Point one five rules und.., p.21
Point One Five (Rules Undying Book 4), page 21
“Oh, are you naked on top of me?”
Gail growled and heard a little laugh from down below.
“Don’t worry, mi amor, those nasty little bugs aren’t working. They must have shorted out.”
“Are you sure?”
“That Mr. Dean is rather awkward? Sí!”
“No, that…” she lowered her voice as low as it could. “That we aren’t bugged?”
“Sí, very sure. Remember . . . spy.”
“Why are you hiding under my bed, then?”
“Just because I took care of the bugs doesn’t mean that lover boy won’t come wandering in here with ideas. I’d rather not have to kill him and dispose of a body when we are this close to getting answers.”
Gail gulped. “You wouldn’t . . . would you?”
“If another man touched you, I may have to consider killing him. After all, you are mine, no? This is what you wanted, no? Now just close your eyes and get some rest. You have a very busy day ahead of you, mi amor.”
“Have you ever found yourself in a situation so utterly ridiculous that you know, somehow, once you accept it, anything is possible?” she whispered as she awoke to find herself sitting in a bar once more. This time, however, there was rock and roll in the background and a cheap beer on her coaster. Bracelets jiggled on her arm and she giggled as she felt fingertips caressing her neck.
“Let’s dance, babe,” she heard whispered in her ear before it was gently kissed. She twirled in a haze of alcohol and neon to the heady riffs of the Rolling Stones. She whirled across a chipped parquet floor and ended up catching her heel.
“Ow!” she exclaimed as she crashed into a brick wall before slumping into a pile of cold, damp trash. She stared in abject horror at the blood trickling down her fingers and throat.
“This is going to be fun.”
This time she made out more of the silhouette – the long coat, slicked back hair, and shiny sunglasses worn at night. She screamed as she saw him draw an Asian sword from the saya on his hip.
“No, please,” she whimpered.
“Nothing really matters, chica. Even if you live through this, you won’t remember a goddamned thing, so why don’t you come here and give daddy what he wants, meatsack?”
“No!” Gail cried as she snapped awake. She fumbled under strange sheets and found herself totally entangled with a set of male arms.
“Hey, babe, what’s wrong? Bad dreams? Let me kiss that and make it better.”
“No!” she cried again. This time, she didn’t dare open her eyes. Instead, she whimpered and curled her face into a pillow. After a few moments, she became painfully aware of someone curled beside her, stroking her hair.
“What . . . the . . .?” she asked as she saw short brown hair and bruised arms. She shoved Jonathan away and then immediately winced as she heard him cry out in pain. She pulled up the sheets and breathed a sigh of relief as she recognized the familiar pattern of her own linens, and noticed she was still in her clothes. She peered over the side of her bed, but there was no sign of any vampire hiding below.
“Hey, were you having a nightmare?” Jonathan asked as he smacked his lips and rubbed his eyes.
“What were you? How did you? Get out of my bed!” Gail snapped.
Jonathan broke into a cold sweat and rolled clumsily off the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I guess I got loopy on the Percs and forgot you were here. I didn’t do anything, I swear!”
“Just get dressed. I gotta get ready for work. Jesus! Get out!”
Gail lay in bed, dumbfounded, as he staggered from the room. Finally, she pounded her fists into her mattress and let out a long, silent scream. She then threw fresh clothes into her bathroom and took a scorching hot shower, all the while muttering, “What kind of whore are you, Gail? Really, what are you?”
She tossed on her clothes and yanked her hair into a messy bun while it was still wet. She batted away her eyeliners and lipsticks and fought the urge to spit at the furious stranger staring back at her in the mirror.
“Answers. Today, I am getting some motherfucking answers,” she promised that monster in the mirror. She then took a deep breath and slowly picked up her makeup again. She quickly did up her face before taking her boldest, brightest tube of red and painting her lips. “If everything has gone to hell, might as well wear some lipstick.”
She then smoothed down her hair and gave her new reflection a little nod. She peeked one more time under the bed before she finally dared to sneak into her living room. Jonathan groaned as he shoved his last few clothes into his bag.
“Gail, I’m—”
“Let’s skip the sorry and get going. Mondays suck,” she muttered as she fumbled her way to the kitchen. “OK, you made coffee. That is the best apology ever.”
Jonathan snatched the keys despite his injuries. They both grabbed travel mugs and leftover cookies for their breakfast before beginning the quiet, awkward commute to Biogenesys Labs. Gail stiffened as he put his gun back in the glove compartment.
“You have a permit for that, right?” she asked while giving him the side eye. He grunted and rolled his eyes. She made sure to drink a fair bit of her coffee before trying to enter in any more conversation. Jonathan seemed content to pay attention to the traffic and occasionally mess with the radio.
“I am sorry, you know,” he muttered. “Sorry for all this.”
“Can we really talk about this now?”
“Nah . . . I guess there is never really a good time to talk, is there? Damn, do you ever have that feeling of déjà vu?”
“We’ve driven to work together before and you’re always grumpy. How bad did you hit your head, anyways? Damn it! Why couldn’t you just listen to me and rest up for a change?”
“Do you even care, Gail?”
“Oh, course I care. I’m a nurse, and it kills me to see you run off and do stupid shit over and over just because of your macho pride—”
“It’s not just macho pride,” he grumbled. He banged his fists against the steering wheel. “Oh, come on! You have this little fucking lever on the steering wheel. It’s called a turn signal. Use it!” He turned his attention back to Gail. “What were you saying?”
“I’m saying that you are too stubborn to listen to common sense, and it’s going to get you killed. You also can’t just wander into my apartment even if I am out drinking. It’s still not cool. Nor is sneaking into my bedroom. That is grade-A stalker bullshit right there . . . Dude, you missed our exit.”
Jonathan gritted his teeth and swung out to the left lane to cut around a few hapless commuters. He then slid his hand under the dash and pulled out a little metallic object. Gail watched, wide-eyed, as he tossed the doohickey out of the window.
“What the—?” Gail started.
“I’m not taking you there, Gail. I finally remember what I need to do, what I really need to do. We’ve not got too much time before they start coming after us, so let’s get the hell out of dodge . . . in a Dodge.”
“Jonathan, you’re scaring me. I need to get to work!” Gail said as they sped past another cluster of cars.
“You don’t want to go back there, Gail. Trust me.”
“Trust you? I barely even know you! Either take me back to work or let me out now!”
Jonathan zipped over to the next exit and kept going until they reached a secluded parking lot behind a rundown strip mall. She shoved open the door as soon as the car slowed and scrambled to some makeshift cover behind a dumpster.
“Damn it, Javier,” she hissed. “How could this happen?”
“Gail, babe, I just need to talk to you. I have to tell you—”
“Tell me what?” she asked as she peeked around the rusty metal.
Jonathan limped away from his car, holding his hands out in the open. “I just want to talk,” he said slowly.
“By dragging me to an abandoned building? By getting me alone and out of sight? I know what this means for people like me.”
“Damn it, Gail. I am not here to off you! Just listen please.”
He reached into his pocket, and Gail flattened against the trash bin. She tried to calm her breathing and stared in panic at the tree line and god-knows-what undeveloped wasteland stretched behind her. “Why didn’t I see this coming?” she choked out.
“I was supposed to hunt down these two guys, two drug dealers that apparently knew the targets I was after,” Jonathan said. “You’ve seen what the bastards did to me. The bigger guy hits like a truck, but that’s not all. I watched his eyes transform—”
“Transform?”
“He had claws, Gail. He had claws, and I watched the whites disappear from his eyes. That shit ain’t normal! Gail, I’ve been trying to warn you away from all the crazy crap that is going down around here, but I was too late. You know what’s out there, don’t you?”
“The only thing that is out there is you, and you’re scaring me, Jonathan.”
“So, I went after the guys again because my asshole boss Kevin said I had to or he would cut my brother off. You don’t get it: if I don’t do exactly what the boss wants, my bro is toast and he’s all I have left, right? Right?”
Gail dared to peek around the dumpster again. Jonathan only held a wrinkled bit of paper in his hands. She took a tentative step forward and his face softened.
“You know two brothers, all on their own. We lost our parents when we were kids and then we work as freelancers, traveling across the country and doing whatever it takes to fight off the strange and unusual for a mysterious organization that we don’t quite understand,” he said with a bitter laugh.
“Why does that sound familiar?” Gail asked, cocking her head.
“I’m pretty sure it’s the plot of a TV show and I’m just one of the actors,” he said, wincing again. He tugged at his hair with one hand while the paper shook in his other.
“Jonathan—”
“Is that even my name? Is it? Is it!” he cried. He shoved the paper towards her.
“What are you even . . . ?” She trailed off as she saw a bit of the image on the other side. She threw caution to the wind and ran over to snatch the photo from his hands. “Oh my god.”
She looked at a selfie of a young couple lounging in a booth. Gail stared at the green-eyed hunk making a mocking duck face while the glassy-eyed gal next to him made a peace sign that showed off a tattoo of a pink dandelion on her forearm.
“No, I don’t . . . I don’t . . . that isn’t . . .”
She looked down at her arm and really studied the faint scars and the inking of her rock and roll rose. Jonathan snatched the picture back and held the face next to hers.
“You got an identical twin, babe?” he asked flatly.
“No, I had the name Kristopher removed,” she said, shaking her head. “I had never met you before . . . before . . .”
“That’s funny. My middle name is Kristopher, you know.”
Gail stumbled away. Jonathan burst out laughing again, his eyes wild. He then glared at her.
“Just tell me. . . are you one of them, too, or are you trapped like me? Are you really just another rat in a cage? I really hope you’re not with them, because I don’t think I can take any more stress right now. It is all coming back in bits and pieces and flashes and damn . . . Just damn, I remember you, but you don’t remember me at all, do you?”
Gail closed her eyes and gnawed at her lip. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. I don’t remember you at all.” She looked at the picture again. “How do I know that you aren’t just another test? You work for them, don’t you?”
“Which them? I’m starting to think there may be more of them than we know about, babe. We can’t go back. We can’t go back, don’t you see? They are just going to rip our brains apart again for whatever sick little science experiment they have going. I’m going to lose you again, Gail. I know it!”
“Lose me? You never had me!”
“You don’t remember setting my finger? How about when we got Chinese food and stared at the stars in the park? Damnit, you don’t remember anything, Gail?”
“They make you forget! But for fuck’s sake, how do you know that isn’t just Photoshopped, Jonathan?”
“Because I remember taking it, Gail. I remember walking into this dive bar off the highway and seeing this girl leaning against the bar, her head in the clouds and a paperback by her drink. I mean, who goes to a honky-tonk to read? I just picked up on the haunted look in her eyes and went right over to buy her a drink. That’s the picture from three beers later. I can remember that like it’s yesterday, but everything else is just a blur.”
“This is just another trick,” Gail whimpered. “It’s just another damn setup. Where did you get this?”
“Like I was trying to tell you. I went after the guys who aren’t human—”
“And they had this?”
“No, after I got my ass kicked, I went back to Stan and the boss was there. We got the call that Nakano had surfaced again, so the guys left me to bleed and vomit from the sight of my own blood. I was looking for a clean shirt when I stumbled and knocked over Kevin’s bag. He had a notebook with a ton of shit in Spanish, but I saw the picture, so I bit the bullet and went back to see you. It’s been coming back in hazy chunks ever since. The more I think about it, the less any bit of my life makes sense, Gail, but when I see you—”
Gail kept shaking her head. “No, don’t . . . I don’t remember. Oh god, your boss . . . what about your brother . . .?”
“I don’t think he even is my brother, the more I think about it. My whole life, it’s a lie. I keep trying to remember, but the more I put the pieces together—”
“The more they fall apart. Oh god, what about Lori and Lewis—”
“You can’t really care about them. We have to get the hell away from this. We have to figure out what happened. What was done to us—”
“Damn it! It was vampires!”
“Of course it was vampires! My damn boss is a vampire, Gail. It’s kinda a relief that you know about them. They don’t like you talking about them, you know.”
“Yeah, they have laws. Look, you got your ass kicked by werewolves, and vampires are real, but I have to go back—”
“You can’t go back there,” he said, tearing at his hair again. “They are just going to do it to us all over again. I can’t go back to that. I have to figure out who the hell we really are.”
“I am Gail Filipovic. I’m Gail-no-fucking-middle-name-Filipovic, and I’m going to go back and get some answers, damn it.”
She started to bolt for the car and stopped cold as she heard the distinctive sound of weapon cocking. She froze as the shaking shadow of a gun pointed her way appeared. Time stood still as she turned to see the wild-eyed Jonathan pointing the barrel at her.
“Please,” he said. “They compel you to do terrible things. We can’t . . . we can’t go back.”
“Jonathan,” she whimpered. She gasped as he turned the gun to his temple. “Wait!”
There was a flicker out of the corner of her vision. She choked out a scream as the air shimmered around Jonathan and the hairs on her arm stood on end. The smell of ozone wafted on the breeze. Jonathan shuddered and then collapsed to reveal a triumphant Javier silhouetted by the morning sun.
“Well, he’s gone loco,” Javier said as the stunned Gail dropped to her knees.
“How did you? Where did you? How—”
“I told you, no one sees me if I don’t want to be seen, mi amor. Do you really think I’d let you ride off with a gun-toting desperado and not tag along?”
She let him scoop her up into his arms. As she heard the whooshing of his heart, she gulped, “Is he . . . ?”
“I think I kept the amps under point one five, but I am rather rusty now,” Javier said as he led her back to the collapsed Jonathan. The vampire steadied Gail then leaned over to check for a pulse before snatching the keys and gun. He looked up to Gail and smiled. “You make the current too strong and it stops the human heart.”
“Is that a vampire thing?” she dared to ask.
“I cannot say, but we really need to hurry. Somehow, I do not think Capitán Loco will be knocked out for long. Unless, of course, you want me just to kill him. After all, I will do anything for you, mi amor.”
“No! I don’t want you to kill him, but we can’t just leave him behind a strip mall in Brushy Creek.”
“Get in the car. I’ve got this.”
Gail made her way back to the passenger seat. A moment later, she heard the trunk slam and then Javier popped behind the wheel. Gail whimpered for a bit as he started driving. Her whimpering grew louder as she saw the blisters on Javier’s knuckles. Finally, he pulled to the side of the road and motioned for her to switch with him.
“Do we need to run?” she asked. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing a little blood can’t fix,” Javier said. He leaned down and yanked up his pants leg to reveal a few scorch marks on the plastic. He then fiddled with a few wires as little sparks traveled from his leg to the metal joint and then into his skin. “I have found that the greatest feats of magic are helped by a solid base of science and engineering, no?”
“You . . . you . . .”
“We need to get to the office before they get even more suspicious, especially when Mr. Dean fails to check in. Ándele!”
“Did you shock him?” Gail asked as they pulled back onto the open roads.
“Sí.”
“Is that your special vampire power?”
“I cannot say, but there are legends of rare vampires who can channel the currents their inner bodies generate and amplify them through the metals in their skin. With time and practice, well, you can wreak havoc on modern electronics, I hear.”
“You hear . . . seriously?”
“We all have our rules, mi amor. Now just try to get us there in one piece. I need to recharge before we face others. Pull into the office next to the lab so I can get a snack.”
Gail took them all the way to the office park in question without another peep. She closed her eyes as Javier wandered to the trunk. After a few agonizing minutes, he returned with fresh color on his face and life in his dark eyes.
