The White Blood Trilogy - Complete Box Set Books 1-3 Read online

  “I had a lot of dreams, but that was the biggest of all. Obviously, I wanted to get married and have kids. Maybe a little dog or something too.” He shrugged. “But that’s all they are now, is dreams. They won’t even let me choose my own clothes in here, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to attract a wife.”

  It was a brave attempt at a joke, and I tried to smile to make him feel better, but it hit close to home. I could picture myself with him, our kids running around while we lounged in the backyard. It was all too easy to imagine, but so impossible to ever happen.

  “That’s probably enough time for the whiteblood to kick in,” I said.

  Ben hopped off the chair and I followed him to the door again. He paused and turned around before I opened it, his mouth opened as though there was something he wanted to say, but before I knew what I was doing, I stepped in and kissed him goodbye. It wasn’t long, and it wasn’t passionate. It was the sort of kiss a wife gives her husband before he leaves for work.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling back and clamping my hand to my mouth. I shook my head as though I could take back what I’d just done by ignoring it. “You have to go. Please, Ben, just leave right now.”

  The door opened and closed, and when he was gone I went to my desk and sat down, cradling my head in my hands. This was bad, I thought to myself. This was really bad. I couldn’t allow it continue, and I decided then and there to pass him off to Linda. The easiest thing to do would be for me to just not see him anymore, so that’s what I would do to keep from falling for him any harder than I already had.

  Chapter7

  My feelings for Ben seemed only to intensify as I spent time away from him. He’d been transferred over to Linda’s shift for two weeks now, and I hadn’t seen him since, yet he was always in my thoughts. I wondered how he was doing in his cell, and I even caught myself making an excuse to walk the catwalk perimeter of the general population holding area on the off chance I might see him there.

  The worst thing of all was the dreams. Almost every night was filled with half glimpsed images of his naked body entwined with mine. Intense feelings of passion and lust surged through me in my sleep, and the dreams were so real that I woke most mornings sweaty and tangled in my sheets expecting to find Ben there next to me. He never was of course, but as the days passed by I found myself looking forward to going to sleep just so I could feel him next to me.

  Not all the dreams were good. While most of them were hazy jumbled visions of us fucking all over my apartment, the prison cells, and the infirmary, there was only one other dream as vivid as the first one where he’d asked me for help. It started off as many of the others had, with both of us ripping our clothes off in my office at the Facility, but then it was interrupted by four guards who came in and tore him away from me. They stripped the last of his clothes off and dragged him down the hall.

  No one made a move to stop me when I followed him, and I watched from the edge of the room while they strapped him to a chair. Several other guards filtered into the room until there was a ring of them around him, jeering and calling him names until General Edwards entered the room and motioned for silence. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he was angry and yelling in a way that chilled me to the bone.

  That was when they started throwing the garlic. It looked silly at first, a ring of grown men pelting Ben with smashed up pieces of garlic, but then I saw what it was doing to him. Red welts appeared wherever the garlic oil touched his skin, and I watched him grit his teeth and grunt, excruciating pain written all over his face.

  I ran out and tried to stop them, not caring that I was half naked or what it would say about my relationship to Ben, but it was clear none of the guards could see me. A piece of garlic went straight through my chest to hit Ben in the forehead, and all I could do was stand there and watch it happen.

  One of the guards stepped forward and scooped up some of the garlic that had fallen to the ground. He smashed this into his palm until it was a gooey pulp, and then he smeared it across Ben’s chest and shoulders. I watched helplessly as his skin turned a fiery red in response to the oil that was toxic to him. He thrashed against his bonds and screamed in agony until the guards filed out of the room, laughing and joking about the fun they’d had.

  Ben’s head sagged, his chin resting on his chest while he gasped for air. I knelt before him and placed my hands on his knees, knowing somehow that he could see me even though this was nothing more than a dream. He looked at me then, stared right into my soul, and whispered just three words: “Help me Jen.”

  The pain in his voice was enough to make my heart ache for him, and I hadn’t been able to stop hearing those words in my head since waking from that nightmare.

  There are things we don’t realize about ourselves or our lives until we’re forced to examine them. One such thing in my own life was the fact that I didn’t have any friends to speak of. It wasn’t a conscious decision of mine, but after moving to the tiny town of Stillwater, Florida, I spent most of my time at the Facility. Both my parents died in a car accident the summer before I went to college, and I had no brothers or sisters. Some of the guards were nice enough to me, and a couple of them had made early attempts to get me to spend time with their wives to see if I might not find some social support, but nothing ever came of it. Their lives were about homemaking and caring for their families, and they had no idea of what their husbands really did when they went off to a shift at what they thought was a normal maximum security prison.

  The closest thing I had to a friend, I realized, was Linda. We’d spent a lot of time together during her training, and even though she was a direct subordinate, I’d shared enough private moments with her to consider her more than just a co-worker.

  We’d never spent any time together outside of work, and when I invited her to my place under the guise of a girls’ night, she happily accepted. It seemed she’d fallen into much the same situation since accepting the job at Facility 47.

  “The worst part is having to keep all the secrets,” she said as I refilled her wine glass. “My mom and dad are always asking me about my job and what I’m doing, but it’s not like I can tell them I give injections to freaking vampires every day, you know? God, and my sisters are the worst. They keep asking if I’m dating anyone, but it’s not like Stillwater has much of a selection of eligible bachelors.”

  “What about Benny down at the diner?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Oh yeah. What is he, like, sixty-five years old? Maybe I can get some of that sweet pension money he has coming in.” She took a large sip of her wine and gave me a sultry look. “He does look sexy in those overalls and that John Deere hat though.”

  I nearly spit my wine out at the idea of Linda hanging on the arm of the grizzled old farmer who took breakfast at the diner nearly every morning. With a population of less than two hundred, Stillwater wasn’t the best place to develop a social life.

  “Speaking of sexy guys,” I said as innocently as I could manage. “How are things going with Ben in your care now?”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” Linda set her glass down on the table and leaned forward. “He’s been pretty moody lately. Both times I saw him, he asked me if I knew why he’d been switched away from you. He’s pretty upset about it. Did something happen between you two that you’re not telling me?”

  “This is kind of embarrassing, but that’s why I really asked you over here tonight. I don’t want to involve you in anything that could get you in trouble, so if you don’t want to he—”

  “No way, honey,” Linda interrupted. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this that easily. Did he kiss you? I knew you had the hots for him.”

  “We sort of did more than just kiss,” I said, feeling heat flush into my cheeks.

  Linda clasped her hands in front of her mouth and pulled her feet up onto the couch. “Oh my god, are you serious? What was it like? Tell me everything.”

  “It was hands down the bes
t sex I have ever had in my life,” I said. “I honestly don’t know what came over me. I was checking the wound on his back when he turned and kissed me, and I couldn’t help myself after that. Next thing I knew we were tearing each others clothes off and doing it on the injection chair.”

  “You don’t think he’s using his powers on you somehow do you? I know the whiteblood injections are supposed to suppress their abilities, but as I learned with Trevor King, it doesn’t always work they way they want us to believe it does.”

  “It’s hard to explain, but I don’t think that’s it. I think I’m really falling for him, and that’s why I sent him to your shift. It’s not him I don’t trust, it’s me.”

  Linda picked up her wine glass and swirled the red liquid around a few times before taking a drink. “I don’t know what to tell you then. It’s too bad he has to be stuck in that place. I know Edwards would have me drawn and quartered for saying it, but there’s no way a guy like him deserves to be locked up in there. Vampire or not, he’s a better person than most of the guys I’ve ever dated.”

  “Me too, Linda. Me too.”

  Refilling my glass with the last of the bottle, I drank deeply and changed the topic. It felt good to finally confide in someone, but now there were new emotions in play. I was no longer the only one who thought Ben was innocent of any crime other than having been turned into a vampire against his will, but what was there any of us could do about it?

  *

  The message said only that I should come to her office after I was done the last of my injections. Linda and I hadn’t had much of a chance to chat after she’d come over for drinks, and in the light of day with a pounding wine headache, I wasn’t sure if I’d made a mistake telling her about what happened between me and Ben. If the reality of what I’d done had set in now that she’d had time to think about it, I could be in serious trouble if she was thinking about going to the General with what she’d learned. I didn’t think that’s what she had in mind, but it didn’t keep my stomach from churning as I finished the last of my Friday injections.

  I walked down the main corridor connecting our offices. It was the same hallway the inmates were brought down when it was time for their injections, and I could see a small group of them being led towards her office. She must have been running later than me, and hadn’t yet seen her last group of the day.

  Rather than delay them any further, I stood aside to let the guards and prisoners pass, and was shocked to see Ben at the back of the line. The rear guard was several feet behind them, locking the door to the general holding area. There was no way I could avoid having Ben walk within inches of me, and when I looked towards Linda’s office door, I saw her standing there with a look and a smile that made it clear this was what she’d intended all along. I don’t know how she got the timing right, but it was all an elaborate ploy to get me face to face with Ben for even a few seconds.

  As it turns out, a few seconds was all he needed. He lagged behind a few short steps and turned his head towards me as he passed. There was a look of panic in his eyes and he said the one thing that I hadn’t been able to get out of my head for the last week.

  “Help me Jen.”

  It was as though I was in the room with him again after the guards had finished throwing garlic at him. That had been nothing more than a dream, but here he was, his words just as clear and desperate as they had been the first time I’d heard them.

  “Guard,” I called out to the front of the line. “I need to see this prisoner in my office. He appears to have some sort of rash around his neck, and he’ll need to be treated for it before he goes in for his injection.”

  “What, that?” said the rear guard, catching up and gesturing to the red welts visible at the edge of Ben’s collar. “That’s nothing. He’ll be fine.”

  “Is that your professional medical opinion?” I spat, doing my best to intimidate him. “This man needs treatment, or I’m the one who is going to be called in the middle of the night to come help him when his condition worsens in the middle of the night. Take him to my office immediately.”

  I stormed off towards the infirmary leaving the stunned guard no chance to refuse my command. I didn’t really have that sort of power to tell him what to do, and the rash wasn’t at all serious enough to warrant a special trip to the infirmary, but I needed to talk to Ben in private, and this was the only way it was going to happen.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” he said when he was alone in the office.

  “Well, you do need some salve for this rash,” I said. “I’m not going to ask what it’s from, because I think I already know.”

  “That’s not important now. What is important is that I realize I only have a few moments before that guard comes back to collect me. I need you to know why I’m here, why I turned myself in.”

  “Ben, you don’t owe me any explanations.”

  “You don’t understand, Jen. I turned myself in because my father is in here. George Silver? My whole life I’ve thought he’d died when I was still a baby, but my mother told me the truth in the final moments before she died.”

  “George Silver is your father?” I knew it was true of course, and I kicked myself for not realizing it sooner. The way they both looked and acted, hell, even Ben’s fake last name of Gold was a dead giveaway.

  “My real name is Benjamin Silver. When I learned that he was in here—that he was a vampire—I found someone to turn me and I gave myself up so I could be here with him.”

  “Why would you do that? Isn’t it bad enough that he’s locked up here for the rest of his life? Why would you go and do the same?”

  Ben reached out and took my hand. He squeezed it tight and let it drop. “You don't understand. He does not deserve to be in here and neither do I. I’m going to escape, Jen. I had myself locked up here so I could break my father out.”

  I pulled back and paced across the room, running my hands through my hair. This was crazy. Why was he telling me this? “You’re insane. You can’t expect to get out of here.”

  “I’ve already got it mostly figured out. I just need your help with one last thing. Please Jen, I need this. What would you do if you had a chance to be with your parents again after all these years? What would you do if you found out someone you thought was dead was locked away because they happened to be different?”

  “What do you want me for. I can’t help you break out of here Ben, that’s asking too much.”

  “No, I need one little and easy thing. I’ve been searching out weaknesses in the Facility’s security system and I’ve finally found our way out. The problem is that I need my abilities to make it work. I need a week off the whiteblood. Please Jen, it has to be soon. I have a boat waiting on the coast to take my father and I to Bermuda, and it won’t stick around forever.” ”

  Suddenly, quite a lot of things began to make sense.

  “Was that your plan all along then? To seduce me just so you could get to this moment? I can’t believe I let you fuck me.”

  I shook my head in disbelief and looked at the panic button. One quick slap and the guards would come rushing in to take down Ben Gold, or Ben Silver, or whatever his name really was.

  “It’s not like that. You were never part of the plan, I swear. I don’t know how to make you believe me on that, but if you look in your heart I think you know it’s true.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you do this. It’s too much to ask” I said, walking to the door and pulling it open.

  The guard entered and grabbed Ben’s arm. He jerked him off the table and shoved him towards the door.

  “You give him his whiteblood?” the guard asked.

  A part of me wanted to lie in that moment. I was close to saying yes and giving Ben what he needed, but in the end I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “No. Take him down the hall for his injection before you return him to his cell.”

  I didn’t look Ben in the eyes when the guard hauled him forward through the door. I could
n’t bear to see the disappointment I knew I’d find there.

  Chapter8

  Rather than go home to have to face the reality of what I’d just learned, and how I’d handled it, I stayed in the office for several hours to bury my feelings with paperwork. Most of it was work that didn’t really need to be done, but it helped me keep my mind off Ben and his escape plan, so I threw myself at it and worked until I realized that it was nearly eleven o’clock. My back hurt from sitting in my office chair for so long, my eyes ached from staring at the screen, and I was hungry from not having eaten since lunch. I couldn’t put it off any longer; it was time to go home.

  I collected my purse and locked the infirmary door behind me. The hallways were dark and quiet at this time of night since most of the prison staff had gone home or were out on duty. I hadn’t expected to see anyone except the exit security crew on my way out, so when I passed by the break room and heard yelling and cheering, I popped by to see what was going on.

  The scene was so familiar, the déjà vu was almost dizzying. An inmate had been stripped to the waist and tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Just as it had been in my dream, the guards were laughing and mocking him while they threw chunks of garlic at him as hard as they could. They’d already been going at this poor vampire for a while by the looks of him. His body was red and puffy with welts everywhere I could see, and he seemed to be near unconscious from the pain.

  The garlic and the abuse was bad enough, but then one of the guards unzipped his fly, stepped up to the prisoner, and began to piss all over him. Jeers and laughter rang out into the hallway while the rest of the guards cheered their coworker on.

  I don’t know why I didn’t leave then. Something kept me there in the shadows of the hallway, watching through the large windows that looked in on the horror show within. Numb with disbelief at how closely this mirrored the dream I’d had, I stood by as useless as I had been the first time and watched as they dragged the poor inmate out on his knees only to replace him with another target.