“Hey, man, it's good to see you again. I'd shake your hand, but I'm pretty gross right now.” Actually, he smells intoxicating. Peter moves closer to me and puts a hand on my back. To anyone else, it would look possessive. But really, he's keeping me from sinking my teeth into Jamie's skin.
“It is good to see you as well.”
“Hey, why don't we all go out for pizza? I'm starved. Cassie's going to come.” He waves at her and she waves back, one hand on her stomach. I've never seen her look so happy. She's practically glowing.
“I don't know; Peter and I have plans...” I trail off, hoping he'll fill in the blanks for me.
“We can break them.”
“Are you sure?” Is he sure?
“Yes,” he says and blinks. Okay then.
Tex comes too, and we actually have a fantastic time. There's an awkward moment where Peter has to explain his lactose intolerance as the reason for not eating, but everyone accepts it and moves on. It's been ages since I talked to Cassie. She's bubbly like I haven't seen her in years, gushing about the baby and all her plans.
After we're all stuffed with pizza (except for Peter), I drive Tex home, Peter hanging out in the backseat. It's awkward, but at least I can see him in the rearview — which actually makes it hard to focus on the road. Somehow I get us all there in once piece.
Tex is busy fiddling with something in her purse when I pull into her driveway.
“Shit,” she says, yanking her hand out of her purse as if it's on fire. Before I can say anything, a smell that overpowers everything else slaps me in the face.
Blood. Fresh, red and oh-so-delicious. No, wait! Not delicious. Yucky, gross...
Distantly, I watch Tex hold her hand up, examining the bead of scarlet on her fingertip.
“Stupid needles. They never stay on that little card...” Before I have the chance to wonder what Tex is doing with needles in her purse, my vision blurs and narrows to one point. That little, itty, bitty drop of blood. I want it.
I don't think. I just act. My hands, of their own accord, snap out like whips and wrap themselves around Tex's wrist. Slowly, closing my eyes and trying to be calm, I bring her finger to my lips. I register some resistance, but I will not be deterred from my goal. I shove her finger in my mouth. And...
Nothing. I spit it out and she yanks it back.
“What the hell, Ava? What is wrong with you? Ugh.” She wipes my spit off on her skirt.
“I'm so sorry.” My voice comes out so quietly that it's like I have no air behind the words. They shiver through the car, and I don't think Tex hears me.
“What is wrong with you?” she repeats. Her voice is quieter, too. It's colored by disbelief. I stare at the shifter, because I seriously cannot look at her and see her face as she looks at me and realizes what I've done. As I realize what I've done. And then I want to get out of the car. Because I can't breathe, can't think, can't, can't, can't…
“Ava? Do you hear me?” Her voice seems so far away, as if she's talking through a tube that's been blocked. My vision continues to swirl and my head seems to float away from my neck like a balloon on a string. Just before it happens, I realize I'm going to faint. I have just enough time to watch the steering wheel smash into my face as I meet it halfway.
Twenty-One
Peter
I pull the door off the car and discard it before catching her face before it hits the steering wheel.
“Holy shit!” Texas screams, jumping back in the passenger door. I have no time for her.
“Ava?” I pull her face toward me. Her eyes are closed. “Ava. You need to wake up.” I shake her gently, and her head bobbles loosely. I know you are supposed to slap a fainted person, but I am afraid to do her damage. I pull her from the car, laying her on the driveway.
“Ava?” Her eyes flutter a few times. She's coming back.
“Peter? What happened?”
“You fainted, Ava-Claire.”
“I, what?” She puts her hand to her head. I feel her disorientation, thick and sticky. Her eyes search mine, her forehead puckers. I try to brush it away with my thumb.
“Peter?”
“Yes, Ava?”
“I did something bad.” The worry gnaws at her and bites at the edges of her mind. I feel it as well. She need not worry. I brush my fingers on her cheeks. Such a precious thing she is.
“You could never do anything bad, my Ava.” Her face smoothes like a piece of silk, but the worry doesn't go away from her mind.
“You've never called me that.”
“Not out loud.” Her skin starts to warm mine. My desires collide with each other. I want her lips as much as I want her blood. I am not sure which will win.
“Ava?” Texas crawls out of the car.
“Tex.” Ava closes her eyes and breathes her name like she wishes she could take it back.
“Are you okay?” Tex hovers, as if she wants to make sure Ava is okay, but also is scared of what occurred.
“No. I'm not.”
She nods. “Yeah. I know. I think we should talk.” Her hands twist together, as if she's coiling and uncoiling a rope. Ava stares at me. I can feel it from her. She doesn't want to, but I know we have to.
My thumb traces her mouth. “You need to share this with someone. Someone human. Because I am not.”
She tries to shake her head. “I don't care.”
“I know, but you need her. Now more than ever. Don't burn your bridges, Ava-Claire.”
“That's what she'd say.” She means her mother. I know. I take my hands from her face and help her sit up.
“I really don't want to do this.” My back blocks her face from Texas' view.
“I know.” She closes her eyes and pulls in a shaky breath. Such a simple thing, breathing. It seems to calm them. Noctali are naturally calm, but ever since I Claimed her, I have experienced turmoil without a way of assuaging it. I try to take a breath into my lungs. The dry air rattles.
“That was gross,” Ava says, sounding more like herself. “It sounded like a rattlesnake.” She makes a face as I help her to her feet. Her legs wobble like a newborn calf, so I hold her elbows to make sure she doesn't fall.
Tex sighs. “Let's go in and sit down. Looks like I'm going to have to get ready not to freak out.”
“You did okay the last time,” Ava points out.
“True.” She rubs her arms and pulls her skirt down. A nervous habit.
“Come on, kids. I'll get some cookies and milk.” Tex walks us to the front door, using her key to get inside. The house is clean and square and very human.
There are books, but none of them look like they've been read. You can tell when a book has been loved. The pages show crinkles and folds where a thumb has pressed against them. The covers have stains. A residue of human oils sticks to them where they've been held with living hands. None of these books have that.
Texas escorts us into a kitchen filled with white and stainless steel. It doesn't look as if it's been eaten in. The overwhelming scent is artificial lemon cleaner.
“Water. Shouldn't you have some water?” Texas asks Ava.
“Yeah, sure.” I put Ava onto a stool, standing behind her so she doesn't fall off. She holds onto me as if she's never going to let go.
Ava
So here we are again. Different time, different location, but the same deal. Explaining the mistakes I have made, yet again.
“So you're a vampire now?”
“No,” I say for the third time. Tex doesn't seem to understand that while, yes, I do think blood smells really freaking good, once I put it in my mouth, it's not so much. I know that taste is tied to scent, and that if you can't smell, you can't taste, but that doesn't seem to apply in this case. It's like the second the blood hits the air, it starts getting not so yummy.
Oh, who am I kidding? I've been living with this for a few weeks now and it hasn't gotten better. It's gotten worse. What worries me the most is that day when blood will taste good. Then things are going to get d
icey.
“But you want blood.”
I squirm on the stool. “Uh, yeah.”
“So what is it that makes a vampire?”
I throw up my hands. “I don't know, Tex; there isn't a manual with a specific definition.”
Peter senses my frustration. “We are in the dark on this, Texas.”
“I've told you, it's Tex.” She holds up her hand as if to get her point across. She's still being weird to him. That doesn't make me happy. I want her to be nice to him because he's my boyfriend.
God, this is complicated.
“So what happens now?” Tex says. I asked Peter the exact same thing when he Claimed me.
I shrug. Peter blinks. I should probably explain that gesture to her. Eh, she's a smart girl; she'll figure it out.
“What is that blinking thing?” Maybe not.
“It's kind of like a shrug. Sometimes. Other times it's a yes. Sometimes it's an ‘eh.’” Peter looks at me. “What? I pay attention. It can mean about a thousand different things. I just figured out what some of them are.”
“You are correct.”
“Am I?” I'd never asked him about it. Seemed like something I'd be able to put together on my own.
Tex brings us back to the matter at hand. “Okay then. So you want blood and you can't control yourself. Clearly. And apparently I have nice-smelling blood. And you're my best friend. This. Is a problem.” I'd go so far as to say crisis.
“It is time to see Cal.”
Tex pipes up. “Who's Cal?” Probably hoping for another attractive brother.
“You explain,” I say, leaning back into Peter's chest. I'm so tired. And Tex's blood fills the room. Even though it still smells like lemon cleaner, the blood's there, too. It's always there. And it will be until Peter faces facts and turns me. But what will it be like, then? Will it be worse? Somehow I think I know the answer to that question.
Peter gives her an even more abbreviated version than I got. It pisses me off when he keeps secrets, but he's never kept anything that I really needed to know. For the most part.
“So you really think he can help her?” Tex is doing her job being the skeptical best friend.
“He agreed to it. He has helped me before.”
“Oh, I bet there are some good stories there.” Tex leans on the counter and raises her eyebrows suggestively. Luckily, Peter is immune to that kind of thing.
“More or less.” Oh snap, Tex gets the more-or-less line. “Cal was the one who helped me stop killing.”
“How?”
He blinks. This time it stands in for a heavy sigh. “It is a long story.”
Tex looks at the clock. “My parents won't be home for at least two hours. But if we're telling a juicy story, I think I need some coffee. And chips. I need chips.”
Tex shoos us into the living room. I wait until she's out of earshot before I hiss at Peter, “So? Are you going to fill me in?”
“In a moment.” He's stalling. I can't imagine why.
“Peter,” I say, sitting down on the couch and pulling him with me, “nothing you could have done would bother me. Nothing.”
“I wish that were true.” No, no, no. This is Dark Peter. I don't like him. He takes Smiling Peter and puts him away for a while.
“I love you. Nothing changes that.” I grab his face, hard. My fingers want to melt against his skin. My lips crave his, but I resist. I need him to understand. He doesn't say anything.
Instead, he takes me into his chest and my arms go all the way around him. The muscles in his back are so lovely. They remind me of a study on the male form. Not that I'm partial or anything. But when it comes to backs, Peter's is the best.
“Okay, let's hear it,” Tex says, setting down the tray.
“It was a long time ago.” This sounds much like, “Once upon a time...”
Twenty-Two
Peter
When I boarded the Carpathia, the ship that picked up survivors from the sinking, I was only part human. Di covered me with a tarp and an old coat to keep the sun off me. I was so pale that it was easy to convince the other passengers that I was ill.
I emerged from the haze of pain and bone-crushing transformation the day we reached New York. She took me to an alley while she went and found someone for me — a drunk, wallowing in the gutter. He didn't even open his eyes when I slashed his throat apart and lapped the blood from his wounds.
She brought me another and another until there was a pile of bodies, and we had to move on. Di stayed with me and I clung to her for a week. I had nothing else to hold onto. She took me to places where I could lie naked in the sun. Those days I needed as much as I could get or else I had trouble moving. My body was still adjusting to the change. Di rarely left my side, always stroking my face and calling me dear and saying she loved me. I barely heard any of it. I did almost nothing but feed and soak in sun.
Two weeks later she brought me a street urchin. Up until then, she had brought me adults. Mostly male, mostly drunks she had fished from the street. People who didn't have a life to begin with and who wouldn't be missed.
But then she brought a little boy with a filthy face and sooty hands, perhaps from coal dust from one of the factories. His nose ran clear liquid that he didn't bother to wipe. The boy couldn't have been more than eight or nine, and he looked at Di as if she was an angel. She smiled at him and shoved him toward me. The boy looked scared for a moment and that was it. Memories came back to me: of my sisters, being put in the lifeboat, saying good-bye to my mother. I pushed him away, letting my wings rip from my back. The boy fell to the ground.
“Are you an angel?” He gazed at me with an open face and clear blue eyes. I took one more look at him, but didn't answer.
I left Di then. I turned and walked away. She did not follow me as I expected her to.
Cal found me three days later, lying in a river in upstate New York, trying to drown myself.
“That is entirely useless, you know?” I opened my eyes to look at him through the water that made his form slide and shimmer. As if he wasn't real.
“Who are you?”
“You can call me Cal.” He lay down in the river beside me. I could feel the water, but I didn't know if it was cold or not. I couldn't remember cold.
“You can't die, you know?” Di had explained what I was. That I would live forever. But this wasn't living. This was an existence. And I didn't want it.
“I know.”
“What is your name?”
“Peter.”
“Nice to meet you.” He was cordial, at least. “How long has it been?”
“How long has what been?”
“Since you consumed human blood.”
“I don't know.” I had lost track of days. Lost track of sun and moon and sky.
Lost, lost, lost.
“You look healthy enough. But I know a place, if you would like to come with me.”
I met his eyes, one a bright blue that was almost the color of the sky, the other a rich brown like fresh earth. “I want to die.”
“You already have.”
“I want to die again.”
“You can't.” He stood up, water dripping from the back of his perfectly tailored suit. Someone I knew wore suits like that. My father. Yes, my father wore suits like that.
I stood up and went with him. I had no other place to go.
While we walked, he talked. He told me of the weather and the history of the area. Nothing about himself. Nothing about why he was here. Why he had found me. Why he was being nice to me.
It didn't concern me enough to ask.
I wasn't aware that I should ask. My existence had narrowed to two things: my need for blood and sun.
I'd lost everything else in the transition. Cal reminded me how to talk again. How to form words with my mouth and carry on a conversation. We walked for miles upon miles, never seeing a human. I started talking. The words were large and hard to hold onto at first. My mouth had forgotten how to be used for anythi
ng other than a weapon.
Slowly, Cal brought me back to myself. Not my human self, but he helped me find pieces and start to put myself together. It was not easy, crafting this new person. In some ways I was a newborn, able to walk and talk, but unable to discern what things were. He showed me the world again.
Cal taught me about balance, about not interfering with humans. To take the ones society would not miss.
Di was never far from my thoughts. Her face was the only constant thing in my mind. I clung to the image of her as if it would float away and I would be lost. As much as I said I wanted to die, the actual thought of it did scare me. Perhaps not scared. I wasn't scared of anything anymore.
It was more that I would continue on in this existence as a thing that didn't do anything but exist. If was going to live, I wanted it to mean something. Even then, I thought there must have been a purpose to what happened to me. A reason for me to become what I was. A higher plan. We had always gone to church, and I had prayed every night before I went to bed.
The memories were thin, transparent things that slid from my grasp as I tried to catch hold of them. Cal told me not to worry; they would return in time.
Time passed and Cal and I made our way from New York to Canada and back down into Minnesota. We spent our days in the sun and our nights hunting. I grew better at it, grew to love the thrill of chasing, catching, feeding. My whole existence centered on that. I didn't worry about killing.
I never took a child. Only adults. Mostly men who waiting in dark alleys for girls to come by. Or people who lived alone.
Weeks passed. I thought about Di so much that it nearly drove me mad. I never mentioned her to Cal. We never talked about things like that. I didn't meet any other noctali.
It wasn't until we met up with Di in California that I started to think something was not right. She expressed her surprise at seeing me again and was delighted with Cal. She showed no concern that we hadn't seen one another in a while. She reminded me that she loved me. I told her that I loved her back. I did. Of that one thing, I was certain. It was not a passionate love or a romantic love. It simply was and would always be.