Free Damned if I Do by Erin Hayes Page A

beautifully.” She offers me a smile, which I don’t know how she’s able to do, seeing as my cheeks are frozen. “You’re getting so much stronger.”
    “Edie,” Carl says, his voice nearly strangled, “it was like you were dead. In a freezer.”
    I blink away tears that I can’t seem to stop. My encounter with Meghan has left me shaken. “How long was I out?”
    He checks his phone. “Three minutes.”
    It felt so much longer. The crack of a headache fires off like lightning, and I hold my head in my hands. The light from the candles is enough to make me squint. It feels like a migraine came out of nowhere.
    “Ow.”
    “That may be a side effect of your trance,” Tessa explains gently. “The headaches.”
    “You could have warned me.” All I want to do is lay down and sleep this off.
    “Sorry, hun.”
    “Meghan didn’t mention it either.”
    She grins and gets to her feet. “So you did see Meghan. That’s exactly what we wanted.”
    “Yeah.” I take her proffered hand and she helps me up, which only serves to make black spots streak across my vision. The memory of my encounter with her already feels like it’s fading from my mind. “She said that I need to find the Progenitor.”
    “What?” Carl screeches. “ The Progenitor?”
    “Yes. I made sure that I heard her right.”
    “Impossible,” Aunt Tessa says dismissively. “He’s a myth. There’s no evidence that he ever existed.”
    “Meghan sure seemed to think he was alive. And she mentioned something about a cure.”
    There’s a shocked silence.
    “A cure?” Carl breathes.
    Yeah, I don’t believe it either. Another flash of pain splits my head and I groan. “Ugh, hurts so much.”
    “Go nap in the guest room,” my aunt commands. “Sleep it off.”
    I nod, which only makes it hurt worse. “Okay.”
    Aunt Tessa turns back to her candles, mutters the incantation to open the circle, and guides me out of the room.
    “Are you okay, Edie?” Carl asks, putting a hand on my bare left arm to help me. I’m too spent to even protest the touch. Usually I wouldn’t want anyone to touch the scar. It feels like I’m infecting them with some unseen pathogen, even though there’s no way for me to actually spread this disease.
    “Yeah. She told me to trust no one.”
    “What, she thinks there’s a mole or something?”
    My heart sinks as I consider the horrible feeling that she could possibly be meaning Jude. After all, what reason does he really have to help me if not to get close to me? I trust him. I think. I can’t let it cloud my judgment.
    I don’t say so out loud, because Tessa’s right here, and while Carl may know about his existence, I don’t want too many people knowing about the amnesiac vampire. It feels like I’m a dirty cop with a crush on a criminal.
    Carl knows exactly what I’m thinking and meets my eyes. I give him a slight shake of my head to tell him not to mention it. The good thing about my younger cousin is that he knows when to abandon a topic. He buttons up, and follows me to the guest room. I blindly collapse on the bed, barely able to hold myself up. Then I remember there’s something else I need to do: check with some vampires that the Progenitor is real. I know the best place to start, and the best person to do it with.
    “Can you get my phone?” I ask Carl. “It’s in my purse in the living room.”
    He chuckles. “I’m not your—”
    “ Now, Carl. Please?”
    He disappears from the doorway, leaving me alone in the room. It feels like he’s taking so long I begin to suspect that he’s angry at me. Then he comes back with my phone in hand.
    “What do you want to do?”
    I squint at him, unsure if I’d even be able to look at screen at the moment. Any sort of light is making my eyes feel like they’re burning inside their sockets. “Send a text.”
    “I’ll send it.” He doesn’t sound angry at least. “What number?”
    I lick my dried lips. “Uh…it’s the last text