The Lair

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lily

Carter looked up when Lily entered the house, but his expression—dark and closely guarded—was impossible for her to read. Which was strange, because she’d gotten to know him pretty well in the past six weeks.

He sat, one of several men, at a table, but was the only one who held her attention for long. Dawn’s father, Mr. Armadale, was at the head of the table. There were a couple of younger versions of him—Dawn’s brothers, most likely—and a couple of men Armadale’s age who must have been neighbors or fellow townspeople.

She barely noticed any of them. Carter studied her for a minute and she felt very self-conscious. Strangely aware of how she looked. Aware of the borrowed hoodie she had on and the fact that she wore nothing underneath it, not even a bra. Aware of the sweat beading on her hairline, despite the cool weather. Aware, too, of the fact that she’d lost blood and her skin would look too pale, almost bluish, which she knew from the months on the Farm—where it was common to be down a couple of pints.

Just when she was starting to fidget and to feel faint, Carter stood and crossed to the door. Only then did she look around the rest of the room again. And felt faint for a whole ’nother reason. Every male at the table—except Carter—had a weapon laid out in front of him. They were mostly handguns. A few she recognized, like the Glock and the Smith & Wesson, as well as several she didn’t. Nasty-looking, little snub-nosed guns. A guy who looked enough like Dawn to probably be her brother had a rifle sitting across his lap. Armadale had two guns: the automatic handgun he’d shot her with and something with a sizable clip to it. Only the dark wood of the table had kept her from noticing the guns right off. They nearly blended in with the wood.

No one looked particularly happy to see her and unless she was mistaken, several hands were creeping closer to their weapons.

Carter stopped beside her, subtly putting himself between her and the others. He didn’t even look at the other men but kept his gaze focused on Armadale.

“We can go now.”

It was both a question and not a question. He was telling her and Armadale. Not asking permission exactly but letting Armadale know if he was going to stop them peacefully, now was the time to do it.

Armadale gave a tight nod and stood slowly. He angled his jaw to the side, scraping the backs of his nail across the stubble on his cheek.

“You kids keep to yourselves and I don’t see as we’ll ever meet up after this.”

Carter nodded. He didn’t move for the door, but Lily felt his hand on the small of her back exerting a little pressure, letting her know they’d soon be moving in that direction. Probably the second he knew for sure that Armadale wasn’t going to shoot them where they stood.

“You won’t see us again.”

Armadale nodded. “You stick to the towns north of here. There’s nothing for you south of Logan.”

They were almost to the door when Dawn stepped forward and gave Lily a quick hug. “One of each pill, twice a day, with food,” she whispered. “Keep the wound clean. If it looks bad, you find a way to get back here, okay?”

Surprised, Lily nodded.

More quickly than she could have thought, Carter was helping her climb into the truck’s cab. His jaw looked tense, but it was the fatigue around his eyes that tore at her heart. He didn’t look anything like the guy who’d come to rescue her from the Farm nearly two months ago. He looked . . . worn. Older.

She’d known, of course, the toll stress took on people. She’d seen it in her mother when her father had walked out on them. So, yeah, she knew. But she’d never seen it on someone her age. Never seen it this up close. She reached across her chest, trying to maneuver the seat buckle into place without jarring her arm too much then straightened to watch as he rounded the hood of the car.

She was hoping that once he calmed down and assured himself she was okay, he would pull her into his arms and hold her tight. Even though she was okay. Even though she was physically going to be fine, she wouldn’t feel okay, until that moment.

But that comfort never came. Instead, there was only a long stretch of awkward silence in which Carter drove and Lily waited. And waited. His silence stung so deep, she felt like she couldn’t breathe all over again.

Finally, not sure what else to say, she said, “Carter, I—”

But he didn’t let her get out more than that. “Jesus, Lily, what the hell were you doing on that supply raid?”

“There were things we needed.”

“You knew I didn’t want you going!”

“And you knew I wanted to go anyway. This shouldn’t be that surprising.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised that my girlfriend snuck around behind my back doing something that could have gotten her killed?”

“I never said I wouldn’t go out. The opportunity came up. I took it. And in my defense, I was watching for Ticks. There were no Ticks there at all.”

“Oh, I feel so much better now, knowing you were almost murdered by a human.”

“I’m the one who got shot. Why are you so mad at me?”

“I’m the one who had to watch you get shot. Jesus, do you have any idea what it was like for me watching you go down? It nearly killed me.”

“It did?” she asked softly.

Instantly, his posture relaxed. “Yeah,” he muttered. “It did.”

Just like that, despite the trauma of the day, despite her pain and the grief and the fear, despite all that, she felt better. Yeah, Carter had told her he loved her before, but it wasn’t something he talked about often.

She scooted closer to him and put a hand on his arm. “Well, now you know how I feel every time you go out on a supply raid.” He didn’t say anything and as the silence stretched taut between them, she changed the subject. “Well, they seemed . . .” But then she didn’t know what else to say so she tacked on a weak “. . . nice?”

Carter didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he cursed. “Jesus, Lily, are you kidding me?”

“Okay,” she admitted. “They don’t seem nice. They seem . . . prepared.”

“If that’s the polite way of saying they’re effing crazy, then yes, they’re prepared.”

“I’m not trying to pick a fight here.”

“Then what’s your point?”

“Obviously this wasn’t an ideal situation, but it’s not all bad, right? We can use all the allies we can get.”

“Allies? Is that what you think? These gun-toting wack jobs are going to be our allies?”

“They’re within easy driving distance. Surely there’s someone in town with a satellite phone. We should have given them our number.”

“I’m not giving our number to the guy who shot you.”

“Yeah, he shot me. But it’s barely a scratch.”

“You were lucky. Eight inches to the right and you’d be dead.”

“Yes, I was lucky, but think about it from his point of view. He thought his kid was in danger. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t do the same to protect your family?”

“He shot you with a handgun, Lily. Have you thought about what that means? Anyone who’s lived this long knows that a pistol isn’t going to do jack to a Tick. A half-dozen bullets won’t do more than piss a Tick off. So if he had a pistol, it’s because he intended to shoot people. Humans, Lily. That’s the only thing a handgun is good for shooting. Think about that for a few minutes before you tell me you think we should make these people our allies.”

“He was protecting his family.”

“Jesus, Lily! Would you listen to yourself? Just for a minute? He shot you. Stop taking his goddamn side.”

Lily blew out a slow breath. “You’re right. Everything you’ve said about him is right. But just hear me out, okay? I’m not saying we need to start a book club or anything. But think about the bigger picture. Just for a second. There’s a whole town there. A town that was hard hit, but a town, Carter. An honest-to-God town with close to two thousand people living in it, from what Dawn said. That’s the first sign we’ve had that there’s anything left other than Farms and Ticks. This is huge! This is good news!”

“Seriously?”

“Let’s forget for a moment that he shot me. For the first time, in, like, forever, you get to go back to Base Camp with good news. With hope. With potential allies. Just forget for a second whether or not these allies are ones we actually want. They’re human. That’s . . . a miracle.”

Carter let out a curse and slowed the Hummer to a stop before turning to face her.

“You’re right. I should be thrilled.” His voice was anguished. “And maybe, soon, I will be. But for now, I’m still a bit freaked that you nearly died out there today. And you know what’s worse than that? You getting shot wasn’t his fault, it was mine. I’m the one who charged in. I spooked him. If I hadn’t panicked, you wouldn’t have been shot.”

She sat back against the door of the cab, all her anger slipping away. “Carter, I don’t blame you.”

“I blame me.”

For a moment Lily just stared at him in shock. Then she said, “Carter, I—”

He whirled on her. “Damn it, Lily, don’t you get it? All this time I haven’t been keeping you at Base Camp because you haven’t been ready to go on food raids, I’ve been keeping you there because I haven’t been ready.”

“But I—”

“People get hurt on food raids.”

“Yeah, sometimes they do, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hide back in the caves. People look up to me. They see me as a leader, and a leader has to be out in the field.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re out in the field. The Elites will follow you anywhere because they know you’ll lead the charge. Generals in ancient Rome did the same thing. They were always the first onto the battlefield. That’s what made the Romans the fiercest warriors of their day, and I—”

“I don’t give a crap about ancient Rome. I care about you. I care about keeping you safe.”

Carter looked away from her and glared straight ahead, even though he wasn’t driving and had no excuse to pay attention to the road. Even though there was no traffic or other cars or any reason to even look at the road.

Suddenly that expression she couldn’t read earlier became perfectly clear. Beneath that outward show of bravado was fear. Fear for her.

“People get hurt in food raids. You got hurt. When you were shot, when I thought you might be dead, I—”

His voice broke on the next word. Carter—who was so tough, tougher than anyone she knew. Carter—who had killed more Ticks than anyone. Carter—who had argued with Sebastian and refused to back down. But despite being that tough, whatever he’d been about to say, he couldn’t get it out.

He just shook his head, hands still twisting on the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead. He was giving her nothing, showing her no emotion. Her breath caught in her chest. Because she suddenly, desperately, wanted to know what he’d been about to say.

“What?” she prodded.

He turned to look at her. He gave his head another little shake, his mouth turned down in self-disgust, his eyes hard.

“I care about you too much.”

“Too much?” she asked, and then wished she hadn’t. Nothing about this was going the way she’d hoped.

“When I thought you were hurt, I didn’t handle it well.” This time he said the words in a rush and seemed to have no trouble at all getting them out. “I wanted to kill that guy.”

“Armadale?”

“Yes. I beat the shit out of him. I nearly didn’t stop.”

“Well, you didn’t kill him. So, it’s all okay, right?”

“No, it’s not okay.” His voice was hard. “If I’m the leader of this rebellion, then I’m making decisions for everyone. Right now, my gut reaction is always to put you first. To protect you. And that’s not right. That’s not fair to everyone else. I can’t be the leader of the rebellion and be with you.”

Her heart slammed inside her ribs. Suddenly, she knew what was worse than getting shot: this. This was worse than being shot. Carter was breaking up with her.

“Look, I messed all of this up when we were leaving the Farm. I didn’t trust you when I should have. I wasn’t honest when I should have been. I lied to you. I tried to do the right thing over and over again, but everything I did ended up not being the right thing and—”

She interrupted him. “Carter, what happened at the Farm, with Mel, it wasn’t your fault. If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine.”

“No. It wasn’t. Think about it. If I’d been honest from the start. If I’d told you everything up front. About Sebastian. About how I felt about you. About my plan to get you out of there. Things would have been different. I wouldn’t have tranqed you and brought you to the Dean’s office. The Dean never would have seen you. He wouldn’t have come after you. He wouldn’t have grabbed Mel. Everything would have gone down differently.”

She wanted to argue with him, even though there was logic to his words. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been playing those same mind games herself. How often had she laid awake at night playing “what if”? Wondering what she might have done to prevent Mel from ending up dead in a parking lot with her begging a vampire to turn her.

It was something of an obsession of hers, so she didn’t know why it surprised her to find out that Carter felt the same way. Carter had an almost painful sense of responsibility; of course he was doing the same thing. Even though they’d never talked about it.

Funny how all this time had passed and Carter and she hadn’t really talked. Oh, they’d made it through their day-to-day lives. They functioned. They certainly functioned on a physical level. Whenever he held her body close to his, whenever he kissed her and made the world fall away, it was easy to lose herself. It was easy to pretend life was normal. This was the way it was supposed to be. That it was okay. That this huge thing hadn’t happened between them—her sister dying, Mel’s influence over them vanishing. Maybe they could both pretend when they touched. Maybe there were just some things that were too difficult to say aloud.

Or maybe she was a coward.

Either way, she had this sick feeling in her gut that had nothing to do with the shot Dawn had given her.

“I don’t blame you,” she told him. And she didn’t. She blamed herself.

His mouth twisted into an ironic smile. “That’s not my point. My point is, if I’d been more honest, maybe things would have shaken out differently. Six weeks from now, I don’t want to be having this same conversation with myself. I’m done keeping things from you because I’m trying to protect you.”

He paused like he was waiting for her to say something.

So she nodded, even though her gut told her she wouldn’t like where this was going. “Okay.”

“This isn’t working.”

That queasy feeling in her gut coalesced into dread. “Okay,” she repeated numbly, even though it was not okay.

“I don’t see how I can do this anymore. I can’t—” He broke off, turning away from her so she couldn’t read his expression at all. “Look, I know you expect me to be this great leader of the rebellion or something. But I can’t do that. I can’t be that guy and be your guy. I can’t do both. It’s not fair. Not to anyone. I’m fundamentally not okay sending you into dangerous situations.”

“Carter, I can take—”

“Don’t tell me you can take care of yourself. I know that.” He plowed his hand through his hair. “Jesus, you think I don’t know that? You handled yourself better than Jacks or Stu. You took care of it. I’m not saying you didn’t. You handled things a hell of a lot better than I did. That’s the problem. Don’t you get it?”

“No,” she answered honestly. Because she didn’t get what he was saying at all. “What’s the problem?”

“I fucked up.”

She wanted to disagree. He hadn’t messed up. He’d made a tough call in a tough situation. He’d done the best he could. No one would ask more than that.

“I will continue to eff up anytime you’re in danger. It’s that simple. You said it yourself. I effed up big time with Armadale. If his kid hadn’t been there . . .” Carter broke off, shaking his head. “When I saw that he’d shot you, I lost it. If his kid hadn’t been there, I might have beaten him senseless.”

“But his kid was there.”

“You think that makes me feel better?”

Her throat tightened. There were a hundred things she wanted to say but none of them were right. So she just sat there, swallowing her fear and her yearning, just like she swallowed the nausea churning in her stomach.

He must have realized she didn’t have an answer, because he stopped waiting for one. “That’s what kills me about this, Lily. Everybody expects me to be the leader of this rebellion, but I don’t have the head for it. When it comes to shit like this, I’m never going to make the right decision. When you’re in danger, I’m never going to be able to think rationally about whether or not the guy holding a gun on you is a potential ally. I’m never going to be able to stop and think it through.”

She turned to face him in the cab of the truck. “That’s only because you’re thinking about it wrong. You just haven’t gotten used to the idea that I’m not an abductura. You spent so long thinking that I was special. That I was important. More important than anyone else. You just haven’t adjusted yet to the idea that I’m not.”

He gave her a look hot enough to steam the windows in the cab. “Is that what you think? That you’re not important now? Just because you’re not an abductura?”

“I’m not important—at least, no more than anyone else. I’m just another Green.”

“You will always be important to me.”

“No, Carter, you just think that because—”

“Damn it, Lily, when are you going to get it? I care about you. Not because of what you can do for the rebellion. Not because of what Mel may or may not have made me feel. But because you’re you. Because I need you. Because you’re smart and you make me think about things I would never think about on my own. Like using Armadale to our advantage instead of beating the shit out of him. I never would have thought of that on my own.”

“On your own, you wouldn’t have been in that position in the first place.”

Even though he didn’t agree with her, she knew she was right.

She just didn’t know what to say about it, let alone what to do.

But no. She did know. There was an obvious solution. She just didn’t like it. “I think maybe we should break up.”

To her surprise, Carter tipped back his head and laughed. The sound was amused and pained and bitter. It made her ache and broke her heart all at the same time.

“You think that would do any good? You think some label is going to make me not care about you?”

Good point. She didn’t want him in danger any more than he wanted her in danger. That would never change.

She hated this feeling of helplessness. Hated knowing that she was bad for him. No matter what else he thought or said, the rebellion needed him. He was the only person everyone trusted enough to lead. And the simple truth was that she was in his way. She made his job harder. Her being here made everything worse.