Read Online Falling Apart by Jane Lovering - Free Book Online

from flying into a million fragments. I flushed the loo repeatedly to cover the noise of the guttural sobs that sounded as though bits of my throat were coming away, while my body shook.
Sil. Four years of loving you. A few weeks of actually having you, and it was like all my dreams coming true together. And now, this.
    The ache in my soul wouldn’t go away.
    Finally I went back up to the office. Liam was on the phone and carefully averted his eyes from my face; he’d only once dared to ask me if I’d been crying and his computer still made a funny creaking noise, so he knew better than to repeat his mistake. Without looking at me, he pointed, dramatically, to a mug of coffee, now bearing a slight wrinkled skin, sitting on my desk.
    â€˜Thanks,’ I mouthed across the room. Even cool, the coffee was warmer than I was, so I chugged it down and it soothed the chill in my psyche, made me feel a bit better. The caffeine hit my system and jerked it from numb horror into alertness. Liam put the phone down.
    â€˜Head Office. They want to see you re your flagrant dereliction of duty. Oh, and they want you out on the streets as soon as.’
    â€˜Because?’ I put my mug down and wiped my clammy hands down my jeans.
    â€˜They reckon the word will be out among the general populace that our vamp went psycho down in London and that things might be a bit … uneasy out there. They think, and God alone knows why, because I know you, that having you out there patrolling might calm things down a bit. You’re to go in to the offices this afternoon. Three-ish.’ He put his hands flat on the desk and leaned forward, like a TV detective mid-interrogation. ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’
    â€˜Call my professionalism into question once more, Liam Prentiss, and you are going to be explaining away the scars for years to come.’ I fetched the tranq gun out of its cabinet and pocketed a handful of cartridges. ‘I need to do something. I might as well make myself useful.’
    â€˜I’ll keep an eye on the channels. If any more info comes down, I’ll ring you, all right?’
    â€˜Please.’ I slid the gun into my other pocket and the weight was instantly reassuring. ‘Even … even if it’s bad, Liam. I need to know. Whatever it is.’
    A pause. ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’
    Keep moving. It doesn’t hurt so much if you’re moving.
‘I’m going to fly by Vamp High Command, check in with Zan too. He might have some inside information that I can use.’ Assuming an air of perkiness, I patted my pockets down once more and bounced out of the office. As soon as I stepped out of the door three reporters from the local paper bundled into me, cameras flashing in my face and devices poised to record anything I might say. ‘How do you feel about your boyfriend breaking the Treaty?’ A tiny blonde woman, who looked as though all her knowledge about vampires came from the teenage end of the popular fiction market, simpered at me. ‘Anything to say about that?’
    â€˜No comment,’ I said firmly, and dodged through WH Smith, like a cut-price spy with a stationery fetish, popping out at the far side, away from the furiously inventive scribbling, and into the main shopping area, where I managed to reassure myself that the crowds would hide me from the spitefully inclined newshounds.
    The streets seemed a little quieter than usual, but not to a great degree. Vamps went rogue sometimes; it happened, and the majority of the population had great faith in the ability of Hunters to take them out before things got really bad. One had eluded capture for five weeks by hiding out in the Brecon Beacons, but usually justice was swiftly, and terminally, dealt. My hand shook for a second.
Sil.
What the hell happened to you?
There was that feeling again, as though my lower intestines had turned to glass, my heart stammered mid-beat and