Page 34 of Zomromcom

Once he told her the trick, the door opened. She haltingly hauled them both within the tight confines of the lavish cab, trying to be as gentle with him as possible. Some of her burden eased as he sagged against the wall, and she exhaled quietly in relief.

The entrance slid shut. The long descent began.

“Strip me.” When she stared up at him in shock, mouth dropping open, he actually rolled his eyes. “Check for bite marks.”

She’d been hoping to delay that task as long as possible.

Depending on what she saw, she might be forced to act on her promise, and she’d do almost anything to avoid that.

Anything except letting him preemptively kill himself on her behalf.

Which the asshole would actually do if she didn’t inspect him for bites, so…

Godsdammit.

With his limited help and the judicious use of a knife—getting both arms out of his sleeves when he had one hand wrapped around his neck wound required a few strategic cuts—she managed to bare his upper body. But it was impossible to tell whether he’d been bitten under all that blood.

“I won’t know until I clean you off some.” Locating one of his few patches of intact flesh, she stroked his inner forearm soothingly, the pressure of her fingertips featherlight. “I’ll do that when we arrive. No point in taking off anything else before then.”

Legitimate excuses for avoiding potential murder and heartbreak were the best excuses.

He side-eyed her a bit. But after a glance down at his chest, which was simultaneously crusted with old blood and wet with fresh blood, he silently conceded the point.

Carefully angling himself lower, his breath hitching in pain, he kissed the top of her head.

Which only made her want to cry again. She gave his waist the gentlest possible squeeze in response, and his soft sigh ruffled her hair.

After another few seconds of their descent, her fingers began to twitch with impatience. Even though she didn’t want to proceed with her inspection, she did want to treat and bind his wounds, and she couldn’t do that until they actually reached their destination .

“Oh my gods and goddesses,” she said when she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Is this fancy-ass elevator as old as you are? Because the ride may be smooth, but the speed is geriatric .”

She didn’t expect a response to her complaint.

Based on his wheezing inhalations, she figured he should conserve his remaining strength for the last bit of their journey.

Besides, he had to know she was only taunting him to distract them both from his pain, her anxiety, and whatever horrors might lie ahead.

To her surprise, however, he did speak. Not about the elevator or even his undisclosed age. About her. About them .

“I wanted…” When he shifted, he gasped a little.

“I wanted to be alone. Three years ago. I came…to Zone A…to be alone. Was going to buy a house down the road. Far away from neighbors.” His nose nudged her temple.

“I saw you walking. Scouting, holding your…cleaver. You smiled. Waved at…at a total stranger.”

Upon ransacking her memory, she found…nothing. She hadn’t marked that moment in her mind. Didn’t recall the first time she’d ever encountered Max.

Exhaling deeply, she tried to set aside her bitter regret. “I don’t remember. I’m so sorry.”

“You wouldn’t.” He nuzzled into her hair, the gesture playful and affectionate. “It was…automatic. Just who you are.”

Her heart swelled, even as it twisted in her chest. “Honey, you should save your—”

“You…wore stained coveralls and boots. Hadn’t brushed your hair…

in days, looked like. Tangled. Always tangled.

But such a shiny brown. Such a…pretty face.

Such a pretty woman. So…soft everywhere.

Doe eyes, big and bright.” He raised his head then.

His gaze locked on hers, his own eyes as warm and unguarded as she’d ever seen them. “Smile like the sun.”

She was frozen in place. Speechless. Because of his words and the emotion in them. Because of his expression as he spoke.

The elevator door opened, and he didn’t budge. “Moved next door. You were so…patient. Kind. Even with…fucking Chad . Brought brownies. Delicious. First power outage, you gave me…candles. Didn’t know I…had a generator.”

“Max.” As hungry as she was for his memories, his revelations, she needed to treat his wounds. “We should—”

“Two nights ago…didn’t offer shelter…out of obligation. Wanted… needed you safe. If you got hurt…couldn’t stand it.” His voice grew louder, steadier, as he forced whatever strength he had left into his words. “Remember that. No matter what happens next. Whatever you have to do, ma puce.”

When she hiccupped, blinded by tears, he dropped his forehead to hers.

“No guilt, sweet Edie. I…” He listed to the side, and suddenly she was bearing as much of his weight as she could handle. “I’d die…grateful. Knowing…you were safe. Seeing your face. I’d see it even with…eyes closed.”

Before she could muster a response other than continued weeping, he used her support to take one halting step out of the elevator. Two.

Then he collapsed on the floor of the hidden library, cried out in pain, and fainted.

***

By the time Edie returned from her frantic supply run, Max’s fingers had begun to twitch.

Setting down her armful, she dropped to his side and laid her hand gently over his, but he didn’t open his eyes or respond to his name.

After a minute or two, he began mumbling indecipherably.

A woman’s name—Jackie? Jacquelyn?—and something about… Yanni?

Maybe Max harbored surprisingly intense feelings about New Age music?

Edie couldn’t quite make out everything, but his increasing agitation was clear. His spasms of movement were becoming more violent, his words more guttural. A snarl of rage twisted his features one moment, followed by a flinch of unspeakable agony.

Whether that pain primarily came from his unsettled dreams or his battered and torn body, she couldn’t have said. But his flailing was exacerbating his injuries, so once she got the gash in his neck clean and bound, calming him became her top priority.

She wasn’t strong enough to restrain him, so she’d have to take a different tack.

He didn’t have many unmarred stretches of skin, but she found them.

Stroked them, murmuring words of comfort.

And slowly, bit by bit, his distress and tension waned.

His jerky movements stilled once she began gently carding through his hair.

When she traced his cheekbones, his disturbed muttering subsided into an occasional murmur, and he turned his face into her open hand, nuzzling her palm.

Eventually he calmed for good, and she could address his other lacerations.

He didn’t stay unconscious much longer. Which relieved at least some of her anxiety, because she hadn’t been certain when or if he’d wake up again.

It was a real shame for him, though, since she was still wrestling him out of his remaining clothing, cleaning blood from his too-pale skin, and bandaging his open wounds, and the whole process must hurt like fuck.

As he returned to his unfortunate senses, he was lying prostrate on a gorgeously thick, silky rug of rapidly depreciating value, wearing nothing but his boxer briefs.

After her desperate search for necessary supplies, she’d filled a decorative bronze bowl with warm water and was gently soaking and sweeping away the crusted blood from his spine with the softest hand towel she could find.

The red-tinted runoff soaked into the priceless textile beneath them, and she was trying her best not to notice the ever-spreading stains.

Unable to find bandages of sufficient size in his first aid kit, she’d ripped up some of his designer shirts to bind his wounds. Tearing apart fancy shit had been oddly satisfying, she had to admit. Even though her fingers shook with dread the entire time.

His hand flexed, then reached tentatively toward his neck and encountered multiple blood-soaked strips of very smooth cotton holding that whole region of his body together.

“Is that…” He paused, and his voice was a little stronger when he started again. “Did you use my micro-striped Trecapi cotton button-down as a bandage?”

She couldn’t see his frown, but she could hear it. “Hard to say.”

“Why…” His muscles jumped under her light touch as she moved to a fresh patch of carnage on his shoulder. “Why is it hard to say? Either you irreparably ravaged my favorite shirt or you didn’t, human.”

“Trecapi. Tre capi.” She tested the unfamiliar word on her tongue, hoping it would chase away the metallic taste of fear. Tried rolling the r and failed utterly. “Does that involve orange juice somehow?”

His head turned slightly, the movement drawing a groan from deep in his chest. “What the…hells are you talking about?”

“Wait.” The current clump of dried blood was particularly stubborn, so she dipped the hand towel back into the bowl and tried again. “I was probably thinking of Tropicana. Sorry.”

Could they do this forever? Maybe if they bantered long enough, he’d never remember the crucial issue at hand. Literally, right beneath her hand.

Where she’d just spotted teeth marks.

He actually snorted. “Edie. You’re killing me.”

With that ill-chosen turn of phrase, his fingers curled into a fist, his shoulder turned to granite beneath her fingertips, and any hint of levity between them disappeared.

She sniffled, loudly.

He waited, and they both knew what for.

“Tell me,” he said after a moment. “Now.”

Not a suggestion, but a firm imperative. And he had the right to know. She understood that. It was just…

Her hand stilled, and she bowed her head. “I haven’t had time to look everywhere, but…there are scratches here. Where I’m touching you. They don’t look like claw marks.”

“Teeth?”

“Maybe.” Almost definitely. “The skin isn’t broken, Max, so let’s not assume—”

“I’m a vampire. The wound could have partially healed already.”

The stake rested on the gleaming wood of the library floor, right next to the rug where he lay. Within easy reach. One blurred movement, and he had it gripped tightly in his hand.

She’d thought about moving it far away while he remained unconscious.

Hiding it until he was either healed or undeniably transformed.

But she’d never forgive anyone who stole her ability to decide the terms of her own life and death, so she’d forced herself to leave it near him, hoping like hells he’d bide his time and not do anything rash.

Especially since they didn’t yet have definitive proof of his eventual fate.

“Yes. You’re a vampire. Which means we don’t actually know what would happen if you were bitten deeply enough for a fluid exchange,” she rushed to point out. “And let me emphasize this again: Whether that even occurred is something else we don’t know.”

She laid her palm over the scratches as an Enhanced healer would, begging all the gods and goddesses for their intercession. For an entirely unprecedented flow of energy through her body and into his. For a bearable future, however long that future might be.

Nothing happened, of course. She wasn’t a conduit for the divinities, and she contained within her no real power, other than hope and determination.

“How…” He grunted, shifting uncomfortably on the floor. “How long has it been?”

Although he didn’t sound convinced by her argument, he didn’t stake himself either, and she considered that a victory.

As she fumbled for her cell, she smeared his diluted blood across her bag and her screen.

Only to recall that she hadn’t checked the time at any point between their zombie encounter and now, so she had no good answer for him.

“You were out for maybe five minutes?” It was her best guess.

“And it took us at least another five minutes to get down here after I confronted the zombie. So that’s ten minutes, Max.

Ten minutes and no zombification. I think you’re good.

” She paused. “Well, still horribly injured. I meant good in a relative, yay-I’m-not-turning-into-a-brain-slurper sense. ”

“Transformation…” His speech had begun slurring a bit. Slowing down. “Might take longer…for vampires.”

Even as he spoke, the tension in his body seemed to drain away, leaving him limp against the floor once more. Dipping the hand towel back into the warm water, she slowly swept it up his relatively undamaged spine, then back down, encouraging his relaxation. Urging him without words to rest.

“It could. Or maybe there was no fluid exchange.”

“Hmmm.” He gingerly turned his head again, meeting her eyes for the first time since his collapse. His lids were heavy, the blue of his irises hazy, but his next words turned sharp again. “Sleep will speed my healing. I need it. But if anything happens, my Edie, if you see any signs that I’m—”

“Yes, yes. I know . If you go all chompy, I’ll take care of it, dude . I already promised.” Gods, did they need to discuss this for the millionth time? Glaring at him even as her sinuses prickled and filled, she mimed a karate chop near his jugular. “Cleaver. Neck. Hack hack.”

For good measure, she added a gargling death sound at the end.

And that seemed to be what he needed, bizarrely enough, because he let those half-lidded eyes close entirely then. His mouth even curved a little in what might have been an actual smile. “Good. Thank you, ma puce.”

“Thank yourself,” she muttered sourly. “Jerkface.”

“Don’t mind if I do. Thanks, me.”

Yes, that was definitely a smile, and if he weren’t so injured, she would have been tempted to smack it right off him.

But he was terribly injured, so she took his hand instead and cradled it between both of hers.

Tears slid down her cheeks, and she didn’t try to stop them. Didn’t bother blinking them away.

“While you sleep, I’ll take care of you. No matter what it t-takes,” she told him, her voice cracking. “You can trust me.”

His other hand lifted off the floor. In a slow, deliberate movement, he uncurled his fingers. The stake dropped soundlessly to the carpet, and he nudged it a few inches away.

“I know,” he said, and fell asleep.