Evolution

by Sam Kadence

  Too late to back out now. Joel needed me. I shook all the thoughts out of my head and got back to work. Was there anything else for him to wear? He was not going to continue to sit in those rags. He’d probably been wearing them for weeks. The Joel I knew would be humiliated.

  Returning to the bathroom, I dumped the bucket, washed it out, and refilled it with clean water. When I approached him this time, he didn’t cringe away; instead he just stared at me, eyes wide. Maybe he recognized me.

  “Hey, Joel. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” I washed his face first, scrubbing gently at the pale lines that ran down his cheeks. They looked like tearstains, and after I washed the dirt away, he seemed a little better. He let me squeeze the water over his head and even squirt some soap in his hair. I didn’t care much about the water ruining his clothes. I’d burn them later if possible. It just seemed so important to make him human again, even if he never would be.

  “We’ve really missed you in the band. Rob did some things… unforgivable things.” But then, everyone said Joel murdered his parents. If attempted rape wasn’t forgivable, how could murder be? I sucked in a deep breath. My grandfather would have said that all things in this life prepare us for the next. Nothing was really a sin, not like in Christian theology; it was just bad Karma. Some things weighed more than others, kept us from progressing. Good karma did the opposite. Perhaps. Even if others weren’t able to forgive the things they had done, they could still get closer to enlightenment, peace, acceptance, in another life. Maybe I could help Joel find a better path. Hane said he’d come over wrong. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but maybe I could help him. Fix whatever was broken. I could at least try. That was more than everyone else seemed willing to do.

  When I reached across to pull off his shirt, he sunk his teeth into my arm with an ease of biting into a tomato. It stung, but I didn’t dare pull away. His teeth would have shredded my skin. He sucked on the wound, licking at any escaping blood. I sat back and just let him drink for a while. Who knew how long Hane had starved him? Only when I started to feel a little light-headed did I pull away. Joel still clung tight.

  “Hey, let me go now. You’ve had enough,” I told him with soft words. He glanced at me only briefly but didn’t loosen his hold. Panic began to set in. What if he killed me? He wouldn’t mean to—he didn’t seem to understand anything I said—but I felt heat rising in my blood. Would I change? Somehow I didn’t think that would help Joel or myself. “Stop!”

  His grip let go, and he flinched away like a battered dog. I used one of the last dry rags to bandage the wound and went to work undressing him, cutting most everything off, and washing him. He sat docile now, unlike I’d ever known Joel to have been, while I bathed him head to toe, even scrubbing the chains that bound him. He didn’t try to attack again, though my neck was bared and close to him. I must have been down there for several hours, but it passed so fast I barely noticed. At least the place didn’t look so much like a prison for someone to be left to die in. And Joel, while still pale, didn’t seem nearly as dead now that he was clean and functioning off of my blood.

  “Still alive down here?” Hane asked suddenly from the doorway. “I’m surprised. He’s slaughtered anyone I’ve brought to him in the last week. Made a total mess out of eating. More blood on the floor than in him.”

  “I want to take him home with me.”

  Hane’s laugh was sharp and bitter. “Kerstrande would kill him the second he arrived. But maybe you like the murderous side of your boyfriend.”

  “At least undo the chains so I can tend his wounds.”

  “He’ll heal.”

  Not under Hane’s care, dammit. “He’s my friend.”

  “I’ll tell your boyfriend that when he shows up to claim your corpse.” Hane stalked across the room and unlocked the chains. The last link clunked to the ground, and Hane moved across the room too fast to see, then stepped out the door and slammed it shut. “Pound when you want out,” he said into the panel in the door then slammed it shut, laughing as he walked away.

  Joel and I faced each other with him hunched on his heels, staring at me with an odd expression. I shrugged off my sweater and pulled it over his head. He didn’t seem to remember how to wear it, but it covered him nearly to his knees. I suppose it was good he only had two inches on me. Kerstrande wouldn’t mind that I lent out his sweater. I hoped.

  How often did new vampires need to feed? Crap, I had to be able to do more than this for him.

  There was a cot in the corner, tipped over and thrown around. I set it right, but the linens were dirty. I sighed. At least the mattress looked fairly clean. “Come here,” I told Joel, patting the mattress. After a moment, he inched forward, finally coming to a stop beside me in front of the bed. “Aren’t you tired?” I asked him.

  He raised a hand, and I thought for a moment he meant to hit me, but he touched my hair, in fact seemed to be petting it.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered to him.

  He sighed and sat down on the bed, then lay back, putting his face to the wall. I went to the door and pounded on it. Hane took a good ten minutes to answer. He stood like a wall in front of me, eyebrow raised.

  I shoved the dirty blankets at him. “Clean linens?”

  He threw them outside the door and stepped back to point at a small door beside the bathroom I hadn’t noticed before. Inside were clean blankets and pillows. I dug out a stack and brought them to Joel, covered him with the blanket to his chin, and tucked a pillow beneath his head.

  “Be good,” I whispered to him. “When Hane tells you to drink, just take a little, and don’t kill anyone else, okay?”

  Joel blinked at me but seemed to have heard. I headed for the door.

  “Taming the beast, eh?” Hane said as he pulled the door shut behind us and relocked it. “He’ll tear that room apart again in a few hours.”

  “He’s not an animal.”

  Hane pressed his face in close to mine, his dark eyes seeming to glow in the once again dim lighting. He snapped off the light switch for the room. “We are all animals, kid. Some of us just have visible fangs.”

  “I’ll be back for Joel. And stay away from Kerstrande. He’s mine.” I turned my back on him and stomped back to the main stairway and up to the gate. Letting a vampire have my back probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could do, but I really wanted to hurt him. Some things were worth the bad karma. I just didn’t have that kind of power. At least not yet.

  Hane grabbed my arm in a nearly bone-crunching grip. “Maybe you should stay. Since you’re giving out blood today.”

  “Not to you.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice.” He backed me against the wall. “Michael wanted you. That’s why he engaged Kerstrande in a fight. Kerstrande doesn’t like to share, but to kill Michael meant taking on the monster inside of him. Your cowardly boyfriend couldn’t do it, so I had to.” Hane’s eyes flickered with some other personality, and blackness began to enshroud him. “He eats at me now. Telling me to take you, rip out your throat, and display your insides for Kerstrande to see.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “What’s to stop me?” He yanked my head to one side, baring my neck.

  I smiled, letting the heat that had been building come to the surface with my anger. Was that how it worked? His hand on my arm began to smoke, and his expression changed to one of pain.

  “Powerful little shit,” he said but didn’t release me. “No wonder Petterson has it so bad for you. Like fucking a volcano, I bet.”

  His teeth grazed my neck when I felt the anger rise up in me with the force of a wrecking ball. He wanted to do this just to hurt Kerstrande. I was just a means to an end. But I wasn’t about to be another hanger-on to hurt KC.

  A red glow flowed around my skin. My hand seared into his chest where I was pushing him away, filling the hallway with the stench of burning flesh. He screamed and shoved me away, hard enough to send me flying several feet. I sucked in a heavy breath and felt
the fire surrounding me.

  Hane rolled around the ground, screaming and flailing. The fire grew in intensity while I stared at him and let my anger free, thinking about how he had treated KC. It was Joel’s face, peering through the tiny open slat in his door that made me reel back and stop. His eyes were wide, fearful. My heart pounded, but the fire stopped as though I’d just turned it off. What had I done?

  Chapter 27

  THE ride home in the cab took forever because traffic was backed up. I kept thinking about the look in Joel’s eyes and how it felt to burn Hane when he threatened me. What was I becoming?

  It was just after two in the afternoon when I arrived home. KC was curled up in bed, blankets wrapped around him. I slipped off my shoes and crawled in beside him. The room was dark as usual, the window covered, but I didn’t mind just seeing the outline of his face. His beauty couldn’t be masked by even the blackest of days. How had I been so lucky to deserve him?

  “You’re thinking again,” Kerstrande grumbled into his pillow.

  “It’s not hurting me. I’m thinking about you.”

  “What a waste of time.”

  I laughed at his tone.

  “You dye your hair again?”

  “No.”

  KC rolled over and flicked the bedside lamp on. “It’s red. Like blood red.” He frowned at my hair.

  I tugged my hair around so I could see it, and sure enough it was dark red with a tinge of orange. A color I’d never managed to get in many attempts at dyeing it. “Crap, and you like the blond.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t care what the fuck color your hair is as long as it’s still attached to you.”

  Had he really just said that? My heart skipped a beat, and I felt my smile get huge. I threw myself into his arms. “I fired Hane.”

  “And you survived. I’m not surprised.”

  I pouted. “Did you think he’d hurt me?”

  “No. He saves the torture for me.” KC settled us back onto the bed and let his forehead rest against mine. “You would just be a way to hurt me.”

  Because KC cared about me, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. “I love you, KC.”

  “So you keep telling me.” But he was smiling when he said it. He ran one hand through my hair while the other cupped my butt, keeping me comfortably within his grasp.

  “I told Hane he can’t have you. You belong to me. And since I burned him by accident, he probably won’t be coming my way anymore.”

  “Burned him?”

  I sighed and tried to look anywhere but at his amber eyes. “I got really mad, and the fire just came out of me. He was demanding to feed on me ’cause he knew it would bug you. I said no. He wasn’t taking no for an answer.” Finally I met his gaze. He appeared amused, not angry or worried. “You really don’t like Hane, do you?”

  “I used to. The last of that died in me when he killed Michael.” KC looked stricken for a second, then seemed to decide to let it pass. I hadn’t told him the part about when I died and had been reviewing memories that were both his and mine.

  “I knew about that. Saw it when I died in the car and was reborn. The girl with your eyes showed me.”

  KC tilted my face up to look at me again. “What girl? You didn’t say anything about a girl before.”

  “She looks like you, only she’s a girl, and part of her face is dead. The other part’s normal.”

  He just looked confused.

  “I’m sorry,” I said automatically. Sometimes my oddities were just too much for people.

  “She looks like me? Maybe that’s why you’re so obsessed, longing after this girl….”

  “I think you have me confused with some other guy with red hair, ’cause I really like boys and all their wonderfulness.” I let my hand slide between us to cup his crotch. “Especially this grumpy guitar genius with a killer body and lots of money.” The girl and I never talked about her. She was just there sometimes and not the rest of the time. “When we talk, we talk about you. I’ve seen her since I was a kid. Most of the time we don’t talk at all.”

  “That makes no sense.” He pulled away and perched on the edge of the bed. I wrapped my arms around him from behind, hugging him to let him know I was there. It was the least I could do. “Maybe she’s a ghost. What other ghosts are following me?”

  “You believe me now?”

  “I’ve always believed you. Why you stay with me when you see what I really am, I have no idea.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Handsome?” I tried.

  “Whatever.”

  “We’re meant to be together.”

  “Now I know you’re crazy.”

  Sigh. His self-depreciation made me want to kick him. “You’re hot, and a rock-legend with buckets of money.”

  “That I believe.”

  I shook my head at him. “The rest will just have to come with time.”

  He shrugged.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “You already said you love me.”

  “Yeah, and I do. But something happened at Hane’s.”

  His mood turned black at the mention of his sire’s name. “What did that bastard do this time?”

  “I saw Joel.” I needed to tell him, even if he was angry. “Hane has him locked up in a cell like some animal. I don’t want him to stay with Hane. And if you say Joel can’t stay here, I’ll bring him to Cris’s place and stay there with him until he’s better.”

  “Better? He’s a vampire. He’s not going to get better. It doesn’t go away. It just slowly eats away at you until there’s nothing left that’s human.”

  “He can at least be like you—able to live around other people, function as a person. He is still a person, even if he has a disease.”

  KC sighed and pushed me away. “No matter what science and the media tell you, it’s not a disease any more than you being able to see the dead is a disease. You just are, or you aren’t. Vampirism is magic, pure and simple. You won’t catch it by having sex with me. You won’t even catch it if I bite you. I have to want it. You have to want it, and you have to die to get it.”

  “So you’re telling me Joel wanted to be an animal? You wanted to be an animal? Hane had him sitting in a nasty blood-and-feces-filled room. I wouldn’t even treat a killer dog that way.” I loved that he was talking to me, actually revealing things, but also feared the breakdown he might bring upon himself. KC wasn’t really good at facing hard truths.

  “I never wanted this.” He stared at his hands as though they were malicious appendages. “An animal is what we are. We try to fit in, but we are just animals in disguise.”

  I pressed my cheek to his, ignoring the awkward angle, just needing to be close to him. “You’re not an animal or a monster. You are KC, my boyfriend.” I loved the word, though it sounded so high school and I was supposed to be past all that since dropping out. “I’ve seen some of the things you do. You don’t remember them.”

  “Because I’m wrong. Something breaks in me when I don’t feed. The monster comes out.”

  “So we just have to keep you fed, that’s all.” His face felt cool against mine. I was happy he didn’t push me away again. This time when I moved, I gave him some space, got off the bed, and decided since I was staying home, I’d go a little more casual. I stripped off my clothes, stole the button-up shirt he’d tossed off before bed from its place on the floor, and slung it over my shoulders. Yeah, it was a little big for me. But it smelled like KC.

  He just stared. I smiled and strode from the room, intending to make some coffee. I couldn’t sleep all day, even if I wanted to.

  In the kitchen, I made ramen, standing at the counter waiting for the noodles to soften in the steamy bowl while I wore nothing but KC’s shirt. I sort of hoped he’d come into the kitchen and attack me. He’d left the bedroom to perch on the couch, watching me. He glanced my way a half dozen times, nostrils flared, eyes heavy-lidded. But he hadn’t moved fro
m his spot on the couch.

  I flicked the radio on, pulled the plate off the bowl of steaming ramen, and stirred the noodles. The tune that played was something with a good beat I couldn’t help but dance to. The soup was good and filling. I finished it, put the dish away, and kept moving to whatever came next. KC’s eyes followed every move, bringing a smile to my lips. He could pretend I didn’t do anything for him, but that was a lie.

  He moved so fast I didn’t hear him get up from the leather sofa. Suddenly he was there in front of me, backing me against the wall. His weight slid against me, hands pressing the shirt open so he could touch my bare body. He dropped his hands low, cupping my ass and grinding his hips against mine. I sighed just inches from his lips, wanting nothing more than for him to kiss me.

  “You don’t know what you do to me,” he whispered.

  I had a pretty good idea since he was hard against my hip. “I fired Hane,” I reminded him.

  KC licked my collarbone, nipped it lightly, and then blew on it before repeating the cycle. “Oh God.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, moving my hips against him, not caring that he was fully dressed and I mostly naked. “Please, KC.”

  “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

  Yeah, I did. “Just you, KC. All I need is you.”

  He laughed, a deep rumble that pressed us so intimately together I nearly came. “I totally believe you’re some kind of incubus.”

  “Nope, just some goofy fireproof bird who sees dead people.” Cris was the incubus. I’d looked it up online after he told me. “You, on the other hand, are some kind of legend, and I don’t just mean of the musical kind.”

  His lips met mine. When he finally released the kiss, we were both breathing heavily. “God….”

  “Hmm,” was all I could reply. Words had no place for moments like these.

  Chapter 28

  THE next day, Mr. Tokie picked me up, and I happily handed him a stack of new music KC had approved. After several bouts of mind-blowing sex I found KC was pliable to just about anything I asked. But he’d stolen all my thunder when he’d dropped a stack of remixed songs in my lap. Apparently he’d been working on them since he’d found my orange notebook. A fresh book sat with my key on it beside the door, the inside cover filled with KC’s scrawl: “Genesis’s Songbook.”