Walking in the Shadows

by Giovanni, Cassandra

  TEXT FROM TAD

  I am out. We need to talk. Come over after school.

  I typed:

  Coming now

  Tad rushed outside the second I pulled up; his face said it all. There was never going to be a happy ending for us, for me.

  “Why did you leave school early?” he asked, opening the car door for me.

  I had tears falling down my face as I reiterated what Lily had said. “So I’m the reason for all of this,” I finished with a singular sob.

  He took my hand, leading me into his apartment and when the door was closed he wrapped his arms around me.

  “No—I knew what I was risking. I just never thought someone would play it like this...frame me for murder.” He sighed as if the world was on his shoulders.

  “She said I would be your ruin,” I whispered, looking up at him. “I did this and you know it. If I had had the strength to just let you go this would never have happened.”

  He brushed my hair out of my eyes and shook his head.

  “I love you and I’m sorry that the school board won’t like it, but right now no one knows. Kirsten and Bill confirmed my alibi for the time of the murder, but they’ll ask what I was doing the rest of the day and then it will come out. I plan on resigning tomorrow morning before that happens. If I resign I should be able to find a job at another school. Bill has agreed to be my lawyer, but he says once you confirm my whereabouts there’ll be no further investigating,” Tad explained as he held my face in his hands.

  I placed my hands over his and took a deep breath.

  “You’re willing to sacrifice your dream job for me?” I asked, and it felt ridiculously perfect and imperfect at the same time as I waited for the words.

  “I don’t have a choice, now do I?” he replied with a sigh.

  “You’re going to hate me when this is done and through,” I retorted.

  He placed his forehead on mine.

  “Listen, the second I decided to spend as much time with you as I could and to forget what logic was and go with my feelings, I made that choice, and I knew it. There was no other choice, Vera—no other choice than you,” he whispered as he wiped away my tears with his thumbs, and I couldn’t help but kiss him. My hands tangled in his hair as the emotions over took us. It was frantic as if he would disappear at any moment, and he pulled away laughing.

  “I’m not going anywhere! I’ll tell them what I have to,” Tad breathed, kissing me once more.

  “You aren’t afraid?” I asked, swallowing.

  A smile curled the corners of his lips, and I couldn’t help but kiss him again. In that moment I felt invincible.

  Chapter 49

  I had never had a sixth sense for when things would go wrong. The only reason I had felt something was wrong with my parents was because when someone that close to you is ripped away from you, it is like something inside of you is dislodged; like a part of you is lost forever to the abyss. So, I pushed off what I was feeling now as a result of the anxiety of what had just happened with Tad. I still glanced around the familiar surroundings of my apartment building’s exterior with an unsettling angst that something just was not right. There was nothing I could do about it now; I had no place to go. I couldn’t return to Tad’s apartment for fear that the police could show up at any moment and finding me there was the last thing we needed. Instead I took a deep breath and went up the steps that led to my apartment. While I fiddled with the door knob I slid open my cell phone to text message Tad that I had gotten home. Despite the feelings that were overwhelming me I still slid into my apartment. I closed my eyes as I rested my head against the cool metal of my door while I counted to three to try to calm my heart beat. When I opened my eyes my heart all but stopped.

  “Hi there, Vera,” Miss Jennings hissed as she sat on my coach with a gun pointed at me. She flipped her fake apple-red hair over her shoulder before she continued, “You know it makes sense that you would have a gun, especially after what I did to your parents.”

  She had a cocky, disturbing smile on as I held my cell phone behind me and text from memory:

  Jennings killer help im next my apt sos love u

  I slid the cell phone shut with one hand and hit the button on the side that recorded audio. She stood and slunk towards me.

  “But you think you would bring it with you,” Miss Jennings cooed, cocking her head from side to side.

  “Why do you want to kill me?” I asked in a clear voice. I wanted to whisper, but knew I needed to make my death clear, so she wouldn’t have a way out.

  She licked her lips, and her eyes filled with insanity.

  “Mhmm…good question. See at first, I was going to leave you alone…but then I thought fate must want this. I mean why else would you come to exactly where I was hiding? And then there was the matter of you stealing my man,” she said as she came closer.

  My shoulder blades ached as I pushed hard up against my door, my body was trying to get away, but my mind knew it was impossible.

  “Knightley?” I whispered this time.

  She nodded her head, eyebrows raised. “Yes, Lily told me all about that.”

  “I don’t recall him ever being yours,” I snapped as I tried to sound fierce.

  Her eyes widened with anger, and she shook the gun at me as she hissed, “He could have been!”

  “Killing me won’t help you get him,” I answered, and although I felt I should be panicked, I wasn’t. Instead I was livid. This was the beast that had murdered my parents and friends.

  She burst out in an evil laugh that sent me slamming into the door. I wasn’t panicking, my breath wasn’t coming quick and jamming my diaphragm up and down, but I was scared, very scared.

  “Oh, I don’t care about him anymore. You’re onto me…I saw it in your eyes the day after they found Mike—you had a feeling that I had something to do with it,” she explained as her eyes narrowed. “Then I figured out why you looked so familiar. Yes, your parents were easy prey.”

  It took everything within me to not scream as I turned and opened the door, only to find Lily standing outside. She pushed me back into Miss Jennings, and my cell phone fell to the floor face down. Lily slammed the door behind her as I struggled with Miss Jennings.

  “Get a chair and my rope!” Miss Jennings ordered, placing the gun against my head. Her lips grazed my ears as she whispered, “I’m going to have fun killing you, Vera.”

  In that instant I knew this would not be my parents’ death. I would not close my eyes due to drugs and never open them. She wanted to hurt me, to torture me physically as she had emotionally.

  Lily shoved the chair in front of me, and Miss Jennings twisted me into it while Lily tied my hands down.

  “Lily, why are you doing this?” I gasped.

  “We’re vampires!” Lily answered, her eyes twitching with her lips in a sinister smile.

  They were all insane; out of their minds.

  “There’s no such thing as vampires Lily!”

  She winked at me and my stomach flipped.

  “In our world there is, and we have power!” she reiterated, clapping her hands as she finished tying me up.

  Miss Jennings’ cackle broke into my mind and seared into my soul. This was how I would die, and no one could stop them. She had a gun, and she would shoot me if the police came. I wasn’t going to escape this.

  “You can beg for your life now if you wish,” Miss Jennings suggested as she came around the front of the chair with hideously sharp fang teeth protruding over her lips.

  “Screw you,” I spat.

  Before I could see her reaction the butt of the gun was slamming into my head.

  “I said beg!” Miss Jennings demanded.

  I looked back up at her with my vision blurred from the impact.

  “I said, screw you!” I repeated through gritted teeth.

  She hissed and lunged at me, plunging the fake teeth into my neck and causing searing pain to course down through my limps. My body twitched in pain
, and she pulled away, wiping her blood stained lip.

  “Hit a nerve, did I?” Miss Jennings teased, running tongue over her teeth.

  “You won’t get away with killing me. They’ll know who did it!” I gasped as I ignored the pain from my head and the pinched nerve.

  Lily stepped forward.

  “And how would anyone know?” Lily tormented me with her eyes.

  I shook my head and the room spun a bit. “She’ll frame you for this. Once I’m dead Knightley will have no reason to stay quiet and he won’t. He knows you framed him,” I accused, my voice a strong whisper against my wavering reality.

  “Faye, you’ll protect me won’t you?” Lily asked, looking at Miss Jennings with puppy obsessive eyes.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I choked.

  Miss Jennings handed Lily the gun and a knife appeared.

  “You will die slow,” Miss Jennings began as she nodded over her shoulder towards my kitchen. “Get two bowls. Decent sized, please—I bet this one has a lot of tasty blood in her.”

  I clenched my teeth as the pain continued to sear through my whole body. I could feel the blood dripping from the wounds on my forehead and neck.

  This woman was sick; she ran her finger across my neck and licked it.

  “Mhmm…I can’t wait to drink the rest of it!” Miss Jennings sneered at me.

  “Good way to get AIDS,” I spat, my voice hoarse.

  “You have AIDS?” she asked. “I doubt it.”

  Lily came back into the room and placed the bowls beneath my wrists. I tried to stop my heart from pounding, knowing that would only make it quicker. It felt like it had been an hour since I had come in my door, but it had only been a matter of minutes. Would I be dead by the time Tad got here?

  Miss Jennings bent down, putting her face close to mine.

  “Still not willing to beg? I might grant you a faster death if you do.” Miss Jennings gave me the alternative.

  “And what, ruin your fun?” I said, and I spit in her face.

  In an instant she slashed my wrists and blood began to pour into the bowls. It only took a minute for me to feel faint and for the edges of death to creep in.

  Miss Jennings sat on the couch and patted the seat next to her.

  “Sit and enjoy the show,” Miss Jennings said to Lily.

  Death was sickening. I wondered who would have to identify my pale, lifeless body. Who would have to endure that image? I knew what it would do to them; the same thing that the image of my parents had done to me. It would make them cringe and cry out in agony to take in my blood ridden body. It would haunt them for their whole life.

  I didn’t think of my parents. They would meet me there, wherever there was. They were dead just like I was going to be. The only person I could think about was Tad. How would this affect him? Would it break his heart? Would he know how much I loved him? I didn’t want him to feel alone in the world as I had before I met him. That was worse than the pain of dying this slow, cold death. The pounding in my head was beginning to grow faint, and my arms began to feel heavy and cold. I heard footsteps rushing up the stairs, and Miss Jennings rushed around me, pointing the gun at my head.

  “How the hell did someone find out where we were?” she demanded as her eyes darted across my dying body.

  Lily noticed my cell phone on the floor, and she rushed forward, punching me in the stomach. “Did you text someone?”

  The door burst open, and Tad was there with a gun pointed at Miss Jennings. His eyes met mine, and I knew exactly what he wanted me to do. I used what strength I had left to fall over to the right just as his bullet burst out of his gun too fast for Miss Jennings to react. In the same instant she hit the wall; I hit the floor, sending the bowls of my blood everywhere. I was dripping in my own blood, and the rest of the room was dripping with it too.

  “We told you to wait!” a policemen yelled, rushing in the door after Tad with his gun rose.

  “She’d be dead already. She’d have shot her,” Tad snapped as he rushed forward and untied me.

  Policemen flooded into the room, handcuffing Lily and rushing towards Miss Jennings, who lay bleeding on the floor behind me.

  “Is she dead?” I gasped for air as Tad pulled me into his arms. I could only just feel his touch, and that scared me more than the fact that the world seemed toneless and empty.

  “Who gives a shit?” Tad cried as he lifted me up.

  The world was becoming darker by the second as it blurred into nothing. I couldn’t feel any part of my body but my heart. It seared with pain; I didn’t want to die in his arms. I didn’t want him to carry the burden of my death.

  “I love you Tad,” I whispered as the world faded into nothing.

  Seconds seem like a lifetime when the life you lived is slowly drained out of you by those who care not what you felt, hoped, or dreamed. When the darkness comes it is all consuming, there is no light and there is no pain. It is the never ending loss of hope that now consumes me as I die in his arms.

  Chapter 50

  Walking away from death is more frightening than death itself. Death threatens to take you and the only way back to life is to find the pain and concentrate on that feeling. You know if you feel the aches of life that you are still alive. I had lost my senses as I was devoured by the intense agony of what was happening. This was not what I thought death would be. They said it was peaceful and easy, but this was not true for me. The feeling of hopelessness was endless pain, and I felt myself fighting for the physical pain to envelope me and to let me know there was something, anything left. I needed to know that I would not leave Tad empty as I had been without him. Had death been like this for my parents? Had they fought with no one to save them? I knew I was still alive and with that thought the searing pain in my head and the intense heat radiating up my arms returned. I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs, but stopped the second Tad’s face came into view. I ignored the pain and grasped his face leaning forward and pressing my forehead against his.

  His hands were on my face.

  “Thank God,” he whispered, and his voice was hoarse from crying.

  “You saved me. I have nothing to live for but you,” I confessed without thinking. “I’ve loved you since I first saw you, and I couldn’t die knowing that I would leave you alone.”

  His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he gulped back tears.

  “There’s no pain in the world comparable to the thought of losing you,” he said, holding my hand to his lips so that his voice was muted.

  I put my head back against the pillow, feeling exhausted from the effort of moving. After a long moment of just staring at each other I finally said, “Is she dead?”

  “No, I just took out her shoulder with the bullet, but they’re both in jail now,” Tad explained, and his voice trailed off before he continued, “There’s something you should know…about your parents’ death.”

  “What?”

  “It was one of your parents’ co-workers…Carla…she did it with Jennings,” Tad told me. “Your theory proved right. Jennings was running a cult of people who wanted to be vampires. They were people who had someone to seek revenge on. She brainwashed them to let her kill those people.”

  “What did my parents ever do to her? Nothing!” I found myself sobbing in shock. My parents had been good people. There could be no good reason to have them killed.

  “The rumors will fly, Abbi. Everyone knows who you are now. It’s strewn across the news and my involvement in saving you is bound to end up there too,” Tad added, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling me up into his arms.

  “You’ll lose your job…” I took slow deliberate breaths against the pounding filling me head.

  “Possibly—I can get a new job, but I can’t replace you. I don’t care about my job,” he said, rubbing my back.

  “You love your job and you’re good at it,” I retorted, fighting against the searing pain in my heart.

  “I love you more, and I’m good at
other things too,” he teased, pulling away with a wink.

  The sparkle in his eyes made me laugh.

  “Still dirty though,” I observed with a smile.

  “I could be a sexy male model,” he suggested as he pursed his lips in a model pose.

  “No,” I replied pulling at his loosened tie and bringing his face to mine, the pain forgotten, “that’s only for my eyes.”

  His lips found mine in an instant, and I never wanted that kiss to end. A cough pulled us away from one another, and I saw the nurse standing at the door.

  “One of the detectives is here to speak to you two,” she explained looking at us. “I thought I’d warn you.”

  Tad leaned back and straightened his tie before saying, “Thanks for that.”

  “Yeah, that wouldn’t have been good for him to walk in on, but it was very sweet,” she observed with a smile. “I’ll send him in.”

  “Hi, I’m Detective Todd Reed. I’m glad to see you’re awake and feeling better?” he asked, a hand held out.

  “Thanks,” I said, shaking his hand briefly.

  “I have a few questions because the media is asking about how we found you. We have thus far said an anonymous lead, but in court we’ll need a better explanation. Now as I understand it, Knightley, you were at your friend Toby’s apartment across the way and knew that that was Abbi’s apartment. You saw the two, Jennings and Lily, enter the building forcefully and called the police. You weren’t able to warn Abbi before hand, and you knew about the vampire situation because you were there when she discovered the body of the last victim. That was when Abbi told you about her parents. So you grabbed your gun, which you had in your car for target practice later that day and entered the building to find Jennings holding a gun to Abbi’s head and draining her blood out. You shot, and we arrived about the time you were going in the building. Right?”

  Tad was speechless for a second, but then gained enough composure to stutter a response, “Yes, thank you.”

  “Now Abbi, you were smart to record the conversation for proof, but the motive seems a bit foggy. Why would Jennings assume you were having a relationship with Knightley? Is it because of the strong bond you now share because you discovered one of the victims together?” Todd suggested, his eyes moving from me to Tad.