Vial Things (Resurrectionist #1) - Leah Clifford Page 0,24

us is to remove organs. That or poisoning the blood itself. Otherwise our blood heals everything.”

“Your parents weren’t the same as Brandon.” The words are out before I can stop them. I swallow hard and look up at her. “Whoever killed Brandon, I mean. It wasn’t the same person as your parents?” I say quickly, twisting it into a question, because to me, it’s a statement. Jamison couldn’t have had anything to do with them dying. Brandon had been a slip up, a mistake.

She gives her head a quick shake, her eyes downcast. “Someone broke in while I was gone and... That was a long time ago, though. Isolated incident.” The bitterness to her voice makes me suspect she’s not quite as over it as she’s pretending to be. “There have been others missing lately. Sarah...that’s my aunt...she doesn’t know what’s happening.”

“So you knew when I told you what happened to him. You knew what Brandon was.” Of course she did, but she needs to see me making the connections. “And you were scared.” Even before Jamison used Brandon’s death to shake her up, her parents’ deaths had ingrained the paranoia I see in her sometimes. And then something else occurs to me. I look up at Allie, everything I know about her suddenly shifting. Someone broke in. “Oh my God, you...”

“Ploy?” She must see the hurt on my face.

“You weren’t worried about me sleeping in the camp,” I say slowly. “You weren’t being a friend. You’re afraid. That’s why you let me start sleeping on your couch.”

She blinks rapidly. “We have tight time constraints. There’s no real way to vet out the people we bring back. We take the chance that some of them will come after the blood, want more of it even once we explain it doesn’t work like that. Hazard of the job.” She says the words flippantly but her tone’s all off.

So there are others after her.

“You used me to protect you?” Oh, the irony.

Her hands fist in her lap, an angry blush on her cheeks. “I don’t need you to protect me. I can protect myself.”

I lean back against the cushion. “Then why did you want me here?”

“I...” As quickly as it came, her anger fades. “If someone came through the door, you’d stop them. You’d fight. Slow them up. I figured it would give me...” She winces her eyes shut. Shame radiates from her, but doesn’t soften the blow. “Give me time to get myself away.”

I stare at her in stunned silence.

I have underestimated this girl.

She’s clever, and what she’s just admitted means she’s not afraid to be cruel. She reminds me of Jamison. Something inside me twists hard. I’m not sure if it’s because of the stab wound or not. The muscles in my arms cord and uncord as I clench my hands into fists, thinking. When I look up her attention is locked on them, her knees shifted, ready to move, fight. Her arm sits at her side, disarmingly still, her fingers hovering over the knife she carries. I wonder if she’d use it on me, how quickly I’d heal if she did. I relax my hands and she, too, relaxes.

Another pain shoots through me. How long is this going to last? I wonder. Jamison never said anything about how much it hurts. Maybe he doesn’t know.

“I called my aunt as soon as you left today,” she says. “She’s looking into Brandon’s murder.” At the mention of her aunt, her brow furrows. “But if someone definitely attacked you to get to me, this changes everything. We can go to Sarah’s tonight and—”

“Why we?” I ask. “You don’t need me.”

I’ve been fighting my feelings for her—hell, even got Jamison to give me more time to work her—and the whole time I was utterly dispensable to her. I wonder if it was all a waste, if we should have done it Jamison’s way. Stop it, I think furiously. You stick with her and get information on the aunt, too. It’s what Jamison would want. “Unless you want me to come,” I say lightly.

She stands and then bends to snag the syringe off the arm of the couch. The needle sends a shiver through me. She never said where she stuck it. “Right now you need to sleep. I’m surprised you’re conscious, to be honest,” she calls over her shoulder as she heads to the bedroom. “Sleep helps with the healing. Don’t move. I’ll make up my bed for you, just give me a