, I headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Lucas demanded.

I paused in the entryway. “Someone has to tell Nolan.”

“You can’t go alone,” Desmond insisted.

“What good has a bodyguard done me?” I asked. “If someone wants me dead, I’d rather they kill me than go through anyone else trying.”

Desmond picked up my purse, which he’d thoughtfully collected from the stoop of my apartment and brought along when they followed the ambulance, and met me at the door. “I’ll come with you.”

“Fine,” I agreed, and was grateful he’d insisted, even if I couldn’t manage to express it. “And you.” I pointed a finger at Lucas. “You will kill those fucking wolves or so help me God I will find a way the rain a fire of hell and pain on your life so epic it will make you wish your father’s father’s father had never been born. Do you understand me?”

He nodded.

For once in the wolf king’s life, he didn’t try to get the last word.

Chapter Fifty

Beheading a demon was easier than breaking Nolan Tate’s heart.

I’d been with Brigit when she died, and even now, a half day later, I wasn’t sure which event had been harder on me. Watching her die had destroyed me. Telling Nolan she was gone might as well have killed me.

He’d cried. There had been screaming, followed by more crying. Then he’d thrown the television on the floor, punched a hole in the drywall and left the apartment. Desmond and I had spent the night, trading bouts of fitful sleep on the couch, waiting for him to come back. He never did.

Every time I drifted off I hoped I’d see Brigit again. I imagined she might be waiting for me in my dreams, trying to deliver an important message. I wanted her to tell me the doctors had screwed up and she was fine but they couldn’t tell because she’d had no pulse to begin with.

After a few minutes of black, dreamless sleep, I would wake up feeling worse than I had before.

Around noon we stopped trying to sleep and gave up waiting for Nolan to come home.

I spent the afternoon with Desmond, retracing the steps we’d taken the day before in happier times. I wore a dress taken from Brigit’s closet, and every so often I’d smell her specific laundry detergent and fresh memories of her would bubble to the surface. I might have been better off leaving my blood-stained outfit on rather than wearing a dress steeped in sadness. The dress was also a good two inches shorter than I was comfortable with, making me feel self-concious and uncomfortable.

Neither Desmond nor I said much, choosing to walk in silence. The daytime sounds of New York were abundant. In Central Park, tourists chattered and snapped pictures, pigeons cooed, and sparrows chittered while picking at people’s leftover food.