Shattered Days (The Firsts Book 7)

by C. L. Quinn

  SHATTERED

  DAYS

  C.L. QUINN

  Blak Kat Publishing

  May 2014

  When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, and look upon myself, and curse my fate.

  William Shakespeare

  Beginning of Sonnet 29

  ONE

  Dinner rush was the hardest part of the day. Her shift started near the end of the rush, and people were most impatient then. Luckily, she was quick and knew how to satisfy most people before they even realized what they wanted.

  It made her an excellent waitress.

  Tonight, she had a table of obnoxious young men. Even when she brought them exactly what they asked for, they remained loud and demanding. And although the last thing she usually worried about were the mundane, vapid niceties required by human etiquette, it would have been appreciated to have heard a thank you somewhere in their endless diatribe.

  These were the moments…

  No, she reminded herself. No, you are here to work through your problems. Using her abilities on humans would not help her situation. But, God, was she tempted when an overlarge boy threw a plate of chili-cheese fries across the table and hailed her to clean it up.

  “Pronto,” he’d called to her, with a rude gesture. Oh, she’d like to clean it up all right…

  But after the dinner rush ended, her nights usually settled into easy, slow-paced service. Sometimes, often, the diners were friendly and she didn’t mind exchanging the expected pleasantries.

  It was still new to her and difficult. She still wanted to run into the back room of the restaurant and drop down to hide behind some bins so no one would find her. That had, in fact, happened the first few nights she’d worked there.

  She was better now.

  “Tam!”

  A man’s deep voice called her from behind the counter.

  “Your special is up. I wish that guy would quit ordering it. It creeps me out. There are just certain things you don’t ever mix.”

  Frank was a nice man. Tamesine surprised herself by how much she liked him. He was soft spoken and gentle and made her feel safe, when very little else did these days. And he was a really good cook for someone who called himself a common old “fry boy.”

  So she made herself smile, and pick up the plate he’d just set under the heat lamps. She had to admit, the smell even made her want to gag, and that was saying something. But she delivered it with the slight upturn of lips she used for all of her customers, not quite a smile, but they would never know that.

  Several of the people she served tonight were regulars. They usually chose the same dishes and she could expect the same behaviors. Predictability was comfortable, safe, ordered.

  The shift went quickly, which wasn’t always the case, but tonight she had everyone served and out of there several minutes before closing at 1 a.m. Tamesine cleaned her stations well, counted her tills, and pocketed her tips. She was still finishing the floors as the other waitress, her face already buried in her cell phone, threw up a hand and left.

  Lighting a thin cigar, Frank roamed out into the dining room.

  “Damn, little one, you make this place glow. It looks fine, kid, go on home.”

  Tamesine looked up into his eyes. Kind eyes. Human. She liked him better than any human she’d met in a long time. He didn’t know what she was, although he knew she was troubled. And he’d given her the job anyway. He’d trusted her, when he had no reason to do so. That meant something to a woman who’d lost her way, who was searching for herself.

  “I will. There’s just this corner that needs a little more attention.”

  “Someone’ll get it tomorrow. You should get out of here and do something.” He paused, looking into the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen in his life. This woman was stunning, and yet she obviously had no conceit about it at all. This little bit of energy had shown up a few months ago, quiet, nervous, and asked if she could waitress for him. At the time, he didn’t have a position. But there was something…

  Something he couldn’t put his finger on struck him and told him not to turn her away. He’d always had good instincts about people, and for some reason, his instincts had told him that she needed this job for far more reasons than just the pay. So he’d nodded, given her a clean apron and told her to come back for the late shift the next night.

  He hadn’t been disappointed. The small woman had been an exemplary employee. Always on time, she never missed a shift or an order. She worked harder than anyone he’d ever seen, to the point where he often had to make her leave, like tonight.

  “Tam,” Frank said, and took the broom out of her hand. “Go home.”

  Slowly, Tamesine turned and reached under the counter for her bag.

  “Okay, see you tomorrow,” she said.

  “Okay. Hey, why don’t you go next door for a drink? They’re open until 3, and they usually have a good crowd right up until closing on Friday nights.”

  “Um, I don’t really go to bars.”

  “It’s kind of like a club. You know, where singles meet. Sorta popular for that sort of thing. You might meet some new friends. Haven’t made too many since you came to town, am I right?”

  Tamesine was silent. When she shook her head a moment later, she looked directly into Frank’s eyes.

  “No, but I’m not looking for friends. It’s very kind of you to suggest that, but I’m good. I think I’ll go get some dinner and head home.”

  Frank started to protest when he felt her hand on his arm as her gaze held his.

  “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me. I have good friends and a nice life.”

  “You have good friends,” he repeated.

  “That’s right. Now you go home, safely, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, Frank.”

  “’Night, Tam. Be careful.”

  “I always am, my friend,” Tamesine said, and left quietly.

  For L.A., the night air was cool. It felt good on her warm skin as she flipped her bag over her shoulder and thought about what she wanted to eat. She needed calories, and a lot of them, because last night she’d forgotten to eat.

  And it was time to look for a blood draw. Once a week was enough, but she’d waited nearly two this time, and her body was revved and starving. It wasn’t a problem, there were always a lot of men around on this side of town at night who thought they could get a little “quickie,” which meant she could take them into an alley with no suspicion, get her blood meal, and compel them with a good memory.

  She sighed as she came to an all-night cafeteria. This was a good city for vampires.

  Thirty minutes later, a bag filled to the top with a variety of food, Tamesine walked slowly back to her basement apartment only two blocks from the diner where she worked. It was windowless and uninspiring, but safe for a vampire’s daytime sleep, and obscure.

  That’s what she’d been looking for when she finally chose this busy city to begin her journey back to health.

  It was an idea Tamesine stole from her friend Eillia, who had left her own life two years ago to heal from the devastating loss of her centuries-long lover. Eillia had felt unable to return to her normal life after he was killed forever, a true vampire death, which was rare. It meant he was gone and would not revive as they often did. So she’d taken off, hidden from all who loved her, and lived in Alaska serving food to the local humans while her heart and mind healed.

  There, Eillia had found her way back to her life. She had found hope, and love, again.

  It seemed as good a place as any for Tamesine to begin to search for her lost sanity after life events that were at l
east as devastating as Eillia experienced. In Tamesine’s case, it was familial love, and betrayal, that had driven her crazy. And it was Eillia’s newborn son who had brought her back from it.

  Still, there was something else. What it was, she did not know, she only knew that she still wasn’t healed, and wasn’t going to be until she travelled this path. Once she found out what needed to be known, she could someday go home. Once she could trust herself again.

  This was what Tamesine sought when she made the decision eight weeks ago to come here to find serenity, to find peace of mind, and a way to accept her past, to move forward.

  Tragedies of her past had fractured her mind, and a lot of healing needed to happen before she could go home.

  Home. She’d never had one. Not until last year when Eillia and Park had welcomed her into theirs. They had had faith in her that she still did not deserve. Faith that was borrowed from the little boy who believed in her before he ever knew her.

  Faith in her.

  She had a lot to live up to. Here in L.A. was where she would hopefully begin to discover who she was now, and who she would be tomorrow.

  Tonight, though, Tamesine locked her door, a new habit that had little relevance to a vampire and set her bag on the tabletop. The smells alone coming from the food on her walk home had made the trip difficult, her hunger almost insatiable now.

  But she forced herself to slow down and carefully lay the food out with a bottle of wine, turn on the widescreen television she’d procured after she moved into this little hole in the ground, and eat slowly, civilized. The new normal for a woman who, until not that long ago, devoured everything in sight with the carelessness of a small child.

  Tamesine determined she would gain control, and be the dignified first blood vampire she was born to be. Elegant, powerful, in control. Sane.

  Truly, she’d been insane a lot longer than she’d been trying to return to the sanity she must have known nearly a thousand years ago.

  The food was excellent and took the edge off of her hunger. But tomorrow night, there would have to be a blood meal. Her vampire body required it to maintain health, and since it had been too long, exhaustion was encroaching.

  The programs on the huge television didn’t keep her interest, so she turned it off to give in to the desire to sleep. It was a little early, daylight was hours away, but she was tired and it never hurt to be more rested than less.

  Her bed was comfortable, just a king-sized mattress on the floor with satin sheets, her only concession to luxury other than the television and a few clothing items, and a fat comforter that felt like a bit of heaven.

  Tamesine slept well, most of the time. Unless the dreams came. They came less often now, but they were deeper and darker, more detailed.

  She was afraid that they were beginning to reveal her lost memories. And afraid they weren’t. She wanted to know, needed to know, the part of her life that apparently her mind had hidden from her. Tamesine knew it was the only way she would ever really heal, to get through and then past all of the damage that drove her mind over the edge to begin with.

  But she hated the dreams. They were frightening and intense. Vivid. So much so, she felt as if she were living those moments right now. Sometimes, she surged awake and shot upright, breathing so hard, it took minutes to calm her respiration back to normal again.

  Tonight, she was hitting the bed much sooner than she usually did, so even if the dreams came, hopefully she could work through them and then fall back to sleep dreamlessly for the rest of the day.

  Living alone in the apartment, there was little reason to worry about propriety. Tamesine undressed, left her clothes in a heap on the floor beside the mattress, and climbed between the sheets.

  As she pulled the cool, slippery top-sheet over her body, she rolled up inside of it, wrapping it around her like a cocoon. The smoothness of the satin sheet caressed her sensuously as it slid against her bare skin.

  Sleep eluded her. She rolled around, further ensnaring her limbs in the king-sized sheets. Tossing and turning was a curiously human trait, vampires usually slept well, but that wasn’t true for her today.

  She thought back over the past month. Things seemed to be going all right here in Los Angeles. Tamesine had chosen the city because she wanted to be someplace where people gathered in large numbers to live their brief human lives, to make a living. She wanted to feel the day-to-day visceral process of living at its basest core. She wanted to rebuild herself and see if she could come out whole.

  Initially, she’d thought Frank had given her the job just to be kind, because she knew that she’d seemed like a lost, sad woman with no skills, no place to live, newly arrived in this busy city with nothing but a small suitcase. He was just so gentle and wouldn’t have been able to say no to her.

  But she’d proven to him that his faith in her was justified when she became his most reliable and efficient waitress.

  The weirdest thing of all was that she actually liked the stupid little job. It was satisfying to perform a utilitarian task and accomplish a goal successfully, regardless of the fact that it was something as mundane and simple as food service.

  At this moment, quietly living in this little apartment and earning a living, with no other needs or demands on her, she was content. This was what she’d needed when she came here, and it was working.

  The most challenging part of the job was avoiding the men that hit on her. Tamesine was stunning, she knew that. Most of her people were. Attractive physical attributes were just normal for vampires, particularly the first bloods. All vampires had supercharged sex drives, and even humans could feel that. Tamesine needed sex, it was almost written into vampire DNA. But she wouldn’t act on it right now. This was a time for healing, so no sex, because sex…

  Sex just messed her up. It had been a distraction all of her life. She’d used sex to control or manipulate, both men and women. Had it ever been satisfactory? Not really. Not the way she knew it was meant to be, with a partner who cared about her as much as she cared about him.

  Tamesine wasn’t sure she’d ever had a healthy sexual experience, wasn’t sure she knew how to.

  So for now, until she was well again, she would remain celibate.

  A deep sigh escaped her as she remembered the pleasure of an orgasm. That she missed. And although she knew she could take care of that need herself, she was going to attempt to abstain.

  Eventually, Tamesine’s mind hushed enough to let her fall into a calm, restful sleep. The dreams did not come that night.

  “Tam! Can you get table six? I’ve got a party of twelve along the back wall and it’s gonna be a while.”

  Caitlyn, the waitress Tamesine shared duty with tonight in the diner, often pawned smaller groups off on Tamesine. Generally, they meant smaller tips.

  She didn’t care. Turning swiftly, Tamesine headed to the small two-person table near the back of the diner. Only one person sat there, a man, his back to her, looking at the menu.

  As she approached, unexpectedly, she felt uneasy. Her steps slowed, wondering what it meant. He wasn’t vampire or any other type of supernatural, she would sense that. But something about him was different and she continued towards him with caution.

  His head still downcast as he considered the tattered-edged menu in his hands, abruptly he reached out for a glass of water that Caitlyn must have already given him and chugged the entire glass, setting it back on the napkin so aggressively, it slammed against the laminated surface.

  “I’m sorry I took so long, sir,” Tamesine began, well aware after two months on the job that people liked apologies. “What can I bring you?”

  He looked up suddenly, his eyes sharp, searching hers, marbled gray eyes locked on Tamesine’s pale blue eyes. A moment later, he dropped his gaze and stared at the menu.

  “Um,” he began, his voice deep and graveled. “Just a grilled ham and Swiss sandwich, lettuce and mayonnaise please. Coffee, black. And just bring the check with the food.” He fidgeted wit
h the menu as he tried to close it back up. “That’s all.” He didn’t look back up at her.

  Tamesine found his glance unsettling. With a nod she knew he couldn’t see, she walked away and scribbled his order on her pad, tucked it into the check holder, and spun it to Frank.

  Her eyes went back to the table where the mystery man sat, still looking downward. He’d pulled a cell phone out and was scrolling through it, but she couldn’t see his face from this angle.

  Scanning him, she noted that he was big, almost vampire big, but he was definitely human. He wore a short sleeved black tee shirt that had a weird metallic butterfly scrolled on the back. The tee shirt fit tightly, and displayed wide shoulders, tight abs, and heavily muscled arms, the result of a lot of time with weights. Long hair tied back carelessly with a leather strap, and torn jeans told her he defied the cultural convention for neat haircuts and tidy attire.

  Tamesine had never seen him in here before. Or more accurately, felt him, because she could still do so now, even across the dining room. It was odd and worrisome.

  She’d learned a long time ago never to ignore things like this…they meant something. Other than Caitlyn’s large party, the diner was pretty quiet tonight. Leaning her back against the counter while she waited for the strange man’s food to come up, she watched him. His aura was clean, a pale gray, but with murky edges. He wasn’t well.

  The aura didn’t reveal the nature of his troubles, but this man definitely had been through something. Or was going through something right now. Tamesine could tell he wanted to be left alone. So had she, when she’d come to town. Like recognized like.

  “Your order’s up,” Frank said, behind her. “You can stop staring at him like you want to eat him and go feed him.”

  “What? Oh, no, I’m not…I mean, he’s just…he seems troubled and I just wondered what his deal was. That’s all.”

  “He’s big. I doubt anyone will mess with him, even around here. Actually, he must work next door. Their bouncers and bartenders wear those tee shirts. You’re probably right, Tam, Joe tends to hire ex-cons and ex-vets. So, yeah, he might be trouble.”