Aida held her head as her mind spun, and she tried not to vomit the bile in her stomach all over the floor. And it would end up on the floor because she didn’t trust her legs enough to get her to the bathroom.
She couldn't think straight as she was torn between needing to do something and striving to keep herself grounded. Julian’s soft words pierced through some of her confusion. When he caressed her face, she seized his hand like she was drowning in the ocean and he was her lifeline.
“It's okay,” he said. “Listen to me, and I'll help get you through this.”
She was supposed to kill him, but she couldn’t; she loved him too much for that. Still, her brain felt like somebody cracked an egg, tossed it into the frying pan, and scrambled it around. Everything was so foggy and wrong.
This was Julian. She loved him more than she’d ever believed possible, but he’d forsaken her.
She shook her head when that word popped into it again. She’d never used it before in her life, but it looped through her head like a destructive earworm screaming at her to pick up a stake and plunge it through Julian’s heart.
NO! She couldn’t kill him! No! No! No!
Unable to get her brain to function as it should, she slapped at it as she tried to get it to work right again. Hands clasped her wrists, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming as they pulled her hands away from her head.
“What is wrong with me?” she whimpered.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” Julian said in a calm voice so different than the riotous emotions pummeling him. “Someone took control of your mind, and I need you to help us figure out who it was.”
Had someone taken control of her mind? And they’d turned it into this mess? Or had it always been this much of a mess? Was she the mess?
“I don’t know what’s going on. Am I always like this?” she whispered.
The forlorn tone of her voice nearly broke him. What had this monster done to her?
“No, baby,” he assured her as he stroked her hair. “I’m going to find whoever did this to you, and I will destroy them. If you can help me, it might make locating them easier.”
She lifted her head and blinked as she brought him into focus, but when she looked at him, her fingers hooked into claws as she contemplated tearing his eyes out. “Why did you forsake me?”
There was that fucking word again, Julian thought. It wasn’t her word. Whoever did this to her put it in her mind, which was another sign he was dealing with a far older vampire. Julian didn’t care how old the bastard was; he’d tear his heart out and feed it to him.
“Aida, you have to listen to me,” he said.
He didn’t want to use his power on her, but he might not have a choice as she tugged at her wrists and tapped her foot. When she bit her bottom lip again, a fresh trail of blood trickled from it.
“You have to calm down,” he told her as his ability entwined with her mind. Gradually, some of the tension eased from her, but her eyes shimmered with turmoil. When he released her hands, she didn’t try to hit herself again. “I’m going to show you a picture, and I want you to tell me who it is.”
Kyle brought his computer over and turned the screen so she could see it. When she did, she closed her eyes again.
“He… He…” Her eyebrows knit together. When her hands fell to her thighs, she dug her fingers into her skin. “He was at the gallery.”
“Do you know who he is?” When her foot started tapping again, Julian rested his hand over hers. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you again.”
“He didn’t hurt me!” she burst out.
Julian saw the footage, so he knew she was lying, but the vamp buried the memory. “Okay,” he soothed. “Do you remember what the two of you talked about?”
“We had a lovely time,” she said in a singsong tone he barely recognized.
Cassidy and Kyle exchanged a look while Julian gritted his teeth and focused on her while he asked his next question. “Do you remember his name?”
Aida pursed her lips together and tapped her foot. She should remember this with ease; she’d met him before, he purchased from the gallery, and they spent a lovely afternoon talking while he perused the paintings. Why couldn’t she remember his name?
When she lifted a hand toward her head, Julian caught it before she started slapping herself again. “It’s okay if you can’t,” he assured her.
“I know this,” she muttered. And then from the murky recesses of her turbulent mind, a name emerged. “Gerald!”
“Gerald, what?” Kyle asked and held up his hands when Julian shot him a look. “Sorry.”
“Do you know his last name?” Julian asked.
“He was at the gallery for Owen’s showing too,” Aida murmured.
Something sick twisted in Julian’s stomach. This vamp was around her a couple of times, maybe more, and he’d never known it. He’d failed to protect her when he promised he would. He would not fail her again.
Aida recalled something else. “He’s the one who sent the vamp in the bar after me!”
Julian’s eyes widened as Cassidy gasped. “What? Why?”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Aida muttered. “He’s a customer at the gallery. Why would he do that? But…”
Her voice trailed off as flashes of something went off in her mind. She felt like she was standing in a disco and the lights were strobing all around her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, and could barely see the figures beyond those bright lights, but they were there. The more she concentrated, the more they came into focus.
“He enjoys toying with those he’s going to kill. And he is going to kill my boyfriend.” She focused on Julian again. “He’s going to kill you. He also said he wasn’t going to tangle with three vampires. He’s been following you for a long time and knew when you were coming to Boston…”
Her voice trailed off as another memory niggled at her mind. “He sent the Savage after you when you first arrived too!”
“Who is this guy?” Kyle asked.
“I have no idea,” Julian said.
“Well, he sure knows who you are, and he has a hard-on for you.”
Julian didn’t understand how someone he’d never met could hate him so much, but this Gerald knew him well enough to realize Aida was his biggest weakness. Going after her was far worse than if he’d come after Julian directly.
Actually, Julian did know him somehow; he just couldn’t remember how.
“Have either of you noticed any vamps lurking around?” he asked.
“I think we would have told you if we spotted a Savage spying on us,” Cassidy said.
“He might not be a Savage; the vamp in the bar wasn’t,” Julian reminded her.
“Maybe not, but I haven’t noticed any other vamps around lately.”
“Neither have I,” Kyle said.
“Do you know his last name?” Julian asked Aida.
“A… Allen… Arr… Arrington,” Aida said. She put her head in her hands and flicked her index finger against her forehead. “Think, think, think.”
But it was difficult to think when flashes kept going off and everything twisted and changed around her. More of the shadows parted, and new memories slipped through. When Julian went to grab her hand, she recoiled.
“Why did you forsake me?” she demanded as her head shot up and her eyes burned into his.