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“He took longer to heal than one would expect from a vampire, but yes. He’s up and moving again, doesn’t seem worse for the wear. Physically anyway. ” Logan emphasized the last part, and I understood what he was telling me. Sutherland was nuts.
I tried to empathize with him. My father had been turned against his will. He’d tried to murder his family and almost succeeded. He had no vampire sire to ease his transition into living with the council, but he’d still tried to be good.
And he’d been punished.
Punished because of me.
Using the heel of my hand, I roughly wiped tears from my cheeks and closed the folder without looking at any other photos.
“We couldn’t help but notice the resemblance,” Tyler commented. “Now that he’s recovered it’s…well, it’s uncanny really. Are you two related?”
I nodded, grating my fingernails down the front of the folder. “He’s my father. ”
“Your…father?” Logan sounded unconvinced.
“Vampires don’t age,” I reminded him. “He’s my biological father. He was turned at seventeen, right before my mother gave birth. ”
Logan nodded, and Tyler reached across the table to retrieve the folder from me before I dug my way though the cover.
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” I said. “Any details not covered by the notes, anything I have to give you, it’s yours on one condition. ”
“I’ve already promised you can see Desmond,” Logan told me.
“And I’ll hold you to that, but I want you to promise me one more thing. ”
“It depends on what it is. ”
“When you have everything you can possibly learn from him and there’s nothing else he can tell you, I want you to put me in a room with Friedrich Kesteral. I want that room to have no windows, and I want you to leave me alone with him for an hour. ”
“I don’t think that’s a good—”
“When this man’s usefulness to you is spent, you will put me in a room with him, do you understand? Because he’s going to die one way or another, and whether it’s sanctioned by the government or not, I will be the one to kill him. ”
Logan looked afraid of me for the first time since he’d walked into the room. Then he extended his hand and said, “Deal. ”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It took Logan seven hours to ask me everything he wanted to know. In those seven hours I told him what I’d seen of the way the compound worked, how many different employees I’d interacted with, and repeated every conversation I’d had with The Doctor.
I still couldn’t think of him as Friedrich. The name was too normal and too soft for the man it was attached to. I’d thought giving him a human name would help me feel better about things, help me humanize him and think of him as something other than the boogeyman in my nightmares, but it didn’t do any good.
He was still The Doctor. He would always be The Doctor.
The only way I was going to exorcise my demons would be when I eradicated him from the face of the earth. I needed to be the one who killed him because otherwise I’d never believe he was gone. Until my skin was stained with his blood and I saw the light go out in his eyes, I wouldn’t be free from the power he had over me.
Nine days was all it had taken for him to beat me down, and now he owned me.
It didn’t matter that he was in captivity or I was supposedly free, because in my mind I was still wearing the collar. I was still shackled to him and would be as long as he stayed alive.
Once the major was done asking his questions—some of which were new, most a repeat of the same old story—he got to his feet and shook my hand. Tyler followed suit, giving me a firm handshake and a supportive smile.
“I’m looking forward to working with you in the future, Secret. I think this team can do great things. ” Logan nodded from me to Tyler. “Of course, I don’t need to remind you your affiliation with us would best be kept quiet. I understand your vampire council likes to believe they’ve got everyone fooled. Let’s let them keep thinking that. ”
“That might not be as easy as it sounds. ”
“You’re their leader, aren’t you?”
“I’m one third of the leadership of one of the councils. But even there I’m outranked by one. ”
