Chapter 3 THE CURSE THAT NEVER DIED

The footsteps stopped outside Isabella's apartment.

Nobody moved.

Damien stood between Isabella and the door, his entire body tense. The veins beneath his skin had darkened, and his eyes, which had been a deep shade of brown, were slowly turning black.

Isabella stared at him in disbelief.

"What is happening to you?" she whispered.

"Stay behind me."

"Damien, your eyes-"

"I said stay behind me!"

His voice was so sharp that she flinched.

Immediately, his expression changed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I would never hurt you."

Before Isabella could respond, someone knocked on the door.

Three times.

Then a woman's voice floated through the wood.

"Damien, darling. I know you're in there."

Victoria Blackwood.

Her voice was sweet, almost playful, but something about it made Isabella's skin crawl.

"Open the door," Victoria continued. "We have so much to discuss."

Damien clenched his fists.

"Go away, Victoria."

A soft laugh came from the hallway.

"Three years, Damien. Three years since I watched them bury an empty coffin in your name, and you still haven't learned when to stop fighting."

Isabella looked at him.

"She knows you're alive."

Damien didn't answer.

Victoria knocked again.

"Or should I say, not entirely alive?"

Emma whispered a word Isabella had never heard her use before.

Then she tightened her grip on the lamp.

"Okay," Emma muttered. "I officially hate this woman."

Damien reached for the door.

"Don't!" Isabella grabbed his arm.

He looked down at her hand.

For one brief moment, the darkness in his eyes faded.

"Trust me," he said.

"That's exactly what people say before everything goes wrong."

A faint smile touched his lips.

"You're learning."

He opened the door.

Victoria stood in the hallway wearing a white designer dress beneath a long black coat. Her blonde hair fell in perfect waves around her shoulders, and diamonds glittered at her ears.

She looked like someone who belonged on the cover of a luxury magazine, not outside an apartment where a dead man was preparing for a fight.

Her eyes moved over Damien's face.

Then she smiled.

"Look at you. Still handsome. Still stubborn. Still refusing to stay dead."

Damien's expression remained cold.

"What do you want?"

Victoria stepped inside without waiting for permission.

"Your attention, obviously."

Her gaze shifted to Isabella.

"And you must be Isabella Hayes."

Isabella straightened.

"Have we met?"

"No. But I've heard so much about you."

"From whom?"

Victoria smiled.

"Your mother."

The room went silent.

Isabella felt as though the floor had disappeared beneath her feet.

"My mother is dead."

"Is she?"

"Stop saying that!"

Victoria raised her eyebrows.

"Touchy subject?"

Damien moved between them.

"Leave her out of this."

"Oh, Damien." Victoria sighed. "You always were sentimental. Even when you were alive."

She reached into her purse and produced a photograph.

Then she handed it to Isabella.

The picture showed a younger woman standing beside a man outside a large white mansion.

Isabella recognized the woman immediately.

Her mother.

She looked younger than Isabella remembered, with long brown hair and a bright smile.

But it was the man standing beside her who made Isabella's heart stop.

Damien.

Not the Damien standing in the room.

The Damien in the photograph looked exactly the same.

Same face.

Same dark hair.

Same eyes.

Isabella stared at the date printed on the back.

October 14, 1998.

Her hands began to tremble.

"That's impossible," she whispered.

Damien closed his eyes.

Victoria watched her carefully.

"Your mother was a beautiful woman. Clever, too. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of falling in love with someone she couldn't save."

Isabella turned toward Damien.

"What is she talking about?"

He didn't answer.

"Damien!"

His jaw tightened.

"Your mother knew my family."

"How?"

"Because she was involved in the experiment that brought me back."

Isabella shook her head.

"No. My mother was a nurse. She worked at a hospital in Baton Rouge. She had nothing to do with experiments."

Victoria laughed softly.

"That's what she wanted you to believe."

Isabella felt sick.

Every memory of her mother suddenly seemed uncertain.

The late-night phone calls.

The locked drawer in her bedroom.

The nightmares that had sometimes woken her mother screaming.

When Isabella was little, she'd asked about them.

Her mother had always given the same answer.

Some memories are better left buried, sweetheart.

Isabella had thought it was a figure of speech.

Now she wasn't so sure.

"What experiment?" she asked.

Victoria's smile disappeared.

"Ask Damien."

He looked at Isabella, and for the first time, she saw genuine shame in his eyes.

"Three years ago, my father discovered a way to bring the dead back to life. He called it the Lazarus Project."

Emma stared at him.

"You're telling me someone invented a zombie machine?"

"That's one way of describing it."

"That's a terrible way of describing it!"

"Emma," Isabella whispered.

"Sorry. I'm processing."

Damien continued.

"The project was supposed to help people who had died unexpectedly. Victims of accidents. Patients who couldn't be saved. My father believed death was a problem that science could solve."

"And did he succeed?" Isabella asked.

Damien looked at her.

"Not the way he intended."

He explained that the first experiments had failed. Bodies had been restored, but the people inside them never truly returned. Some were violent. Others couldn't remember who they had been.

Then his father discovered something unusual.

A rare condition made certain people compatible with the process. Their bodies could return to life, but only if a mysterious symbol was used during the experiment.

The same symbol engraved on Isabella's pendant.

"My mother had that symbol," Isabella whispered.

Damien nodded.

"She helped create it."

"Why?"

"Because she believed the project could save lives."

Victoria folded her arms.

"Until she discovered what it was really doing."

Damien's gaze hardened.

"My father wasn't trying to save people anymore. He was trying to control death. He wanted an army of people who couldn't die, couldn't age, and couldn't disobey him."

"And you?" Isabella asked.

"I was his first successful experiment."

The words settled over the room like a funeral shroud.

Isabella looked at the man she had met only hours earlier.

The man who had walked beside her in the rain.

The man who had warned her to stay away from him.

The man who had died three years ago and somehow returned.

"Why you?" she whispered.

Damien looked away.

"Because I was his son."

Victoria's expression hardened.

"And because Damien made the mistake of trying to destroy his father's work."

She stepped closer.

"Your beloved Damien discovered that the project required more than scientific knowledge. It required a living person with a very specific bloodline."

Her eyes settled on Isabella.

"Your mother was the last person who possessed it."

Isabella's blood ran cold.

"No."

"Yes."

"No, my mother had nothing to do with this!"

Victoria's voice softened.

"She tried to stop the experiment. That's why she disappeared."

Isabella shook her head violently.

"My mother died in a car accident."

"That's what the police were told."

Damien suddenly grabbed Victoria's wrist.

"Enough!"

For a moment, the room seemed to tremble.

Victoria looked down at his hand.

Then she looked back at his face.

"You can't protect her forever."

"I don't need forever."

His eyes darkened again.

"I only need enough time to end this."

Victoria pulled her hand free.

"You're becoming unstable, Damien. You can feel it, can't you? The hunger. The rage. The memories returning."

Damien said nothing.

"How long before you lose control again? A month? A week? A single bad night?"

She smiled at Isabella.

"Ask him what happened to the last person who tried to help him."

Isabella looked at Damien.

"What happened?"

He stared at the floor.

"Damien," she whispered.

"I hurt someone."

The confession came so quietly that she almost didn't hear it.

"Who?"

"My brother."

Victoria's expression turned triumphant.

"He was the only person who tried to bring Damien home after the experiment. Damien didn't recognize him. He thought he was being attacked."

She leaned toward Isabella.

"By the time he understood what he'd done, it was too late."

Damien's hands trembled.

"Get out," he said.

Victoria's smile faded.

"What?"

"Get out of my apartment."

She studied him for a moment.

Then she turned toward Isabella.

"One last piece of advice, darling. When Damien starts dreaming about the night he died, don't let him sleep beside you."

Isabella's stomach twisted.

"Why?"

Victoria walked toward the door.

"Because the curse doesn't just bring the dead back to life."

She paused.

"Sometimes, it chooses someone else to die in their place."

Then she left.

The door clicked shut.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Emma slowly placed the lamp on the table.

"I'm going to need a therapist," she announced. "Possibly three."

Isabella barely heard her.

She was staring at Damien.

"Is any of it true?"

He looked exhausted.

"Yes."

"Did my mother help bring you back?"

"Yes."

"Did she die because of it?"

"I don't know."

"And were you really responsible for your brother's death?"

Damien closed his eyes.

"I was responsible for what happened to him."

Isabella took a step backward.

He noticed immediately.

"Isabella-"

"Don't."

He stopped.

She pressed a hand against her chest, trying to steady her breathing.

"I met you last night. Less than twenty-four hours ago. And now you're telling me that my dead mother was involved in bringing you back from the dead, that some woman wants me, and that there's a curse connected to my family."

"I know how it sounds."

"No, you don't!"

Her voice cracked.

"You don't know what it feels like to discover that everything you believed about your own life might be a lie!"

Damien stood perfectly still.

Then he said something that made her anger falter.

"You're right. I don't know what it's like to discover that your life was a lie."

He looked at her with haunted eyes.

"But I know what it's like to discover that your death was."

For a moment, Isabella couldn't speak.

She wanted to hate him.

She wanted to tell him to leave and never come back.

But she remembered the sadness in his eyes when he'd spoken about his brother.

She remembered how carefully he'd held her hand in the dark.

And she remembered the way he had stood between her and Victoria without hesitation.

"Why did you say you'd seen my face in a dream?" she asked.

Damien slowly reached into his coat.

He pulled out a folded piece of paper, worn at the edges as though he'd carried it for years.

When he opened it, Isabella saw a drawing.

A young woman stood beneath a large oak tree, wearing a white dress. Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders, and a small pendant rested against her chest.

The drawing was dated twenty-seven years earlier.

But the woman in it wasn't Isabella's mother.

It was Isabella herself.

Her exact face.

Her exact eyes.

Even the small beauty mark beside her left eyebrow.

Isabella staggered backward.

"That's me."

Damien nodded.

"I found it in my father's study the night I died."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know."

He handed her the paper.

On the back, written in faded ink, were seven words.

WHEN SHE RETURNS, THE CURSE WILL END.

Isabella read them again.

Then again.

A sudden pain shot through her head.

She gasped and grabbed the edge of the table.

Images flashed through her mind.

A burning room.

A woman's voice screaming her name.

A man lying motionless beneath a white sheet.

And a whisper that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her memory.

Find him before the tenth night.

Then everything disappeared.

Isabella collapsed.

"Isabella!"

Damien caught her before she hit the floor.

For one terrifying second, his cold hand pressed against her cheek.

Then Isabella opened her eyes.

She looked directly at him.

And spoke in a voice that wasn't hers.

"Damien Cross, you have nine nights left before you die again."

His face went completely pale.

Because he recognized the voice.

It belonged to the woman who had cursed him three years ago.

His mother.

And she had been dead for twenty-seven years.