Page 91 of Caretaker

He’d taken her anyway.

“She told the man enough for them to realize she was pure?”

“I think so.” He sighed. “Before the infection, they took people to the island to use as feeders for the vampires. Humans in prison, runaways, homeless people.”

I stared unseeingly out the windshield. “You knew that?” I know he heard the ice in my voice.

“It was under investigation,” he snapped. “It was being looked into. Don’t judge me, Sinclair.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Why shouldn’t I judge you for that shit, Captain?”

“Trinity.”

“I saw Gordon Gray there,” I said. “You gave him to them to fight, didn’t you?”

“It was standard practice.” But his voice was a guilty murmur. “It’s tough to catch vampires. When they’re brought to us, we send them to the island. It’s easier than killing them. They’re fucking vampires, Trinity. No one cares.”

“No,” I said. “No one does.” I hung up, unable to say another word.

I arrived at Miriam’s house in a dark, dark mood.

She opened the door before I could knock, almost as though she’d been watching for me. Her eyes were swollen, her nose red, and her hair hung in lusterless strips over her pale face. “Trinity,” she said, hoarsely, then broke into heartbroken sobs and flung herself against me.

The fierceness of her embrace knocked me off balance and I stumbled back, but she wrapped her arms around my waist and steadied me.

“Miriam,” I whispered. “Bring him back. You have to bring him back.”

“I’m alone,” she cried. “Now I’m alone, and I can’t be alone. I really can’t.”

“Then bring him back,” I begged.

She pulled away and scrubbed her face with the hem of her shirt, then took my right hand and led me inside. “How can I? I don’t have a single piece of him to regenerate. He’s gone, Trinity.” She burst into tears once again. “He’s gone.”

“I’ll take you the island,” I said, my desperation as strong as my grief. “We’ll find him.”

She shook her head and sat on the couch. I sat beside her, still unwilling to believe he was gone. I couldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t.

My chest felt tight, my lungs full. I couldn’t get in enough air—and what I did pull in was stagnant, dry, and tasted like…evil. The air in Miriam’s house tasted of evil.

“It’s not possible.” She grasped my hand. “I called his parts to me. They did not come. I’m truly sorry, Trinity. I know you cared about him, even though he was such a monster.”

“I love him,” I told her, regardless of whether that might make her angry. “I love him too much to let him go.”

She looked at me, her eyes large and blue and filled with a hurt so deep I knew that in her twisted, fucked-up way, she loved him too. Rhys had been right. Hate, love…it was all the same, and she felt the loss of it.

“No,” she said. “You don’t love him. He’s not worthy of love. How can you love him when you’d rather he be here with me than finding his peace in death? You don’t love him.” Her voice was accusing, and I couldn’t blame her.

“I don’t want to mourn him,” I said, my heart heavy with grief. “I want him here. I want him in the same world as me.”

“He’s dead.” Her voice was soft, mournful, and totally convincing.

And then a vision of him tortured and cut and burnt and at her cruel, cruel mercy cut through the cotton of fog in my brain, and I got to my feet, gasping.

“What is it?” she asked, standing with me. “What’s wrong?”

“I just realized something.” I pressed my fist into my stomach, wishing I hadn’t eaten, thinking I would never eat again.

Clayton was dead.