Die By Night

by Kaitlynn Aisling

“The stairs,” Hawke says from behind Connor, handing Gavin two pairs of hiking boots.

  Connor takes up his position behind me. Gavin pulls on the boots, while standing, with nary a stumble. Then Gavin pulls Piper toward the stairs.

  “The pack?”

  “Stairs,” Hawke says again.

  Inside the stairwell, the pack is bunched together in two tight groups. They all have bags slung over their shoulders. How did they have time to pack anything? How did they have the presence of mind to pack anything? Unless they never unpacked; come to think of it, Gavin kept his bag packed and on the floor at the foot of the bed.

  I follow Gavin’s lead when he motions for me to grab onto the stair rail, and I stand still while he fastens the other pair of hiking boots to my feet, one at a time while I rest my other hand on his shoulder for balance. As he ties the laces on the second boot, I take a moment to look at what this night has wrought.

  Piper and Nolan’s parents are wringing their hands. Nolan’s mother sobs softly when she catches sight of Piper. The teen runs to her parents’ arms; Silas strokes her head soothingly, meeting Nolan’s father’s eyes in some silent paternal communication. It’s obvious to all that Nolan isn’t here, and that can’t be good, but sometimes sorrow requires verbal acknowledgment to be accepted. It has to be spoken aloud to register, and it has to register to be real.

  “We’ve lost a guid man tonight,” Gavin says low.

  It’s enough. Nolan’s mom still cries, but quietly, and as she walks down the stairs.

  In the stair’s cavern like echo, the sound of our footsteps is far too loud. The pack has super senses; I have to reason that the vampires do too. Every advantage we have, they share.

  At the sixth floor landing, Hawke and Connor stop our procession. Instead of going down another flight of steps, Hawke opens the fifth floor door and motions us out. Just as I slip through with Gavin, the third-to-last as Connor waits behind me, there are noises from below us.

  In the hallway, there are two maids dismembered, with their blood staining the carpet. However, there aren’t pools of it, like there should be with those kinds of injuries. I assume that the vamps took their fill.

  Hawke leads us to the outdoor patio, which has a set of stairs leading down toward the bottom floor like a fire escape. I didn’t even know it was here. The night air is cold, much colder than the warm temperature of the hotel. It doesn’t help that I’m wearing a damp bathing suit and a towel. Gavin, as aware as always even in this time of crisis, slings his own towel over my shoulders. When I don’t react, he pulls it tight and puts my hand over the edges.

  I think I’m in shock; I know Piper and Nolan’s parents are, because they’re participating in our escape without so much as a scream of despair. There’s no way anyone is that strong in the face of death. No one. Piper saw Nolan’s blood; his parents didn’t see anything. Will Gavin’s announcement be enough for closure? The whole point of wakes and funerals is for the family to physically see the lifeless body of their loved one, so that they can accept they’re dead. Or if you go for a cremation, you have the urn of ashes to keep. It’s a part of the grief process, and if I remember right, there are about five steps to that process. Will Nolan’s loved ones ever be able to come to acceptance without the other steps?

  Now’s not the time to focus on that. There’s a gargoyle type hovering in the air near our escape route. The pack is wearing dark colors, so he hasn’t spotted us yet. Though the true reason he’s oblivious to our escape may be because he’s holding a squirrel in one fist and tearing into its neck. Gross.

  Connor grasps my wrist and pulls me along, reminding me of the storm troopers from Star Wars, “Move along. Move along.” And, just like with Hawke when he carried me through the forest to meet the pack, Connor’s touch screams wrong through my body. The mark that had settled from Gavin’s earlier displeasure makes itself known once again.

  Once I’m moving again, he pulls a gun out from some hidden holster and with a quick, muted pop ends the vampire’s meal. Is that a silencer on his gun? Forget Star Wars, we’ve moved into Hitman territory. No one else even reacts to the vampire plummeting to a splat against the pavement. We’re on the outdoor stair landing for the second floor now, which means two more flights and we’ll come across the body. It’s not a promising thought.

  “They’ll hear us if we start the vehicles,” I warn Connor.

  He ignores me and keeps pulling. It’s an internal struggle not to retch when we do come across the crushed body of the vamp on the ground floor. I’m able to succeed because I worry the vamps will hear that too. The struggle is made even worse when I see that the vamp is still clutching the squirrel in his now-broken hand.

  The stairs take us to the side, which keep us from passing the front entrance with all its glass and the possibility of being spotted. Connor and Hawke shoot in the air every now and then, seeing something my human eyes can’t. Each time, they do it casually, dispensing with the vamps as if it’s a common occurrence. Each pop of the silenced guns is followed by the wet crunch of another body hitting the ground. They have to hear this, muted or not. Why aren’t they storming the exits yet? Why isn’t Akim sinking his claws into our heels?

  We bypass the parking lot and slip into the woods like shadows.

  “What is the deal? Should we fear them or not? We’ve escaped them twice now, and they don’t seem that capable of taking us down,” I tell Connor.

  He seems shocked that I have an opinion and am voicing it.

  Gavin, however, seems to be more familiar with my ways and maybe a bit more accepting of them.

  “Aye, we’ve escaped them twice. But you were also captured, and they found us here on the very same night we got you out. If you doona see the danger in the deamhanan, than you have no’ been paying attention.”

  “You’re right, and I’m not complaining or anything, but it just seems like it was rather easy to get out.”

  Oops, wrong words. I’m upset, but that’s no reason to disregard someone else’s feelings. I’m not thinking straight from lack of sleep and not having eaten since that pizza. Nolan’s mother sobs at my words, because for her, it wasn’t easy. She just lost her son, because of me. She must hate my guts.

  Gavin takes hold of my arm, but even though I can sense his frustration, and his mark is itching against my skin like a dozen fire ants biting simultaneously, his touch is gentle. He pulls me aside as the others pass, going deeper into the forest.

  “We just lost a pack member. A young bràthair.”

  “I know. I’m sorry; I am. I feel responsible.”

  The irritation against the mark eases, and he tugs me into his arms.

  “You’re in shock, Mo chroí. I doona blame you,” he whispers against my hair.

  His heat feels amazing in the cold night air. There’s something about Gavin that’s hotter than other men, like his body runs on a higher temperature. He’s so much more intense than others, in every way. Why is that? And though I’m tempted to snuggle farther into his embrace, I don’t get the chance to see if I would be weak to the temptation. He pulls away and his hands come up to cradle my face, his thumbs firm against my cheekbones.

  “Doona ever let down your guard. The vampires get lost in the bloodlust, but no’ always. Akim has brought new leadership tae this horde, and if he manages tae curb their blood gluttony, things will become much harder for us.”

  Come to think of it, most of the vamps we came across tonight were feasting on something or other—the attendant, the squirrel, and Nolan. How long will it take for them to go through the more than eight floors of hotel filled with innocent people? It’ll be a massacre.

  “Let’s go,” Gavin prods.

  The woods are good cover for us, and we move stealthily through them. I don’t see the point though. Are we to be gypsies? Constantly finding a place to crash, until we’re on the run again once the vamps track us down? What kind of life is that? What kind of life is that to offer to my son? I need to escape t
hem. It’s much harder to hide a group than it is to hide a single mother and child. I could get a false ID, request witness protection, or marry a foreign man with untraceable bank accounts in the Caymans.

  I’ll need clothing if I’m to run. Two stolen hotel towels and a bathing suit, even if it is dry now, are not enough to make a start of anything. I wonder if Gavin has some of his money on him somewhere. A credit card is too risky, but if he has cash I’ll need it to make a getaway. Consider it early child-support.

  But the more I consider my escape, the closer some indefinable realization creeps up. There’s something I should know, something I should recognize, and it’s tingling at the edges of my brain.

  Then, all of a sudden, it hits me. I did do this; I am responsible for Nolan’s death, with more than just my presence. The vampires have technology, tons of it, so advanced that it seemed alien to me. Gavin admitted the same to me earlier. Now that I’m planning my escape, I know from every on the run action movie I’ve ever seen that credit cards are not smart and can be traced. What I did not consider, because I haven’t had mine since the night I was kidnapped, is the danger of cell phones and phone calls.

  “Gavin, we need to trash the cell phones!”

  I called Alex and Meagan. The vamps watched me for weeks before they took me. What if during that surveillance they tapped the phone lines at the apartment? What if they managed to get access to phone records from our cell phones? It sounds farfetched, even to me, but so do vampires roaming the night.

  “Haud yer wheesht!”

  The older guy, whose speech is unrecognizable to me when he talks because of his thick accent, hisses the words at me.

  Perhaps I was a bit over exuberant in my excitement at my revelation, but I’m pretty sure the man just told me to shut up. I’m not thrilled with any of them at the moment, but this guy in particular has just landed on my crap list.

  “Duncan,” Gavin says, frost heavy in his voice.

  He never speaks so coldly to me, which lessens my anger. Duncan scowls, but continues moving forward in our eerie, unconventional parade. Gavin should watch him, because I don’t trust him, and something inside prods that it’s more than dislike that’s causing that distrust.

  What’s the point? That’s all I can think. Over and over again. What’s the point of any of this? Is there a destination? Will there ever be a realization, something gained, something finished? Is there a purpose? Or will we all die in the journey, never knowing the feeling of completion?

  “Dove, you’re brilliant!” Hawke says, excited but still hushed so not to provoke Duncan again.

  Oh, yeah. Surviving: that’s the point right now. And in order to survive, we need to trash the cells.

  “What’s all this about?” Gavin asks.

  “Give me your phone, bràthair,” Hawke demands.

  He stops and holds out a hand. When Gavin hands his iPhone over, Hawke throws it against a nearby tree with preternatural strength. The phone shatters into pieces. Most people from my world would cry out in real grief at the sight.

  I think that before all of this that even I would have shed a tear or two at the destruction of the little device that’s capable of so much. My phone was my connection, my lifeline, my distraction, my news source, my answer to all riddles and conundrums, and the cause of hours of frustration from swapping animated candy pieces into segments of three or more of the same color.

  Now all of that seems so far away and just as pointless as our endless trek through the wooded darkness. I’ve matured to a way of life where phones are just one more threat to life. They’re just one more hindrance in the fight to remain anonymous and safe.

  Hawke slips a hand in his back pocket and pulls out his own phone. It joins the other as litter at the base of the tree. He nods at Connor, who goes down the line demanding phones and breaking them in his bare hands. Piper’s parents take hers and give it to Connor in her stead. Not surprisingly, many of the pack don’t have phones to give up.

  Duncan doesn’t hand one over, but I notice a hesitation in the shake of his head. Maybe it’s all in my mind. But the instinct is like a still, small voice, like an ever present spirit. It’s the same voice that shouts, “Wrong!” every time a man other than Gavin touches me.

  It’s the same Spirit that prompted me to fear the pale watchers. It’s like a part of me, like my consciousness has expanded to incorporate nature and her guidance. And it’s grown stronger since Gavin renewed his mark. It almost feels like a gift from Gavin, as if a paranormal part of his soul merged with mine and has no intention of leaving. Like he sank more than his teeth into me with the bite, and it lingered past the moment his canines left my skin.

  Once all of the phones are destroyed, Hawke explains why it was necessary to Gavin. The rest of the pack doesn’t get the same explanation, but they continue moving forward anyway. I don’t know if it’s because they’ve already realized the threat of a trace from the cell signals, or if they’re too accustomed to being commanded to bother with the why of things anymore.

  The pack stops to rest without anyone telling them to do so. They pull out water bottles from their packs and refresh. Connor munches on a handful of protein bars, gobbling them so fast that I’m reminded of my brothers and their eternal hunger. I turn away, not wanting to see any part of the ones I love in the irritating man.

  Piper hasn’t spoken since we escaped the hotel. She constantly rubs at her face, swiping tears from view, and then glancing around to see if anyone has noticed her weakness. Nolan’s mom is much more open with her grief, sniffling and letting out sorrowful little whimpers that break my heart.

  Guilt settles further in with every breath I take, weighing down my chest like a two-ton anvil, crushing me from the inside out. I should have told Gavin when I saw the teens sneaking away from their parents. What’s a little repression when compared with death? A warm touch against my chilled skin offers comfort, but not enough to erase the devastation in front of me.

  The comforting touch pulls me farther into the forest, away from the recuperating group. Gavin’s eyes burn bright in the darkness, a beacon of hope if I were inclined to believe in fairy tales. Sadly, I know the truth. The original fairy tales are the real stories, the ones that ended with little Red becoming the wolf’s next meal. The grim uncertainty of life is the truth, and just because Disney did their best to soften the blow, it doesn’t mean that the romantic happiness of a glass slipper translates to the realities of the world in which we live.

  The ironic thing is that I know fairies are considered to be cruel, evil creatures of mischief in Scottish lore. I bet their fairytales are just as gruesome as the unaltered versions I’ve read on the Internet.

  “You’re no’ tae blame,” Gavin says softly.

  When did we move so far from the pack? It’s just us in this little section of the woods, the trees casting strange patterns on the ground from the moon’s light. It could almost be our own little sanctuary, a hideaway within the magic cocoon of hooting owls, chirping crickets, and the whitewashed glow of the moon. Except it can’t be, because people died. A kid died. My own child may die before he ever has the chance to experience this world.

  “Don’t lie to me, Gavin.”

  He doesn’t dignify that with a response; instead he runs a hand through his hair and sighs.

  “Piper is too young for this,” he says with sympathy, shaking his head.

  “She’s not that much younger than I am!”

  “You’re too young for this too.”

  “She’ll never get over this.”

  I keep picturing the shattered look on her face when she realized that Nolan was dead. It was like her world had ceased to exist, as if her life no longer mattered to her. She’s a zombie now, merely going through the motions, a warm automaton.

  “He was no’ her mate.”

  “But she loved him.”

  “She can get past this. He was no’ her mate,” he repeats.

  “You say that as if it f
ixes something. It doesn’t! What, you think Piper only felt puppy love for Nolan? Ha! I guess you wouldn’t call it that. Piper loved and lost, even if she never would have ended up with the boy permanently, she loves him right now. And now, he’s gone.”

  “I’m trying tae ease your pain,” he offers, stepping forward with his arms lifted toward me.

  I take a step back and run my palm down a tree. The rough bark scrapes my skin, somehow lessening some of my torment.

  Frustration causes his dark eyebrows to furrow together, creating a crease in his smooth forehead. But his frustration means nothing to me, because the guilt has become an accusation within me. I shouldn’t be here. Nolan died, and I lived. I may not have known him for all that long, or all that well, but he was still a life, and that has value. What makes me more deserving of life than him?

  “My pain? What about Piper’s pain? Is someone even now plying her with the same consolation statement you’re trying to push on me?”

  “Natalie, you doona understand . . . ”

  “No, you don’t understand! Haven’t you ever loved someone beyond the one fate dictated? Haven’t you ever experienced spontaneous love?”

  “You doona understand, because you will no’ allow yourself tae feel what’s between us. If you did, you’d comprehend that anything you’ve felt in the past with anyone else pales in comparison. What Piper had with Nolan was no’ real, and never would have lasted. Your sympathy should instead rest with the boy’s family and the unknown soul who just lost her mate without ever having had the opportunity tae meet him.”

  “I do understand. I understand that Piper is in pain, and right now she doesn’t want to think about some future mystery betrothal.”

  He shakes his head, making a chuffing sound. He once again tries to put his arms around me; I slam my hands against his chest.

  “I don’t want to be comforted! I just saw a young man killed because of me. I can’t! All right? I just can’t.”

  Those threateningly twitchy fingers of his throw his bag off his shoulder and to the ground. The movement is rough, clueing me in to just how angry he is with the whole situation, me in particular.