Twenty-Five
Brooke
“So who are we trying to find?”
“Di. She was the one who found me and brought me to the man that changed me. I need to convince her to stop being a bitch, basically.” She'd told me about binds and how they worked. Ivan hadn't, and I didn't understand why. He'd made two binds with me, and if I hadn't followed them, I would have died. Or re-died. I wasn't sure how that worked exactly. Since I didn't have a beating heart, I wasn't alive. But I could walk and talk, so what did that make me? When I thought of 'undead,' I thought of zombies. I definitely didn't lurch around and hunger for brains. Blood, hell yes.
“And what will we do once we find her?” I said, sitting down on a rock.
The desert stretched out in front of us, endless and red, like it was on fire. It had nothing on New Hampshire. I should have been more excited, but I didn't really get excited anymore. Although, the world was both a more beautiful and ugly place since I'd become immortal, I was still trying to make sense of it all.
“Try and convince her to stop being insane,” she said.
I was frustrated with Helena because she didn't tell me anything. When she asked if I wanted to come, I thought the trip would be a distraction from Jamie. In reality, nothing would have distracted me from Jamie. He existed in my mind, as if he'd colonized part of it and wouldn't give it up. I thought about his hair, his voice, his blood, his smile, his arms, and everything else. I wanted to go back, but I couldn't. I had to stay away. He was just too much of a temptation. His blood was too much of a temptation. If only I could change him, and then we could be together, but I didn't think he'd want that. I couldn't take his mortality from him, no matter how much I wanted to spend my immortality with him.
“How do you intend to do that?”
“I'm not really sure yet. I've had how many years to think about it?”
Helena told me about the saga between her and Di. In my opinion, Di was a lost cause. Clearly, she had been going down a crooked path for so long she probably couldn't find her way back, even if she wanted to. I didn't tell Helena that. Who was I to judge?
Helena stopped and stared at the sky. “I can't believe I'm nervous. I don't remember the last time I was nervous.”
“I don't remember being nervous,” I said. Except for when I thought about hurting Jamie, maybe. That was more panic than nervous.
“It feels like my life is going to end,” she said, breaking a tree limb and crushing it in her hands. I knew what she meant.
“Did you make a binding promise?”
“Yeah. No, I won't tell you what it is.”
“Why not?”
“Because. That's why.”
That wasn't a reason, but I wasn't going to push it. The truth was I didn't care that much. Once I was done with her and all this, I was going to move on. Go somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“Whatever,” I said. “How do you know where she is?” I decided a subject change was in order.
“I don't know. I'm just following a hunch.”
“And where does your hunch lead you?”
Helena scented the air, considering. “I'm not sure yet.