Page 5 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Cassiopé

I t turns out Léandre decides to get drunk after announcing all of that. He also decides everyone should get drunk with him.

The whole afternoon has a last night on Earth vibe, and while it’s not really my thing, I’m playing along.

Léandre makes us play that weird game that he calls “truth or dare” and says that people used to play it around the beginning of the millennium.

He read that in a book.

It’s so freaking stupid, but he managed to get everyone to play—even Elhyor and my father. Well, I was dared to make my dad play, so maybe that’s on me.

Léandre gets Elhyor and Angie to kiss and that’s when I know everything is going to be alright for them.

Call me a hopeless romantic, but with the chemistry they have, there is no way those two don’t end up completely in love, or at least tangled in bed.

When the kiss finally stops, my dad clears his throat.

“The electrician is here. The doctor will be here in a minute, too. I told him I would warn him when the electrician would be here so he wouldn’t have to wait.”

We wait for a couple minutes, and I can see everyone sobered up fast at my dad’s words.

I might be the only one who didn’t drink as much as the others.

Well, me and Dad.

He didn’t drink much because Elhyor has, and one of them always needs to be in full capacity in case something goes wrong. I’ve never really been a drinker.

Don’t get me wrong, I can hold my liquor—all shifters have strong metabolisms—but it’s never been my thing.

And now that we have to see what can be done for Léandre, I’m very happy that I’m not passed out drunk.

“We’re going to find a solution,” Elhyor says before he grabs Angie’s hand.

First, Paul arrives. He’s the doctor we have on call at Notre Dame, and he’s always ready to come save the day.

It might help that Elhyor pays him very well.

Second, there is a tiny redhead with corkscrew hair coming. She’s definitely not our usual electrician. I’ve never seen her before.

She has brownish skin and deep green eyes that scrutinize us, wondering why she was brought into Notre Dame in the middle of a wedding party and with drunk people all around.

I would wonder, too, if I were her. We look like a weird bunch of people, to be honest: Angie with her wings out, Elhyor still in his tuxedo, Léandre with the shirt of his suit half open and laying on the ground and the jacket thrown over a chair, and my dad back in his tactical uniform.

And that’s without mentioning the state of my dress.

I’ve fidgeted so much with it since the end of the ceremony that you can probably see how the fabric folds around my fingers.

I gave up on staying presentable after everyone finished their first—or second—drink.

“Why am I even here?” she asks with an annoyed face as she crosses arms over her chest. Or is that supposed to be a sneer?

She’s dressed in some kind of dark red overalls that I believe are supposed to hide her curves. It’s very obviously failing.

“For me.” Léandre raises a hand from where he’s lying on the ground in a slurred voice.

“What is it for?” she asks Elhyor as if Léandre hadn’t just answered.

“Someone wants my brain to explode,” Léandre answers with a dark chuckle. At the same time Elhyor says, “He has some sort of electronic device under his skin; we don’t know what it exactly does or how to remove it, if it can be removed.”

“That’s why he’s drunk?” she asks.

“There might be a bit of that and the fact that this one married the devil’s daughter today,” I blurt without thinking, with a wave in Elhyor’s direction. Oh shoot, I might be tipsier than I thought.

Oh gods, I can’t say that. Angie is going to hate me, isn’t she?

“Oh shoot, why did I say that? I’m so sorry Angie,” I add with my hand shooting to my mouth.

How many drinks did I have? I thought I was okay, but I’m obviously not.

So much for being able to hold my liquor, I think.

“You’re all good, Cassie,” she says, but I cringe when I see her struggling to retract her wings right after.

I want the ground to swallow me, but instead, I reach for Léandre and help him up.

I’m obviously not efficient enough because Angie comes to my aid and together with Elhyor, we force Léandre to sit on a chair.

When the doctor approaches him, Léandre tips his head on the side, already knowing what is expected of him.

“Hmm,” the doctor says, “from a medical point of view, this thing should be removable. It will sting for sure, but I don’t see what would prevent the extraction medically speaking. I could be wrong; those little pieces of technology are above my pay grade.”

I wait with bated breath as the redhead approaches Léandre.

She sets her bag next to Léandre’s seat and turns on a purple halo scanner. When she gets it next to Léandre’s ear, it lights up in every direction. She clicks on a few buttons, zooms in, zooms out, and clicks again.

“We’re ready, Milton,” she says to herself. Or maybe it’s to the scanner?

“Sequence activated, Miss F,” the scanner replies “Three, two, one, live.”

The scanner lights up and a holographic, three-dimensional view of Léandre’s microchip appears under our eyes.

“The tendrils you can see around the bug,” the redhead starts as she points with a laser on said tendrils on the holo, “are what keeps it stuck inside. You could remove the skin over, and it’ll still stay stuck inside.

” She pauses, frowns, and then asks her tablet, “Milton, run protocols for extraction.”

A loading bar appears next to the bug, on the girl’s side, and then disappears almost right after.

“There is a sixty-eight percent chance of successful surgical extraction of the bug. There is, however, a ninety-eight percent chance that doing so will discharge the energy from the main body into the tendrils. The holographic rendering of the device only shows what is in the immediate vicinity of the main body.”

Miss F curses and then asks “Milton, show the whole device.”

The holographic image grows and forces us to step back to see the whole image. I stay next to Léandre while Dad, Elhyor, and Angie move so we can see the full image.

It’s huge.

And it looks like the tendrils run over almost all of his brain.

Oh my gods.

That’s awful.

I don’t see how they could remove all of that.

I barely know Léandre, and once again, I feel like crying.

“What happens if the energy from the body is sent through the tendrils?” Angie’s question pulls me out of my horrified mind.

“Milton, answer the lady’s question,” the redhead asks.

”If the energy is sent through the tendrils, it’ll fry the end of the fail-safe tendrils,” the AI answers evenly.

“Milton, what are the fail-safe tendrils?” Miss F asks again.

A dozen tendrils over the hundred of them switch from the white blue of the global simulation to a flashing red. They all look like they’re going in the same direction—toward the center of the brain.

“Can you show the brain with your simulation, young girl?” The doctor asks, and Miss F complies and asks her AI—even if she does so begrudgingly.

There’s a quiet gasp when the image fully loads, but all I can see is the look of complete horror on the doctor’s face.

I can guess his next words even before he says them, and I shudder.

“It’ll erase who he is.”

“You’re correct,” the AI says. “There is an eighty-two percent chance that he’ll lose all memory prior to the energy discharge. There is also a ninety-seven percent chance that all that he learned during that time will still be intact.”

Léandre moves from the chair to the ground and sags next to me before clutching his head between his hands.

“Awesome,” I hear him say, “So, I won’t remember my own name, but somehow I’ll still remember fey porn.”

I see him spiraling again, but this time it looks worse. His face closes off, and all I can see is despair and hopelessness.

I once again feel the need to hug him, but I’m not sure it would be welcome right about now. I’m not even sure he would welcome nice or comforting words right about now.

So, I do the next best thing.

“I don’t think we have the same kind of books in our libraries,” I say, trying to make myself look outraged.

I know what I just said is completely false, and he probably knows it, too, because Isabella—the main character I was telling him about earlier—is exactly that, fey, and with the detail of gore I gave him from my descriptions he probably already knows this book isn’t a “young adult” one.

A small, knowing smile appears on his face and right then, I know there is still a hint of hope inside of him.

“I’ll get you all my books one day, Little Luciole,” he answers, but my heart breaks when I see his smile turning sad once again.

This time I don’t hold myself back. I drop to the ground next to him and hug him with all my might.

His stills when my arms circle him, but after a few seconds his arms wrap around me and he squeezes me gently.