by Mary Martel
Collette sits stiff and unmoving in her seat. She doesn’t look around. She doesn’t speak. Hell, I don’t even think she breathes. Do Vampires breathe? I would have to remember to ask Ian that later. Anyways, she just sits there, stiff and silent.
And Ian…
Well, it’s his behavior that gives it all away for me.
He doesn’t look anxious nor is he sneaking covert glances behind us. He isn’t sitting stiff and unmoving in his seat. As a matter of fact, he’s pulled me close to his side, tucking me into him, arm draped over my shoulders and he’s gently rubbing my arm up and down with his hand in a gesture that I think is meant to soothe me. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about this whole mate business, but I did know for certain that his constant touching of my person made me slightly uncomfortable. Mostly because I was unused to physical contact of any kind. Anna May and I had been friends for three years and she learned right off the bat that I wasn’t a touchy feely kind of person, she respected it and gave me the personal space I needed.
Ian, it would seem, wasn’t about to give me any kind of personal space.
It wasn’t only his actions that gave him away, telling me something was wrong. It was also the look on his face. Jaw clenched tightly, steely determination filled his eyes. Clearly, he was downright pissed about something.
It was kind of scary.
He was kind of scary.
If it wasn’t for his arm around me and the soothing gesture of his hand on my arm I might have felt compelled to shrink away from him in fear.
That’s how scary the look he wore on his face was.
Again, I want to ask what’s wrong, but I think, at this juncture, it might be wisest to keep my mouth shut.
So that’s exactly what I do… for the time being.
*****
What feels like hours later, but in actuality is probably only half an hour tops, Riley’s tense voice cuts into the silent SUV shattering the illusion of calm. “Should be a town coming up soon.”
Were we stopping somewhere? I hoped so. It would be nice to get out of this godforsaken vehicle. We had been driving all night. When we left the motel room it was around eight pm and now it is almost dawn and I think I’m the only one who has slept in that time.
Do Vampires sleep?
Wait, when did I actually start believing in this whole Vampire thing? Did I believe it? Shockingly, I think I did. I think I might have believed from the start, when that thing stuck his fangs in my neck. I shuddered at the thought. That was very much real. I lift my hand and run my fingers gently across my neck where there should have been scabs at the least, but there’s nothing there. Nothing. I bet if I looked in the mirror I wouldn’t even see the pink fading lines of a scar.
Perhaps this is why we were stopping. Collette is a Vampire and dawn is fast approaching.
Could Vampires be out in the daylight? Or, did they sleep all day? Did they burn to ash in the sunlight?
I had so many questions.
Ian hasn’t really told me anything about Vampires. To be fair, he hasn’t really shared all that much with me about shifters either. The knowledge I do have comes from fictional characters in books and movies. And they (mostly) can’t be out in the daylight. They lock themselves up in a dark, dank basement in a coffin… or whatever.
I desperately want to ask these questions but I’m not sure if the timing is right for it. Ian seemed open (mostly) to my questions and willing (mostly) to answer them. Things were so tense in the SUV that I knew now wasn’t the appropriate time to ask but… I was curious.
Oh fuck it.
Things are tense, yes, but they are trying to hide it from me so I’m going to pretend like I don’t notice and ask whatever I want until someone tells me to shut up.
I clear my throat, which comes out sounding weirdly loud in the silent SUV, and tentatively ask, “Does Collette need a place to bunker down in for the daylight hours, so you know, she doesn’t burst into a ball of flame or something?”
Collette spins her torso around in her seat so she is facing me. She also has a look on her face that says she thinks I’m a bit touched in the head, and not in a good way.
“Why would I need a place to… bunker down, as you say, for the daylight hours?” she sharply asks me.
Hmmm… perhaps she is the one not right in the head. I mean, really? She’s a freaking Vampire. Even if she can be out in the sun she has to at least know why I would ask something like that. It’s not like she’s sporting a tan or anything. She's so pasty she looks like a freaking ghost. Besides, did she miss the ball of flame part?
I mean, hello… she’s a freaking Vampire.
For the first time since she showed up at our motel room I take the time to study Collette’s features.
She is not someone I would ever refer to as beautiful.
Or pretty.
More like homely.
Her face is gaunt, her eyes look sunken in, and her cheekbones stick out stark in her face. Her hair is a dull, lifeless looking brown that she has pulled back into a french braid. There are dark, purplish bruises underneath her eyes. And she’s thin, like, starving herself for years, waif like thin.
Hmm… maybe she is uglier than she’s homely.
That thought isn’t nice but it is definitely true.
“Baby,” Ian whispers in my ear, causing me to shiver, “what are you thinkin’?”
What was I thinking?
At that moment I was thinking he had a great voice and it sounds even better when it went deep and quiet, whispering words like baby in my ear.
I don’t share that thought out loud. I’d probably never share that thought aloud with anyone ever.
“She’s a Vampire,” I pointedly whisper back.
“So?” Collette fires back, sounding, for some unknown reason, pissed off.
Cautiously, so as not to further piss her off, I ask, “Don’t Vampires have to stay out of the sun?”
“Why would I have to avoid the sunlight?”
“Uhh… because you’re a Vampire?”
“Yes,” she quickly, and it must be noted very sarcastically, replies, “we’ve established that.”
“Doesn’t a Vampire’s body catch fire and then burn to ash in the sun?”
“Of course not,” she snaps at me, “that’s utterly absurd.”
I didn’t think it was absurd at all.
I was learning that Collette had a personality to match her face - ugly.
I was also learning I very much did not like her.
I mean… What a bitch.
I’m thinking about maybe sharing with her that I think her ugly personality matches her even uglier face when a thought floats through my mind.
A thought that is very much not my own.
I know it’s not my own because it’s Collette’s.
I know it is Collette’s because it is whispered in my mind in Collette’s voice.
This has happened to me often enough since I was a little girl. I can’t control it. I can’t turn it off. And I always, but always, keep it to myself. I have learned from a young age that people thought you were crazy when you answered their unspoken questions, or knew something you shouldn’t about them, something nobody else knew. My aunt had thought I was evil and had a demon living inside of me. She had a priest come to our home once and try to get it out of me. That horrible experience will probably haunt me until the day I die.
So, you see, I have learned the hard way to keep my mouth shut about the thoughts I hear in my head when they do not belong to me.
But this time I did not want to keep it to myself. I didn’t really know him but I knew Ian would believe me no matter what I told him. No matter how crazy or outlandish, I knew it in my bones he would listen to me, believe me.
Just what we need, an ignorant Queen. An outsider child with no knowledge of our people whatsoever. She will destroy him.
Yeah.
I wanted to share that with Ian. And Riley. Badly.
“I�
��m not,” I harshly blurt out.
“Not what?” Ian asks me, sounding confused.
“Ignorant,” I bite out.
“No one said that you were,” he says, looking at me even more confused than ever.
“Out loud, no.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You heard me,” Collette accuses me, not asking like she thinks I’m crazy, no, it comes out of her mouth as an accusation.
Now, why didn’t that seem weird to her? It made no sense. But then again, she really wasn’t in a position to think of me as weird when she was a freaking Vampire.
Sounding confused, Riley asks, “Heard what?”
I want to tell them. Ian had shared their secrets with me.
Maybe I could share mine with him? Maybe, hopefully, he wouldn’t react how my aunt had. Maybe he wouldn’t think I was evil and had some demon like creature living inside of me. Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t think I was completely and utterly bat shit crazy. Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder myself if I was crazy or not.
I want that, all of that.
And I want it badly.
I desperately want to tell him and have him still look at me like he has been these past few days. Like I was, no am, someone special. Someone he thinks is beautiful. Someone that he, for some bizarre reason, cares about.
Fear keeps me from speaking. It grips ahold of my insides and squeezes so tightly it’s hard for me to breathe.
The thought of him looking at me in disgust is something I cannot handle.
In the short time I have been with them I’ve become fond of the brothers and they have grown to mean something to me. Which is an even scarier thought than them knowing my secrets.
The fear of rejection is so strong it’s damn near crippling.
The only person I have ever cared about, even remotely, is Anna May. She knows nothing of my past and I certainly never shared my secrets with her.
If I couldn’t share with her after years of friendship why am I then considering telling someone I have only known for a few days? And I don’t even really know them. What I did know should have sent me running for the hills. It would have any sane person. But, oh no, not me. Me, I was becoming ridiculously attached to them.
Anna May.
This is only the second time she has even crossed my mind since leaving our apartment.
Our apartment that apparently was so dangerous Riley and Ian had to whisk me away from there in the middle of the night. Our apartment where I had been attacked by a freaking Vampire.
I hadn’t demanded to see her so I could tell her to stay away because it wasn’t safe. I didn’t tell her where I was going (even though I hadn’t known that myself at the time, and still don’t) so she wouldn’t worry about me.
I didn’t even say goodbye. I let Riley do whatever it was that he had done to her and promptly pushed her from my thoughts.
And then I left.
Left her behind to whatever fate had in store for her without even a backwards glance.
And now…
Now, I’m sure I will never ever see her again.
That thought has my stomach rolling and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Which is probably what prompts me to blurt out, “I’m a horrible person.”
Ian leans his head close to mine and whispers, “What’s going on in that head of yours that would ever make you think something so stupid?”
“I’m thinking about Anna May,” I whisper back, “I just left her there.”
“Shayne, no.” Riley says, “I sent her away from there. She’s fine. It’s you who’s not safe there. She would be the horrible person if she expected you to stick around just to say goodbye or some shit while your life is in danger.”
“What if something happens to her because of me?” I ask him, no longer whispering. “Because of the two of you?”
Ignorant and whiney.
I hear float through my mind.
“Fuck off, Vampire,” I spit out, my voice laced with venom, something I’m unaccustomed to feeling.
“If you dislike my thoughts so much then perhaps you should stay out of my head, you whiney little brat,” she spits right back without bothering to turn around and look at me this time.
“Collette,” Riley whispers her name warningly, sounding as though he’s in shock and completely appalled by her words.
Ian, however, does not sound like he is shocked. No. he sounds enraged when he barks out, “pull over.” His voice practically vibrates with emotion.
Just as I’m about to tell him that’s not necessary I get a whiff of something that smells like someone ran over a skunk and then dipped it in raw sewage, or something equally as nasty.
“Oh my God,” I gag, “what is that smell?”
“What smell?” Ian asks me.
“Like… I don’t know,” I tell him, “a dead animal or something.”
“How is that possible?” Riley asks in wonder, looking at his brother in the rearview mirror.
Sounding smug as hell, Collette says, “She can read my thoughts as well.”
I cover my mouth and gag, “It’s getting worse,” I choke out past my fingers.
“You can read her thoughts?” Ian asks me. I can see him looking at me curiously out of the corner of my eye, but thankfully not with disgust.
“Not exactly,” I reply through fingers that are still covering my mouth and nose. It wasn’t entirely a lie.
Coldly he states, “We will be discussing this later.”
Yeah.
Not happening.
I think I would almost prefer him thinking I was weird rather than being cold towards me.
I decide not to give him a response and instead, sounding very uppity, I declare, “I’ve decided I don’t much care for Vampires.”
Riley out and out laughs at this, his whole body shaking with his laughter.
Ian grunts in acknowledgement and shakes his head.
I don’t bother looking at Collette to see her reaction to my declaration. I’ve decided that along with not liking Vampires, for the time being, they are beneath my notice.
That smell however, the one they seemed to notice but not enlighten me on, I wish it was beneath my notice.
*****
We are fast approaching a town. I can tell it is a town because of all the street lights that are aglow and can be seen through the sparse trees in the distance. The sun is starting to rise in the East so I can also make out a water tower that, had it still been dark, I would not have been able to see. It’s a nice change from the dark wilderness that has surrounded us throughout what seemed like an endless night.
No one else has said anything about the smell. They’ve been pretending like I hadn’t said anything at all. I can still smell it, though. It’s like the scent has followed us. Not a dead animal then, like I had originally thought, but it certainly smells like one. Like they’d all been studiously avoiding what Collette had said about my being able to hear her thoughts.
Ian is the first to break the silence.
“Find us a diner or a café, I don’t give a fuck what. Some place open at this hour. We will go in, get something to eat,” he looks at Collette, “or not, and wait for a while to see if they approach us. Also, if possible, park the truck as close to a window or the entrance as you can get it. I want to be able to keep it in my sight. They won’t dare cause a scene in a public establishment but who the fuck knows about what they might do to our vehicle if we park it out of eyesight.”
Whoa…
Hold on a minute.
They?
Had someone been following us?
Following us, or possibly following Collette?
Is this why they had all been so tense?
And, how in the hell did they know we were being followed in the first place? I glance out the back window and see nothing but open road. There’s not a car to be seen.
Ian wants us to go in a diner, eat and wait to see if they approach us?
/>
This is fucking crazy. This whole thing is fucking nuts.
No way can I choke down a meal knowing there are unknown persons watching, all the while plotting nefarious things against us.
No freaking way.
“Umm… Ian,” I timidly inform him, “I’m not feeling all too hungry right about now.”
He looks at me with a serious expression on his face that says in no way should I be talking right now and states, “You will eat.”
Oh man.
I was wrong.
It isn’t this situation that’s fucking crazy.
It’s Ian.
First, he man-handles Collette like it’s the most natural thing ever. Now, he’s demanding I do things I don’t want to do like, I’m just supposed to obey him and do as he says.
He is off his rocker, needs some meds STAT, downright fucking bonkers.
This is bound to be an interesting meal.
And by interesting I mean disastrous.
Chapter 13
Ian
For such a small town and the hour being so early you wouldn’t think the café we found (the only café the town had, we had checked) would almost be at full capacity. But it was. Apparently the locals here were early to rise.
This is good for us. The more patrons the better the chances are they won’t even come inside with this many people being in here. Too many witnesses. Too much collateral damage to account for.
Riley had dropped us at the door. We sat in the only open booth the place had while he parked the truck. The booth we were seated at just so happened to be a window seat with a perfect view of Main Street and my truck my brother had parked at the curb right in front of the building.
For now we wait and see what happens, whether they approach or not.
This particular course of action suits me just fine.
A glance around the table told me my companions do not share the same mind set as me. I know I should probably say something to put them at ease but I didn’t have it in me. I’m too tired to even bother at this point.
If it weren’t for having Shayne with us Riley and I would have already confronted our tail head on. My brother knew the only reason we had kept on driving was because my mate was with us.
