Bound by Secrets

by Angela M Hudson

  “Is that a threat?”

  Ara shook her head. “Call it cliché, but I’m pretty sure that was a promise.”

  “What goes on between you and me has nothing to do with our children.” I stood up, towering over her. “You can’t just threaten to take off with him every time we fight.”

  “That wasn’t just a fight, David!” She pointed to the courtyard. “That was outright abuse. Could have been murder if I was human. Do you have any idea how strong you are? Do you have any idea what you actually did to my head?”

  I looked back at her from the courtyard. “No.”

  “You made me bleed,” she said, holding my gaze, her eyes filling with tears again. “I’ve had a headache all day. The wound hasn’t healed because every vampire within four hours’ drive has other commitments today. I can’t get blood until tomorrow, and so it’s just not healing—”

  “Where’s Eric?”

  “He’s down south, remember—playing that gig with his band.” She pressed her hands to her head then and took a few deep breaths, clearly in pain. “You could have killed me, David—”

  “Yeah, well I tried to do a lot worse,” I mumbled under my breath. She heard it though, and nodded.

  “I know. And it scares me that you can be so cruel.”

  “I…” I wanted to say I wasn’t usually like this, but I couldn’t tell her about the curse. She would never fall for me if she knew, and I had to admit that a part of me still wanted things to work with her. I knew what I’d done was evil and there was no excuse. I knew that if I was the kind of man that could hurt such a sweet little thing that way, then I didn’t deserve to be a father as well. I knew she’d be right to take my son.

  But the kids weren’t the reason I wanted this to work. Somewhere underneath all of this hatred, I still clung to a hope that Ara would one day surface. I wanted to be in her life when that happened.

  “Something very…” I couldn’t bear to say this aloud, but I knew I had to explain. “Very twisted happened to…” To her? No. “To Ara in those tombs. I…”

  “I know,” she said, moving toward me. “I know how badly you need her to return. I know my forgiveness will never be enough. I know all of that, and that’s why I forgive you for what you did to me today, David, because I can sense the pain you’re in, and it’s dark and so consuming that you just need to be free of it at any cost. You just want her to come back and release you.”

  Her words, as much as they were only words, unburdened me in a strange way. I rubbed my face, coming down from the cloud of hatred a little more with a slightly warmer heart toward her.

  “It was desperation that I saw in your eyes today,” she added. “What happened to you both was clearly so horrific that your mind can’t cope, and holding on to that terror is literally driving you insane—”

  “But I can’t talk about it, Ara, so please don’t ask that of me.”

  “Okay,” she said simply. “But can I ask why you can’t talk about it?”

  I looked up at her and she painted on a cheeky smile that made me smile too. “It’s like I said to you earlier,” I started, “I wanted to die after they rescued me. I planned to. I didn’t care about anything but stopping my pain. I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing what had happened. I still can’t most nights. I’ve had no closure on this because my wife is still gone. She can’t look at me and tell me it’s all right—tell me that what I did to h… that…” I fumbled. Too much had come out already. “She can’t tell me she forgives me. So I need to live, to work, to exist as if it was just a bad nightmare, or I won’t live, Ara. I just won’t be able to cope.”

  “When you…” She moved a bit closer. “When you did get rescued, and you wanted to die, what made you hold on? Why did you decide to give life a chance?”

  “Elora,” I said. “She found something very precious to me—something that was lost a long time ago.”

  “What was it?”

  “A locket,” I said, pressing my hand against my hip pocket. “It’s been a symbol of hope for me ever since—”

  “Hope that your wife would come back?”

  I nodded.

  “And she, or rather the hope that she would come back was your only reason to live?” She nodded, understanding.

  “For a very long time, yes,” I said, feeling the heart shape beneath the denim pocket, drawing comfort from it.

  “And now? What keeps you alive now?”

  “That’s just it.” I sat down on the back of the lounge. “I don’t even know anymore.”

  As she sat down beside me, I could smell her shampoo. She smelled different to my Ara—a kind of vanilla scent—but I liked it. I liked the feel of her leg, bare under her shorts, against my jeans. I liked the feel of her hand as she picked mine up and wove her fingers through. I liked it all so much that I pulled away, shaking my head. I could see where this was going. She thought the only way to bring me back to her, the only way to make me want to live was to give me hope. To give herself to me. And I would not be a victim of such a cruel game. If she wanted to share my bed it would be because she had reached that decision from a place of love. Not guilt or fear.

  “David—”

  “I can’t do this.” I got up and quickly walked away.

  “Can’t we just go back?” she called after me. “Can’t we just be friends again, like we used to be?”

  I stopped by the door and looked back at her. “I’m trying, Ara.”

  “Are you?” She stood up. “Because it seems like you’ve given up.”

  “And every time I give up, I eventually realize I need to try again,” I confessed. Ara nodded as if to say she understood that on a very deep level. But of course she did. How many times had she said she hated me, that she wanted to leave and never see me again? How many times had I pushed her to the limits, and yet she was still here? I was still here. Both of us still trying for reasons neither could comprehend. Why did we do it to ourselves?

  Because we had no choice. It was that simple.

  A force greater than love was at play here, and it had both of us in its spiny grip: the past.

  I sighed, realizing it may always be this tumultuous between us and yet, at the same time, realizing it would be able to keep us trapped here anyway.

  “Just give me time, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said in a breaking whisper, staying put as I left the room. I only made it to the end of the short corridor before I heard her crying.

  39

  Ara

  Crying only hurt my head more, but I couldn’t make it stop. I was so resolved earlier to just leave, but if I listened only to my brain, it was certain that resolve was just a defense mechanism. And not to defend myself against getting beaten again, either. That would never happen. But maybe to defend my heart—stop it from falling for him over and over and constantly being shut out.

  Looking at those wedding pictures tonight, I had to admit that my mind had changed, heart softened toward him. To see us like that, even if it wasn’t actually me in those photos, I wanted that back. I wanted David to love me like he used to, when I was his Ara, because while he was cruel when he hated someone, he was also a hundred times sweeter when he loved someone too. And above all the hurt he caused me, the love he could give seemed to outweigh it all. Why did I want that back? Why did I want him when he could be so mean and nasty? What the hell was wrong with me?

  I buried my face in the pillow, wishing I could just go home to Brett. I needed a hug right now, and my new family could never understand how badly. They’d been compassionate, but I felt like they were more worried about what Brett would do if I went home with my head cut open than they were about my head actually being cut open. I told Harry that I fell over the planter outside, so he wouldn’t have to know what a beast his dad was, but I think there was a point, while I was getting him ready for bed, where he saw something. He didn’t mention it, but he had a strange look on his face.

  I rolled over again, lifting my head off
the pillow before moving, then laid on my other side, using the back of the couch as a source of comfort—as if it was a warm, loving body with a pair of strong arms. But it didn’t make me feel any better. My feels were hurt worse than my head, and every time I cried, my head would hurt worse. The stitches felt too tight and I could tell my immortal blood was trying to push them out. I wasn’t sure I’d get to sleep with such an icky feeling there all night. I just wanted daylight to come so I could get some blood. Eric started driving as soon as we told him what happened, so he’d be here just before sunrise, but that was still five hours away.

  My ears pricked when a car pulled up then and the engine cut off quickly, a person jumping out before it had fully stopped purring. I listened to the footfalls on the pavement in the dead quiet of a spring night, praying Eric had made it back sooner. But as the front door opened, a wave of disappointment and dread washed over me. Mike was onto it before the door even closed back into place. I heard his feet on the floorboards above me and then his voice a second later in the entranceway.

  “Where have you been?” he snapped.

  “I went to get this,” David said.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Let’s just say I have a few contacts in bad places.”

  A paper bag rustled. “And what price did you pay?” he asked in a gruff whisper. “Because you look like you’re about to pass out.”

  “A bit of blood for blood,” David said.

  “You gave more than you got, by the looks of it.”

  “It’s the price you pay for black market.”

  “Yeah, well, you owe it to her. Now go to bed. I’ll take this to her.”

  “No, let me, please,” David said. “I—”

  “You’ve done enough for one night,” Mike growled. “That girl hasn’t stopped crying the entire night. She is still crying.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Look, thank you,” Mike said in his usual kind voice, “for this. But if you hadn’t beat the shit out of her, she wouldn’t need it. So just go to bed, would you? I can’t even look at you right now.”

  Mike’s footsteps moved away from the entrance toward me, and David’s went up the stairs. I sat up a little as Mike came in, and the warm smile he offered made me feel a bit better, kind of like a hug from Brett would have.

  “Got blood,” he said. “But you probably already heard that.”

  I nodded, hugging my knees as he came to sit beside me, drawing a glass jar from a brown paper bag. “Where did he get it?”

  “We have a few vampires that live off the grid here. They don’t register, which isn’t illegal, but it means we can’t contact them when we need blood.”

  “But David knows who they are?”

  He nodded, unscrewing the lid.

  “Will it work?” I asked. “From a jar—being that it’s not directly from the source?”

  “It won’t be as efficient,” he said, handing it to me. “But it’ll be enough to help you get some sleep.”

  I brought the jar to my lips, closing my eyes as I tipped it up. The blood was no longer warm and had gone quite gluggy and lumpy, but I just drank it through my teeth to filter them out, and as soon as it touched the back of my throat, I no longer cared about the lumps. I drank the entire thing down in a few gulps, pressing my hand to my wound as the stitches squeezed out and it closed completely. “My head doesn’t hurt now.”

  Mike smiled, taking the jar. “Good.”

  “Tell David I said thank you.”

  “I will.” He pulled my ankles to slide me down on the couch and then covered me over, tucking my body in tightly. “Get some sleep, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “Night.” He kissed my head as he stood up, taking the jar, the loose stitches and the paper bag away with him.

  I rolled over again, feeling a thousand times better than I did a few moments ago, and closed my eyes, drifting to sleep.

  * * *

  Apparently, it was somewhat of a tradition, before I died, for Mike to spend every Thursday night at the café for open mic night. For the first part of the night, I sat here wishing I’d stayed home. Well, my ears did, at least. I, however, was enjoying the company of family—having a night out with everyone, including Brett, and it had been nice to see a softer side to David tonight; to see him with Harry, sitting off to the side of the stage teaching him guitar. Harry insisted that one day soon he’d get up on that little wooden stage with his Uncle Ric and play ‘Stairway to Heaven’. I hadn’t heard him play, but if he inherited the family talent, it wouldn’t be long before that dream became a reality for him.

  Elora placed another drink in front of me and sat down, taking off her apron.

  “Finished your shift?” I asked, hoping to God she had, because Jack could be a real stick-in-the-ass sometimes.

  “Yep.” She laughed. “So are you getting up?”

  “Up?” I frowned at her.

  “On stage.” She nodded toward Eric, who was just starting his next song.

  “Um…”

  “Oh, right, no one else knows you play yet, do they?” she said quietly.

  I swallowed hard, shaking my head, my eyes doing a sneaky scan to make sure no one else around the table heard her.

  “I don’t get it,” she added, sitting back and taking her drink with her. “Why won’t you tell them?”

  I turned my knees, leaning closer. “Do you know why your father did what he did to me the other day?”

  Her eyes changed as her mind dredged it all up. I hated that she’d seen me like that—distraught and injured.

  “He was trying to bash the old Ara out of my head,” I said.

  Elora’s expression changed, realization sinking in.

  “If he sees any signs of the old me, like, say… being able to suddenly play guitar or piano, he will push and push until I start shaping myself to be more like her. And it won’t even matter if I truly feel like her inside. He is desperate, and—”

  “Why do you think?” she said, putting her drink down. “Mom, he—”

  “I get it.” I took both of her hands. “I do get it. But he has to accept that I may never get my memories back, and if he can’t love me as the me I am without them, then he doesn’t deserve me.”

  “So you’re just going to hide yourself. Not play piano or read the books you once read or—”

  “Maybe.” I shook my head, shrugging. “I just don’t know. I’m scared to show him that side of myself right now.”

  Elora’s long lashes touched her cheek as she looked down into her lap.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “I hate that this has happened to you all, and I would give anything to make it right—”

  “Then start being yourself,” she snapped. “You say you aren’t my mother—”

  “I never said—”

  “No, you did. You said you’re not her, and while you might mean to say that you’re not his Ara, that also means you’re not my mother. And yet look at you.” She shook her head at me, her jaw squared with anger. “You play music like her. You have her magic. You laugh like her, joke like her, but you don’t show that to him?” She pointed at her dad, who stretched up on his heels where he squatted by Harry, a curious glare snaking past all the heads in the crowd to study us. “I have to wonder why, Mom? Are you punishing him—”

  “No.”

  “Then why will you be the old Ara for you, alone, or for me and Harry, but not for him?”

  “Because I—” Because what?

  Because I wanted him to love me for me?

  I glanced over at him and he quickly looked away. No, I decided. It wasn’t just that I wanted him to love me for me; it was because I didn’t want him to love me as Ara. If that happened, if I gave him his wife back, I was locked-in. I couldn’t back out if I changed my mind. I would have to take the weight of that entire past they had and carry it. Pretend. I couldn’t be myself because every time I was,
he would pull me up on it. There was no middle ground here. I loved him. I was certain of that. But I didn’t want to be with a man that wanted someone else. That only wanted me because I was someone else to him. How was that fair?

  Yes, he lost his wife. Yes, Elora lost her mother. But I had lost myself. I needed a life of my own. I wanted them in it. I wanted them as a part of my life, but for the right reasons. I just didn’t know how to say that. Didn’t know how to make David see me, love me. And I was still too mad at him to extend the olive branch and tell him any of this.

  Not that it would matter. He was sorry for what he did to me the other day. I hadn’t seen the grief and regret strike him, but I heard it. I heard him sobbing in his room late that night and the one that followed and still, when he was in the same room as me, he never extended the olive branch either. So yeah, he was sorry, but he still hated me for not being her, which meant there was little hope right now.

  “I’m not the bad guy, Elora,” I said quietly.

  “No.” She got up. “You both are.”

  I went to follow her, but the crowd rose to its feet then and cheered for Eric, blocking my path. Elora slipped out the door and into the night, vanishing at vampire speed.

  “What happened?” Eric said, taking me by the elbow.

  “She’s hurt.” I rolled back down from my toes and looked at him.

  “What did you say to her?” he asked, but though he sounded angry, he didn’t look angry.

  “She just needs me to be…”

  “You?” he offered.

  “No. She needs me to be Ara.”

  He leaned in, bringing his lips to my ear. “Got news for ya, kid. You are her. Like it or not.”

  Before I could respond, he was gone, pushing through the crowd to rescue my daughter. I turned back to Harry tugging my sleeve and pointing to the stage, and my heart sunk, filling me with dread. I’d never seen David play guitar before. I couldn’t possibly handle it now—in a room with all my family present. My blood would change. My soul would be drawn to him. I knew that. And everyone would notice.