But I haven’t told her. The last woman I said I loved turned into a pile of ash before my eyes not long afterward. It left me with some commitment issues.
I never thought I would fall for anyone after Adele, and now that I have, I am not sure what to do with it. I know Tex can feel it from me, even if she doesn’t recognize it, and I know she feels the same way. It’s the words that are just so hard to articulate. Three one-syllable words that neither of us can utter for fear of breaking something, or ruining it, or changing it. Once those words are out, you can’t take them back. Not that I would want to. I thought Adele would be the last woman I loved, but now I know it will be Tex.
If I don’t know anything else, I know that.
Sixteen
Ava
I end up having to go with Peter every night to a different place and we practice not killing people. I’m still at a 60 percent kill rate, but I think I’m doing better. Or at least he keeps telling me that I am, even though I’m pretty sure he’s lying. He believes the lie and that’s enough, I guess. He also taught me how to pull people in with my eyes, and I seriously suck at it, but sometimes it helps them stay still while I’m sucking the blood from their wrists. Never necks. Too much damage. In the back of my mind, I know I’m choosing the hard way to live this life. Or exist this existence. Killing is easy. So much easier. But I can’t be who I am and do that. So I have to choose and I choose to be human, with a penchant for drinking blood.
He takes me to Canada and it’s beautiful. One night we even go all the way to Prince Edward Island, just for the hell of it. Seeing it in real life, instead of just pictures, would have been breathtaking if I still breathed. We sneak into the Anne of Green Gables house, which has terrible security, and I get to cross another item off the list of Things To Do With My Immortality. It’s going to be a working list, because I never want to complete it, which sort of defeats the purpose of a list, but I really love lists.
I read my mother’s second letter, and the first, again, and start a ritual that before I read the next letter in the sequence, I re-read those before it. The second letter is a bit longer than the first, and would have made me cry, if I could.
She talks about how hard it had been to get pregnant with me and how desperately she’d wanted a daughter and how she knew, even though the doctors told her the chances were slim, that she would have me, and she would name me Ava-Claire.
She tells me details about my birth that I’d never known, and shares exactly how she felt when she’d held me in her arms the very first time.
In that moment I knew that my heart wasn’t mine anymore. It was yours, and this tiny person was going to carry it for me, and you’ve carried it every day since, and you carry it now. I can go to the great unknown knowing that piece of me is alive inside you. How awful it must be for people who don’t have that.
Peter said he doesn’t want to intrude on my letters, but I read them aloud to him. I like sharing them with him. I share everything else.
I try to call Dad every day, sometimes twice, and guilt should have stabbed at me for all the stories I made up about seeing colleges, but it didn’t. I guess all my guilt was used up on feeling horrible about being a murderer.
He seems better, and I chat with Aj about it, and she says that he’s going back to work soon. He’d taken leave when Mom got sick and had decided to stay at home for a while after she was gone. Honestly, I’m pretty sure the bank where he worked told him to stay on leave, and that it wasn’t his choice. It will be good for him to get back to work. Give him something to get up in the morning for. He loved his job as a loan officer (God knew why).
Tex is still on her plan to find willing donors and I have my suspicions that she’s gotten Viktor to put ads online on some creepy website they found. It feels a little bit like prostitution, but she reminds me that’s legal in Vegas. Because Vegas seems like the bar we should use to be measuring whether something was morally okay or not.
We’d all called Jamie multiple times and he was settling into his new apartment with Brooke and Cassie. His voice is just so happy, genuinely happy, that I’m beginning to think it’s going to be a good move for him. Not that getting out of his house would ever be anything but a good move, but I’m not so sure about Brooke. But she still hasn’t Claimed him, which is good.
~^*^~
We’re out at the lake on Friday and I’m panicking in my head. Only Peter knows, of course, because outwardly, I’m laying in my bathing suit on a large rock that makes a little island in the middle of the lake.
There are few humans around this part of the lake, but then I sense someone getting in the water. I haven’t fed on anyone in the daytime, and no one in the area since the debacle with the house-hunting couple, but I’m having a hard time.
I tug on my connection with Peter, silently asking him to come hold me down. He comes and sits behind me and wraps his arms around me, and I try to concentrate on something else.
“Another swimmer?” Tex says, sitting up. She’s seen this drill a bunch of times already.
“Yes.”
The water magnifies his heartbeat as his arms cut through the water and his feet churn it up behind him. I can tell he isn’t the best swimmer, and he’s alone. Stupid. So stupid.
I meditate, trying to focus on Peter’s arms like I’ve done all the other times, but then the guy slows, and his swimming becomes erratic. His heart rate picks up and he starts to panic.
He’s going to drown.
Peter watches me and the clock ticks as the man’s head goes under and his lungs fill with water.
“What are you going to do?” Peter asks and I want to scream at him that I have no fucking idea and the longer I sit here, the more water fills the guy’s body, and the chances that he’s going to live get slimmer.
“Let go of me,” I say, and he does. As soon as I can, I dive into the water and propel myself forward, shooting through the water like a bullet.
The man has started to sink even further and his eyes are partly closed, little bubbles issuing from his mouth.
He’s given up.
I put my hands under his arms and listen as his heart slows and starts giving up as well.
I still don’t know what to do as I wrench him to the surface and rocket toward the shore.
Unlike all the times before, Peter isn’t by my side, his mouth at my ear, telling me what to do. No, I’m left to deal with this one on my own. I glance back to the rock and they’re all watching me. Waiting to see what I’ll do.
Oh I want it. His blood. I want it so much I can almost hear the sound of my teeth tearing into his flesh, feel the wet, warm liquid in my mouth.
I press my hand in the middle of his chest, trying to remember everything from my babysitter’s course so long ago on how to do CPR.
Trying not to press too hard so I won’t punch through his ribcage, I begin chest compressions, over and over. His head is turned to the side so that the water will come out when he coughs.
But he’s not coughing. I don’t think I can put my mouth on his without biting him. I can’t be that close, so I just keep pressing, but nothing happens. His heart is giving up. His body is giving up.
“Come on, you son of a bitch!” I scream at him, and slap his face, as if that will do something. It only makes his head slam to the other side and bang off a rock.
I get more frantic, and I press too hard and hear some ribs crack.
Shit.
I’m trying to save this guy, and so far all I’ve done is shove him closer to death. I try to keep pressing, but more ribs crack and one punctures his lung.
He’s going to die. I look up at Peter once more and he blinks at me.
I look up at the sky and back down at the guy and try once more, but it’s no use.
So I dip my head down and suck the last little bit of life from him.
Peter
When the man started to drown, I knew he would be a goner, but Ava needed to do this on her own. I can’t hold
her hand through everything and I have taught her everything I can. She has to make her own path, and as much as I want to guide her, I have to step back. Maybe I have been too involved, have pushed her too far.
“She’s going to kill him, isn’t she?” Texas says, squinting through her sunglasses as Ava tries to revive the man.
“He’s already dead,” Viktor says. “And he would have been, even if she had not tried to save him. She is doing him a mercy.”
Texas gives him a sharp look.
“It doesn’t exactly seem merciful to me.”
“Why not? Drowning is a terrible way to die. She will give him a quicker death.”
“I guess,” Texas says, but I can tell she is unconvinced. Hm. This could be a point of contention for them. Ava and I had never talked much about this kind of thing. She didn’t want to know about my feeding activities, and I didn’t want to bring her into that part of my world.
She is part of it now anyway.
Ava made a valiant effort to save the man, but he is too far gone. I wait until she is done with him before I dive off the rock and make my way to her.
“Goddammit! I tried, I swear, but I just couldn’t save him.” She pushes the body away and falls into my chest.
“But you did try. I watched you. There was nothing you could have done differently.”
She shakes her head against my chest.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Peter.”
I don’t need to ask what she’s referring to.
“I didn’t think it would feel like this. Be like this. You made it look easy, you only took a little bit from me.”
This is not true. Before I met her, it was anything but easy, but the Claiming somehow made me need less blood from her to sustain me. Or maybe it was how I felt about her, or a million other reasons.
“How can I go back home? It’s Friday, and I have to be there on Sunday.”
“I will be with you, and we can always come back here. If you tell your father you are working, we can come to the house and stay. And we can come at night so you don’t have to be home. I won’t let you hurt someone you love, Ava-Claire.”
She sighs.
“Ugh, that felt weird. And it isn’t as helpful as it used to be.” She glances down at the swimmer.
“What should we do with him?”
“I will take care of him.” I’m going to do it in a way that she would find barbaric, so I want to shield her from it.
“No, I should take care of it. What were you going to do?”
“Leave him floating near one of the cabins. It will look like he was battered around a bit and drowned .”
“That sounds horrible, but I guess it’s the only way,” she says.
She looks down at the body again.
“Sorry, buddy. I gave it a shot.” She picks him up and dives back under the water with him. A few minutes later, she swims back toward me.
“Done and done.” She sits next to me.
“I still feel like shit about it.”
“You will. That is just part of it. But it gets better.”
She laughs, but it is not a joyful laugh.
“So the more people I kill, the less I’ll care.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know, I know. I’m just being a bitch. Maybe I’m PMS-ing. Oh wait, I don’t do that anymore.” Her tone is bitter and she picks up a rock and throws it in the lake, making a splash.
“I don’t want you to be unhappy, my Ava,” I say, touching her face.
“I’m not. I’m not. Immortality doesn’t come for free, right? This is just the price I have to pay for being with you. From now on I’ll suck it up and stop complaining and angsting. I promise.”
She kisses me and I can just barely taste the blood in her mouth.
Tex
“Now you’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?” I say and Ava shakes her head.
“No, I have Peter. I can do this.” We’re sitting in her Jetta, parked just up the road from her driveway. My car is just behind hers. I’ve offered to come and stay, but she keeps saying that she can handle it.
I’m not so sure.
“I can do this,” she says again.
“Yes, you can. Just think about murdering puppies every time you think about blood. Or . . . farts. Something really unpleasant. Visualize that.”
“Thanks, that’s really helpful,” she says in a way that tells me she doesn’t find it helpful at all.
“Hey, I’m just trying to be your friend.”
“I know, I know. Okay, here I go.” I get out of the car and watch as Peter does the same, dashing into the trees to be at the back of the house in case she needs him to hold her down. I go back to my car where Viktor is waiting.
“How do you think she’ll do?” I say.
“I’m not sure. It is all up to her. I know I couldn’t do it when I was so new, but everyone is different and she has retained much of her humanity. If she wants it badly enough, she can do it.”
I watch as Ava parks the car and gets out slowly.
“Do you think I could do it?” I don’t turn to watch his face as Ava walks up the steps and opens the door.
I hold my breath and wait for a scream, but all I hear is Ava chatting with her Dad and her aunt and then thumps as she drags her stuff back upstairs and closes the door.
Crisis averted. For now.
“As I said, I think you can do anything you want to. Do you want me to change you?” We’ve never really talked about this much. I tend to skirt the issue and change the subject and he lets me. I don’t want to fight with him, and I have the feeling this would cause tension in our relationship, so I avoid it at all costs, which isn’t like me. I usually enjoy confrontation, and getting secrets out in the open, but this one I just want to avoid for as long as I can.
“I don’t know, Viktor.” I sigh and put my head back on the headrest. “I keep thinking about it, and Ava and everything, but I just don’t know if it’s right for me.”
“I understand.”
“Do you want me to?” I really, really don’t want to know the answer to this question, but I ask it anyway. He’s blocking me again, and he’s been doing that a lot lately. I want to confront him about it, but I’m afraid he’ll just shut me out even more. I sense him wrestling with something. Something he doesn’t want to share with me.
“Only if you want to.” I don’t know what I want his answer to be. Do I want him to want to change me? To be with me forever? Or do I want him to value my human life so much that he’ll let me go and live it?
“Let’s not talk about it,” I say, turning the car on and pulling out of the driveway. Our services are no longer needed and I should probably get home and see what shenanigans my brother has gotten up to.
Viktor and I are silent on the short drive, but that’s not unusual for him. I feel like I have this connection with him that makes us so close, but then he still turns out to be such a mystery sometimes. I wish I had a key to unlock his brain.
The problem is, I think, that neither of us really knows where we stand with the other. We don’t talk about love, or the future, or our future. It’s living in the now, in the moment, and that’s all we can deal with at the moment, but the time will come when we have to talk about the future. What I mean to him and what he means to me.
There are these times where I’m just so happy and I realize how much I care about him and then there are moments of crippling doubt. Of confusion and fear and I don’t think they’re all mine.
We need to talk about us, but neither of us wants to start the conversation.
Seventeen
Ava
The smell hits me like a truck and I have to pause for a moment in the doorway. Maybe I’ll get acclimated to it. There’s an idea I hadn’t thought of.
“Hey you!” Aj comes around the corner and gives me a huge hug. I don’t even have time to prepare for it. The shock is probably what helps me give her a brief squeeze and
then let go before my hands clamp around her neck and tilt it so I can have better access to her jugular.
“Ouch,” she says, her face frowning a little as I back away as slowly as I can. “Did you get stronger or something? I don’t remember you hugging that hard.” Crap. She’s noticed my increased strength
“Wait a second.” She holds up both hands, as if to stop me from moving, but I’m standing still.
“Are your eyes different?” She reaches out to touch my face and pull it closer to inspect, but Dad comes around the corner and I have to focus on not going for him, too.
“Hey, Ava-Claire Bear. Did you have fun?” It’s actually a good thing I don’t tan anymore, because all the sun I’ve consumed would have made my skin suspiciously brown and then I would have had some explaining to do, but I’m still pasty pale, and will stay that way forever.
“Yeah, it was great,” I say, giving him a huge smile. I manage to tone down the strength when I hug him, because he doesn’t say anything. Aj is still watching me suspiciously. Great. She’s one of those people (like Tex) who notices things that you don’t want them noticing and then points them out when you don’t want them pointed out.
“I’m going to put my stuff in my room, and I’ll be right down.” I hold up my bag and then dash for the stairs.
Peter is waiting for me like so many times before and I give him a look as I slam the door and lean on it.
“So far, so good, but I definitely need to be out of here tonight. I don’t think I can take too many hours at a time.”
I open my suitcase and start taking mine and Peter’s dirty clothes and putting them in my hamper. Peter had neglected to buy a washer and dryer for the new house, so he ordered one. I have very few clothes because most of them had been covered in blood and not salvageable, even after soaking in cold water. I couldn’t stay in my room too long, so I just dealt with the clothes as Peter watched me.
“I’m fine. I think.”
“I will be here if you need me.” I dash over and give him a quick kiss before letting him go back to his books. I walk slowly back down the stairs.