Page 42 of Newly Undead in Dark River

He nodded slowly. “You have my word.”

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him gently on the lips. “That’s good enough for me. We have all the time in the world.”

He gave me that beautiful smile and my heart melted. “We have eternity.”

Chapter Sixteen

There are some things that even the power of an eight stack of pancakes can’t fix. The grief I felt when I thought of my family. The constant hunger that couldn’t be touched by the fluffy pastry goodness. And the sound of absolute silence inside Bert and Beatrice’s diner.

I don’t know what it was about that silence, probably some underlying issues from that first night that I was yet to talk through with Nico in my therapy sessions, but every time it happened, I knew my world was about to change forever.

“Excuse me? I’m looking for a girl. I wondered if you’d seen her? She’s blonde, American? I think she might have come through here recently.”

My cutlery dropped to my plate as they slipped from my numb fingers.

“Tex?”

I thought I’d whispered it, but his head whipped in my direction, though he couldn’t see me.

“Mika?”

His heartbeat registered, and I suddenly realized why everyone had gone so damn still. He was like a fucking chocolate cake at a Weight Watchers meeting. They might adhere to the principles of Dark River, but all it would take is one failed attempt at willpower, and my childhood friend, my fucking neighbor, the boy I’d had a crush on since I could walk, would be dead.

I was on my feet and standing in front of him in less than a blink of the eye. I stared at the vampires in the room, my fangs bared. “If any of you even fucking think about it, I’ll tear you to shreds,” I growled at my new found friends. I didn’t give a fuck right now, as my protectiveness went into overdrive.

“Calm down, Lass. Everyone will behave. But may I suggest you call the Sheriff?” She was just diverting me because I could hear someone already on the phone with Walker now.

I still glared at everyone in the room, Tex pushed behind me protectively. His hand reached out and grabbed my hand. “Mika? What’s going on? Is it really you?”

I shuddered as my eyes welled. “There’s no Mika here. You should go. Dark River isn’t a place for outsiders.” I pushed the words out through the lump in my throat. God, I wanted to cry. Just lay on the floor amidst the rubble of the false wall I’d created around my heart.

“Mika, I know your voice as well as I know my own.”

The bell over the door tinkled, and everyone was silent again. I whirled around to see Walker. “Guess we changed you enough that no one would recognize you, but apparently no one thought we’d need to change your voice.” His eyes shot to where Tex was still holding my hand. “We should get out of here before your friend has problems.” It was then he looks down and notices something that very few people ever spot.

Not because Tex hides it, but because the guy himself is just so...everything. He soaks up all the energy in the room. He’s a mass of leather and tattoos and bravado. He is so hot that every single one of my teenage daydreams centered around him.

He’s also completely and utterly blind. Had been since birth. The cane was the only mark that he is anything but a perfectly able-bodied bundle of twenty-something confidence.

I nod and walk out of the diner, human-slow. It was odd that I now had to physically slow myself to a normal speed. Tex held onto my hand like he was scared to let it go like I would just disappear into thin air.

The idea was tempting. I couldn’t believe he was here…

“Why are you here, Tex? Your parents must be flipping out.”

“They are too busy consoling your parents over the disappearance and death of their only daughter,” Tex sneered, letting me see every ounce of his disappointment in me. I gasped and shuddered as if he’d actually stabbed me in the heart.

“You don’t understand,” I mutter, but it seems weak even to my own ears. “I’ll explain, but let’s just get you off the street already.”

It didn’t help his heart was racing a million miles a minute, and his skin was so hot against mine that it was like a brand. He made my own dead heart race, but not because I wanted to eat him. I wanted to protect him like a lion with a freshly downed gazelle.

Walker kept watching me for signs that I was about to pounce on him and tear his throat out, and I could have hugged him just for that. Because killing a human would break me, but accidentally killing Tex would destroy me completely.

I led him up the backstairs of the Immortal Cupcake to my apartment. I definitely couldn’t take the pressure of leading him through the shop during the lunch rush. Once he was inside my apartment, and by extension the wards set by the Witch Miranda, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

Then I gave into the other impulse that had been hounding me since I’d seen him standing at the counter of the diner talking to Bert. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him to me so tight that I was worried I’d snap him in half.

Tex and I had always had a friendship borne from proximity. He was two years older than me, which is a lifetime when you are young. He’d introduced me to rock music on his dad’s old portable record player when he was ten, and I was eight, and he was going to be a rockstar. He took up the electric guitar, which was horrible for the first six months, and I’d hang out in his garage and listen to him play. Then he got better and hit high school, and there would be other girls hanging out in his garage listening to him play in the afternoons.

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