Part 11 (1/2)

Bones dropped me off at my house with a parting comment that he'd see me the following night. I didn't reply to that. It caused too many mixed emotions, and I had enough to think about already.

Once I got inside, I called Don to tell him I was okay. As expected, there had been numerous messages on my machine from both him and Tate. I could understand their concern-my last call had been hours ago to say I was chasing after a vampire.

Then there'd been no trace of me.

I fabricated a story about an hours-long chase that had ended at the construction site, coincidentally not that far from the GiGi Club. Here's hoping Bones had left the vamp's body there, because if not, I'd have to come up with an alternate web of lies.

Then I told Don that I was beat from chasing down the vamp and wouldn't be in to work until tomorrow. He didn't question my recounting of the events. Why would he? I'd never lied to him before.

On the plus side, Don informed me that the two victims were at a hospital and were expected to make a full recovery. Little did he know it had taken a vampire's intervention to save them from a vampire's attack. Far be it from me to explain that irony to my boss.

Then I took a hot shower, was.h.i.+ng all the remaining blood off me. If only it were so easy to get the mistakes from my life cleaned off. Bones's voice kept echoing in my head. I've been looking for you every day since you left me...You'll live as long as you want to, just as you are...You've had your shot at things, now let me have mine...

Yesterday, everything had made sense to me. I knew what I had to do, didn't question my decisions-though some had hurt me unbearably-and I knew the direction my life was headed in. Today, all that had changed. I had far more questions than convictions, didn't know what the h.e.l.l I was doing, and had found out I might have far longer to f.u.c.k up my life than I 'd previously imagined.

I wished I could talk to Denise. She had a way of cutting through the bulls.h.i.+t to find wisdom in chaos. But last night had been her wedding. Yeah, to say she was unavailable was to put it mildly.

I'd only call my mother if I wanted last-minute motivation to jump off a bridge. She was full of blind prejudice, not wisdom, and a call to her might make me seriously tempted to end it all. Though I had to admit, I was rather shocked that Don's first words to me earlier hadn't been ”So where's the vampire from the wedding?” My mother hadn't tattled about Bones...yet. For her, that was showing remarkable restraint.

There was no one from my team I could discuss my personal upheaval with. Even those I counted as friends, Tate, Juan, and Cooper, couldn't be trusted with this.

Noah, well...I had to talk to him, all right, but it wouldn't be to confide my deepest secrets. It would be to tell him it was over between us. I'd let things go on too long, and that wasn't right. Already I was a s.h.i.+t; letting more time drag by just made me a bigger one.

I paced around the house for another hour, tired but knowing I'd never sleep. My cat got bored of chasing my ankles as I attempted to wear holes in the carpet, and went upstairs. Still I paced, Bones 's words haunting me. I've been looking for you every day since you left me...You'll live as long as you want to, just as you are...You've had your shot at things, now let me have mine...

”Who am I kidding?” I finally asked out loud in frustration. I was less concerned about Ian's intentions to track me down, the contract on my life, or anything else, than about this: Did Bones and I actually have a chance together? With finding out about my longevity, the single biggest obstacle to our relations.h.i.+p had been removed. Sure, I worked for the government version of Graveslayers Inc. and my mother would rather poke needles in her eyes than see me date a vampire...but what if Bones was right?

What if the two of us weren't hopeless together? G.o.d, after all these years, I could hardly believe I had a chance to ponder that again.

Now the question was, What was I willing to risk to find out?

SIXTEEN.

DON REGARDED ME WITH TEMPERED CURIOSITY when I walked into his office later that day. It changed to suspicion when I shut the door and locked it behind me. Normally I had to be reminded to even close it.

”What's going on, Cat? You said it was urgent.”

Yeah, I had. I'd thought about Bones saying Don knew the secret of my longevity, and it had gotten me good and mad.

Time to rock the boat.

”See, Don, I have this question, and I hope you'll be honest with me.”

He pulled at the end of his eyebrow. ”I think you know you can count on my honesty.”

”Can I?” I asked with an edge. ”All right, then tell me: How long have you been f.u.c.king me?”

That caused him to stop tugging his brow. ”I don't know what you're saying-”

”Because if I was going to f.u.c.k you,” I interrupted, ”I'd get a bottle of gin, some Frank Sinatra music...and a crash cart for the heart attack you'd have. But you, Don, you've been f.u.c.king me for years now, and I haven't gotten any liquor, music, flowers, candy, or anything!”

”Cat...” He sounded wary. ”If you have a point, then get to it. This a.n.a.logy is wearing thin.”

”How old am I?”

”You just had a birthday; you know how old you are. You're twenty-seven-”

His desk crashed to the far side of the room, splintering in shards of mahogany. Papers flew, and his computer thumped to the carpet. It happened in less time than his shocked blink.

”How old am I?”

Don glanced at his demolished furniture before straightening and regarding me across the now-empty s.p.a.ce between us.

”Nineteen or twenty, if you judge from your bone density and pathology reports. Your teeth match up to that as well.”

The end of p.u.b.erty, when my body apparently decided it was done aging. I gave a harsh chuckle.

”Guess I won't need to stock up on any Oil of Olay, will I? You ruthless motherf.u.c.ker, were you ever going to tell me? Or were you just waiting to see if I lived long enough to notice?”

The pretense was gone from him, and if I didn't know better, I'd say he looked relieved.

”Eventually I was going to inform you, of course. When the time was right.” ”Yeah, and you knew you had lots of it, didn't you? Who else knows?” I paced, keeping an eye on him as he sat calmly amid the ruins of his office.

”Tate, and the head pathologist here, Dr. Lang. His a.s.sistant, Brad Parker, probably.”

”Did you tell Tate about the added decades to his own life? Or were you waiting for an 'opportune time' for that as well?”

Don changed from composed to uncomfortable in the s.p.a.ce of those sentences. When he hesitated, I pounced.

”Don't even try to say you don't know what I'm talking about! You tested all of us that night in Ohio, and every f.u.c.king week after that as always. You didn't tell them?”

”I wasn't sure,” he hedged.

”Well, let me a.s.sure you then! They had about a pint each of decently aged vampire blood. That 'll give them, what?

Another twenty years at least? You know, I always thought you forbade us from drinking straight blood because you worried we'd grow a taste for it, me especially, but you were concerned with more than that, weren't you? You already knew what it would do!

How did you find that out?”

His tone was cold. ”Someone I knew many years ago started out fighting on the right side like I did, then ended up liking the enemy more. He didn't age in decades. That's when I knew what vampire blood could do, and it 's why the Brams is so minutely screened and filtered. It carries none of that dangerous poison in it.”