by Casey Lane
Lettie believed it was the latter. “I hate that you defend him.”
Warm and scalding heat bubbled up in her throat, making her vocal chords feel tight and scratchy. But she stopped short of saying, why don’t you ever defend me?
“He’s my son,” her mother said, between a sharp nasal wheeze and another feverish draw on the cigarette.
“And what am I?” She was unsure if she was asking her mother or herself.
“I didn’t realize this was a competition.” Her mother snorted and placed her bony hands in her lap.
Of course it is, Lettie thought. And only the strongest survive.
Lettie called Kai, and she didn’t answer. But hearing her voice on the voicemail was enough to make her throat go tight. “You’ve reached Kaiya. Tell me what’s what.” Beep.
Lettie told her that she loved her and missed her. She tried to sound cheerful. The rest of the day passed in a fugue as she showered, choked down some dinner, and began to clean up the house.
Lettie was at the sink and up to her elbows in soapy water when the front door banged open.
Merek stormed in, long legs striking out.
As soon as she saw him, her hand tightened on the wet wooden handle of a steak knife hidden beneath the crackling white foam. His face was bloodied. A gash across his forehead had split open wide and had poured blood across half his face. It hung like a candle-wax curtain. At some point, he must’ve swiped upward to get it out of his eyes. A smear of finger-swept blood swooped upward over his cheek and brow in an artful stroke. Where it hit his hair, it had stiffened, lifting it off the hairline.
The part of his face that wasn’t bloodied was swelling. One eye was almost sealed shut. That corner of his mouth puffed and blackened as if burnt.
He only spared a cursory glance at their mother who was turning in her patched white recliner, her mouth coming open in a surprised O.
“What happened to you?” Lettie asked, only taking one hand out of the water. The other remained in the sink, hand on the blade.
But she hadn’t needed him to answer. Just looking at him, she knew what had happened. He’d run his mouth at the wrong person. Smarted off to a bigger, badder wolf, and this is what it got him. He might be the shark in their pond, but he wasn’t in the ocean—and the world had taken a moment to remind him of that.
“I need more money,” he said, his fat tongue flicking out to touch his lips. His words were thick and swollen too. “And I need it now.”
“I don’t have any left,” she said, turning the wooden handle in her slick, submerged hand. “You took it all. Remember?”
His tongue darted again, swiping at the corners once, twice, and three times. It was like a lizard, she thought. A lizard that just had its tail ripped off.
She made the mistake of smiling.
“You’re lying!” he lunged for her.
Without thinking, she brought her hand up and swung the knife wide. He caught it easily, batting her hand away, the way she used to bat away Kai’s angry little fists.
He twisted her hair up in his hand and pulled.
“Oh, come on now!” her mother called. “That’s enough!”
He dragged Lettie into the living room and dumped her three feet from where their mother sat, rising from the patched recliner.
“Sit down!” he screamed at her.
Her mother did as she was told, easing her stiff body back down. “Merek, you need to calm down.”
Lettie’s shoulders had bowed forward as if already preparing for a blow. “You heard what she said! After all we’ve done for her, letting her come back here after Kai was born, chasing off those men that fucked her over! And she won’t even support us in our time of need!” he said, jabbing a finger into Lettie’s cheek. Lettie looked up at him from her place on her knees.
He grabbed her again, and the hard slap across her face. Her ears rang with the sound of it. Only hollow shock and sound echoed through her. When she turned back, stared him dead in the eyes, she saw the dilated black discs staring back at her.
High as hell.
Not even an ass beating had been enough to pull him out of his high.
“Hey now!” their mother said. And she was up, her stick legs trembling with the effort. The old woman shuffled forward now and Lettie had one panicked thought—oh God no. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ever wanted you to protect me. Don’t stand up for me. Don’t—
Because she thought this was worse than taking the blows. Seeing her mother put her body between them, seeing her back curve in anticipation of a blow that she would take on Lettie’s behalf—that was worse.
Lettie kicked out, knocking him back, and the slap he threw only connected with the old woman’s shoulder. But it had been enough to knock her off balance and send her crumpling to the floor.
“You!” Lettie shouted. Her eyes rolled up to her brother’s. “I choose you! I hope he rips your throat out, and when you’re dying like a fucking pig, I hope you taste your own shit and blood in your throat! Come on! I choose him! Take him! I don’t care! Take him now!”
Chapter Fifteen
I stood in the dark of the shed, leaning against the scarred and peeling wood, and listened to the commotion in the house. The sharp cries of anger. A fist connecting with meat. Then her command, “I choose him! Take him now!”
The burning thirst in my throat flared. But even as it did, that sharp tug in my mind leashed me. It was important in moments like this to remember that it was not about what I wanted. It was about the job that needed to be done—about keeping my raging thirst in check long enough to complete what I was sent here to do.
Sure, I wanted to enter the house. I wanted to step up behind that bottom feeder and break his neck with one swift twist of my hands. I imagined how the Lettie’s eyes would widen in surprise, no doubt my fingers moving so fast that it would seem like magic to her, like perhaps her brother’s neck twisted itself around all on its own. I imagined that first pleasurable crack of bones and tendons snapping. Then, before the blood cooled in his throat, I would tear it open, bite through it like the red flesh of an apple and unleash the torrent beneath. I did not make a habit of wasting a single drop, but with him, was he not already a waste? And it would be more invigorating to feel that hot heat of him bubbling up against my lips like a cool, refreshing fountain.
I sighed and settled my weight against the shed. I waited.
I listened to her mounting anger. I listened to her strike out, hit him back, and send him tumbling into something heavy. I noted the unmistakable creak of wood before the crash.
The old woman’s heart fluttered in her chest—yes, I could hear it even from my hiding place—
and wondered if she might give up the ghost, here and now amidst her children’s strife.
I swallowed against my mounting hunger again, against the sounds of violence, only making it stronger. She knew where I was, and where to find me if she wanted this. And that was the last piece of this test. She had to come to me. She had to declare this her desire, because once I tore out her throat, there was no going back.
A pale figure appeared, framed in the back door. She leaned her weight to the side in order to heft open the sliding door. It groaned but slid open. She stepped out into the night. She marched across the hot concrete, the damp yard, her wild hair around her face.
I saw again the changes I’d already wrought in her body. Those deep circles under her eyes. The flesh sunken. The yellowing bruises at her throat blooming. A light sweat stood beaded along her hairline. But her steps were sure and certain. Angry. Oh, how well anger can carry us in those moments we feel weak.
I took one step away from the shed into the bright and clear moonlight.
Her eyes met mine. Her steps faltered as I suspected they would.
But I made no move. I didn’t dare rush this. We were almost at the heart of it. If I did not play this right, it would end badly. For both of us.
“Good evening, Lettie,” I said. I settled into m
y bones and pulled back on the thirst threatening to tear me in half. Bite her, it begged. Tear her throat in two. I licked my lips. “Is your family well?”
She laughed. A hard and unforgiving slap. I’d hurt her. The slightest tremor overtook her plump bottom lip. Her gaze cut away, and tears shimmered in their corners. She thought me cruel. And could I deny it?
“No,” she said, again that barely discernible quiver in her lip. She was a child on the verge of hopeless tears. “No, they’re fucked up!”
“You have made your choice then,” I said, my voice flat. It revealed none of my anticipation. None of my thirsty anguish.
“Yes!” she said, and lifted her chin higher. “Yes, I have.”
“Very well,” I said and took a step toward her. I heard her heart thundering in my mind as fast as any rabbit’s.
She took a step back. Her mouth opened then halted. She started to say his name, but it stuck in her throat. Her lips came together again, folding in on each other in the beginning of a M…but still no name. She thought, what am I doing?
This was not my magic.
This was her own. This was what called me to her when another’s blood had not yet dried on my lips. It was the curse and power that lorded over her.
“I see,” I told her, unable to hide my grin. I’d given her every chance to save herself. Every chance to turn me away—and she hadn’t done it.
My gums burned as the fangs elongated from my jaw, slipping down over my lip, slicing the flesh open.
Her eyes widened, showing more gleaming white.
But I caught her throat with my mouth and bit hard before the scream could escape. That unshed fear vibrated against my lips, skittered along my flesh and echoed in my bones.
At last, I drank her down.
Chapter Sixteen
Lettie’s body exploded with pain, and I rode that pain like a night train. It was sweet. A fist beating a muscle into relaxation. She had a sudden and brilliant memory of visiting a masseuse on her first honeymoon. The impossibly small woman had worked her over with the hands of a giant.
Sweet pain, the masseuse had said. It hurts now, but I’m making you better.
And she had. Each twist of the heel of her hand had undone some old injury hiding beneath the surface of Lettie’s skin. And it was the same now as I rode her, sucked her, bucked against her.
Yes, I cooed through her mind. It hurts now, but I am making you better.
I released her flesh, groped for a better angle, and plunged in again. She cried out, but I didn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. I took and took until Lettie’s head spun.
Why didn’t I say his name? Why? her mind asked over and over again. A voice in her head screamed it now: Merek! Merek!
Too late for that. We’d already begun.
She screamed with all the scorned vengeance of a woman who had been used and beaten and robbed for most of her life.
Why didn’t I say his name? Why couldn’t I say his name? He should die, not me! Not me!
Over time she grew quiet. Once we’d returned to the lake, her back lay on the cold earth beside the water, and those wide empty eyes stared up at the stars. She wasn’t dead, but quite close.
We listened to the crickets. We heard the frogs, throats swelling in song, croaking to one another as we lay on the ground together, as I emptied her and filled her and emptied her again.
Because whatever I took and took, I gave back again. I poured with my mouth over her mouth, my body over her body. Her mouth would fill with my blood, and she found herself swallowing, instinctively. First in blind panic, lest she choke, but then out of desire. Out of need.
And it wasn’t only her life that I wanted.
I entered her. Filled her with my body and fire. And when I thought her body would give out for pleasure or pain, I lifted her, turned her so that her hands and knees were in the dirt.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I whispered in the darkness. “Isn’t this what you dreamed about?” And sank my fangs into her shoulder.
It took me a long time to hollow out Lettie Cole. I took every thought, every fear, every belief and wish from her until all the pain and fear of living were gone.
When I lifted her into my arms as carefully as a child and lay her in the cold earth, she wasn’t afraid. The walls of earth on every side were cool and comforting as she stared up from the grave at my face. The stars had grown sharp above us, especially for her, framed by those four walls of earth.
My work was done, and all that was left was to bury her. So I began shoving the earth into the hole.
“Why?” she croaked as granules of soil hit her naked body, pale and ravaged. There was no part of her that I’d left unpenetrated. “Why?”
I peered over the edge of the grave at her, my head surely a silhouette against the brilliant sky. “We all die, Lettie. Every one of us.”
“No.” Her voice cracked.
I stood and leaned against the handle of the shovel as if it were a hitching post. “No?”
No. Not the grave. Why me? Why make me choose then take me anyway? “Why?” it was only that last word that managed to slip past her dry, cracked lips.
I watched her. I was so alive now. The suit no longer hung at sharp angles from my shoulders. My body and face had filled in. My flesh danced.
Alive, she thought. Alive with the life he took from me.
Yes. There was no point in denying it.
“Because this is what you needed,” I said. My voice was as kind as I could make it. As soft as one who speaks to frightened children. “You were a victim all of your life. You were born one, and you will die one. But you are not a victim any longer.”
“I’m not a victim,” she said, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.
“No, and you will never be a victim again,” I told her. “Not after I’m done with you.”
Chapter Seventeen
When Lettie woke, she was cold. She opened and closed her aching fist and found it as stiff and arthritic as her mother’s. A heavy, chilled weight sat on top of her chest, pinning her back against a freezing slab. She tried to turn, and the substance covering her shifted, too. Damp earth tumbled into her mouth and eyes.
She coughed, body burning with wakefulness now as she began to claw frantically upward. Clumps of dirt shifted and swirled with each frantic swipe. It threatened to haul her down, pin her in its eternal darkness, but she kept clawing despite the throbbing, burning ache in her throat and stomach.
She could smell herself. Smell the death on her.
She broke the surface and gasped. She felt the lungs in her chest swell in a perfunctory way, as if she were doing it out of habit rather than need. Her weak arms gave, but thankfully not until they’d tipped her over the edge of the hole she’d climbed from and onto the soft earth.
For a long while, she could only lie there, shaking with an impossible cold that she’d never felt in all her life. Rain pelted her face and cheeks, washing the dirt from her eyes.
Finally, she sat up and looked into the grave.
A grave. My grave.
She had died, true, but had not stayed dead. She didn’t need anyone to tell her this, not even me, but I had stayed close. I was watching her examine herself with new eyes. Her arms and legs and hands looked the same, but they were not. It was as if the lens had shifted, and now she saw herself through a prism of different kaleidoscopic light.
It was the thirst that eventually pulled her to her feet—this is true for all of us.
She wobbled like a colt on new legs, but managed to stand. The moon was fat and swollen among the stars. She felt like she could gaze up into it forever. But again, that dark thirst pulled at her, made her skin itch.
She went home. Away from the lake where the cicadas sang and frogs croaked their endless melody. Passing through clouds of mosquitos that paid her no mind now. Because of what I am, she thought, and again, that instinctive inner knowing swelled up inside her. That knowing which told her she would have t
o return to the earth by dawn. The knowing which told her exactly what she must drink in order to quell the thirst. That she had died and was still dead—at least the parts that mattered to the world.
She allowed her feet to lead her through the night. Through clusters of trees, across dark roads and ditches. One late night driver slowed down for her, the brake lights flashing red against wet pavement, but then sped up again.
They’ll know, she thought as the car began to drive away. The smart ones will know.
Lettie found the brick house on Margo Street just fine.
She stood at the end of her driveway and stared at the small house on its hill. The house she grew up in. The house where her father died, where her mother was dying. The last place she’d seen Kai alive.
She stood there in shadows and watched the blue light of the television flicker through the windows. Lightning cracked across the sky, and the rain pelted her freezing skin harder.
She crossed the steep lawn, passed under the tremendous tree, and walked up the slanting stoop without ceremony. One moment, she was in the pouring rain, the smell of electricity in the air. The next, she stood in the living room, between the flickering blue television and her brother, who sat slumped and sleeping in the recliner.
Because the television was behind her, the light warped around her body. A comical shadow, long and menacing, fell over the sleeping man with his bruised and sagging flesh.
With her new eyes, Lettie saw this man in a way she’d never seen him before. He didn’t appear as the terrifying tyrant of her nightmares. He was thin. Frail even. Animated as much by desire and need as any organ that might be keeping him alive.
She thought of her own need, thrumming through her body. “At least we’re the same now, brother.”
