Page 28 of Absolution
“You want to bury me. Alive. I’m alive, Gabe. Not a corpse. You can’t put me in the ground.”
“It’s not as scary as you think. Wait for me. I’ll be there in five minutes. We’ll talk about this. It’s just a really good nap.”
“Buried,” I repeated. “Like a fucking corpse.”
“I promise that it’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Only there was. Hadn’t Seiran given me the experience earlier this evening? An empty void filled with nothing but darkness. I couldn’t do it again, that chaos of nothingness. I gathered up my stuff, including the cash, and headed for the door not planning on waiting for him. I could run for a time on the cash. But what if Gabe was right and I went killer crazy?
“Would it be easier to talk to one of the guys instead of me?” Gabe finally asked when the silence stretched too long.
“Maybe.”
“Okay. Hang up. I’m still coming to get you, but keep your phone out. I’ll have Sei call.” He clicked off. I was already out the door. No one tried to stop me. Thank God.
Sei called a few seconds later. “You okay?”
“I guess.” My heart thudded in my chest like I’d run a marathon, helping me decide that lycan blood was not good the whole way around. Vampires shouldn’t have anxiety and if eating a shifter meant feeling like I’d just downed a thousand espressos, I didn’t need that sort of trouble. “I don’t want to go to ground.”
“Sam, you’re hyperventilating. Slow down. Breathe with me. I know you’re scared. We can work through this.”
“They’re going to put me in the ground. Alive. I’m alive. You just told me I’m not dead.” I had no idea where I was headed as I wandered back to the streets of downtown. The cold had obviously driven everyone off because the streets were empty. I didn’t remember waking up from my first death, though Gabe said he’d put me in the ground so I would be reborn from it. If my lungs had been full of dirt and the world around me a black cage of darkness then I wouldn’t want the memory.
“But if you need it to get better…”
“How come I’ve never heard of Gabe having a redout?”
“He said he hasn’t had one in decades. The older the vampire you are the longer in between them, I guess. Besides a vampire like Gabe having a redout would probably mean a major world war at this point just to stop him from killing half the population.”
“All this ‘wait until you’re older shit’ is getting old. I’m a grown-up dammit.” I wove through alleys and avoided major roads that Gabe might take to get to me. It was one of those rare moments I was happy that vampires didn’t have the ability to shapeshift or fly. Gabe’s sense of smell was better than most, and he could levitate, but he couldn’t track me or get to me faster that way.
“Where are you going?” Sei asked after a quiet minute. At least I’d gotten my breathing back under control.
“Somewhere Gabe can’t find me.”
“What if you have another redout and kill someone?”
“So I’ll go somewhere there are no people.”
“Where in the world is that, Sam? What will you do when the sun comes up?”
“Would you let them bury you?”
“I think you’re asleep when it happens.”
“Pretty to think so. They’re never gonna put you in the ground while you’re still kicking.”
He sighed heavily. “I can find you, you know. Gabe may not have that ability since you’re not actually his vamp, but I do. You’re a part of the earth just like every other being walking around out there. I can’t let you hurt anyone.”
I stopped dead in my tracks a pulse of fear trailing down my spine. Of course he could find me. He was fucking Father Earth—tuned into the big network in the ground—and I was just a particle on the rock. “Please,” I begged him.
“I will be with you. Until you sleep. I won’t let you do this alone.”
“But you can’t go in the dirt with me.”
He snorted, a weird sound for him, but it almost made me laugh. “Technically I could. Father Earth, remember? Gaea likes me. I could probably set up shop in the dirt for a few days and nap. I could use a nap.”
“This is not some game,” I growled at him.