And by the same token, you can’t prevent me from helping.”
“Murhder, I don’t want to be responsible for killing you. Bottom line. I can’t live with that—”
“You won’t remember it.” He reached out and touched her face. “My love … you will not remember it.”
Tears flooded her eyes, everything she had been holding back coming out all at once. As she collapsed against him, she cried for the loss that was coming, and the bravery he was showing, and the fact that of all the near misses she could have had in life, why … why did hers have to be true love?
Murhder held her until she was cried out, his hand making circles on her back, his body warming her even as she felt cold to the bone. When she finally eased back, he kissed her softly.
“Sarah, listen to me.” His eyes drifted away from her, so he was focusing over her shoulder, down the corridor toward the parking area. “When I came back to Caldwell, to ask the Brotherhood to help me find what turned out to be Nate … I knew that afterward, I wasn’t returning to where I’d been staying. I was very aware that this was the end of me, and I welcomed that. I haven’t had much of a life these past two decades, and it’s clear I don’t fit anywhere anymore. Living in an attic in an old house, talking to bats, watching humans live their lives around me? That’s all I have, and it’s all I can handle. Meeting you …” His stare came back to her. “Oh, Sarah. You have been the best thing that has ever happened to me. But as much as I want to fight for you, for us? The King and the Brotherhood won’t have it, and even though you and I could run, they’d find us. They’re like that. Hell, they found Ingridge. They can find anyone. You’re going to go back to the human world you’re from, and I’m not going back to that attic and rot.”
Wait, was he suggesting suicide? she thought with horror.
Before she could say anything, he gathered her hands, his thumbs stroking over her palms. “So let’s do this one thing together. Let’s you and I see if we can save John’s life. And if I die? I will be at peace that I went out on a good deed, and you won’t remember any of the pain. You’ll be free, too. This can be our thing, our mark on this world. Even if I’m gone, and you have no memories of us, if John lives? He’s proof that you and I existed.”
Sarah blinked away more tears. And it wasn’t enough. They spilled from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. For many couples, having a child was the way they cemented their love. She and Murhder would never have that immortality.
But if they saved John’s life? His children would be theirs, in a way.
“Don’t cry, my love,” he said in his accented voice. “This is a better ending than I could ever have had.”
It was a long time before she could speak.
Reaching up, she stroked his face and tried to remember each of his features with such clarity that maybe something of him would be left after they took her memories.
“Just so you know,” she said hoarsely. “You are exactly the male I think you are.”
Guns going off. Tight corners in alleyways. Lack of clarity in the chaos, death a consequence of bad decision making—
“Watch out, John!”
Up on the flat screen, his avatar got drilled in the head, animated blood going flying in a spray, the zombie who’d nailed him a good one heading off to stalk Blay and Qhuinn.
The former was in charge of payback, leveling his virtual weapon and drilling the animated corpse until it was so full of holes, the bitch could have drained pasta. And the death was lit: The surround sound speakers played a symphony of enhanced bullet discharges, all movie magic with a deep bass and a high, tinny treble.
As John sat back against the foot of the bed, he extended his legs on the carpet and thought that real-life gunfire sounded nothing like that. Hollow pops, dull and flat in the ear, were more what you’d hear if it was a handgun or a rifle. Shotguns were a little more dramatic, but again, nothing like what TV or the big screen portrayed.
Glancing over at his best friends, he reflected that when the three