by L.H. Cosway
My heart hammers when I turn around to see his crimson eyes bearing down on me and his fangs extending from his mouth.
Chapter Thirteen
Killing Things Is Not So Hard, It’s Hurting That’s The Hardest Part
I step away from him quickly. “Hey now, keep your distance,” I say, making sure I’ve got my razor handy.
His eyes are so red that they’re practically glowing. His sharp fangs glisten under the shine of the street lamp, and I’m torn between enchantment and terror. This is the first time that I’ve ever thought about being bitten and found the idea appealing. I’m not in my right mind. Ethan helping me to kill Eliza has caused my brain to go loopy. Surely that’s it.
I shake myself out of the trance seeing his fangs has put me in, holding out the blade to keep him at bay. Thankfully, Delilah yanks him back by the arm and gives him an almighty whack across the face. That certainly does the trick.
Broken out of his blood-lust, Ethan puts a hand to his cheek in surprise, glaring at Delilah. “What did you do that for?”
“You were about to bite her, you idiot!” she bellows at him. “Have you lost your mind? Who knows what would happen if you drank from her.” At this she seems to register that I’ve already been bitten tonight, as she stands there gaping at the marks on my neck.
“It was Eliza,” I explain. “But don’t worry, I’ve already killed her.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much from what Whitfield said. I didn’t know she bit you though. What happened?”
I suddenly notice that almost everybody’s gathered around me now, with the exception of Pamphrock and his remaining slayers. Alvie is still sitting just outside of Rita’s cocoon of fire, weeping. In my heart I want to join him, but there’s no time for me to be sad. I need to stay strong.
“Um, it was kind of weird. Her eyes and skin turned silver and she started to shake as though she was transforming.”
“Are you okay?” Finn asks, coming to my side and putting his hand to the small of my back in a concerned gesture. I think Delilah and I are the only ones who hear Ethan’s barely audible growl. He stops as soon as Delilah’s reproaching green eyes land on him in silent warning.
“I’ll live,” I answer, turning to look at him. He’s got a small cut on his jaw and there’s blood on his clothing, but it’s too dark to be human.
Nobody says anything then. It’s like we’re all in this state of quiet distress. Ethan, Lucas and Delilah have just fought and killed people they used to consider their friends. Finn, Gabriel and I have just seen a woman we’ve all come to love die in front of our eyes. Not to mention I’ve killed for the very first time in my life.
Before I discovered this new world I never even considered murder to be something that I would have to commit in my life. Now it’s like this necessary evil that I must embrace if I want to survive.
Gabriel goes and picks up Alvie, carrying him into the house. He comes back out and I assist him in a small spell to clean up the remaining evidence of the fighting. Ethan, Lucas and Delilah retire to their own house for the night, an atmosphere of muted trauma in the air.
I’d all but forgotten about Emilia taking Rebecca. Pamphrock, Finn and the slayers leave immediately to go and retrieve her from the Petrovsky manor, though I have no clue how easy a task that’s going to be.
Soon the street is empty, with just Gabriel and I sitting on the wall at the front of Finn’s house, keeping a watch over Rita. Ira is sitting by our feet, still in his animal form. I guess he’s not ready to change back yet.
We sit there in silence, both of us with tears streaming down our faces now that we’ve finally got the chance to embrace our sadness over losing Noreen. She’d been a maternal presence in our little group, always there to give guidance and advice. I really don’t know what we’re going to do without her. We’re going to be so lost.
It isn’t until hours later that Rita finally lets down the wall of flames she’d surrounded herself with. We had to put a glamour on the entire street for fear of anyone seeing her magic. Gabriel organises for Noreen’s body to be taken away. I bring Rita into her motor home and put her to bed. She doesn’t breathe a word the whole time, and although the purple has receded from her eyes, they’re still disconcertingly black. Her body feels cold and her face is an empty canvas. She waits until I leave to start crying. Just as I close over the door to her tiny room I hear her weeping into her pillow.
I sit in the kitchen and drink cup after cup of tea, too afraid to leave her on her own. It’s about two in the morning when someone steps inside the RV. I glance up to see Finn standing there, looking exhausted.
“Gabe said you were out here. Come inside, you need to sleep.”
He motions me out of the vehicle, but I stare apprehensively at Rita’s bedroom door.
“I’m not sure if I should leave her. She seems…well, not herself.”
“The girl’s mother just died. What do you expect her to be like? Swinging from the rafters?” Finn tries to make a joke, but it falls flat. His voice is full of sadness.
“No, I just…I feel like she might do something dangerous, like go over to the south side to try and kill Whitfield.”
“Gabriel and I will watch her then. We’ll take it in turns. You’ve been with her for hours.”
I run my hand through my hair and rise from my seat. “Okay,” I whisper, feeling the need to sleep forever. As Finn leads me inside the house, I ask, “So what happened with Emilia?”
He shakes his head. “That’s a whole other shitstorm. She’s put a spell over her house, so nobody can get in or out. Pamphrock has at least one hundred slayers surrounding the place, waiting for her to drop the spell so they can get in and take Rebecca back.”
“Jesus. I feel terrible. I should never have involved her in all this.”
“Listen, what’s done is done. At least we know where Rebecca is. And as you said, Emilia just wants to mother her, not harm her. The main thing is that the spell was successful. You should be congratulating yourself for that.”
“Yeah the spell worked and then everything went to shit. I’m seriously starting to believe I’m hexed or something.”
Finn strokes a hand down my cheek. “Stop beating yourself up and get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning,” I tell him, before trudging my way up the stairs to my bedroom.
Despite my exhaustion, I don’t go to sleep right away. Instead I cry for Noreen. Rita and I have even more in common now, both of us motherless – fatherless too in a way.
I know this feeling of grief all too well. It consumed me when Matthew killed himself, and now I can feel it creeping its way in again. The hurt claims my insides like a plague. Somewhere in between all the tears I shed I lose consciousness. I’d hardly call it sleeping because it’s too much of a restless state. In my head I see myself plunging a stake into Eliza’s heart and Whitfield stabbing Noreen with his sword. The images spin in a constant loop.
The next two days are awful. Rita hardly leaves her room and acts out whenever I try to do anything for her. She barely eats a thing and her eyes stay that unnerving shade of black. Alvie makes a phone call to a woman named Hayley, who had been friends with Noreen, to inform her of her passing. Hayley ends up coming to the house with her partner and foster son, as well as her foster son’s girlfriend – Florence. Hayley brings the girl for a very special reason; she’s an Empath with the ability to heal emotions – and Rita’s emotions are in dire need of some healing right now.
When they arrive I find her so strange, always staring at me in fascination. She tells me that I have an aura the likes of which she’s never seen before, and I put it down to my blood. My spirits lift as I think that she could help bring Rita out of the comatose depressive state she’s fallen into. Unfortunately, I realise just how deeply Rita’s grief runs, because when the girl tries to work on her she actually faints with the effort it takes. The sadness in Rita was so thick that even an Empath couldn�
��t wash it away fully.
Ethan comes over just as I’m nursing Florence back to health, blathering on about a fight he had with Delilah. The tension between us was almost too much to take, especially after all that happened during the vampires’ attack.
He kept on looking at me like he didn’t know whether he wanted to kiss me or bite me. It didn’t help that I was wearing the Keep Calm and Carry Garlic t-shirt, which certainly ruffled his feathers. Two days have passed since then and I haven’t seen him again. Delilah’s the only one who comes over to the house.
Since her healing with Florence, Rita seems a good deal better. We even managed to get her to leave her room long enough to attend Noreen’s funeral, which Alvie and Gabriel worked together to arrange. She’s still grieving, but it’s more on a par with human grief now. I’ll never forget the imagery of her out on the road, surrounded by nothing but purple flames.
It’s only on the third day after her healing that I realise the results weren’t strong enough. We’re sitting having something to eat in the RV one evening when I try to bring up the topic of Emilia and Rebecca. The spell around Emilia’s house still hasn’t let up, and the slayers are beginning to think they might need to find a witch or a warlock to try and counteract the spell.
“Do you know what, Tegan?” says Rita, interrupting me midway through my account. “I’m so sick to fucking death of hearing about your problems. Nobody cares, so just shut up.”
I frown at her, whispering, “I wasn’t talking about my problems. I was telling you about Rebecca.”
“Yeah and it all connects back to poor little you. Emilia’s a selfish, evil bitch and she’s your grandmother, boo fucking hoo. Just get the hell out of here. I’m sick of listening to you.”
Jesus. I never realised I could be so irritating. Rita’s eyes flash purple and I rise from my seat. Losing Noreen has changed something in her and I’m at a loss to know what to do about it. She’d always spoken her mind, but now she seems to be going out of her way to be cruel.
When I step outside I hear her smashing something to the floor. It sounds like a glass shattering. My heart clenches for her. I try not to feel hurt by her harsh words, because I know she wouldn’t be acting like this if she weren’t in so much pain. I just hope that she’ll heal with time.
I notice that it’s started to rain heavily, but I don’t feel like going back inside the house. The place is too empty, with everybody out attending to various tasks. It only functions to punctuate Noreen’s absence.
I need to walk and clear my head. I need figure out a way to bring the old Rita back. I just can’t accept that the horrible, rude person I just spoke to is the Rita I’m going to have from now on. I want her to be my friend again.
I’m only wearing a t-shirt and the rain is so heavy that it actually hurts as it batters down on me. I walk down the street, with no real destination in mind. Since the majority of Pamphrock’s men have been focused on the whole Emilia Petrovsky predicament, there haven’t been as many slayers out patrolling the streets.
This means that Theodore’s chaos has started to take a hold of the people again. Yesterday Finn’s next door neighbour, a usually polite and reserved woman named Maria, tried to beat up her teenage son out in their front garden in a fit of rage. Knowing exactly what had happened to her, I’d gone over and used my magic to push the mist out of her. A bit of an awkward conversation ensued, with me not being able to properly explain to her what had just happened. She thought that maybe it was early menopause, and I had to just let her think that.
In the back of my mind I feel it’s a little selfish of Pamphrock to care more about his daughter than the people of the city, but it’s hardly his sole responsibility to keep everyone safe.
I find a bench in a park and sit down. It’s soaking wet, but then again, so am I. I probably shouldn’t be out alone like this, given the dangers I could face, but I’ve always had this small self-destructive streak. This little voice in my head that urges me to do hazardous things, simply for the thrill of feeling alive.
It’s probably what pushed me to walk head first into Ethan’s world after that first night I’d discovered he was a vampire. The rational part of my brain told me to run away, but the misadventurous side told me to walk right into the fire, who cares if I get burned. Subconsciously I’d just wanted to feel something, anything, other than my all-consuming grief, even if that something was fear.
A man with an umbrella strolls by me, stopping and asking if I’m okay, sitting coat-less and umbrella-less in the rain as I am. His face shows nothing but concern, yet in my dark mood I tell him to piss off and leave me alone. He hurries away, muttering something at me that ends suspiciously with “itch”.
I don’t know how long I spend sitting on the bench. I put my hand inside my jeans pocket to pull out Edwards’ coin. After all these days, it feels less and less likely that he’s going to show up. I’m beginning to wonder if he was even real at all. Perhaps I dreamt him.
Thinking this, a little sob escapes me, my tears mixing with the rain that’s still pounding down on me. I cry for my dad and for Rita’s mum. I cry for the people living in this godforsaken city. And finally, I cry for myself and the loss of my innocence now that I’ve killed another living being.
Somewhere during the hours I spend out in the rain, a person comes and sits down on the bench near to me. At this point I’ve slouched down onto the ground, holding my knees to my chest and rocking myself back and forth like a mental case. Strong arms lift me up and the person smells like Ethan. Seconds later I’m out of the rain and inside a warm, dry car. A blanket covers me and hot air blasts from the heater on the dash.
I watch the steam that leaves my mouth, as my cold breath mixes with the warm air.
“How did you find me?” I ask quietly. I still haven’t looked to confirm that it’s him, but I know it is. I know how he feels and what I felt when he held me was definitely all Ethan.
“It took a while,” he finally answers. “I realised that I really know nothing about you. I couldn’t think of one single place you liked to go. In the end I smelled you in the air and tracked you to the park.”
“I don’t have any places that I like to go here.” I whisper. “Not anymore.”
“I suppose that makes two of us.”
Now I turn my head to look at him for the first time. His blond hair hangs over his face; it’s grown longer than usual. “This city is too bleak. There aren’t any good places, not really,” I say to him.
He nods and peers out the window at the falling rain. “Here only the strongest survive. Sometimes it feels like one day the city will simply tear itself apart, no longer able to contain all of the animosity,” says Ethan. It’s strange that he’s said it, because I’ve had similar thoughts myself.
“If that’s how you feel then why do you stay here? You could go anywhere in the world.”
“Why do the impoverished remain in poor countries?” he counters. “Often you become tied to a place, with too many factors preventing you from leaving.”
“I don’t think that’s quite the same thing, Ethan.”
I expect him to argue with me, but instead he stays silent. He starts the engine and drives away from the park. His car is so comfortable and warm that I almost fall asleep. I think I stayed out in the rain for too long though, because I can’t seem to get any heat into my bones.
Ethan pulls up to his house and gets out of the car. I feel too weak to move straight away, but then he opens the door on my side, takes me into his arms and lifts me out.
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this. You hate me,” I say, as he carries me inside.
“Love and hate are always so intricately intertwined,” he answers back, ascending the stairs.
“Ira told me that vampires can never love humans the way they need to be loved.”
“Ira is a very wise man.”
“If he’s right then there’s no hope for us.”
“There was never any hope
for us, fata frumoasa.”
For just one second my heart stops beating. It feels like a lifetime since he last called me that. He carries me inside a sparsely furnished bedroom. All there is is a simple wardrobe and a bed with soft cream sheets. He holds me to him as he pulls back the duvet, and then lays me down. I expect him to try and climb in beside me, but he doesn’t.
“There’s an en-suite through that door and clean clothes in the wardrobe.”
“Why didn’t you just bring me to Finn’s?” I ask, confused.
“I don’t like you sleeping there,” he pauses and runs a hand through his too long hair, looking conflicted. “Please, just stay here for one night?”
I let my head fall back into the perfectly soft pillow. “Okay then,” I whisper, confused by his unexpected kindness. Just as he turns to leave, I say his name, “Ethan.”
He looks back at me, a wistful expression on his face.
“If there’s no hope for us as lovers, can we at least try to be friends?”
He sighs. “I already told you that won’t work either.”
“How do you know if you don’t try?”
He stands there, regarding me intensely for a few quiet moments. “Very well then, we shall try.”
“Thank you,” I reply, as he leaves the room and exhaustion plunges me into a dead slumber.
I wake up in the middle of the night shivering, regretting not having changed out of my rain soaked clothes before I went to sleep. I quickly get up and peel them off me, before stepping into the shower in the en-suite. The hot water seeps into my pours and heats me up. I can’t tell whether this is the guest room or if it belongs to Ethan. It has no distinguishing features, no belongings except for a couple shirts hanging in the wardrobe.
