by A. M. Hudson
I looked up when he whispered something in her ear; whatever sweet nothing it was making her tilt her head back, laughing with the gentle ring of tiny bells on a summer breeze.
God, hurry up, Mike.
My fingers stiffened over the keys; I changed the tune to a more sombre melody.
“Now there’s a sound I haven’t heard for a while,” Mike noted, walking into the kitchen, his nose in a newspaper.
His sudden appearance turned all my fingers to thumbs, and my pinkie hit a low C, making everyone in the room look up at me.
“What are you guys doing?” Mike folded the paper, his face holding back a burst of obvious amusement.
“Dancing,” David said. “But we’re short a man. Care to take a hand so I can dance with Ara?”
Mike nodded his greeting to Ryan and Alana, trying to look past David to see the slender girl in the emerald green dress behind him. “Who...who’s that?”
David moved aside then, revealing Emily in all her loveliness. Mike’s mouth hung open, frozen, as if stuck on a vowel. He dropped the paper on the dining table and walked in a trance-like state to stand before her. “Emily?”
“Yes.” She looked down, pinching the fabric of her dress.
“No,” Mike whispered, shaking his head, his eyes washing slowly over every inch of her face. “You look exactly the same.”
“I am the same.” She stole a sideways glance at David, who sat beside me.
“No.” He reached out and carefully ran tapering fingers over her bare arm. “You’re dead.”
“I’m not dead, Mike.” She placed his hand on her face. “I’m still here—see?”
“But, I...I watched you die.”
“No, you watched me change.” Her eyes watered as it became clear that the battle we hoped to win was being lost to reality, all too soon.
Mike shook his head again, a gaze full of his thoughts brushing her brow, her cheeks, collarbones, then her lips, staying there, watching them, contemplating them before his own lips fell against them—his hands clasping her face as he breathed her in.
David took my hand, a hopeful squeeze warming my fingertips.
Slowly, and with what looked like consideration, Mike pulled away, running his tongue across the remains of the kiss. “You are the same.”
Emily nodded, touching her fingers to his hand, still on her face.
“Oh, Em,” Mike said, almost melting.
It worked. I knew he couldn’t resist her in green.
I smiled up at David as Mike pulled Emily in and whispered repeated words of apology to her.
Alana, standing behind them, lost in the sweetness of the moment, gave a silent little clap, winking at me; I bowed.
“I’ve been a dick,” Mike said as he stood back.
“Yes.” Emily smiled, looking up from him, wiping her face. “Yes, you have.”
“How can I ever make it up to you?”
She shook her head. “Just treat me like a human being.”
Mike nodded. “Consider it done.”
We ended the night after a few more hours dancing and laughing by candlelight, playing piano versions of songs we all enjoyed, and after saying goodbye to Ryan and Alana, David and I laid on my bed, still fully clothed, our eyes on the roof, absently running circles over each other’s palms. When David stopped humming the tunes of the night, I took over, offering a sweet song that popped into my head.
“Where did you hear that?” I couldn’t see his face, but the tone of his voice held utter confusion.
“In a dream, I think.”
“Do you know what that song is?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes—it’s a vampire song. One written a long time ago.”
“Where did I hear it, then?”
“I don’t know,” David mused in a deliberately dull tone.
With a stretch and a slight yawn, I rolled onto my stomach. He was an expert at displaying impassiveness; the only real way to tell if something troubled him was to look at his morbidly furrowed brow; that’s where the truth sat. But this time his face, upturned, his eyes on the ceiling, gave no clues. I studied the curve of his jaw, the way it held strongly, well-defined under his golden skin—with a certain set that always made him look slightly amused, even when he was angry. A pair of shocking green eyes suddenly focused on me, making my heart jump.
“What?” he asked, leaning up on his elbow.
I caught my breath, smiling. “You’re beautiful, David.”
He laughed, relaxing back. “As are you, my love.”
“And...” I watched his eyes carefully, “Emily looked nice tonight, didn’t’ she?”
He shrugged noncommittally.
“Didn’t you think so?” I pressed.
He sighed and turned his head, an accusatory glare hiding in his eyes. “Get to the point.”
“What point?” I laid on my back and released his hand.
He groaned. “I don’t have feelings for her, Ara.”
“Coulda fooled me. You hold her like you do, talk to her like you do, laugh with her, have fun with her—”
“Ara. Stop this. It’s ridiculous.” He sat up a little.
“What is?”
“This jealousy. Emily’s my friend, okay. She always has been—always will be.”
“Yeah—for eternity, now.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that. So you can’t be mad at me for it.” He flopped back, his tone dry and flat.
I toyed with the frill on my pillow, keeping my gaze on the roof. “Will you take her with you—when you go?”
“No. She has no choice, Ara. She has to join a Set, or risk being hunted down.”
“What?” I sat up on my elbows.
“You know that—it’s the law.”
“Can’t she stay with you?”
He shook his head. “I won’t allow it. Due to my choices, I face prison and torture if they catch me. I won’t commit Emily to that. She has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.”
“But they don’t know she exists. Can’t she just keep it that way?”
“Jason knows.”
“Will he tell?”
David shrugged. “If he does, she will automatically be imprisoned for not reporting.”
“Well, can’t you ask him not to tell?”
“And how am I going to do that, Ara?” he said in a short tone. “Waltz into vampire headquarters and say Hey, bro, got a sec?. You don’t think before you speak, do you?”
I glared at him. “What is your problem tonight?”
His jaw stiffened, he blinked a few extra times. “I just—you make me mad, Ara. All this Emily business. Don’t you get it? She means nothing to me. Never has—never will.”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll drop the Emily thing.” I fisted the mattress once then plonked down on my side, my elbow under my face. “But, does she really have to go away—to be with the vamps?”
“This is the way of things, Ara. You just have to live with it.”
“When are you going to tell her?”
“When I leave.”
“She won’t like it.”
“And yet she will go, because it’s the law.”
“You don’t follow the law.”
“I—” I bet he wanted to say I always do, but that was no longer true. “I’m not having this discussion tonight.”
I smiled widely, unable to hold it back.
“What?” he said.
“You’re grumpy when you’re tired.”
He rolled over to face me, smiling. “And you, my girl, are annoying—all the time.”
“But you still love me, right?”
He grunted, rolling onto his back.
“David?”
“Yes,” he said with a hint of lingering impatience.
“I love you.”
He just breathed out and said nothing else.
My computer screen flashed with the reminder of a date I’d pinned in last week—the imaginary make-David-je
alous one I was supposed to have with Eric. I grabbed my phone, texted him and waltzed out to tell David I’d be leaving in ten minutes.
“Hey, Ara.” Emily passed me in the hall as I shut my bedroom door.
“Hey, where’re you off to?” I asked.
She scratched her nose and motioned down at her black attire.
“Em, you don’t need to dress like a thug to go hunting.”
“I know, I just—I feel like a criminal.”
I rolled my eyes. “You are.”
She walked off in a huff and slammed the front door behind her. I wandered into the music room and found my vampire sitting alone, watching the evening sky with a thoughtful gaze, his ankle over his knee, his skin glowing in the golden light.
“Hey,” I said, sliding over the edge of the sofa and into David’s lap. “Why don’t you hunt with Emily anymore?”
“Because you asked me not to.”
“I asked you not to kill, David. I didn’t say you couldn’t go with her—keep an eye on her.”
“It’s too hard for me—to resist.” He swallowed hard.
“Oh. Do you need some blood now? I got spare.” I held up my wrist, but he knocked it away, rising to his feet, leaving me falling onto the couch where his lap had been.
I sat up. “David? What’s wrong?”
He took a breath and shook his head. “I—I’m not coping, Ara.”
“Not coping? With what?”
“I love you, you know I love you, and I love your blood, but it’s—” his fist tightened and his shoulders rose slightly, “it’s not enough. I need the kill, I need the bite.”
I jumped up and placed a reassuring hand to his arm. “But you bite me, I—”
“Not with my fangs, and I can’t kill you.”
“David?” I darted away from him, stealing the edge of the piano as a perch to lean on. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Why not, Ara?” He thrust his hands out defensively. “I’m a vampire, and so far, with all this human company I’m keeping, I haven’t been acting like one.”
“You drink blood.”
He stepped closer, looking down at me, holding me in place with a firm grasp on my arms. “It’s not the blood I need, Ara—it’s the kill, the bite. I crave it—”
“David stop!” I looked away from his eyes, brushing my fringe from my lip. “I can’t listen to you talk like that.”
A sudden, unnerving silence forced me to look back up; his eyes became dark and intense, his jaw stiffened. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re never going to get it.”
“Get what? That you enjoy murder, that you enjoy taking lives?”
“Yes!” he said. “That’s exactly what I enjoy, Ara—and do you know why?”
I didn’t answer.
“Because I’m a vampire.” His eyes widened, sarcasm festering in the fake smile. “You know, guys with fangs and blood lust? Ara, I need the kill. I need the bite.”
“Stop saying that!” I pushed his hands off me and took a step back. “If that’s how you feel, then—”
“Then what, Ara?” He rolled his shoulders back, making his spine straight. “What? You want me to leave? You want me to choose between you and my nature—I can’t do that. I shouldn’t have to do that.”
“I’m not asking you to, I—”
“You accepted me. You wanted me to stay, now you want me to change?”
“No. I accepted you as a murderer because there was no other way. But there is now. You can survive on this.” I held my wrist out. “You don’t need to kill.”
“Yes. I do, Ara—don’t you see?” He pushed my wrist down. “It’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. The urge, it gets stronger every minute. I can’t fight it. It’s taking over like a shadow on the day.”
The world became winter all around; the floor, the air, my lips, everything grew cold. David stood before me, the two of us frozen souls, trapped in a moment of awareness. “I don’t want you to kill, David. I couldn’t take it if you were to go out there right now and…I…I don’t want to look at you when you get home, knowing you just took a life.” I sat on the couch, staring into the emptiness of my own fears. “I can’t do that.”
“Then you can’t be with a vampire.”
My head fell in my hands. How has it come to this? I thought we were past this. “I’m sorry, David, but I—” I looked up; he was gone. “David!” I got to my feet quickly, panic rising in me like vomit. “David!”
He’s gone; he’s really gone.
The sudden emptiness in the room felt like the death of a friend. I sunk down, falling to the floor, hugging my knees.
What have I done?
“Ara?” Mike knelt beside me. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“He—he left. He just left me here.”
“Who?”
“David.” I felt the anger rise then. “How could he just leave like that? I didn’t even get to finish what I was saying.”
“What happened, did you have a fight?”
“He’s gone to kill. I can’t bear it. I just can’t bear it that he’s out there right now—taking a life, for the thrill, for the...lust.” My shoulders hunched and I sobbed harder, losing my voice. “It’s just so clear to me now. I mean less to him than his drug. He’ll break my heart to get what he wants; to satiate his thirst for blood—for death. And it hurts. It really hurts.”
“Amara?” Eric appeared out of nowhere, pulling me in my ball-sized heap onto his lap. “What happened, beautiful girl?”
Mike stood up and said “This is your field, mate” then walked away.
Eric looked down at me, smoothing the tears that had fallen onto my thighs, slipping down just past the rim of my denim skirt. “Tell me why you’re crying. I’ll make it all better.”
“It’s Da—” I sobbed, “David. He’s…”
“He’s what? What did he do?”
“He’s gone to kill. He—we had a fight. He left—he’s gone to kill.”
“Amara?” Eric laughed once, his brow pinching in the middle. “What’s wrong with that? He’s a vampire.”
“He—he’s been drinking my blood. I thought the killing was over, that maybe he could—”
“Oh, no, no, no, princess.” He tucked me into his chest, resting his cheek to my brow. “Amara, it’s never over. Never. It’s what he is, girl. He has to kill—you know that.”
“No, he’s been fine. He hasn’t needed it.”
“Ha! I’m telling you now, there is no way he’s been fine. Trust me.” He wiped another trail of tears from my leg. “If he’s been fine, it’s because he’s been playing it fine—for you.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes. Amara, he’ll never be free of it. It’s a curse. You can’t just turn it off. It’s not like a drink of water—where it quenches your thirst if you buy the bottled stuff. He would have been in agony trying to control the desire.”
“Desire? But he had blood, so…”
“No.” Eric shook his head. “It’s not the blood—it’s the bite, the death. We crave that, too, kiddo.”
“But?”
“But what? You thought we were all good—deep inside.” Eric rolled his head back and laughed. “No such thing. He’s as much a vampire as any bloodsucker. You’re being unfair by placing that pressure on him.”
“Pressure? To stop murdering people?”
Eric just shook his head and stood us both up, taking my hand. “Come on, you need to see something.”
I was accustomed to Eric taking me to tremendously unsuitable places, but this was going a little too far. I tucked my hands under my elbows and wandered behind him through the thick crowd of sweaty bodies, all layered in skimpy, glittery fabrics, arms raised as if to hold the roof up; their skin glossy, turning white and blue intermittently under the strobe. The room was so packed I felt like a sock in a washing machine, shoved and tossed about, jostled by ribs and elbows and other body parts I’d never planned to have touch me.
; “C’mon.” He reached back, impatient, and grabbed my hand.
“Why did you bring me here?” I had to shout over the impossibly loud music, causing an artificial beat in my heart. “What is this place, anyway?”
“A vampire hang-out.”
“But, they’re all human.” The sweat and smudged mascara a dead giveaway.
“Precisely. It’s a blood rave,” he called over his shoulder, our arms working as a chain to keep us together. We weaved through the middle of the dance floor—not the route I’d have taken— and came out on the edge.
“What the hell is a blood rave?”
With his arms folded, his eyes on the mass of dancing bodies, he smiled. “It’s where vampires go to feed.”
I felt cold then, despite the moisture sticking my hair to my brow, rising up from the humans and settling in a thick, moist cloud all around the edge of the room. “Is it like Karnivale—where they just attack at midnight?”
“No. And that’s why I brought you here.” Eric looked annoyingly perfect, even under the strobe that made me pale. He didn’t even have one drop of sweat on him. I was sure half mine belonged to other people.
“Okay, so, why do I need to come to a club where they don’t kill people at midnight?”
“I want you to see what it looks like.”
“Well, it’s very...” I considered the room; square, with a balcony wrapping the room, seedy things happening in the darkness beneath, ignorance occurring on the packed floor at the centre. “It’s very nice. Now can we go?”
“It’s not the club I wanted you to see, Amara.” He took my wrist. “It’s the kill.”
“What?” I stood a little taller, looking around with wide eyes.
“You saw that girl at Karnivale, right?”
“Yes, and I don’t need to see any more.”
“But you didn’t see her die.”
“I don’t need to.” My voice shook, my arms going stiff.
“It’s not so much the death I want you to see.” He looked up at the balcony. “Come on, we can see better up there.”
“No!” I drove the force of my wrist down and slipped it out between his thumb and finger, breaking free. “I don’t want to see this, Eric.”
“You need to, kiddo. You need to see what it does to us—how the kill affects us.”
