Page 43 of Newly Undead in Dark River

We drifted apart for a bit while we both navigated high school, and then I caught him smoking behind my garage when I was sixteen, and he was eighteen, and it was like all those years of barely speaking had slipped away. With Tex, I could tell him my fears, and hopes and dreams and he would tell me his in return. We weren’t best friends, nothing like that. He was just the one place I could run, without running away. He leaned on me too, though I wasn’t completely sure if it was because I could legally drive him places or not. When I’d driven him to a tattoo parlor, and he’d let his apprentice tattooist friend practice on him, I thought both his parents and mine were going to strangle me. It didn’t help that it was a giant snake on his neck. His friend did a great job though, and Tex had been completely chill about the whole thing, even after he got chewed out by his parents.

“It’s not like I’ll have to look at it for the rest of my life, right?” was all he’d said. And that was just Tex. He was cool, self-deprecating, and the most honest person I’d ever met. He wouldn’t stutter as he told you exactly how he felt.

When I was eighteen, and he was twenty, I’d given him my virginity, because I didn’t want to head off to college being a virgin, and who better to give it to than the boy-next-door who’d been the fodder for every dirty dream I’d had since puberty? I’d climbed out of his window the next morning, headed off to college the following week, and that was that. With Tex and me, there was no awkward posturing. We both told each other what we thought, when we thought it, without the worry of hurt feelings.

Which is why I wanted to get this one good hug in before he literally murdered me for being such a bitch and faking my death. I pulled away as though it was physically painful.

“Look, Tex, I can explain…”

Well, kind of. I wasn’t actually sure what I could explain that wouldn’t result in him either being institutionalized or stuck here in Dark River with me until he died. I was a shit person because that was super tempting.

I looked at Walker, who was eyeing Tex like he was something he couldn’t explain. Which was fair enough, because how the fuck did a blind man find me in the middle of nowhere Canada when the cops from both the US and Canada couldn’t?

“How did you find Ra… Mika?” he asked, suspicion overriding his normally pleasant cop tone.

Tex’s head turned toward Walker and his brow furrowed. Not going to lie, that expression always made my heart skip a beat, and apparently being undead - er, re-alive - didn’t change that fact. It drew my eyes to his piercing blue eyes, the ones that never saw me but were beautiful none the less. From there, you couldn't help but notice the dark slashes of his eyebrows, the almost blue-black of his hair that sat just too long around a jaw so sharp that you could cut yourself on it. And he’d gotten more tattoos, his arms were now covered in sleeves.

The predator stirred in hunger for the first time, but I tamped it right down. Now was not the time for any kind of lust to rear its head. I took a step toward Walker, and Tex turned toward me. I’d forgotten how acute his other senses were.

“Why was she hiding in the first place? Do you know your Mom has cried every single day since you were declared missing? Every time I go around to check on her, she opens the door with your name on her lips, convinced it will be you knocking .And you are here, doing what exactly? Would it have killed you to pick up the phone?”

I sob crawled up from my chest, snowballing until it was a cry of pure anguish when it passed my lips. I slumped to the floor and cried into my hands. I knew, deep down, that they would be devastated. But hearing about it from someone who witnessed it first hand, that was worse.

Walker came over, picking me up from the floor and wrapping me in his arms. I let my tears soak his shirt as I cried for the life I’d lost all over again. Tex had just ripped open the wound which has slowly begun to heal.

But Tex wasn’t done. “I just knew, somehow, that you weren’t dead. I knew it in my gut. Even when they’d found your backpack in the middle of fucking nowhere, and you were declared dead and we had a fucking funeral where everyone stood up and said what a good person you were, when I stood up there and said how you were the best person I’d ever known, you were actually here, living your life.” He drifted closer to us, and Walker held me closer as if he could shelter me from the tongue lashing that Tex was dishing out.

“But I couldn’t rest. I just knew that I had to find you. Dead or alive, I needed to bring you home. I followed my gut to Canada, even though my parents have basically disowned me for doing it, petrified that they’d lose me the way your parents lost you. I begged the cops for your file, and they gave it to me, because what could a blind guy find out that trained law enforcement couldn’t, right?” He laughed mirthlessly.

“I followed your trail all the way to Calgary, and I’ve been trawling my way through nightspots, hoping someone, anyone had seen you. Then you bump into me because you were out partying? Having a goddamn good time?” He was furious now, the normal paleness of his skin getting flushed along the sharp angles of his cheekbones. “I followed you out into an alleyway, convinced I’d heard your voice. I thought I was going crazy, Mika. Then you and him,” he points a finger in Walker’s direction, “Yeah I recognize your voice, Buddy. You talked about Dark River then you were just gone. Into thin air. I thought I was going nuts, Mika. That your death had driven me insane. But what did I have to lose?”

The silence in my apartment was only disrupted by the sound of my refrigerator. I pulled away from Walker, wiping my face on my sleeve.

“Tex…” I threw a desperate look at Walker. I had to tell Tex that I hadn’t just abandoned my family on a whim, but what could I tell him so he’d just go home and forget he’d ever seen me? My heart cracked at the idea.

Walker frowned. “Raine-”

The door was flung open, and I automatically stood in front of Tex, protecting him from the possible threat, my heart beating wildly.

But my shoulders relaxed slightly when it was just Brody. “Rainy…” His voice trailed away as he sniffed the air and frowned. “Why is there another shapeshifter in your apartment?”

Chapter Seventeen

It took me a disturbingly long time to work out what Brody was talking about. My brain refused to make the connection, and then my head whipped toward Tex. Walker apparently had faster mental reflexes, because he took a step closer to us and breathed in deeply.

“I sense nothing.”

Tex fidgeted away as if he could sense Walker is too close and scowled. “Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on right now?”

Brody was in between Tex and me in a moment, inhaling deeply, his eyes narrowed.

“Who are you?” he growled, his teeth bared.

Tex glared back, his eerie unseeing stare seemed almost disrespectful if you didn’t know he was blind. “What’s it got to do with you?” he growled back, and I swallowed a groan, looking at Walker desperately.

“I’m Raine’s boyfriend. And you are?”

Tex looks confused again. “Who the hell is Raine?”

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