Meet Me When the Sun Goes Down (Forged Bloodlines #2) Page 22

  Nodding once as he couldn’t speak past the lump that rose in his throat, Bishop called her back before she left to return to the lab. “I want to give her some of my blood.”

  “Bishop, we can’t know if that’ll have any effect on her. Your blood could simply drain right back out again.”

  “Take it. My blood’s a hell of a lot more powerful than anything you’re giving her now, it can’t hurt.”

  “Fine, I’ll send someone in to collect it as long as you promise not to tear anyone’s arms off in the process,” she tried drawing him out again and Bishop gave her a half smile for her effort.

  “I’ll try my best, but I won’t make any promises.”

  It didn’t take long for them to collect the blood and Bishop forced himself to return to his own small office or he’d go insane watching Anja through that damned glass. He’d requested the human’s personal effects be brought to him once they were decontaminated and the envelope sat on his desk waiting for him. He quickly found out Evan was the same guy she’d taken to the hospital the last time she’d had a problem feeding. Looking at the guy’s smiling picture, Bishop bit back the urge to smash something into tiny unrecognizable bits until it passed.

  Forcing himself to go through the motions, he took care of some paperwork, looked over schedules, did every kind of busywork he could think of to keep from going back to that lab. Finally he couldn’t stand being inside any longer. Giving strict instructions to call him if Anja took a turn for better or worse, Bishop stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and call the one person who might possibly understand his current state of despair.

  “Oh, so you’re talking to me again. I’m still on leave.”

  Bishop could practically hear Mason’s smirk through the phone. “That’s not why I’m calling.”

  “Shit, what happened.” All business, no trace of Mason’s playful ribbing remained.

  With as little description as he could manage, Bishop filled him in on Anja’s condition, knowing if he expanded on a single detail he might completely lose it.

  “That’s rough, brother. Is she asking for Hanna, is that why you called?”

  “No, she’s still out. I don’t know if you should tell her until we know one way or the other if she’ll…” he swallowed past the fatal word that leapt to mind. “Anja wouldn’t know it if Hanna was there or not right now, best not to expose her sister to this all, it’s what Anja would have wanted.”

  “Would have wanted? Christ, it sounds like you’ve got her half buried already.”

  “I’m trying to be realistic, I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “I understand you’re acting like a tool,” Mason snorted. “Of course she’d want her sister with her at the end, if that’s what this is, whether she ever woke up or not. That’s what people do, be there for each other in the shit times, or don’t you remember that part of being a human?”

  “Ask me that again in a hundred years.”

  “Right, because you’ve forgotten what being human is all about? I call bullshit. You felt plenty for her, I saw it with my own two eyes. You’re the one who decided to cut her out of your life, you’re the one who decided to act like such an asswaffle whenever she’s around, and now you have to live with the thought that it might be the way she remembers you if she buys the big one right now.”

  “You don’t understand,” Bishop muttered, starting to regret calling his friend after all.

  “So, help me understand.”

  “I had to cut her out of my life for self preservation, I had no choice.”

  “Come again?”

  It took him a few moments to come up with the words to describe it. “I can’t be around her, not yet, it’s too fresh.”

  “What is, the stick up your ass? You wouldn’t even look at her in my apartment. It’s not like she doesn’t exist just because you won’t acknowledge her, you know. Don’t you even care what that did to her?”

  “Of course I care,” Bishop scowled, hating the way Mason twisted it around on him. “I care so much it’s fucking paralyzing, that’s the whole point. I can’t acknowledge her and be this. I can’t just smile and chat with her about the weather or even her sister’s safety. I have no idea how to be around her and be who I’m supposed to be. I can’t look at her without either wanting to take her in my arms or slit my own fucking wrists to keep from doing it.” His hand shook from the need to smash something again, and Bishop took a deep, calming breath, releasing the pent up energy into the Earth before it consumed him.

  “Does she know that?”

  “I don’t want her to. Better she think I don’t care than put the guilt of making me feel that way on her shoulders. None of this is her fault.” He knew his sensitive Anja would immediately internalize something like that and he could never subject her to that. No, not his Anja; Jakob’s.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, man, because at this rate, whenever things blow over with her Sire she’s not gonna give you time of day. That’s what you’re hoping, right? That he’ll get tired of her and you’ll come riding to the rescue?”

  “Something like that.” Though he wouldn’t have put it that way.

  “I hope it works out, I really do. I just hope she doesn’t end up hating you forever.”

  “Forever is a long time.”

  *

  Jenessa motioned Bishop into her office the moment he got off the elevator. “We’ve managed to isolate the problem and the good news is it’s not airborne, so we can drop the quarantine protocols.”

  Some of the tension went out of his shoulders at the news. If she could identify it, chances were, Jenessa could neutralize it. “What caused it?”

  “There’s a potent cocktail of pharmaceuticals swimming around in the human’s blood. Just like we can pick up a contact high from recreational drugs, they fed right into her system.”

  “Then it was definitely something he took?”

  “More like something he was dosed with. We found an injection site in his neck. Someone shot him up with a mixture of several compounds with blood thinning properties. Warfarin, gingko biloba, garlic, nattokinase - alone they can cause a myriad of symptoms if taken in high levels, but together, they caused a complete failure of the circulatory system including severe bleeding into the cranial cavity.”

  “Blood thinning properties… is that why she wasn’t healing normally?”

  “We think so, we’re still running tests. Blood thinners alone shouldn’t affect a vampire’s ability to heal, but the wound at her wrist didn’t start to knit together until we gave her your blood.”

  Bishop felt a small measure of satisfaction in that, grateful he wasn’t completely useless to her. “Is she healing normally now though?”

  “She’s showing a suppressed healing response, but she is retaining the blood we’re giving her now. Do you know if she’s been eating bagged blood?”

  “She does sometimes. Why, do you think it was contaminated too?” He’d been the one to supply her with that blood which meant he had some skulls to crack if he’d been in any way responsible for her condition.

  “No,” Jenessa shook her head. “Anticoagulant solutions used to preserve stored whole blood made her particularly susceptible to a spontaneous brain bleed, that’s all. She’ll have to switch to live blood for a while, at least until we’re sure it’s all out of her system.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Bishop acknowledged absently. “Can I talk to her?”

  “She’s still unconscious, but you can sit with her if you like.”

  “Thanks,” Bishop was halfway to the door when Jenessa laid a hand on his arm.

  “Bishop, Anja has a dangerous enemy out there somewhere. I don’t think it would have killed her, but it could’ve caused serious damage that could’ve taken years to heal naturally if we hadn’t gotten to her in time.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Bishop replied gravely, compressing his anger into a hard little ball to take out later. For the moment
he needed to see Anja, touch her and reassure himself she was still alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Angry voices penetrated the fog of sleep, and I woke to hear Bishop and Mason arguing about a breach of protocol. Blinking against the harsh light, I found myself in a sterile operating room. Stranger still, Hanna sat by my side, her attention on the pair of men exchanging heated words in the next room.

  “Hey, you’re awake, how are you feeling?” she smiled, brushing the hair back from my forehead.

  “A little weird.” I licked my lips, wishing for a cool drink. “Sort of floaty.” It almost felt like a dream. “What’s going on?” I glanced over at Bishop who looked mad enough to hit someone.

  “Boys,” Hanna wrinkled her nose delicately. “Always gotta be arguing over something or they don’t feel testosterony enough.”

  I shifted, surprised at how heavy my limbs felt. I remembered lying in my bedroom waiting for Bishop to come, too tired to keep my eyes open, but then nothing. “What happened to me?”

  “I don’t know. Mason said you’d been poisoned or something and they brought you to this research facility to administer the antidote.”

  “Poisoned?” That explained my reaction to Evan’s blood. Oh God, Evan… I didn’t see him anywhere, but I couldn’t ask Hanna about him, not without opening up a huge can of worms. Had Bishop gotten medical care for him too? Something told me no.

  “You scared the hell out of me, you know. I thought you were dead when I got here. Your pulse was so low I couldn’t pick it up at all, but they assured me it’s all part of the treatment to flush the toxins from your system or something. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

  It was a clever cover story, and I had to wonder what other lies Bishop and Mason had spun for my sister. “It must have worked, I’m still alive, right?”

  “You know I’ve gotta say, your boyfriend’s kind of intense. I thought he was gonna take Spencer’s head off for bringing me here.”

  My eyes flicked to where the men still argued, albeit at a lower volume. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I replied, unable to keep the melancholy from seeping into my voice.

  “Does he know that?”

  Bishop looked in our direction then, and I steeled myself for his glare for dragging him into my mess again. Instead his face lit up in a mixture of surprise, and dare I say it, genuine pleasure. He left Mason for my side, barely sparing Hanna a glance.

  “Hey, you’re up,” he spoke in a strangely gentle voice, as if afraid to speak too loud for fear it might startle me.

  “Not quite up and around but hopefully on the mend,” I replied, easing back into my pillow when I saw he had no intention of yelling at me. Yet.

  “Jenessa assured me you’ll be back on your feet in no time,” he said with confidence, and that’s when I understood he’d brought me to the Order. No wonder he was ticked off by Mason’s bringing Hanna there too. Only he didn’t look angry at the moment, he looked… worried, like he thought I might keel over at any second.

  “You don’t look too sure of that,” I tried for a laugh.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Anja,” Bishop replied earnestly, his hands tightening on the bed railing. “Not ever again.”

  I wanted to believe him, I wanted to believe he meant a lot more than that too, but I knew that was wishful thinking.

  “It’s alright, you can touch her, she won’t break,” Hanna smirked, and Bishop shot her a look of surprise. I didn’t think he’d do it, but he gingerly stroked the back of my hand, growing bolder when it didn’t immediately fall off. When he picked up my hand, Hanna slung her purse over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go see if Spencer can scare me up something to eat, we had to leave in kind of a hurry. I’ll be back later.”

  “I’ll see you soon, thanks for coming, Hanna,” I smiled, grateful for her intuition. Once we were alone, or as alone as we could be in a secure underground facility, I turned back to Bishop to find him looking down at our joined hands.

  “You don’t have to hold my hand if you don’t want to.”

  Something akin to pain flitted across his features. “The last time I touched you it made you bruise.”

  “That’s what you get for smacking me around when I’m unconscious,” I tried to lighten the mood, but Bishop wasn’t having it.

  “It’s not funny, Anja. You came this close to dying.” He held his thumb and forefinger only a hairsbreadth apart. “There were enough drugs in your system to make your body completely shut down, and there could have been…” Bishop’s lips mashed together, cutting himself off before he started yelling again, for which I was thankful, my head still felt funny, like it was stuffed with cotton.

  “Drugs? Hanna said it was some kind of poison.”

  “Pharmaceuticals and natural supplements for thinning the blood.” Bishop filled me in on the details, and what they’d found in Evan’s blood.

  “Then Evan is…”

  “Dead by the time I got there.”

  It sounded so surreal, as if it all happened to someone else. Cutting up my clothes was one thing, attacking my sister took it up a notch, but to kill Evan to come after me… How many more people around me would have to die before we caught her?

  “I’m sorry about your… about Evan,” Bishop said softly.

  “Thank you,” I blinked away tears that threatened. “I can’t believe he’s really gone.” Because of me. Such a sweet guy and his music… that heart wrenchingly beautiful music was gone forever too; such a waste of talent. All because of me.

  “How long have the two of you been…?”

  “What?” I blinked, brought out of my reverie. I hadn’t caught what he said, but the look on Bishop’s face… was like I’d taken away his favorite gun and tossed it in a trash compactor.

  “You and Evan, you were together since that first incident at the hospital?”

  All at once I realized what bothered him. “No, not the way you’re thinking. He was a little taken with me, I think it had to do with the blood I gave him. But I told him I wasn’t up for seeing anyone new,” I held Bishop’s gaze. “I told him I wasn’t over my last breakup, not by a long shot.”

  The hint of a smile tugged at his lips, and he looked down at our hands again. “Why did you bite him again then? I thought you were off the fresh stuff?”

  “I didn’t mean to, not at first,” I frowned, remembering Evan’s provocation. “He said he remembered me drinking from him before and he wanted me to do it again. He even went so far as to cut his own neck to get me to bite him.”

  “That’s odd,” Bishop’s brows drew together. “He came to your apartment knowing you’re a vampire? And he begged you to bite him. Didn’t you compel him to forget before?”

  “I did, but it must have worn off.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, it either takes or it doesn’t. Whoever injected Evan with the blood thinners must have compelled him to offer himself up to you, it’s the only way to be sure the drugs would end up in your system.”

  “Which meant Evan really wasn’t okay with me biting him and I attacked him anyway.”

  “You didn’t know, just like you didn’t know it’d kill him.”

  “And I was so proud of myself for stopping before I took too much,” I sighed, falling back against the pillow. “I guess I’m back on a strict diet of bagged blood from now on.”

  “Actually, that’s not an option for you right now. You’re on bedrest and no bagged blood, doctor’s orders.”

  “Bedrest? For how long? I have school in the morning and auditions for the Christmas recital is this week, I need to prepare for that. And Bridget must be freaking out if she came home and saw all that blood…”

  “No, you don’t. Don’t worry about Bridget, I took care of your apartment. Now try and get some rest and I’ll check with Jenessa and see when we can spring you from here. For now you’ll have to accept you’re definitely not going to school yet and you’re definitely not going home.” Giving my hand a s
queeze, Bishop let go and I instantly missed that reassuring contact.

  “Where will I be going then?”

  Bishop was already half out the door, but I heard his reply as clear as if he’d been standing beside me. “Where you belong.”

  *

  Bishop came to visit me every night for at least a couple of hours before going back out to work. Mason stopped by again with Hanna once when he wasn’t around, but for the most part I was left to myself with nothing to do. Jenessa came by a lot to take my blood for tests, and I got the sense she wanted to talk to me about something, but didn’t ever come right out and say what was on her mind. She brought me a stack of books from her own collection, and I started to wonder how long she intended to keep me there.

  It took another two days before Jenessa declared me fit enough to leave the lab and I was practically climbing the walls with boredom. At some point Bishop must have stopped by my apartment, because I had a fresh change of clothes waiting for me when I got my release. Good thing too, because my Starbuck costume was hopelessly stained with Evan’s blood.

  I wasn’t at all surprised when Bishop pulled into the parking lot behind the hardware store instead of my place, I had a feeling he didn’t want to let me out of his sight for a while. It was a bittersweet moment stepping back into his apartment again, remembering the time we shared together and knowing there was a giant elephant in the room with us now.

  “Into bed with you,” he ordered, laying his weapons out on the breakfast bar with neat precision.

  “I just want to take a hot bath and watch some TV, is that cool with you?”

  “As long as you’re watching TV from bed, I’m cool with that.”

  “Is there some reason you’re eager to get me into your bed?” We hadn’t talked about in what capacity I’d be staying at his place. I knew he wanted to protect me, and I knew he’d been super worried about me, but we still had the big J hanging over our heads.

  “You’re supposed to be on bedrest for at least another day.”

  “Sitting on the couch is practically bedrest.” I’d had enough beds to last me a good long while.