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“What are we going to do, anyway? Could you really fight all of these vampires and get us out of here?”
“No,” I said. “We’ll need to find a way to convince them we didn’t do this. And we’ll have to hope their investigation raises enough questions to make them consider listening.
“I really don’t feel that sick, by the way. I’m just a little chilly.”
I pulled her closer, enjoying how it felt to have her in my arms, even considering the circumstances. “I’m going to get you through this, okay?”
She had her head in the crook of my arm. She nestled in a little tighter, nodding, then yawning. “Nobody has ever taken care of me like this, you know,” she said after a while. “Other than my sister, I mean.”
“What about past boyfriends?”
Sylvie scoffed. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t throwing love letters out of my window at strangers because I was flush with romantic options.”
I grinned. “Most guys would kill to be with you, though. You know that, right?”
“I seriously doubt that. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’d eventually get sick one too many times and they’d get tired of it. Nobody wants to be a healthcare worker in their twenties. Not when there are millions of other perfectly healthy women out there to date.”
“You really believe that?” I asked.
Sylvie was quiet for a while. “My dad left when my mom was dying. She was like me. Always getting sick. Eventually she got so bad we all kind of knew it was time. Instead of sticking with her through the end, my dad just left. He left all of us and went to stay with his family overseas. At least that’s what my guess is, because we’ve never been able to track him down.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Sylvie shrugged. “It taught me an important lesson. Even good people have their limits. And the way I am tests those limits, just like my mom’s sickness tested my dad’s limits. So I’ve tried not to let myself really think about any of that in my future, you know? It’ll be easier for everyone, that way.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said. “What your dad did doesn’t condemn you to living alone. There are people who would look after you, no matter how much you got sick.”
She smiled a little. “I’m starting to think you might be right.” She tilted her head up and met my eyes. There was something there that made my skin crawl with pleasant heat. I gave her a little squeeze, pulling her closer and feeling my own resolve to never let this small, powerful creature down.
She was trusting more to me than I’d realized, and the weight of that responsibility made me feel all the more compelled to never let her down.
Damn. When had I fallen so hard? I guessed that was probably how it worked when it was real. It wasn’t always a gradual, progressive descent towards the end point. Some things came in sudden, gut-wrenching drops like having the floor pulled out from under you.
Somehow, I sensed that Sylvie had just pulled the last floorboard from beneath me and sent me spiraling toward a place I knew I’d never climb my way out of. A place I knew I wouldn’t ever want to.
I kissed the top of her head and hugged her tight. I was going to get her through this in one piece, no matter the cost.
That was true, wasn’t it? I’d do anything to save her. Even…
I studied the door, thoughts turning over something I couldn’t believe I was even remotely considering. But it made sense, didn’t it? It made far too much sense to disregard.
33
Sylvie
I didn’t get sick all at once. It came gradually, with new symptoms presenting by the hour. It started with a fever and chills. Then it progressed to a thick cough in my lungs. Then it was a rash on my legs. It felt like my body was giving up on me piece by piece, and it was almost a cruelty that none of it dampened my mind.
My head was pounding, and I felt itchy and sore, but I was completely conscious.
We’d been locked in the small dungeon room for about a day, as far as I could guess. I’d slept for a while, woken, and then napped again. They hadn’t even brought us food, which I suspected had Riggs feeling particularly grumpy. The man didn’t love much, but I’d learned early that food had a special place in his heart.
On cue, he rubbed his flat stomach. He was sitting beside me with his back against the wall. “I’d do almost anything for a cheeseburger. I’d do anything for a burrito.”
I grinned, rolling my head to rest on his shoulder. I stared at the door with vacant eyes. A girl could go crazy staring at that damn door wondering when it would open, if ever. My latest personal torture method was imagining what would happen if they forgot about us—how long we’d last without food and water.
