Vial Things (Resurrectionist #1) - Leah Clifford Page 0,89

almost soaked through.

“She asked you to hurt me, didn’t she?”

“No,” I say quickly.

“No?” He crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the side of the house. “After she saw her aunt, she wasn’t out for my blood?”

“That’s not—”

“We were going after this together,” he says, holding out a hand to cut me off. “And I depended on you. Trusted you. You almost screwed me over, you know that, right? Never thought you’d turn on me for some girl.”

“I didn’t turn on you, though, did I?” I say carefully.

“No, but you thought about it.” Jamison stares at me, waiting me out.

“I thought about it,” I admit. “Is that what you want to hear? I thought there was a chance you’d both come out of this alive.” Everything inside me feels like it’s crumbling.

“Do you think there’s a chance of that?” he asks.

“Nope.” There are wooden benches along one side of the porch. I drop onto one.

Jamison moves to sit beside me. “You’re wrong.” He sounds like he actually believes it. “I’m not going to hurt her. As long as she cooperates, she’ll be fine. I need her,” he says. “She told you it the second time she uses the blood on someone it takes way more right?”

Uncertain, I nod.

Jamison slaps his gloved hands against his thighs. “Okay. We’re not doing that then. It’s bad business.”

“Bad business?”

He tilts his head as if he’s sure I’m messing with him. “For us. We’ll take the blood, a syringe at a time, and sell it. They heal.” He grins like he’s watching me finally put together the puzzle pieces he solved long ago. “We’ll bleed them dry and they’ll fill right up again! Same plan we originally had, just adjusted a bit.”

“That’s not the same plan. That’s torture.” He has to know that. “She’s supposed to be cool with being locked up the rest of her life?”

He gives his head the slightest shake. “You think I like what we’re doing to her? Chaining her up like some sort of animal?”

We. What we’re doing to her. I could have fought him at Talia’s. I could have done something. I could do something now. But I don’t. It only makes me hate myself more.

Whatever Jamison plans to do with the powers he gains, I know it’ll make him unstoppable. I have to end this before he gets her blood. He’ll listen to me. He always does. Every time he’s done something crazy, it’s been because I wasn’t there. I can keep him under control. “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe we should let them go?”

He clomps a hand on my back. “I don’t think you want that.”

I can’t help the glare I give him.

He frowns. “Look, you’re trying to do what’s right for everyone. Me included, even though I don’t deserve it. I’m fucked up. We both know that,” he says when I start to protest. “But I promised you money. More than enough to get you out of that fucking junkie haven you’ve been living in. Enough to get you shoes. Two pairs,” he adds, smiling as if he’s proud to have remembered my pathetic dreams. “I need to know you’re in this.” He tips his head up to glance at me through the glare of the sun. “Are you in?”

My eyes dart to the body wrapped in the tarp. That’s what happens when you cross Jamison, I think. If I don’t get Allie and Talia out of here, he’s going to torture them until there’s nothing left but blood and bones. I have to stay close. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m in.”

I expect him to say something else. Smile. Congratulate me on a choice well made. Instead, he goes back to dragging the body. What’s left of the head clunk-clunk-clunks down the wooden stairs.

He’s gathering the corners, gray-brown liquid leaking onto the planks through the blue tarp as he lifts his dead father into a wheelbarrow, legs first, then torso. The scene sinks in and I know the Jamison I grew up with is gone. I don’t know this monster in his place. For the first time through all of this, I’m more than just scared. I’m utterly terrified of him.

And I still help him. One good thrust from me and the body’s in the wheelbarrow. Everything’s taken on a surreal quality as we wheel across the gravel drive, through the grass and to the hole Jamison’s dug on the side of the barn. The sun’s high. It must be around eleven. The air’s so thick