I'll Be Slaying You(21)

“I saved your ass, Dee, again.”

True, though she was a bit sketchy on the details. “I don’t…I can’t remember what happened after I left the alley.” The vamps had jumped her. She’d fired her gun. Run out of bullets. Started staking.

Too many of them.

They’d knocked her down. Her head had thudded into the ground and—

“I woke up in her blood.” She didn’t even know the woman’s name. Another vic. So many nameless faces.

Simon began to ease back. Dee’s left hand grabbed for him. “I didn’t kill her.”

His head cocked. “Thought you just said you didn’t remember.”

Dee swallowed and hoped she was telling the truth. “I wouldn’t kill a human.”

“You had the stake against her heart last night.”

“To scare her, not to kill her!” Oh, bad idea. Shouting made the throbbing much worse. “Simon, trust me, I-I wouldn’t kill a human, not after what happened to—” She broke off, clamping her lips together. So, what? A bump on the head had made her super chatty?

“You want me to trust you?” he asked.

Dee realized her fingers were digging into his wrist. With an effort, she unclamped and nodded.

“You tell me why you’re so gung-ho against the vamps, and make me believe you’d never stake an unarmed woman. Then we’ll see about talking trust.”

The ice had begun to melt. A trickle of water slid down the back of her neck. “My story’s not so different from yours.”

He didn’t speak.

Fine. He wanted her soul naked—that was the way it would have to be. Because right now, she needed him. Until I can find out what the hell is happening. “When I was fifteen, I came home to find a bloodbath at my house.”

Mom? Mom? Where are you?

Dee ignored that soft voice whispering in her head. The voice of the girl she’d been a lifetime ago.

She cleared her throat and said, “My date dropped me off at the door. My first date.” He’d wrapped his sweaty palms around her shoulders and given her a kiss. Wet, sloppy, but her first kiss. Then he’d hightailed it out of there when he heard a thump from inside.

Vince had thought her dad was coming. The ex-marine, tough as nails guy who’d been cleaning his gun before they left.

“Dammit, I loved him so much,” she murmured. That stupid gun. She’d begged him to put the thing up before Vince arrived. People didn’t really do things like that, but he’d—

“The boy you were—”

A hard shake of her head. “No. Forget it.” She swallowed. “The lights were on when I went inside, but I couldn’t find anyone.” But she’d smelled a thick, hard odor.

Blood and death.

“I found my dad first. He was in the hallway. His throat had been ripped open.” So much blood. She hadn’t screamed when she’d seen him. She should have, she’d even tried, but her breath had been gone.

She’d dropped to her knees next to him. His precious gun had still been in his hands. Her dad never loaded the thing so it hadn’t done him a bit of good.

Simon’s fingers skated down her cheek and Dee realized she’d dropped her gaze. His hand curled under her chin and he forced her to look at him again.

Better him than the past. “I found my sister next.” She paused, felt the pain. “She was seven.”

They’d killed her in her bedroom, right there next to Sara’s pretty pink bed and her tall, white doll house.

“Some vamps get off on children’s blood. They think it makes them stronger,” he said. “Dee, look at me.”

She was, but she could still see Sara. “She used to drive me crazy. I was so much older and—” And Simon probably didn’t care. He didn’t want to know what a bitch she’d been to her kid sister. Didn’t want to know that she’d run straight to Sara’s room after finding her father, her heart burning her chest. When she’d found Sara, she’d fallen.

The scream had come then. Breaking from her mouth and shattering her.

“I screamed for her, for help, and then I heard the footsteps coming.”

So stupid.

“They would have heard you the minute you entered the house,” Simon said and his face hardened. “The bastards were just playing with you.”

She knew that now. They’d let her find the bodies, let the terror and grief break her, and they’d crept out to watch her. Sick, twisted freaks.

Then they’d attacked.

“Their mouths were stained with blood. When I saw their teeth, I-I didn’t believe what I was seeing at first.”

Because who would believe vampires were real? That they’d just slaughtered your family?