"Give me your wrist," Aldrich said, even as he was already grabbing for it, suddenly right next to Jared. Jared let him do it, didn't protest when Aldrich tore his wrist open with his fangs, the same way he'd done when they'd found Luke unconscious a couple of weeks ago.
God, was this ever going to end?
Jared pressed his wrist to Remy's lips without having to be asked. His brother's tongue darted out, even though he showed no other signs of waking. Ancient dhampir-instinct? Maybe. Jared didn't have much room in his head left to analyze the situation. He only needed his brother to be okay. Whatever he could do to help, he would. Whatever he could give...
"What happened to him?" he asked Aldrich.
"He was trapped under a piece of floor in the kitchen. It's just fucking lucky he's always in the same spot. Easy to find."
Jared nodded, even though he couldn't help thinking that maybe, if Remy hadn't been in the kitchen, he wouldn't have been trapped. If Jared had taken his brother with him...
No, he couldn't blame himself for this.
He looked at Aldrich again, clearing his throat. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Just..." Aldrich gestured vaguely at Remy. It was odd to see the red-haired vampire without his usual surplus of confidence. An observation Jared filed away to think about later. For now, most of his attention was taken up by making sure his family survived this.
"Did you see Elena?" he asked.
"No," Aldrich said. "But I think Crimson is looking for her. Silas too."
Jared's thoughts stopped short. Had Aldrich just implied that Silas had run into the burning building?
"He'll be okay," Aldrich said, obviously noticing his distress. "He can fly."
"You don't know that he's going to be okay. How could you let him—" Jared stopped himself, because Aldrich wasn't to blame for this. Because Aldrich didn't know how close Silas had already come to dying once today. What if he'd run into the inferno to throw himself back into the pit Jared had pulled him out of?
What if nothing Jared had said to him had made it through after all?
What if Jared never got another chance to get through to him?
Jared stared at the flames, then back at his brother's unconscious form. He needed to get up and get Silas out of that house, but he also needed to save Remy... and Remy didn't really look any better than he had when Jared had started feeding him. Why, though? It made no fucking sense. Silas hadn’t taken this long to recover, and he'd been at the brink of death.
Was it because Silas was a vampire?
But if Jared could only save vampires, how had he been able to save Luke?
And what was he supposed to do now?
On shaky legs, Jared rose from the ground. Black spots danced in front of his vision. Was that the blood loss? It didn't matter. He only needed to put one foot in front of the other and then...
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Aldrich asked, catching his arm.
That moment, sirens started to sound in the distance. A second later, something cold and wet landed on Jared's nose. A raindrop? "I need to get into the house," Jared said, to remind himself as much as to respond to Aldrich. "I need to get Silas."
"You’ll only kill yourself."
"I can't just stand here!" He wasn't going to watch his family die the way his biological family had. He wasn't going to watch Silas die. Gathering as much strength as he had, he tried to pull free from Aldrich's grip. The vampire was stronger than him, though.
"Let go," Jared growled.
“Silas can hold his own. He can fucking fly,” Aldrich insisted. “If you don’t want to be like his sire, give him some damn credit.”
Those words gave Jared pause, but he couldn’t justdo nothing, could he? Before he could get into a fight with Aldrich, however, he heard another voice calling his name. Was that... Silas?
Jared's attention snapped toward the house again. Two shapes emerged from the smoke. Crimson and Silas. A wave of relief crashed over Jared so powerful it almost knocked him off his feet and down to his knees. Silas was alive. Silas was coming back to him.
Jared took a deep breath and tried to center himself. This wasn't over yet. A faint glow enveloped Crimson, but pieces of his clothes had been burned, regardless of Luke's protective magic. There was something wrong about the image, but Jared couldn't put his finger on it. Not while he was busy sizing up Silas. Silas looked healthy enough, but Jared wouldn't believe it until he was able to close his arms around him again.
