Forever Magnolia

by Dyan Chick

  I stood and wiped my mouth with the back my hand. "I think I need to go to the hospital."

  "I'll take you," he said.

  Movement caught the corner my eye and I turned just in time to see Crazy charging at us.

  I screamed, "Look out!"

  Beau stepped in front of me right before she reached us and with a single movement he caught her and turned her head so fast I almost missed the sickening cracking sound. He dropped the woman on the ground where she lay, motionless, eyes wide in surprise.

  I stared up at Beau, as terror gripped my chest. He did that to her without even thinking. Without even stopping, without any effort, he ended another person's life.

  I backed away from him slowly as tears streamed down my cheeks. Beau was a monster. "Just leave me alone. Please, I won't say anything."

  "Millie—" He took a step closer to me reaching a hand toward me.

  "Stop right there," I said. "You killed her. You didn't even have to try, it didn't even take any effort. She's just dead." I was hysterical, frantic.

  "I had to protect what's mine," he said.

  "What are you talking about?" I asked. He was as delusional as the crazy hunter was. "I don't belong to you, I don't belong to anyone!"

  "Millie, don't you feel it? That pull between us?"

  "Is it true?" I asked. "Are you what she said you are?" Now that we were standing alone, in the dim light, I could see the fangs even more clearly than before. They didn't look like a trick of my imagination.

  "Yes."

  "So you're a..." I couldn't say the word out loud, it was too unbelievable, and if I said it out loud, I was making it real, giving it power.

  "Yes," he said. "I'm a vampire. But that doesn't mean we can't be together."

  "You're insane," I said. "We don't even know each other. And if you are what you say you are, there's no way we could ever be together."

  "Please, give me a chance."

  "I need a ride to the hospital, and then I never want to speak to you again," I said.

  I knew I should worry about being alone in the car with him or asking anything of him after I had turned him down. But something told me he wouldn't hurt me. And a tiny part of me wasn't ready to leave him yet. Which was madness. He was a monster. A killer. I had to get away from him. Didn't I?

  It was irrational, I had just watched him kill someone, letting me know he was fully capable of violence. But I just knew it, I knew I could trust him, and I hated that feeling. "Are you going to help me?"

  "Anything for you."

  Chapter Nine

  Millie

  I was regretting my decision to attend Brittany's baby shower. So far, I'd had to explain my attack six times. And here came number seven. "I have no idea why she took me. She was insane."

  "You must have been terrified," Ashley, Brittany's sister said. "I heard she drugged you after she knocked out the guys at Sully's."

  "Yep, that's true," I said.

  "Thank God Beau came along," she said.

  "I know," I said, forcing a smile. "It really was fortunate."

  "Ashley, let her rest," Brittany said, loud enough for the whole room to hear. "She's been through enough."

  I smiled a genuine smile at my old friend as she guided her nosy sister away from me. "I'm going to get some air."

  "Don't take too long there, Millie Mae, we're cutting the cake soon!" Ashley called.

  I waved as I walked out of the room. I found myself waking into the sanctuary and taking a seat in a rear pew. I stared at the giant cross behind the pulpit, wondering if faith in God would help me right now.

  It had been four days since the attack and I was still sore from my injuries. More than that, though, I was confused. Despite my lack of belief in anything, really, I'd been given very clear evidence that vampires existed. If they did, what else was out there? It was as if my whole understanding of the universe was invalidated.

  As much as I wished my current melancholy was limited to my wondering about vampires, part of me was still thinking about Beau. He'd killed someone to protect me and I'd yelled at him.

  After he dropped me at the hospital, he talked to the police for me so I could rest. He took care of everything. Then he went away, just like I'd asked. So why was I thinking about him so often?

  I mean, it wasn't normal for a guy to have such a strong interest in you after one meeting. It was scary. Stalker scary. It was the kind of thing we were warned about by Lifetime movies.

  I leaned back in the pew. Even without a sermon to listen to, it was impossible to get comfortable here. I was pretty sure that was the intention. To keep you from snoozing during their lecture.

  I heard the doors open, but didn't look back. It was probably someone here to drag me back to the shower. Or ask me about my near death experience. I sort of wished the black eyes were still as bad as they had been on day one. Nobody was willing to talk to me then. Now that I was in the yellow bruise phase, everyone wanted the play by play.

  A group of people walked past me, all of them dressed in black.

  I straightened, brow furrowed as I studied the newcomers. None of them were locals. And they were all dressed similarly. Jeans and black leather jackets. They looked like a biker gang. Either that, or they'd come from a rehearsal of West Side Story.

  All four of them kneeled at the front of the sanctuary, heads lowered in prayer. I slid to the end of the pew and stared at them. Something was off about this. It wasn't normal.

  Then, I noticed the handles shoved into their waistbands. I'd seen identical knife handles like that once before. On the hunter who'd attacked me.

  I stood slowly and took a few steps closer to them. One of them adjusted his position and I could see the upper part of a wooden stake next to the knife handle.

  These weren't regular people. These were hunters and there could only be one thing they were after. I had to warn Beau.

  He still terrified me. But he had saved my life. And while I wasn't sure where I came down on vampires, I wasn't about to let a group of murderers go after the one who had saved my life. If anything, seeing the hunters praying in the church had solidified my belief and eliminated the lingering doubts. Even with the things I'd been through, I'd still spent most of the last several days telling myself none of it was true. It was the way my head had dealt with the trauma of the attack.

  The hope that it was all in my imagination was shattered by these hunters. Vampires were real. I knew one. And he was sort of obsessed with me.

  I remembered how powerful Beau was and the fact that he took me to the hospital and explained everything to the police so I could rest.

  He hadn't kidnapped me as one of the hunters had, and as far as I could tell, Beau only treated me with respect. If given the choice between a vampire or a Hunter, I was on the vampire's side.

  Quietly, I slipped back into the baby shower, figuring it was safer to be around a large group of humans than was to be wandering by myself. If these hunters were looking for bait, I wasn't going to be it. I wasn't sure I could survive another encounter like that. Just the thought of it made my face ache.

  While slices of cake were passed around and presents were opened, all I could think of was how I was going to warn Beau that he had an ambush waiting for him. They most likely knew exactly where he lived and there were four of them and only one of him.

  Would they go straight to breaking into his house right now? Were they waiting right outside for him to come out? I wasn't sure what was and wasn't real when it came to vampires. Was it true they could only go out at night? Was it true that they didn't like garlic or holy water or any of those things?

  Obviously, the stake through the heart thing was true, otherwise these hunters wouldn't carry them. But to be honest, a stake through the heart would kill a human too.

  As I thought through these things, it dawned on me that I wasn't thinking about ways to hurt a vampire for my own self-protection. I was trying to understand the hunters so I could learn more abou
t their plans and stop them. That gave me even more fuel to find a way to help Beau. If I could get to him before they did, maybe he could fly away. Our tunnel out. Or something. Did they turn into bats? I had no idea what his powers were, what he was capable of. I knew he was strong, but was he take on four hunters at the same time strong?

  By the time the party wrapped up, I still wasn't sure what I was going to do. I went through the motions of saying goodbye, forcing a smile on my face as I gave obligatory hugs to all the girls I'd known from high school.

  Sympathy for my injuries likely prevented them from asking too many personal questions about my failed relationships and the fact that I ended up moving back home five years after I left. The pitying glances I was getting were more about the black eyes and bruising than they were about my other situation. In a way, the attack had prevented some of the awkward conversations I didn't want to have.

  I tightened my jaw, horrified at myself for thinking such a thing. There was nothing good about being tied up and tortured. I needed to face my past and not avoid it. That was part of why I was in this mess in the first place. I had a tendency to walk away when things got uncomfortable. Not this time. I'd walked away from Beau, without letting him explain. Now, it was time for me to make it right.

  I drove to my house instead of his. Thankfully, my grandmother was a bridge club. I parked my car and then walked the familiar path toward the cemetery. I knew how to get to his property from there and I hoped a group of hunters who didn't care for supernatural beings would avoid a cemetery. With any luck, I wouldn't come up on their hiding place.

  I wasn't sure what I was going to do once I got there. Was it really a good idea to break into a vampire's house while he slept? If it was true, of course. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had never seen Beau during the day. We met in the cemetery at night. He rescued me from the hunter at night and took me to the hospital at night. In the last few days, I hadn't seen him around town.

  Though, that wasn't much of a surprise. I was sure he was laying low, nocturnal schedule or not, he was following my wishes. It was probably the most romantic thing a guy had ever done for me when you really thought about it.

  My chest tightened and fear shot through me as I wondered if he was even still there. Maybe he’d abandoned the house after all, taking my request to never see him again to the extreme. He told me he didn't like the house, and that he wanted to pawn it off on some relative and get out.

  I didn't care at first, but now the thought of him being gone forever was sending waves of panic through me. I shook my head, silently criticizing myself for having such strong emotional feelings for someone I hardly knew. Somebody who wasn't even human. I didn't have the best track record with men, leave it to me to fall for one of the undead.

  Chapter Ten

  Millie

  There was about an hour or so of daylight when I reached the point I was guessing became Miller property. It was a bit easier to walk with shoes on this time, but that didn't make me feel any better. My heart was pounding much harder than it needed to be in anticipation of getting jumped at any minute. I really didn't like these hunters or how stressed and overwhelmed they made me feel. Plus, there was that whole trying to kill people thing. I wasn't okay with that either.

  I could see the Miller house now, its beautiful colonial architecture contrasting with the impending sense of doom that hung heavy in the air. I didn't want to draw attention to myself if the hunters were waiting to go inside. Going in the front door wasn't going to be a possibility. That would draw far too much attention. Since there were four hunters, the back door was just as likely to be guarded. That was, if they weren't in the house already.

  There was no choice. I had to go in through a window and hope they weren't inside. I really wished I’d put more thought into this before I attempted break into a vampire's house.

  A row of magnolia's lined one side of the house. I crept from tree to tree, breathing in the scent of the flowers that smelled like home. They didn't have magnolias in Chicago, it was one of the few things I had missed about this place. I moved slowly, stopping frequently to look all around me, before moving again. My progress was slow, and every flicker of movement and every rustle of leaves sent fresh waves of panic through me. I couldn’t get caught by these hunters. It was one thing for a hunter to use you as leverage, it had to be far worse if they thought you were working with a vampire.

  These people seem completely off their rocker and I wouldn't be surprised if they took me out just for association. Finally, I reached the side of the house and saw three windows on the first level. Now to find out if any of them are unlocked.

  As a teenager, I had always made sure to keep one of the side windows unlocked at my grandmother's house. It was the way I could sneak back in if I stayed out past curfew, or the occasional time I forgot my house key. Most of the people in Hearth didn't even lock their doors and I was hoping that trend continued onto Esther Miller's house.

  I tried the first window, gently jiggling it in case the lock gave way on its own. It didn't budge. Carefully, I moved to the second window. I pressed my fingers against the glass and pushed up. To my relief, it slid open and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. Grabbing the ledge, I heaved myself into the house sliding headfirst into whatever room I'd broken into. I landed with an ungraceful thud on the ground. My heart raced as I quickly stood and glanced around the room. I froze for a moment, staring at the closed door, half expecting someone to throw it open and catch me.

  After a few long seconds of silence, I was able to let out a slow breath. On tiptoe, I moved back toward the window, closing and locking it. I darted to the third window, which was also unlocked and quickly remedied it. I didn't want to make it any easier for these people to come in than it already was.

  The house was silent, and the ever-present scent of Chanel Number Five lingered all around me. I smiled, recalling the scent of Esther's hugs. It smelled just like her.

  I was in a study. Skimming the room, I noted all the furniture and decorations. Maybe there would be something in here I could use as a weapon. All I saw was a large desk, bookshelves full of books, and a few plush chairs in a corner next to a small table with a decanter of brown liquid. The room had probably been used by Esther's late husband, but based on the thick layer of dust, no one had been in here in a long time. I frowned, wondering why he couldn't have decorated with swords or something.

  Weaponless, my only hope was to find Beau quickly and warn him so he could flee. Hopefully, we could avoid crossing paths with the hunters. I crept to the door, and opened it carefully, though it still squeaked as it did.

  If I were a vampire, where would I sleep?

  I stood in the hallway, squinting into the dark. Curtains were drawn over every visible window. I had a feeling the whole sunlight killing vampires thing was true. Now, I just needed to find out where he kept his coffin. I shuddered at the thought. Please don't sleep in a coffin.

  I supposed the basement made the most sense, but didn't think Esther's house had a basement. Our house had a cellar, but you couldn't access it from inside. If I were a vampire in a massive house like this, I would probably just settle into one of the guest rooms. I tried to remember back to the tour I'd had on the first night I was here. There were a few rooms full of clutter, Esther's old room, and a guest bedroom. The one guest bedroom was the only place that wasn't full of centuries of junk. It was my best bet. Unless he was sleeping in the dead woman's room. A chill spread down my arms. Technically, Beau was dead, wasn't he? I had a feeling death didn't freak him out as much as it did most people. Still, the smell of the perfume that filled every inch of the house was probably unbearable in her room. I knew I'd choose somewhere else.

  I crept to the stairs, then climbed them slowly, pausing every time the floor boards groaned, waiting for my heart to slow before I started walking again. For all I knew the hunters were already here, and if they weren't, there's still the fact t
hat I was going to try and wake a vampire. I really, really, really hoped he wasn't one of those people who got pissed when someone woke them up. I had a roommate in college who used to throw shoes at me if I tried to wake her for class. Let me tell you, explaining a black eye the first week of college is not a good time.

  I peeked into the dark room and gave my eyes a second to adjust. The hallways had been dim, but in here it was as dark as night.

  I could see the vague outline of a bed, and I could tell the extra curtains had been added to block out all rays of sunshine. I had a feeling I was in the right place. Carefully, I open the door wide enough so I could slip through and cross the threshold. Sneaking in on a vampire was not high on my bucket list, but there I was. As I debated between speaking up to give him advanced warning or trying to find him and gently shake him in the dark, slight movement caught my eye. I turned just in time to notice a flash of something big coming toward me. My scream got stuck in my throat as I froze, and braced for impact. Beau was standing in front of me, I couldn't see him clearly, but I could make out his already familiar form. Though he’d moved quickly to get to me, he hadn't touched me.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked.

  "There were hunters, they came to the church. I came to warn you." My words came out between gasping breaths. Deep down, I still knew he wouldn't hurt me, but he was terrifying up close like this.

  I couldn't see his expression, but the heavy silence in the room and the way he moved as he walked away from me told me he wasn't happy about this news. He flicked on a light and I lifted a hand to shield my eyes so they could adjust better the sudden illumination. After blinking a few times I lowered my hand.

  Beau was leaning against the wall near the light switch, his arms crossed over his chest. "What hunters?"

  "There were four of them, they were dressed just like the one who took me." I stood my ground, feeling oddly drawn to him, yet still terrified. He was a vampire. A very sexy vampire. And as much as I wanted to strictly fear him, I felt an odd pull to be near him.