Page 61 of Accidental Vampire

“You killed me, and now I’m killing people. And I don’t even remember it.”

“You are not dead.” His voice made me shiver.

“You took everything from me.” I said to remind myself. The weight of the past few days, all the things I didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to feel, came crashing down on me.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. His posture shifted from sex god to annoyed teenager.

“I will give you anything, everything. Anything you have ever wanted, I’ll make it yours.” Lachlan said.

“OK, fine. Let me go see Monique. Right now.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Not in defiance, but because I really felt like I had to hold myself together here. I was righteously pissed and hurt, and confused. I wanted him, but I didn’t want… this… “I don’t want your ‘everything’. I don’t want this not-dead life.”

“Calm down. You’re being irrat…”

“Fuck you. You want irrational?” I bent down for the dagger that had clattered to the floor and held it to my throat. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t live with a body that betrayed me like this, that was out of control, that didn’t feel like mine anymore.

Lachlan’s breath was ragged, his eyes wide.

“I want my life back. A week ago, I was a librarian, or tying to be a librarian, an archivist,” I waved the dagger around “whatever, doesn’t matter. I had a normal life. I had an apartment. Rent to pay. Student loans. A best friend. I took a catering job and everything changed because you made a fucking mistake.”

He took a step toward me and I put the dagger right up to my throat again.

Lachlan froze and stopped breathing. Pain and terror and other unspeakable emotions flooded the room like smoke. It choked me.

I eyed the open door, needing something between me and the devastation slowly destroying Lachlan before my eyes. I had to get out of here, away from him. One hesitant step, then another. Quicker now. I dropped the dagger at the door. Lachlan’s gaze locked on to it. I took a last look over my shoulder before fleeing down the hall. He hung his head, rubbing the center of his chest. I had to get out of here before I did something dumb, like give him a hug or something.

THIRTY-EIGHT

TIFFANY

Lachlan’s emotions chased me down the hall. They weighed me down, tripping me up, muddying the already chaotic mess in my head.

I found myself at the end of the hall again and the forbidden door.

I burst through the heavy door and skidded to a stop at the bottom of an unlit staircase.

If you encounter stairs, go back.

Shaw had said to stay on this floor. Those were his exact words.

I nervously looked over my shoulder, my heart pounding in my ears. I was done with being controlled.

Screw that. Screw all of this. Screw everyone. I wanted out.

I took the stairs two at a time, not even pausing to marvel at how fast I was moving. I rounded the switchback of the stairwell like demons were chasing me. My own demons. I strong-armed the door at the top and hit a wall of fresh air.

The roof.

A black expanse stretched out before me, littered here and there with debris and equipment. My heart leapt. I was out. I was free.

Sounds hit me first. There was a dull roaring and a high-pitched mechanical screech like an ice pick to the brain. My eye started twitching. The slight breeze rasped against my skin like sandpaper. I shied back against the building to limit my exposure. I pulled my sleeves down over my fingertips to lessen the discomfort, and then the smells hit me.

Chemicals and rotting food, covered in asphalt and tar. My eyes watered and I gagged. I pinched my nose closed and covered my mouth. My heart rate went skyhigh, keeping time with the eye twitch. This must be what agoraphobia was like.

Great. Now I was an undead vampire, a killer, with pathological fears.

I ran for the ledge of the roof like it was a deck railing and I could vomit overboard. I clung to the foot wide ledge. I dry heaved like a drunk girl in a club bathroom with no one to hold my hair and sobbed over the edge. I rested my head on the rough stone, letting my hair fall about me for protection. I gulped air until Lachlan’s face surfaced. The devastation, the grief cutting lines into his beauty that I had no right to witness. This was it, this the thing that doomed me, the stake in my heart. The fact that I couldn’t bear the pain that oozed off him and wanted to make it stop.

How fucking dare he? How dare he break my heart? How dare he make me fall…

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