by Amira Rain
Having passed out before, I knew the signs and quickly spoke to Jen. “I’m blacking out. Grab Chrissy.”
The last thing I was aware of was Jen tossing peanuts in the air, crying out for someone to help, and then I felt her arms around me. They seemed to be holding me and Chrissy up, or at least greatly slowing our fall. Then, everything went black.
When I came to, I was in Hayden’s and my bed. And, stunning me, Hayden was in bed with me, too, facing me on his side. Looking at him in the pale light from a bit of sun peeking in through the curtained windows, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been in our bed together.
Seeing my eyes open, Hayden immediately asked me how I was feeling, with his expression a mask of concern.
Thinking about the question, I pulled myself up a little higher on the stack of pillows that was behind my head and upper back. “I…I think I feel fine, I guess. How long was I out for? Oh, and how’s Chrissy? And how’s everyone else?”
Hayden heaved a sigh of seeming relief, with his expression becoming one much less tense. “You were out for about two hours; Chrissy is just fine and is playing in her nursery with Jen, who returned her firearm to her lockbox in the barn beforehand, where it’s going to stay as long as Chrissy lives in this house; and as far as how everyone else is doing, everyone is mostly fine.
A few of my fighters had pretty severe injuries, but fortunately, they’re healing rapidly as we speak, and also fortunately, no one was killed. Mel is resting in her room right now with a terrible headache, but she’s otherwise just fine.”
Now it was my turn to heave a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s all so good to hear. And what about the Warrens? And Carla. Was she even part of the attack today?”
Caressing the side of my face, Hayden said that she’d arrived late. “Probably expecting to find all my fighters decimated, and me vulnerable to an assault by some of the fighters she brought with her like a personal entourage; but what she found was an entirely different scene.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, the brief recap is Jen screaming ‘She’s mine’ and charging Carla; Mel trying to stop her but not fast enough; Jen pistol-whipping Carla, pretty successfully, too; but then Carla got the upper hand and tried to sink her fangs into Jen’s throat. Mel had reached them by that point and soon pulled Carla off before she could drink from Jen.
After that…well, I’ll just point out that Carla has always been an exceptionally weak vampire, and Mel is proving to be quite a strong one. Needless to say, Carla is not a citizen of this world anymore. Axel Warren has also left us, along with a hundred-fifty-something of his fighters. Some were able to flee…a few dozen, maybe…but I don’t think they’ll trouble us very much. At least not on the level that the Warrens have been.”
For the second time, I heaved a sigh of relief, closing my eyes. When I opened them, I felt the prickling of unshed tears, and I told Hayden that I wanted to tell him something. He asked me what it was, and I started out by simply saying that I was sorry.
“And I mean…I’m sorry for everything. For not putting myself in your shoes enough these past few months, for constantly fighting with you, and most of all, for saying what I said to you this morning. I don’t want a divorce, Hayden. I want to be your wife forever. I only said that because I was so frustrated with everything. It was a terrible, stupid, horribly immature thing for me to say.”
Hayden didn’t deny it, but also added that I was only nineteen. “And nobody can expect a nineteen-year-old new bride to be perfectly mature all the time, especially when under a lot of stress. Not to mention that I also said a few terrible, stupid, horribly immature things myself today, and I’m several years older than you are.”
“Well, maybe, although after I said I wanted a divorce. None of this even matters anymore, though. All that does matter is that I’m so sorry for what I said, and I just want to know if you can forgive me, so we can move on as husband and wife…forever.”
After pressing a tender kiss against my lips, Hayden said there was nothing to forgive.
Thanking him, I closed my eyes briefly, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I want you to know that I’m not just saying all this because everything is resolved now. I actually realized what a huge mistake I’d made not long after you left the house. When you didn’t answer my call, I took Chrissy and I went out to chase after you, but then I soon came across a group of Warrens.”
Hayden said he’d immediately regretted our fight, too, and he’d started heading back to the house probably not long before I’d left. “That was why I wasn’t where you probably thought I’d be when you went out looking for me.”
“Well, it’s a good thing Jen came out of nowhere. I’d probably be dead without her, Chrissy, too.”
Saying he hated to even think about it, Hayden agreed. “Jen actually thought I’d be mad at her about her gun, but when I heard the whole story of what happened, and how she defended you and Chrissy with it, I picked her up and gave her the biggest hug I’ve probably ever given her in her life.”
I smiled. “How did she even get the gun anyway? And why did she even come back to the house after going to Sweetwater? Do you know?”
“Well, as you’ve probably been able to guess by now, Jen actually hasn’t been playing paintball with her new grandparents every day. They’ve actually been going to a shooting range. Apparently, the very first day he met Jen, Bucky got the idea that our community was warring with another ‘Mennonite’ group, and he became so concerned for Jen’s safety that he asked her if she’d like to learn to fire a gun for self-defense.
A month or so later, Jen had become so adept at shooting that Bucky bought her a gun for her own, making her promise that if she didn’t get permission from me to keep it locked up in the house, she’d keep it locked up in the barn, which she did. I guess she didn’t want to tell anyone about her new gun or her experiences at the range because she thought we’d all be mad and try to stop her, which…yeah, we definitely would have.”
“Best friend or not, I probably would have tried to stop her from ever going into Sweetwater again. The thought of Jen handling a gun would have just absolutely terrified me.”
“Me, too. I’ve told her she can keep it, though, locked up in the barn, far away from Chrissy, like I said, provided she follows a few specific ground rules. But, now, back to your other question, as to why she came home from Sweetwater so early…apparently, she told Phyllis and Bucky the story about your aunt, suddenly realizing that I probably wouldn’t let you go to Moxon to see her.
So, she decided to go herself, first stopping home to grab her lemon bars; but you didn’t answer her calls to tell you this, and when she got home, she found you and Chrissy gone. Wondering where you went, and worried that the Warrens might have had something to do with your disappearance, she got her gun from the barn and started searching the property. She hadn’t gotten too far when she heard you scream, and she dashed through the woodland by the clearing.”
Thinking of everything that had happened after that, and everything that might have happened had Jen not been there, I shuddered slightly, tears again rolling down my cheeks. “Bless Jen and her big, caring heart. If she hadn’t decided to go visit Pam, bringing her lemon bars and all, Chrissy and I would probably be dead by now.”
“I agree…bless Jen. But no more crying now. You and Chrissy are safe; our family is together again; we’re starting a new chapter; and life is good.”
Smiling through a fresh wave of tears, I agreed.
That evening, after Hayden and I fed Chrissy her dinner and then put her to bed together, even taking time to read her several stories, Hayden left to go see how the burning of all the Warren corpses was going. It was a grim task that had to be completed fairly quickly, so that authorities didn’t stumble onto the farm and find headless torsos, heads, and various body parts everywhere. That would require some intensive mind-clearing that Hayden said he’d really rather not do.
Understanding compl
etely, I went downstairs to the kitchen and found Jen up to the island, digging into a massive bowl of green salad. The bowl was actually a mixing bowl.
Having a seat across from her, I smiled. “Too tired to make a pancake tower with frosting?”
She chuckled. “Yeah…and we’re out of frosting, too. Besides, I’m feeling so mature with my gun and all, that I was thinking I should probably start eating more mature, too. A big salad is a pretty mature, adult-like food thing, isn’t it?”
Smiling, I said that it was.
While Jen began crunching on a slice of cucumber, I told her how grateful I was for everything she’d done that day. “You saved Chrissy’s life, and mine, Jen, and I’ll never forget it. Thank you.”
Swallowing her bite of cucumber with a bashful little sort of smile, she shrugged. “I guess I figured it was the very least I could do after lying to you about going to the shooting range. See, I didn’t want to lie to you, but I just thought that everyone in this house would completely freak out on me if they knew the truth. Hayden even pretty much said to me that you all would have. So, that’s why I did what I did. I just hope you can forgive me for it.”
“Of course, I do.”
We both fell silent briefly again, and then I remembered to thank her for having the thought to go visit Pam in my place.
Jen said it was no big deal. “See, I had the idea to go visit her in your place, but Phyllis thought that maybe the hospital would only accept family visitors only. But since you and me are cousins, or aunts to each other, or whatever family thing we are to each other, I just figured that that makes me a family member to your aunt, too; so, I was going to go to that hospital place and just tell them that I’m a family member there to see your aunt.”
I told Jen that maybe we could both go the following day, and she said that sounded great. “I’ll make a fresh batch of lemon bars tomorrow morning, and even a batch of lemon poppy seed muffins, too. See, scientists have proven that eating anything lemon-tasting reduces sad feelings by up to a hundred and forty-three percent.”
Fighting a smile, I remarked that the “scientists” sure changed their statistics a lot.
Jen said that was common knowledge. “They do it just to keep on making science interesting for everyone.”
Once Jen had finished her salad, having to drench it in ranch dressing and bacon bits to do so, she stretched, sighing, with her arms above her head. “What a day. Lots of adventure, lots of action, and now the whole thing of the fight with the Warrens is fully behind us.”
“Well…before the fight is fully behind us, don’t you think you have one more thing to do first?”
Dropping her arms, Jen frowned. “What thing?”
“Well, don’t you think you should go upstairs and tell Mel that you’re sorry for accidentally shooting her?”
“Oh, that wasn’t an accident, and I’m not sorry.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. “Jen! You seriously shot Mel on purpose?”
Jen nodded. “Yup. And I’m not sorry.”
“How….” Uncomprehending, I gave my head a little shake. “How could you do that?”
“Well, easy. I could do what I did because I knew she’s a vampire, and I knew she wouldn’t die or have any kind of a permanent injury, or even a scar. I just wanted to zing her a bit, which I successfully did. I zinged her real good, just to get her back for everything she’s ever said and done to me, including the time when we went to elementary school together, and she told our classmates that I was just a ‘mentally disturbed cousin’ of hers so that she wouldn’t have to admit to being my twin.”
Wanted had been sleeping near Jen’s barstool, but he suddenly woke up, gazing toward the hallway, and did a low sort of woof that he only did when someone was approaching. A few seconds later, Mel came into the kitchen, holding an ice bag to her head.
Wondering how much she’d heard, if anything, of what Jen had just said, I asked her how she was feeling.
With a sigh, she hopped up on a barstool, setting her ice bag on the island. “Oh, fine. My headache is getting better and better by the hour. I think I’ll live.”
Jen snorted. “Live to harass and annoy me one more day, huh?”
And here we go, I thought, anticipating some kind of knock-down drag-out verbal fight.
However, much to my surprise, Mel simply looked at Jen for a long moment before speaking, wearing an expression that I couldn’t quite read. It was something like compassion. Or maybe even tenderness.
“No…I’m not going to harass and annoy you, Jen. Or, at least, I’m really going to try to be better about it. I do do it intentionally sometimes, and I suppose I can try to stop.”
Eyes widening, Jen just stared at Mel for a long moment. “What’s…what’s wrong with you?”
Mel snorted, although smiling. “Nothing.”
“Well, then why—”
“Because when you shot me today, for just a split-second, I forgot that I’m a vampire, and I thought I was going to die. And somehow, in that split-second, I had what felt like a million different thoughts, and one of them was, maybe surprisingly, how sad I was that I was never going to see you again. ‘I’ll be damned,’ I thought. ‘I’m actually going to miss her.’ Then, when I woke up and realized that I was not dead, because vampire, I thought, ‘I’m going to try to change. I’m simply going to tell Jen that I love her and that I want to try to be a better sister.”
Although she’d spoken in a voice that was strong and sure, Mel’s eyes had filled with tears, and she now hastily wiped them away, smiling.
“That’s all that’s ‘wrong’ with me.”
With her own eyes filled with tears, Jen suddenly winced, sending tears running down both cheeks. “I shot you on purpose, Mel.”
With her smile not entirely gone from her lips, Mel just nodded. “I know. I could see it in your eyes before you fired. You were clearly aiming for me.”
“And you’re not mad at me or anything?”
Mel said no. “You’ve done worse to me. Even just this past month, probably, if I were to really stop and think about it. That was you who ran in my bathroom and threw a hair dryer in the tub while I was taking a bath by candlelight the other day, wasn’t it?”
Jen nodded, sniffling. “Yeah. I was really disappointed when you didn’t get a shock.”
Mel grabbed a tissue from a box on the island and handed it to her. “I figured…but a hair dryer has to be plugged in to give someone a shock…and really, hair dryers don’t even do that anymore. They started putting special circuit breaker things in them in the seventies, so that people wouldn’t electrocute themselves.”
Giving me a little shock, Mel and Jen were soon embracing, and Jen was saying that she just wanted a “whole new fresh start” with Mel.
Misty-eyed, Mel patted her back. “I’d like that.”
The following day, with Jen, I went to visit Pam in the hospital, hoping for my own “whole new fresh start.”
Pam, however, didn’t look too thrilled to see me when I slowly entered her private room after leaving Jen in a waiting room down the hallway. In fact, Pam looked almost scared.
Wearing a plain pale blue bathrobe, she sat in a chair turned away from a small writing desk, and she asked what I was doing there. Then, before I could even answer, she spoke again. “If you’re here to yell at me about our phone conversation, now is not the time, Sydney. I’m not…I’m not doing very well right now. I asked you to leave me alone when we last spoke, and I meant it.”
Silently praying that I was doing the right thing, I continued slowly approaching her, and then grabbed a metal folding chair from against the wall, opened it, and had a seat before taking a deep breath. “I want you to stay, Pam.”
Still looking slightly scared, or maybe just confused, she asked me what I meant. “’Stay’ where?”
I took another deep breath. “Just, here. On this earth. I care about you, and I don’t want you to kill yourself. I want you to make a fresh start in li
fe, and I want you to be able to find some happiness.”
With her eyes wide as saucers, she just looked at me for a long moment or two, swallowing, before abruptly shifting her gaze to the side, toward a window. “I think I’m going to stay here for a while. I’ve still got John’s insurance. He left me, you know, but our divorce won’t be final for a few more months. The hospital billing people tell me his insurance will be good for a sixty-day stay. The doctors say that’ll be long enough to start me on some medication and see if it works.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes. My nerves have just been bothering me lately, and they say they have new medications nowadays to treat things like that. So, I guess I’ll try one. Just long enough to see if it works, anyway. Maybe just a couple of weeks.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
We both fell silent, and Pam continued staring out the window.
After a minute or two of just kind of awkwardly examining my cuticles, I told Pam that I’d brought my best friend and cousin-in-law Jen with me. “Do you mind if she pops in just to say hello really quick? She brought you some treats that she made, and a lady at the nurses’ station said it’s fine for you to keep them in your room.”
With her eyes wide and her expression one of confusion or vague fear again, Pam just moved her head in a slow nod, and I quickly texted Jen to come on down.
Not nearly as awkwardly as I’d done, Jen soon came striding on in the room, introduced herself to Pam, and then presented her with a wrapped plate of lemon bars, and another wrapped plate of lemon poppy seed muffins, telling her what they were.
Surprising me, Pam looked up at Jen wearing what I thought was maybe the faintest hint of a smile. “Thank you. I like lemon things. I think I read somewhere that the taste of lemon is said to drive away feelings of sadness.”
With her eyes wide and her jaw dropping, Jen suddenly pointed at Pam. “I like you. I really, really like you. You’re smart. See, I once heard somewhere that scientists actually did a study that proved that lemon-tasting things reduce feelings of sadness by a hundred and eighty-seven percent, but no one ever believes me about this…and sometimes, I think I just dreamed about the study. But you’ve heard of it. You know.”
