Chapter 88
Ryker confiding in her that his family had been killed at an airport struck Jo deeply, something she hadn’t been expecting. She wanted to know more, but she also didn’t want to pry. She’d already said she was sorry, which always seemed like a stupid thing to say in that situation, in her opinion. Asking questions might piss him off. But then, if he wanted to talk about it, maybe she should let him.
“What happened?” she asked him.
He shook his head slowly from side to side, and Jo assumed that meant he wasn’t going to answer her. She went back to staring out the window.
“We were trying to leave the country,” he said, his voice soft, almost monotone.
Jo didn’t turn her head to look at him for fear her emotions might make him stop talking, and she really did want to know what had happened. While part of it might be because she thought it might be therapeutic for him, the rest was just her own morbid curiosity, which she wasn’t afraid to admit to herself.
“We had tickets to board a plane to Russia, which was my wife’s homeland, thinking it would be safer there. But… as I went to check our baggage….” He paused, clearly fighting the lump in his throat that indicated he was about to lose control of his emotions, something that Ryker would never want to do in front of her, Jo was certain. “They were attacked. All three of them. I watched from across the airport, horrified, not sure what I could do.”
Jo waited, thinking he would say more, but he was quiet for several minutes. Normally, a person would put their hand on the other person’s arm to comfort them, but Jo knew that Ryker wasn’t the sort of person who wanted to be touched, especially not under these circumstances. But she wanted to know what happened next. “Was it… Vampires?” she asked, thinking it had to be, considering his anger when she’d thought that he was actually helping the Vampires, rather than being an accomplice in their kidnapping scheme, hauling innocent humans off to the slaughter.
“Yeah,” he said under his breath. “Whole mess of ‘em, raiding the airport.”
“What did you do?” she asked, turning slightly toward him, now that it seemed like he didn’t mind the questions.
“I did what anyone would do. I pulled out my gun and started blowing their fucking heads off. But by then, it didn’t matter. I’d taken out about a dozen of them by the time I reached my wife and kids.” He went quiet again. Jo had to assume it was that lump in his throat again. She understood. She got one, too, sometimes, especially when she was talking about her mom. “It was too late for any of them.”
“They were… dead?” she asked, wondering if she should use that word or substitute something less harsh. Gone? Deceased?
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “They weren’t dead. All three of them were still alive, but they’d been infected. My wife’s neck had bite marks on it, deep ones, blood spilling all over her white shirt. My youngest daughter, Millie, was wearing a pink dress. She had so much blood pouring down from the gash in her neck, it was practically red. And then there was Dani.” He stopped again, flipped a few switches Jo was pretty sure didn’t do anything.
“What was wrong with Dani?” Jo asked.
“Not much,” Ryker said. “Just a few scratches. At first, I wasn’t even sure if they’d come from the monsters or if maybe she’d been spared.” He cleared his throat. “It took a few weeks for me to be sure. So… ending her was… the hardest.”
Jo’s mouth hung open as she realized what he was saying. He hadn’t just ended Dani. He’d ended all three of them. Slowly, Jo turned her head to look out the front of the plane, not knowing at all what to say. When she was younger, her parents had taught her what she was supposed to say in certain situations, but there wasn’t a token, “I’m so sorry for your loss,” statement for having to kill your entire family because they’d be turned into horrible monsters if you didn’t.
“We had an agreement,” he said after a pause so long she figured he had to be finished. “Claire and I had already decided that if anything happened to either one of us, or the kids, if we were infected, we’d make sure that we didn’t have to go on in that miserable existence. We thought… once you’ve turned, it’s no longer you anyway. You know?”
Jo nodded. “I do,” she said, quietly.
“So… I had to do it.”
Whether or not he wanted her to, Jo couldn’t stop the hand that reached across the space between them and landed on his arm. She patted him a few times until he pulled away, and then she put her hands back in her lap, glad he’d told her, but also regretting having to hear such a tragic story.
She remembered that her mom had had a similar experience, that she’d had to kill someone she once loved, an exboyfriend, Jack something, who’d been turned. She didn’t want to do it, but she’d had to. No matter how many years had gone by since that event had taken place, it still bothered Cadence to talk about it.
Then, there was the fact that her dad had had to kill his first wife for the same reason, while she was pregnant with his first daughter. When she was younger, Jo used to look out at the fountain in the green space behind their apartment that depicted a little angel girl with a watering can standing on a cloud, a fountain Elliott had had especially made for Aaron. It was supposed to be that little girl, Aarolyn. Jo had always wondered what it might have been like if her half-sister had lived, if she’d grown up a Guardian like their dad. She knew how much it hurt him to even talk about what had happened. Not very many people knew the story, so she wasn’t about to share it with Ryker now, but she did say, “I can’t imagine what that felt like for you, but I know there are others who have had to do similar things, so if you feel like you’re alone… you’re not.”
She’d hoped her words would be comforting, but Ryker just made a low rumbling sound in the back of his throat. “That’s what I want, though, Jo. To be alone. When you’re alone, you only have to worry about yourself.”
Jo turned her eyes back toward the black sky in front of her, suddenly realizing she had more in common with Ryker than she’d thought.
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