Page 66 of Road Trip with a Vampire
I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “I understand more than you think.”
Peter’s forehead creased. “Oh?”
Gods. Where did I even begin? “Is there anything alcoholic in that minibar?” I asked, walking over to it. “I’ll tell you everything, but I might need a drink to get through it.”
“Get me a Diet Coke while you’re at it?” Peter asked. A sad smile still played at the corners of his lips. “It’s been a hell of a night.”
Fortunately, we were both in luck. I tossed Peter one of the three sodas I found in the fridge as I unscrewed the cap of a miniature vodka bottle. Then I sat beside him on the couch again, downed the bottle in one swallow, and began.
“Most vampires like to think they’re the oldest person in the room,” I said. “They’re usually right. Unless I’m there.” I checked for Peter’s reaction. When all I saw was patient acceptance, Icontinued. “I can’t remember my exact birthday or even its year. My earliest clear memory was of people in my village talking about theMayflowerlanding having happened in the recent past.” I paused. “I was a teenager.”
Thatgot a reaction. “You’re…wait.” He blinked rapidly as he did the mental math. “You’re hundreds of years old?”
I winced. “Is that a deal breaker?” I had no idea how old Peter was, but odds were good that if we hooked up, I’d be robbing the proverbial cradle.
“No,” he said very quickly. “It’s just…” He trailed off. Considered his next words carefully. “Unexpected.”
“I get that a lot,” I said honestly. “I’m over four hundred years old, and no one can believe I’m older than thirty-two. Is itthathard to imagine someone who looks like me being older than dirt?”
He looked down at his hands. “Something like that.”
I didn’t want to analyze what he meant bythat. If I did, I’d never get the rest of this out.
“Anyway, immortality is kind of a mind fuck,” I continued. Most vampires, being immortal themselves, already knew that. But since Peter’s memory was limited, I wanted to fill him in. It was an important detail that added context to my story. “It’s worse when everyone around you has normal human lifespans. I don’t remember what happened to my family or to any of the other people in the community where I grew up, but Idoremember looking up one day and realizing everyone I had ever loved was gone.” I looked at the now-empty vodka bottle in my hands, wishing I had another. “There aren’t words for that kind of pain.”
Peter’s eyes were full of sympathy. “I can only imagine.”
I didn’t tell him this, but if Peter had his memories, he would be able to do a lot more than imagine what it was like. He’d beenhuman once. Even if he were centuries younger than me, the people he’d known and loved from his human life were almost certainly gone.
I gave a one-shouldered shrug—realizing after the fact that it was a near-perfect imitation of the gesture Peter always made when he didn’t know what to say. “When immortality you never asked for has you outliving all the people you ever cared about, a destructive sort of nihilism often sets in,” I continued. “In hindsight, my falling in with vampires was likely inevitable. They were immortal, too, without ever having asked to be. They were the only people who could understand.”
I got up and began pacing. The next part of the story was where I told Peter the worst parts of who I had been. Peter simply sat on the couch, eyes on me as he waited for me to continue.
“We—I—had a marvelous time for centuries, playing practical jokes and causing all sorts of mayhem,” I said. “Have you heard of the Thames Games? Or the Parisian fire of 1823?”
Peter shook his head, looking mildly pained. “I don’t remember if I have.”
Shit. “Right. Sorry,” I said, wincing. “Anyway, they were notorious events in the vampiric community. We had a lot of wild adventures together, me and my friends. Created legends about ourselves that were totally made-up. For a long time, people referred to me as Grizelda the Terrible, of all the ridiculous things.I never knew why, but that was half the fun. When everything else about our endless existences felt pointless, so did societal conventions and inhibitions.”
Peter’s mouth quirked into a wry grin. “That all sounds like a lot of fun.”
I swallowed around the dry lump in my throat. “It was,” I admitted, my voice gone suddenly hoarse. “For ages, I had the besttime.” I stopped pacing and knelt by the minibar again. Grabbed another tiny bottle of vodka and downed it, willing the burn to give me the strength I needed to get through the rest of my story. “Occasionally, though, people got hurt. Sometimes badly.”
When I stood up again, I chanced a glance at Peter’s face. At the expectant look I saw there I knew there was no turning back.
“One of my favorite things to do back then was to start fires,” I admitted for the first time in over a decade. “I’m an elemental witch, and a damn good one. All I have to do to make fire is snap my fingers.” To demonstrate, I did exactly that. Obligingly, a small flame the size of a match head appeared at my fingertip. Peter opened his mouth in surprise, or possibly to ask me a question, but I snuffed out the flame again with another snap before he could get out the words.
“That’s…” Peter eventually said. He blew out a breath. “Impressive.”
I shook my head. “It’s not. Remember how you said fixing cars was as easy for you as breathing? That’s me with fire. It’s harder for menotto use that power than it is to indulge.” I closed my eyes and flopped back down on the couch beside him. The vodka I’d drunk was beginning to go to my head, making me feel warm and fuzzy around the edges. “Anyway, you can probably guess what a nihilistic witch who ran with a bad crowd might have gotten up to with that ability.”
“Mm,” Peter agreed. “Some regrettable arson, I assume?”
I huffed a humorless laugh. “Got it in one. Most of the people who got caught up in my arson nonsense were assholes who only got what they had coming to them.” I turned my head, worried about what Peter’s reaction to that might be. When I saw nothing on his face but patient, rapt attention, I continued. “There was this one group that called itself The Collective who—”
“The Collective?” Peter interrupted, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Stupid name, isn’t it?”
