Page 45 of Crimson Born

“Oh my God.... it was all my fault. Abbi...you’re here because of me.”

“Don’t say that. It was no one’s fault. It was an accident. You said you’d gotten up early that morning for practice, and you probably stayed at the party too late because of me. Anyway, it’s done now. We can’t change the past. All we can do is move forward.”

Reece didn’t seem the least bit cheered by my assurances. He nearly collapsed back into the chair behind him, burying his face in his hands.

“How long have you been here? How did yougethere?” he asked without looking at me.

“It’s been nearly three months. I went back to my village after, well,after.” I opted not to go into any great detail. I didn’t like thinking about those horrible first few days, and Reece really didn’t need to hear about it right now.

Wrapping my fingers around the locket I’d worn every day since then, I chose my words carefully.

“It didn’t go so well. My friend Josiah—you remember him from the party? He was turned too. He couldn’t handle it. He killed his parents... and then he daylighted himself out of remorse. That’s when I came here. I had nowhere else to go.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“Do you remember what happened after the accident? Where you went? Where you were for so long?”

He shook his head. “It’s all a blank. I remember the car being on fire... and then waking up here and seeing you when the door opened.”

“It’s okay,” I assured him again. “I’m sure it’ll come back to you. And if it doesn’t... maybe it’s for the best.”

After that, Reece seemed to settle a bit. I continued to visit him in the clinic every day. He was always waiting in his chair when I arrived, a little closer to the barred doorway each time.

After a few days, he agreed to take the injections of vampire blood—but only ifIwas the one holding the needle.

At long last Dr. Coppa allowed me to go into Reece’s room.

He touched a panel on the wall, and the steel bars retracted into the door frame. Accompanied by the doctor—and a couple of sizable orderlies—I entered the room.

Funny, though I’d been seeing Reece daily, I was suddenly nervous. Not about the shot—about being close to him again.

One of the orderlies told Reece to go sit on his bed, and he complied. The other one held a small tray containing a hypodermic needle filled with red liquid.

I picked it up and moved toward the bed, willing my fingers not to shake. “You’re not scared of needles, are you?”

“As a matter of fact, I am,” he admitted. “Every time I had to get a vaccination, I cried like a baby—long after I was a baby. I’ve skipped getting a flu shot for the past few years and just taken my chances. Of course, ifyou’dbeen my nurse, I might have had a better attitude about it.”

My cheeks heated in a flash at his flirtation. He smiled, rolling up the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal his left shoulder muscle.

After being around vampire males non-stop these past few months, it shouldn’t have surprised me thatthat muscle—all of them in fact—were even more developed than they’d been the night we’d met.

Butthisvampire male... well he was just that much more alluring than the rest.

At close range he smelled just as amazing as before. More so, now that my senses were more acute.

“Well you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” I said to keep my mind off it. “Vampires don’t get the flu. Okay, please hold still. Maybe don’t look at the needle going in.”

Andpleasestop looking atmelike that.

Reece took the suggestion, turning his head away from the injection site and staring straight ahead. Unfortunately, straight ahead happened to be where my chest was located.

Not helping the nerves. At all.

He barely winced when the needle made contact or when I pressed the plunger to inject the vampire blood into his system. But then his brows drew together, and he reached out with his right hand to capture my locket in his palm.

“I didn’t think Amish people wore jewelry.”

He let the locket drop, and my hand came up to cover it, pressing it protectively to my body.

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