28
NO
APOLOGIES
The pain came before
consciousness. It was immediate, intense, and filled his entire
head up until T it felt like a balloon. A big, painful balloon. The
thought occurred to him that he might have a concussion, and
moments later, Joss opened his eyes.
He was lying on his
bed in the Slayer cabin, under crisp white linens. His wounds—the
few fresh ones he had—had been carefully bandaged. And the Slayers
were standing around his bed in a semicircle, his uncle Abraham at
the foot end, near the door. His leg was in a cast, and he was
leaning on a sleek black wooden cane.
Joss couldn’t
remember how he’d gotten here, or even if he was really here at
all. Maybe it was all a figment of his imagination. Maybe he was
hallucinating from his injuries. Maybe he’d died in the explosion.
He only knew that he was glad to be here, glad to see these faces,
glad to feel like he hadn’t completely ruined everything. Even if
it wasn’t real, it felt good not to think about monsters with fangs
for a second.
Ash was the first to
speak. “We thought you were a goner, Joss. Thought the damn things
had tackled you in the woods and swallowed every last bit of you.
But then we heard that explosion and tracked you
down.”
Morgan gave Joss a
wink. “A word of advice, if I may? Explosions are an excellent way
to kill the undead. But you should probably take a few steps back
first, kid. But we can talk about that when I teach you more about
explosives next summer. Of course, something tells me you might
even teach me a few things.”
Roaring laughter
filled the room and Joss sat up in his bed a little, enjoying their
company, and so, so glad that he was still alive ... and a hero,
apparently. Even if he hadn’t technically killed all those vampires
on purpose. Who needed to know? Dead was dead, as far as Joss was
concerned.
With awe in her
voice, Paty said, “You must have killed twenty vampires with that
blast.”
“Twenty-four.” Joss’s
voice came out sounding weak, and a bit like someone had scraped
his entire windpipe with low-grit sandpaper. It felt that way,
too.
The Slayers all
smiled proudly. All but one.
Abraham shot Joss a
look that said that he knew that the blast was an accident, and
that something about that didn’t sit well with him. Then he turned
and limped out of the room without as much as a single word of
encouragement or dissent. Joss didn’t know if he should feel
berated or relieved, so he left it alone. He’d had enough
unpleasantness today. The last thing he needed was another moment
of heartache.
Slayers kept him
company for most of the day. In fact, it wasn’t until Paty had
brought him a tray of dinner that evening that he realized they
hadn’t left him alone for more than a few precious minutes at a
time. Were they watching him? Or did they just appreciate him and
admire his efforts? He’d never know. But that evening, when he was
lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come, Joss allowed his thoughts
to drift through the pain medication’s fog back to the explosion.
With pained realization, he knew that something horrible had
happened. Sirus had been in that cabin when the blast had occurred.
He was dead. And it was Joss’s fault.
Joss rolled onto his
side and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come, willing the
emptiness to take him away again, to take it all away. Because
despite everything that had happened, he was mourning the loss of
Sirus. And he didn’t know which was more upsetting: that he’d
killed a man he’d once counted as a friend, or that the man he’d
counted as a trusted friend had betrayed him in the worst way
possible. Joss focused on the betrayal, largely because it was
easier to hate than to grieve. Sirus had lied to him. Sirus had
turned his back on him. Joss vowed then and there that he’d never
be duped by a vampire ever again. He would study them, memorize
their characteristics. He’d know vampires better than any Slayer
ever had. And he would kill them all.
After a long time
spent lying in the darkness and fuming over things beyond his
control, Joss’s eyelids fluttered closed at last and sleep took him
into its warm embrace.
It wouldn’t last for
long.
Sometime during the
night—Joss couldn’t be certain when—a noise woke him from his
dreamless sleep. It was the sound of his door being opened and
footsteps moving carefully around his bed. He opened his eyes to a
familiar form, a shape he knew, in the dark of his
bedroom.
She didn’t speak at
first. And when she finally did, her voice sounded hoarse, as if
she’d been crying a lot recently. Joss would have bet that she
had.
Kat straightened her
shoulders, as if she were trying to retain some semblance of
dignity. “You killed Sirus.”
Joss sat quietly,
allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did, he could
see a sheen on her cheeks. She had been
crying, might still be crying. After debating how to respond, he
simply sat up in bed and said, “Yes.”
She sat on the edge
of his bed then and buried her face in her hands, her body racked
with sobs. Joss wanted very much to comfort her in some small way.
But he knew she’d never allow it. After all, he was the cause of
this pain. So he waited, shifting his gaze awkwardly between his
covers, the window, the door, the floor. Anywhere but Kat and the
tears that he was causing. Several minutes later, when the worst of
it was over, she dried her face on her sleeve and sniffled, her
voice shaking. “They’re not like you think they are.”
A strange sort of
panic gripped his chest then. What did she mean? That Slayers
weren’t the noble fighters, defenders of mankind that he believed
them to be? The idea was both horrifying and preposterous.
“Who?”
“Vampires.” The panic
in his chest subsided as she spoke, but was quickly replaced by a
new feeling—one of dread. This wasn’t a conversation that he wanted
to have. He wouldn’t be swayed, would never be convinced that
vampires were anything other than the terrible, bloodthirsty
monsters he knew them to be. But he owed Kat this moment. He owed
her something, anyway. For having stolen her father away. She
glanced down at her interlaced fingers. “Vampires aren’t all evil.
Just like humans aren’t all evil. There are some good ones. Sirus
was one of them.”
Joss swallowed hard,
uncertain how to respond. After a brief pause, he settled on, “How
long did you know he was a vampire?”
“Since the day he
changed into one.”
Joss lost his voice
in utter confusion for a moment. If that was true, then why did
Sirus make a big deal over keeping all things Society-related
secret from Kat?
“We kept up pretenses
and I feigned ignorance whenever the Slayers were around, but I
knew. Of course I knew. He’s my father, Joss. Or was ... now he’s
just a memory, thanks to you.” She glared at him, her eyes welling
over with tears once more. This time, she didn’t bother to wipe
them away. Maybe she knew that there would be more to come. Maybe
the effort of keeping her face dry was completely futile with such
immense sorrow. “The night after he was turned, he tried to feed
from me, but managed to resist and promised to protect me forever.
He also promised to turn me into a vampire when I got old enough.
I’ve lost that, too, thanks to you.”
Joss shook his head
in disbelief. “You can’t want that. They’re ...
monsters.”
The word fell off of
his tongue in a disgusted whisper.
Kat stood, raising
her voice angrily. “You murdered my father and his friends in such
a cowardly way and have the audacity to say that they’re the monsters? You sicken me, Joss. I wish I
had never met you.”
He shook his head,
refusing to believe that she wished their friendship had never
been. “You don’t mean that, Kat. You’re just sad.”
But even as the words
fell from his tongue, he knew that she did mean it. The same way
that he had meant it not so long ago.
“Because of you.”
With another glare at him, she turned back to the door. As she
opened it, her hand still on the knob, more tears escaped her eyes.
“Sirus didn’t believe in vengeance. But Sirus isn’t here anymore.
I’ll get you for this, Joss. I’ll make you hurt twenty times more
than you hurt Sirus, if it’s the last thing I do.”
She held his gaze for
a moment before disappearing out the door, closing it quietly
behind her. Joss stayed where he was, staring at the closed door,
his heart heavy with the truth that had rang through in her words.
He wondered, briefly, why she hadn’t enacted her need for vengeance
right then and there, but then he realized that the answer had been
there in her eyes the entire time. Kat hadn’t killed him because
she wanted to take her time, wanted to make him suffer. Plus, at
the moment, she was simply too sad to do so.
He sank into his
pillow, his heart heavy, and wondered what the morning light would
bring.