Page 16 of Accidental Vampire

She nodded. Another kidney poke got her to read her lines.

“This is all your fault.”

I heard the stairway door crank open. The bald guy was back, with a giant cooler and a paper sack. He froze. I got him moving with a head nod to the van. I shifted off her and grabbed Nadine by the hair, cranking her neck around to look at me. That anger was rubbed out proper now.

“Say it,” I said in a lover’s whisper.

“It’s my fault.” I kept the pressure up until I squeezed out an “I’m sorry”. This one, she meant. Probably felt in her bones.

I stood swiftly, everything swirled until I closed my eyes, took a settling breath. Baldy was behind the wheel now, eyes ahead. He closed the door with as little noise as a mortal could make. Nadine scrapped her legs and arms under her to get to her knees.

I put a boot on her back. Just enough pressure to bruise the silk, to leave a print, sending her down again. When I was sure she got the message, I strode forward to the van, hopping in the back, snapping the door shut.

“Drive.” I commanded with two pounds on the floor, knowing the vibration would carry. The van jolted forward. I rubbed my temples as the nausea flooded back.

Drugs were great until you didn’t want to be high anymore and you were on the run with a dead girl at your feet.

THIRTEEN

LACHLAN

The stop and go traffic was doing nothing for the fading high. We swayed and bumped about until the long stretch of the GWB scrolled out before us and the annoying driving prompts from Google Maps hushed up. That voice was engineered to cut right through the sounds of engines and traffic.

The girl was still dead. If she made it, she wouldn’t wake for hours, anyway.

I was out for days, apparently. Warren joked that he and Saint were about to put me in a box, then I woke up screaming. I shivered at the memory, desperate to push it away. The pain and terror echoed through you forever. No one likes to talk about the day they were made. My making day was a celebration, planned, with an eye to comfort and ease. I wasn’t made dead in a hallway and carted off on the floor of a dirty van.

Her skirt had ridden up. Pushed up her thighs when Nadine fireman carried her down to the garage. I reached over and tugged on the hem. I couldn’t get it all the way down, back in place. Her legs were cocked at bad angles, and her arms were all over the place. I moved to her shoulders and shifted her, stretched her out into a more comfortable position, flat on her back. I crossed her arms over her stomach.

The bald mortal driver had stashed a cooler back here. It was stocked with a few blood bags and some bottled water. And a knife the length of my forearm. I had stashed that behind the cooler. I was not hacking off anyone’s head in a moving van. That would be… inelegant. I rummaged around for napkins or something. Her pale thighs weren’t right with blood smudges. I didn’t want to douse her with water. I gave up and pulled at her hem again.

I pushed her hair out of her face. Even dead, she was more real than all the women in the family. Veronica tended to pick people who had a certain look, long faces and high cheekbones. Her face was… soft and rounded, strong jaw, though. With full lips, but pale. I rubbed my thumb along her bottom lip, wanting that flush of color back. She had the kind of mortal face that would look distinguished with crow’s feet and gray at her temples. But she’d never get old, would she? She was either dead or undead now, or whatever the fuck we were.

I rubbed my chest. The fucking thing still beat and ached more now that it had found a moment of escape. I moved around to smooth her skirt out proper now. Made sure the neckline wasn’t too revealing. I tugged the knot of the black ribbon around her neck to the front, adjusted it until it covered my fang mark.

She looked dead. Like prepared for death and mourning. Someone would mourn her, right? Not in the tortured way I was mourning Warren, the never ending misery. But she had people, didn’t she? I rolled her gently on her side, propped her head on her arm. Bent her knees and crossed her ankles. Sitting back to get the full picture. Now, she looked like she was sleeping. Waiting for someone to kiss her forehead and bring her French toast in bed with roses on the tray.

The van hit a pot hole, practically sending us airborne. I shot out a hand to cradle her head, made sure it didn’t bang about. I settled her back, sleeping again.

I twisted the top of one of the waters. The crack made me wince. Fuck me if a hangover was already starting. I eyed the blood bags. Blood would help. Blood only solved the physical. I rubbed my chest. More at of habit than heartache. She had… taken it all away.

I leaned my head back, trying to call that sensation back to me. The hug and the sense of comfort. Was it simply a lack of pain? Then my fangs sliding in and pulling that right into me, pulling in that relief, pulling her in. I stretched out by her side, rested my head on my arm. The ribbon looked wrong on her neck.

Obscene. Foul.

I freed the knot, letting the ribbon pool between us like a dirty puddle. I licked my thumb and tried to rub out the smeared blood. I was a tidy bite, so there wasn’t much.

I could almost picture her eyes fluttering open, the rich brown and gold sparkling, a smile playing about her lips, happy to wake next to me.

That was a goddamn lie, wasn’t it?

I just killed her.

How would she ever be happy to see me? I took her free hand, limp and dead, cradled it, tucked it under my cheek, laced our fingers together, and pretended it was warm and eased all my pain again.

FOURTEEN

LACHLAN

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