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“What? In there?”
“Just in case.” She inclined her head in a gesture meaningcome on. With his mug cradled in both hands, Jackson did.
Dominique sealed the door behind them. The silence inside the poured-concrete room enveloped them like shrink wrap.
“I know the exit code,” Cassidy said when Jackson acquired the pallor of someone being shut in a tomb.
He put his cup down on a small table that, together with two chairs, occupied one side of the shelter. A rack of wine bottles took up the entire far wall, filling the air with the smells of corks and dusty labels. Two cots padded with blankets lined another wall. On one of these Dominique sat now, eyes drooping. Cassidy could hear the sun’s inferno roaring in his ears and felt its weight crush all coherent thought out of his head.
Jackson picked up the little black case from the cot beside Dominique and unzipped it. Inside, encased in foam, was a large vial of clear liquid and a pair of syringes. He pulled out the vial and a syringe, uncapped the sharp and substantial-looking needle with his teeth, plunged it into the vial and drew out the contents. Against the weak light, Cassidy could just make out a pink hue to the suppressant.
“How are you feeling?” Jackson asked, watching the filling hypodermic. “How much time do we have?”
“One or two minutes,” Dominique replied, drooping eyes locked on the liquid.
“I suppose now’s not a good time to talk about last night, then, is it?”
Dominique cut him a sly look. “We can talk all you want after sunrise. I will make you breakfast.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Jackson flicked the syringe with a fingernail and squirted out an air bubble.
Dominique lay down and pulled up his shirt, baring his torso.
Jackson hesitated.
“What?” Cassidy said.
“I don’t exactly stick needles in people’s hearts on a regular basis, or, actually…ever.”
“Well, don’t look at me.”
Have him get on with it, Dominique snarled.
Cassidy placed a hand on his chest and located the slow heartbeat. Like the last grains of sand in an hourglass, his consciousness drained out of her as it did every morning, leaving her bereft. “Now, Jackson.”
“Okay. Okay then.” Jaw clenched, he leaned over the prone body. While Cassidy braced for the pain about to shimmer across the link, Jackson winced as he pushed the needle in all the way.
Cassidy felt nothing.
The plunger came down. The syringe emptied.
Still nothing.
He pulled the needle out. A small red bead formed where it had been.
Beneath her hand, the vampire’s heart still beat, slow and steady and undeterred.
“Are you sure you hit the heart?”
He stepped back. “Pretty sure.”
“Prettysure? What do you mean—”
Dominique drew a breath. Exhaled. Inhaled again.
“Yeah. That’s how it starts,” said Jackson, putting the cap back on the used needle. “I hit it alright.”
“Dominique?” Cassidy said. She had no sense of him in her mind. The daytime emptiness persisted, but he was breathing, something he never did without a conscious thought at night.
