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Jackson stopped the zipper halfway up. The breeze caught a wisp of ash escaping by his hand.

Garrett didn’t respond until Dominique turned to him. “I’m being eaten alive by something even your blood can’t fix. I’m so fragile, the bastards broke my arm just shoving me aside. How much more vulnerable can I possibly get?”

“Look at her.”

He did, but avoided his nephew’s questioning stare. The muscles in his jaw bunched.

“The same sunlight that warms you now will do that to you if you proceed.”

Garrett’s mouth pinched to the size of a pea. “Well. If that’s how I go, it’s a damn sight better than what’s waiting for me now.”

“Wait,” Jackson said. He closed the bag and stood. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? You…want to be turned?”

“Nothing gets by you, does it?” Garrett groused.

“What the fuck. Why?”

“Why not?”

“But—”

“We don’t have time for this. Pack these kids up and let’s get back on the road. I’ll tell you all about it while you drive.”

47

Not As Expected

Withagooddealless emotion than when he first made his case, Garrett, his arm now secured in a makeshift sling, told his nephew about his diagnosis and the treatment path he could not abide. “It is what it is,” he concluded matter-of-factly. “We all die some time. I’m just not ready to die now. Or any time soon.” He glanced at Dominique, who sat curled in the booth behind them. “If the night will have me, I’ll welcome it.”

Jackson looked as stunned as Dominique had ever seen him. He drove the RV with one hand, a can of caffeine in the other, staring straight ahead. The rattle of the engine was the only sound.

“Well. I see you’ve got this,” Garrett said after a length of awkward silence. “Think I’ll go see about getting this sling to fit better.” He gave Dominique a long look as he passed. A look that said, “Now the decision feels real.”

Once Garrett rummaged in the back, Jackson pitched his voice so only Dominique could hear him. “Are you really going to do this?”

“His request is genuine,” Dominique murmured. “If not for the blood I gave him this week, he would be bed-bound and hooked to machines already.”

“So you’re going to do a compassion turning?”

“Would you prefer he dies a miserable death in the clutches of your so-called health-care system?”

“Shit, no. The bastard is more of a father to me than my father is.”

“But you cannot imagine him as a blood-drinker.”

“Be honest. Neither can you. Not after your history with him.”

Dominique sighed and was momentarily distracted by the sensation of his lungs expanding with a need for air he hadn’t felt in years.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Jackson muttered. His knuckles went white around the wheel. “Are you going to do this?”

“I don’t know, Jackson. I truly don’t.”

They had almost an hour to sunset and were on target to reach their destination a comfortable twenty-five minutes before that. Dominique used the time to make a phone call. Service was spotty, but after several attempts, he heard Cassidy’s voice wobble through the connection.

“Dominique?” Surprise and concern in that one word.

“Mon amour,” he greeted.