Bring On the Night

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  This could be our last chance. But I still didn’t want pain and blood between us.

  Unless it was the only way to save my life. I clutched his back, biting my own lip to hold in my plea.

  Shane stood and reattached the showerhead to the hook so that it flowed over both of us. He started to rejoin me on the floor of the tub, but I stopped him. I wanted to give him everything, maybe one last time.

  As hard as he was in my hand, he stiffened further when I took him in my mouth, deep and tight. He responded instantly, rocking his hips, palms braced against the wall above my head. The water streamed over his back, soaking my hands as they grasped the tightening muscles of his ass.

  “Yes,” he breathed. “Oh, God. God, God, God…” The way he intoned the name of the deity he loved and feared so fiercely threatened to make me a believer again myself.

  Finally he went still, sighing my name. I let go of him, and he leaned back, tilting his head into the rush of water.

  Shane helped me to my feet, then peeled off my wet top and tossed it over the shower curtain rod. As I shampooed, he lathered my body with soap, his hands coasting warm and slippery over my skin.

  I rinsed my hair, then returned the favor, cleansing every inch of him. By the time I finished, he was fully aroused again. Our slick flesh slid together with a heat that told me we weren’t nearly done.

  The water, on the other hand, was out of heat. Shane shut it off, then stepped out to fetch my favorite fluffy red towel. He wrapped it around both of us and kissed me again as he dried my back. When we were still damp but not dripping, he helped me out of the tub and led me into the bedroom.

  As we stood next to the bed, I gazed up at him, his wet hair glistening in the soft lamplight, flat against his head, giving him a boyish, vulnerable look.

  “This isn’t the last time,” I told him.

  He wiped a rivulet of water from the side of my face, then let the towel drop at our feet.

  We didn’t speak any more that afternoon, not even to say what we wanted to do. We didn’t need words when we could read each other’s bodies so well.

  I was right—that wasn’t the last time. Neither was the next time, an hour later; or the next, a half hour after that. We made love in an endless cycle of kissing, touching, and fucking, until the clock told me the sun was on its way out.

  I got dressed and dragged my exhausted body up the fire escape to the roof of our building. One last sunset, maybe, a gift to myself.

  The red orb flared as it descended below the horizon. Tendrils of scarlet and tangerine spread themselves across the sky, like the fingers of a child’s brightly colored glove.

  “Good-bye,” I whispered to the vanishing sun. “Thanks for all the great tans in the summer, and for warming my car in the winter, and the free vitamin D.”

  As if in reply, the last rays burst into sharp beams against the clouds. My own personal laser show.

  A breeze tousled my hair, which was still a bit damp from the shower. I drew my jacket tighter across my chest, expecting a chill.

  Instead, a wave of heat broke over me, curling up from my feet as if I’d been standing over a subway grate.

  I glanced around for the source of the hot air. The panorama of building tops blurred, their lights swirling and spinning. It was like looking out from the center of a merry-go-round.

  “What the—”

  The pain hit me like a steel spike to the temple. I stumbled, fingers splayed, lungs too cramped to scream. I thudded to my hands and knees, the fine-gravel surface jabbing my palms. If I’d been near the roof’s edge, I would have fallen and splatted on the sidewalk. But at least the pain would have ended.

  I began to crawl.

  The railing of the fire escape protruded above the roof’s edge. I kept my eyes on it, though craning my neck sent imaginary foot-long needles into my skull. The roof felt ice-cold against my burning palms.

  “God, please…” If I could get down… somehow… then maybe thirty steps to the front door. By then it might be twilight already, and Shane could drive me to the ER.

  Wait. That wasn’t right. I was supposed to… what?

  I tried to remember, but the pain bent my thoughts into origami angles. Had to lie down… but not yet. Somewhere else.

  I reached the fire escape, where my elbows and knees gave way. I rolled onto my side, pressing my face into the rusty but blissfully cold iron surface.

  The chill cleared my thoughts long enough for one name.

  Jeremy.

  I slapped my pockets for my cell phone. It was in the left one, the side I was lying on. Figures. I rolled onto my back, and the motion made my stomach pitch and twist. I closed my eyes until the nausea swept on, then shoved my hand into my pocket.

  The moment my fingers brushed my ribs, the itching began. “Ungh!” I forgot everything but the need to scratch. It obliterated the ache in my head and the sick in my stomach.

  Whimpering, I raked my nails over my belly, but the itch spread around my waist to my spine. Desperation gave me the strength to arch my back against the fire escape rail, trying to rub off the millions of tiny pins pricking my skin.

  My skin. That was it. Too much skin. My nails could only scrape. But a knife could flay it off. We had knives in our kitchen. How do I get to the kitchen?

  Go down.

  I rolled so that my head was over the edge of the stairs. Too weak to stand, I grabbed the railings on either side and pulled.

  I slid down headfirst, belly-flop style. Each stair jarred my ribs and breasts, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but finding the knives. And ice. And—

  I hit the landing and flipped onto my back, helpless as a turtle. Breathing hard, then hardly breathing, I stared at the darkening sky, which slowly, gracefully, turned to black.

  “Ciara, can you hear me? Ciara!”

  I tried to open my eyes, move a finger, or anything to let Shane know that his voice had reached me, that I could feel his cool hand on my face. But the darkness pulled so hard.

  A sharp motion jerked my body to the right. The sound of squealing tires forced me awake, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

  I made my lips move. “Where?”

  “We’re in David’s car,” he said. “I called him as soon as you left the apartment to see the sunset. I had a bad feeling, I thought I was being paranoid, but thank God. He and Lori found you on the fire escape.”

  “Lori?”

  “I’m right here.” Her voice came from my right, from the front passenger’s seat. Beneath my head, something shifted. Shane’s leg.

  He smoothed the hair out of my face. “We’re taking you to the ER. They’ll give you some fluids and try to get this fever down.”

  The ER. What’s an ER? Something scary. Instinct tried to tell my fever-fuzzed brain why that was a terrible idea. It dug for dormant associations.

  They canceled the show ER. You don’t want to be canceled, do you?

  It wasn’t canceled, I told Instinct. Its time had come. Maybe my time has come, too. I snuggled into Shane’s lap. To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season…

  Yes, Instinct said, and now is the time of the season for living.

  “Living”? I thought the line was “loving.” Did I get that wrong, too, the way I always thought the guy in the Radiohead song “Creep” was a widow instead of a weirdo?

  Instinct went for the direct approach. WAKE. THE. FUCK. UP!!

  Shane spoke, interrupting my interior dialogue. “David, I’m staying with her every minute, I don’t care what they say.”

  “Fine, but you get back home or to the station before sunup. I’m not losing you, too.”

  “Do you want me to call the station?” Lori said. “Let them know what happened?”

  “Thanks,” David said. “Ask Jeremy to do Shane’s midnight show.”

  Jeremy.

  “Stop the car!” I screamed.

  David slammed on the brakes, spiking the pain through my lurching body. “Shit, you scared me.
We can’t stop.”

  “But I have to throw up!”

  “Throw up on the floor. We’re almost there.”

  “Please.” I made my voice as pathetic as I felt. “Just for a sec. Won’t make a difference.”

  I felt the car drift, then rumble as it hit the shoulder of the road. Shane lifted me to sit up, and I tried to siphon his immense strength with the nonexistent power of my mind.

  The car stopped. He jerked open the door and helped me lean out over his lap.

  I gagged and spat as loud as I could. One hand clutched the car door handle while the other one snuck my cell phone out of my pocket and pressed the screen to unlock it. Moaning with all-too-authentic pain, I opened my draft messages. At the top of the list sat the one-word text:

  NOW.

  Off it went, my last chance to live.

  I shoved the door wider to see the dark glistening waters of the Sherwood community pond. Beyond it lay the farm museum and agricultural center, where we went for fireworks last Fourth of July. That meant…

  The hospital loomed behind me, on the town’s highest hill. David was right. We were almost there.

  No! I kicked against the seat and spilled myself out of the car.

  “Ciara!” Shane grabbed me as I tried to crawl away across the shoulder’s rough pavement. “Where are you going? We have to take you to the hospital.”

  “Not yet!” I scrabbled at his arms like a feral cat. The pain and itching and dizziness faded into the background, subsumed by fear and the drive to survive.

  “She’s delirious.” Shane’s pained voice turned back to me. “Shh, listen. Calm down. You’ll make your fever worse. It’s gonna be okay.”

  “No!” I clutched at his shirt. “I don’t want to lose you. I love you. Just hold me.”

  “Okay, okay.” He stroked my hair and rocked my body slowly. “I love you, too, with everything I have. With every last fucking piece of me, I love you.”

  “I never meant to hurt you,” I whispered into his chin.

  “Now you’re really goofy.” He kissed my forehead. “You’ve never hurt me.”

  I started to cry. Shane loosened his hold so my lungs could heave and sob.

  After a few moments he said, “Can we get back in the car now?” His voice was soft but urgent. “The meter is running.”

  “Ha-ha.” I drew out each syllable, buying time. We would never be like this again. “Hey, let’s get married right now.”

  “Okay.” He laced his right hand with my left one. “We’re married.”

  “Yay.” I giggled as the delirium soaked my brain like a bath of boiling acid. “Congratulations, Mr. Griffin.”

  “Ciara, please.” Lori’s voice shot from the car, loaded with tears. “Come back. We love you so much.”

  Her sadness broke my heart. I let myself go limp.

  Shane lifted me into the car, and we were on our way. I felt the incline of the giant hill. The emergency room was on the far side of the hospital campus from this entrance, through a maze of lanes that David was taking at top speed.

  After two more violent turns, which made me want to puke for real, we screeched to a stop. The back door opened, and Shane lifted me into David’s arms.

  I whimpered and tried one last time to fight. Too late. It hadn’t worked. I’d be dead by morning.

  Then, like the trumpet clarion of an approaching cavalry, I heard it: the bowel-shaking roar of a 426 Hemi V-8 engine.

  David’s arms tensed around my shoulders and knees. “That looks like Jim’s car.”

  Shane slid out of the backseat and stood next to us. “It is. What’s he doing here?”

  I lifted my chin to see the bright white ER sign reflected in the midnight blue hood of a ’69 Dodge Charger.

  Both doors of the muscle car opened. From the driver’s side emerged the world’s most unlikely pair of saviors.

  “Let her go,” Jim said.

  “She’s coming with us,” Regina added as she crawled out of the backseat behind him.

  “What are you talking about?” Shane planted himself in front of me. “She’s dying.”

  “Yes, she is.” Regina’s combat boots thumped the pavement as she strode forward. “But not like this.”

  “This is crazy!” He backed up to shield me, pressing my body between his and David’s. “She needs a doctor.”

  “She needs a vampire.” Regina shoved Shane aside and held him against the frame of David’s car.

  “Shane, let me go,” I managed to croak. “I want to live.”

  “Bullshit!” He looked at Regina. “She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s not in her right mind.”

  “She was today.”

  Everyone turned in response to Jeremy’s voice. He stood on the curb beside the Charger’s passenger door.

  “She called me this afternoon,” he said to Shane. “We arranged it.”

  I almost wished the coma would take me right then, so I wouldn’t have to see Shane’s face.

  He turned to me, eyes filled with hurt and bewilderment. “You asked them to do this?”

  I couldn’t speak past the thickness in my throat, so I just nodded. Inside David’s car, Lori started to cry.

  “And you didn’t tell me.” Shane looked at me as if I were a stranger who’d murdered the love of his life. Which I guess I had.

  “Don’t do this,” he whispered. “You could still live. You had half the vaccine.”

  “I can’t take that chance.” Tears garbled my words. “I can’t leave you.”

  His eyes softened, and for a moment I thought he would acquiesce.

  Then Regina said, “She’s made up her mind. Get over it already.”

  Shane’s shoulders tensed. His narrow gaze shifted from David and me to Regina, then back again. He was no doubt calculating whether he could overcome her long enough for David to carry me inside the ER. Given his determination, he probably could.

  “Let her go.”

  I jolted at the sound of Monroe’s voice. He stood a few feet behind Regina, his clothes and skin as dark as the shadows enveloping his frame. His hands were in the pockets of his Sunday best suit, but we all knew he could tear out Shane’s throat in half a heartbeat.

  The hope drained from Shane’s face, and he turned his eyes back to me one last time.

  “Please…”

  I shook my head.

  David spoke behind my ear. “Ciara, are you sure about this?”

  I focused on keeping my voice strong and steady, for at least two words. “I’m sure.”

  His grip loosened. “Then go.” He stepped forward and laid me in Regina’s arms.

  I fumbled for Shane, but he was out of reach. “Forgive me.”

  He stared at me, hands folded under his elbows.

  “Come with me,” I pleaded.

  “There’s no room in the car,” Regina said, “but he can follow if he wants.”

  As she hurried me away, I reached out to Shane again. “Please! Or I’ll let myself die.”

  Regina stopped, her dark gaze piercing me. “You won’t do this without him? You mean that?”

  “Yes.” At least I think I did. Looking back, I might’ve been partly bluffing. But at that moment, I didn’t want a life—or unlife—without Shane, and I sensed that what I had done could break us in two forever.

  His face crumpled. “Fuck,” he said through gritted teeth. He clenched his fists and pressed them to his temples for a long moment, then dropped them.

  Without looking at me, he nodded to David. “Let’s follow them.”

  * * *

  “You’re not gonna upchuck in my car, are you?”

  “Bite me,” I said to Jim from the backseat. The two-word sentence exhausted me.

  “You heard it, folks.” Jim slapped the steering wheel. “She picked me. I knew it.”

  “Did not.” I tried and failed to raise my head from Regina’s shoulder. Her arm wrapped tight around me, steadying my body against the car’s lurching.

 
Monroe sat on my other side, silent as ever.

  “Ciara, it’s all set,” Jeremy said from the front passenger seat. “They got everything ready at the station after you called me today.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered, not sure he could hear me.

  “Have you decided who you want to make you?” Regina asked me quietly. “We’re all up for it except Noah. He’s like Shane—religious precepts against killing. Simple-minded boys.”

  “S’okay,” I slurred. “I respect that.”

  The ultimate question. Whose life would I connect with my own forever? Definitely not crazy Jim’s. And picking Regina would make me Shane’s blood sister—ew.

  That left Spencer and Monroe. Could Spencer pass his poker skills through his blood? The thought would’ve made me laugh if it didn’t hurt to breathe.

  I opened my eyes. Even now, the impenetrable, ancient Monroe wouldn’t meet my gaze. A cultural thing, David once told me, from Monroe’s days in the Jim Crow South. Black men had been lynched for much less intimate contact with white women than what a turning would involve.

  Maybe he was just being polite in offering to make me a vampire, assuming I’d say no. Maybe he’d be scared, and I’d die while he got up the nerve to drain me.

  We turned onto the station’s long gravel driveway, where the only illumination came from the headlights and dashboard. I stared at Monroe across the dark car as we rumbled down the quarter-mile lane. I thought about the way he played guitar, the mystery he wove with his hands and voice in a way that made even Shane sound as mundane as an American Idol reject. Monroe was magic.

  I whispered his name. After a long moment, he turned his head slowly and met my gaze.

  His eyes held no trace of civility. They challenged me. Was I strong enough? Did I want this for the right reason? Or was I playing with blood and fire and life itself?

  My blinks came faster, but I forced my eyes to hold still. A thousand tests lay ahead of me. I wanted to pass the first.

  Monroe dipped his head.

  “Thank you,” I said. My heart twisted with fierce hope—that I would make him proud, that I would be worthy of my maker.

  That I would live.