by Tara Brown
I break into a run. I know he can't catch me. He never could.
What I don’t account for is the guy at the far side of the building. He grabs my arms as I fly by. He throws me to the ground and lies on top of me.
I know him instantly. I don’t fight. I'm stunned silent.
He is the valet. The valet at the Governor's and also the police officer who gave me a drink of sweet tea. He looks the same as he did forty-eight years ago. I knew him from somewhere then and now that he is holding me on the ground I know where from.
He was friends with Ramón. He was a close friend of Ramón. The kissing kind.
"You killed him?" I gasp.
He frowns at me, "Did you hit your head."
"Get off her." Whit pushes him off of me.
I stand and brush myself off and look at Whit, "You killed Ramón?" I can feel the tears starting. The black tears of the hate in my heart.
The man next to him looks sick. He shakes his head slowly, "I woulda walked through fire before I hurt him."
Whit grabs my arm and drags me away from the man.
"How come he was there? He was the cop and the valet and I know he dated Ramón." I look back, still stunned. Too stunned to ask about the millions of other things we need to talk about.
Whit's firm grip holds me tightly. He walks me to the side of the building talking in a low angry tone, "I have some things I need to show you."
"Yeah you already showed me that, Whit. I'm not interested in a repeat of that performance. Besides, you can't kill me and my family twice, so your show is sort of lame now." I knew coming home was a mistake. I wish I could leave, but I can't.
I shove him hard and break into a run. He and the other man chase me, I hear their footsteps for a minute, but they don’t stand a chance.
I run until I reach my land. I stop running and walk through the wheat field, letting the wheat tips scratch my hands. It sounds the way it used to. The hiding house is in better shape than the mansion. The front porch stairs seem to be the most weathered spot on the house. I open the front door. It sticks, but I push and it comes open. I step inside and remember. I can't do anything but remember. Every moment is attached to something.
My last moments with him were in this house. Not the way I woulda liked them to be. I open the cellar door and walk down the old stairs to the dank basement. I sit in the corner and try not to notice the bugs or the dirt. I close my eyes and I'm gone. I don’t dream anymore. I just fade into the black.
When I wake I don’t feel refreshed like I usually do. I feel sad. His face is still floating in my mind. He looked good, so good. My love is the same as it always was, unnatural.
His eyes are the same and his lazy grin. So many years have passed and he is the same. I need to hate him. I need to honor them and hate him. I stretch and think about getting the money to Luke and the lawyer's office. My lawyer will let me sign at night. I lied about having a shift work job.
"I love you." His voice breaks my silence.
I look up sharply. My heart grips tightly to my insides. It desperately wants to feel things. Fortunately my brain takes over and a sneer crosses my face. "Get out of my house." My chest almost explodes with the pain.
He grins, "This isn’t your land anymore."
My brow furrows, "Well, Tessa don't want you here either." I get up off the ground, dusting myself off.
He is leaning against the wall near the stairs. "I told you I would find you. I would always come for you." He pushes off the wall and takes a step toward me. I step toward the stairs and wonder if I can get up them before he grabs me. "Lorelei, we need to talk. I just need a couple minutes."
I take a small step toward the stairs. I'm not listening to him. I'm listening to the sounds of the house. Is anyone else with him or is he alone? I can outrun him but not if they grab me.
He takes a step toward me. "I have missed you. Every minute I have missed you. So many times I wanted to talk to you but I didn’t know how, but you came back."
My face is tense. I look around for another way out. He steps in front of the stairs in one of his huge steps. His long legs look the same. He looks the same. I want him. I can't fight it, the closer I get to him. I take a step back. The smell of him is in the air and doing weird things to the lower half of my belly.
He puts a hand out.
I swallow hard. I take a step back.
He crosses the space in two steps. I turn my back and cower into the wall and wait for his hands to come down on me or his fingers to bite into my flesh.
He grabs me and pulls me into him. He is warm, just like I remember. His body is hard. He presses against me and kisses the top of my head. "I have missed you my love."
I turtle. I'm powerless against him. I wait for it to end. For him to see just how dead I am and leave me alone.
He turns me and pulls my arms down. He tilts my chin up to him. My eyes dart to the side. I'm terrified of him.
He brushes a hand down my cheek, "You look so beautiful. Just the way I remember you."
My jaw trembles. My body fights a battle of the wills.
He looks worried, "Say something."
I look up into his dark eyes. "I hate you." He flinches but I continue, "You missed me because I ran. I have run for fifty years almost. I have stayed one day ahead of you everyday of my life. My horrid lonely life." My hand lashes out and slaps him hard.
He takes the shot but his eyes turn dark, stormy. " I saved you. I changed you because I love you. We're meant to be together. You believed that too."
I shove him away from me, "Yeah, I did. Course, that was before, when I thought you was a normal boy. Before you went and killed my family."
"You hated your family."
I shove him again, "I loved my sister."
He looks like he regrets his decisions, but what good does that do me now?
He takes my hands and kisses them. "I love you still. More than ever. I want to make things right between us."
I rip my hands away and turn away from him.
His fingers bite into my arm, "Don’t turn away from me." His Scottish accent comes out.
I rip my arm from him, "Don't manhandle me, Whit. I hate you. That’s it. There is no us. There is no fixing us. I hate you. I hated you forty-eight years ago and I hate you more now. We're done. END OF STORY!" I shout into his face.
He grabs me again but this time he drags me across the basement and up the stairs. He pulls me through the small house and pushes me through the front door. I stumble and fall in the dirt out front.
"You never just give me a minute to talk. You want to hate me, Lorelei? Let me give you an actual reason to hate me." His voice is savagely angry.
Terror pulses through my body. I look up from the dirt and watch him walk down the front steps. "I don’t need a reason, Whit. I have plenty."
I lunge at him and drive him into the front porch. The force breaks the woods and we crash into the siding of the house. He grabs my face and presses his lips into it.
I let him kiss me. Not because I want him to. I don’t. Not really. I let him kiss me so I can plot my escape.
His lips smother me, kissing, sucking, pulling at me. He needs me. I can feel it. His hands grab my butt and lift me into the air. My back crashes against the house. His body is pressed completely against mine. He rips my shirt open and plants kisses on the swell of my breasts. My legs are gripping him tightly. He side shuffles to the front door, dragging my back against the siding. I cry out. His lips are on mine again.
He drives his tongue into my mouth. I suck it and respond with my own. I moan against the hot wet kisses and firm hands that are massaging the back of my jeans.
He kneels on the hardwood floor in the front room and lays me back. He is crushing me into the floor, in a good way. I have lost the control I had and the plan to escape is gone.
We are sliding against each other. I roll him on his back and straddle him. I look at him like I'm gonna devour him. Only I don’t.
&nbs
p; I run.
I run out the front door and I don’t stop until I'm sitting on the swing in the backyard of the Palatino family's house. My butt against the swing feels too big, it always did. Angie always had a tiny ass. I look up at the huge mansion. I imagine her screams were blended with my family's. The screams all sound the same. I can't differentiate who is who in my mind. It doesn’t matter. I know the chorus of the screams in my mind needs to be my constant reminder of why I need to steer clear of him.
Chapter Twelve
My plan to stay away from him was easier to think about and plot than it was to execute. He has followed me everywhere, trying desperately to convince me of his innocence in my family's death. The murders I saw him commit. He hasn’t given me a second of breathing room. He doesn’t come in the house, it's the only peace I get. But he hangs out in the yard and follows me to the motel. He's all but kept my damned truck too.
I glance at him standing down the driveway beside my friggen truck.
"Who's the guy milling about?" Luke asks.
I scowl, "He's…uhm…my ex?" I don’t even have an answer for it. It's awkward in ways I haven’t explained to myself.
"I can get rid of him if you want." He says.
I sigh and shake my head, "Sugar, he is trying to work his way back into my life. He won't give me a minute of peace. But he's my problem. Don't bother with him." The idea of Whit hurting him makes me instantly angry.
He laughs, "Oh I got me one of them myself." He pulls out his cell phone and shows me a picture of a redhead with bright-green eyes. She is beautiful.
"Rebecca Ryan. If you see her near the property, call me right away. She's nuttier than squirrel shit." He chuckles but my jaw drops.
I take the phone and shake my head, "She looks just like my friend Angie used to." The red hair is the only difference. It's stunning how remarkable the resemblance is.
"Her grandmamma is Angie, she's Angela Palatino. Her granddaddy is Martin Ryan, you must know him. Governor of Louisiana. Old as Methuselah's goat now. He was supposed to marry your great aunt or grandma, the one you're named after." He looks confused but then nudges me and laughs, "You know the engagement party of doom."
My mouth feels like I'm spittin cotton. I take a deep breath and shake my head, "Oh…uhm. No, Angie was my age. She lived in New Orleans. Maybe a relative. She ain't the same one. Not a Palatino." I'm mumbling and stumbling over my words and crazed thoughts. I can hear friggen Whit laughing all the way down the driveway at my incoherent statement.
I think I'm gonna die. How did she live? How did she not die? I swear I saw her death. The night is still so intense in my mind. My memories could be mixed and confused.
Worse though, how the hell did she marry Martin? I almost vomit on Luke thinking about it.
Luckily, he shrugs and takes the phone back. "Not sure. Maybe. Anyway her granddaughter is a piece of work. I'm gonna get back to work." He walks into the house that now has a front door, a real one.
I look over at Whit and scowl, "Go home." I know he hears me.
He grins, "I am."
I roll my eyes.
He pushes off the truck and walks up the driveway to me. My body instantly walks down the steps towards him, like magnets pulling toward each other. He towers over me and looks down on me, "You're starving aren’t you?"
My stomach is empty. I feel hungry just thinking about food.
He takes my hand and pulls me back to my truck. I struggle but I don’t stand a chance with him. He pushes me inside and climbs into the driver seat.
He starts the truck and reverses fast. When he throws it into drive he burns out.
"Those tires aren’t cheap, Whit."
He grins at me, "I notice you don’t call me Mr. Whitlock anymore."
I don’t smile. "That’s because you used to be MY Mr. Whitlock. Now you're just Whit, some asshole I gave my heart to. I feel like a real girl now. I hate you enough that I think I could actually call you Jameson. Or Lord Whitlock. Or even James."
He scowls and no matter how hard I try, he doesn't look like anything but MY Whit.
"Can I just say that the night we were going to leave, your mother…"
I growl, "STOP! We are never having this conversation. I never want to speak of this. I saw you. I saw what I need to know."
He shrugs, "Have it your way."
He drives and we don’t speak. He pulls into a small trailer park where the smell of poverty lingers in the air like chimney smoke.
He stops in front of a small yellow trailer and then drives away quickly. He parks on the road. He gets out and walks around to my side of the door. "Get out." His tone is feisty.
I make a face, but he drags me from the open door. I kick him in the side and he slams me against the truck. His fangs are out. My skin shivers and I can't help but find him sexy with fangs. I haven’t seen fangs on another person since the night my family was killed.
"You're pissing me off, Lorelei. You refuse to forgive me for the one bad thing I've ever done to you, which honestly if you let me explain, you'd see it wasn’t so bad. Now you're blatantly flirting with that construction worker. Do I have to kill him too?"
I frown and shove him back, "One bad thing? One bad thing? That one thing happened to ruin my entire life, which FYI ISN'T FUCKING ENDING!" I cover my eyes and take a deep breath. I put my hands down and look at him, "I just want you to leave me alone. If you kill him I will kill myself in the sunlight." I don’t know why I haven’t done it yet. I hope he doesn’t question it too.
He laughs. "Aren't you afraid of the family curse?"
I shove him but I'm weak. I'm starved. "How do you know about that?"
He leans in and kisses my neck, "I told you already, Lorelei. I have things to show you. I just want to explain. I'm going to hold you down and make you listen to me."
"Yeah that's going to make me forgive you."
His face hovers over mine, "I can make you love me."
I ignore his words and focus on not melting between my legs when he touches me. Something is happening between us. His touch makes my insides feel like warm butter and I don’t seem to mind it when he gets rough. I have dirty thoughts about kissing him with my fists and wrestling.
Something is dirty wrong with me. He brushes a hand between my legs and whispers, "I know you want me."
I laugh. It's true. I can't even deny it but I can torture him. I grin, "I was gonna feed and then go take it out on Luke. He seemed like he wanted to see how far I would let him go."
He smiles bitterly, "It'll be the last thing he does."
"Stop threatening to kill people." I sigh and squeeze my thighs as tight as I can.
He gives me his lazy grin, "Stop acting like you don't love me as much as I love you."
I shake my head and look around, "I don't. Why are we here?"
He kisses me once more and takes my hand. He pulls me through the woods. We walk in silence.
I know we are close to the trailer park. I can feel the poverty in the soaked Louisiana air. Plus I can smell the people. I could smell it when we drove by only a few minutes ago.
I see the back of the small yellow trailer through the trees.
He looks back and puts a finger to his lips.
We walk silently till we get to the back window. He slides it open, "I own the trailer park and rent the trailers."
"Sneaky rotten bastard." I whisper. It gets us around having to be invited in. I peek in and see an older woman. She has needle marks on her arms. She is asleep.
I pull myself up into the window and look back at him uncomfortably. I've never fed in front of anyone. It feels too personal to do with another person.
I drop to my knees in front of her and try to block out the fact he has climbed in the window too. I brush her salt and pepper hair out of her face. Her neck brings my fangs out instantly. I lower my face to her throat and put my hands over her eyes.
I bite down, waking her. She tries to struggle but I hold her face down and pin h
er body with mine. The first bite is the best. The hot blood sprays into my throat. I gulp her back until the last of the blood slips from her body. I stop drinking and pull back. The last of the blood in her trickles down her ashen throat. I wipe my mouth and walk from the room. He doesn't follow me. He stays and waits for me to finish.
I don’t think about them. I don't get to know them or feel badly for them. I'm immune to it. The only feelings I have now are intense love and hatred and desire and regret. It's impossible for me to feel something part way and I can't pity them fully. Their life style is always why I'm here. I never feed from healthy people. I never feed from good people. I always eat criminals and homeless and drug addicts. I always have.
Except in the beginning when I ate animals.
The drive home is quiet. I know he knows how I'm feeling. I always feel this way after feeding. I don’t usually have a sexy man beside me, who I will let do anything he wants to me because of the blood.
He slides his hand up my jeans and gropes my thigh. "You smell so good."
I shake my head and push his hand away, "Please don’t take advantage of it."
He rubs his hands over my legs and then up between them. I moan instantly as his fingers lightly tickle between my legs. He jerks the truck over to the side of the road and attacks. His fangs are out. I know mine are out. They don’t go away for at least an hour afterward when I'm really hungry.
He leaps at me and starts kissing me violently. My back is pressed against the truck door. I kiss him back, tearing my own shirt off before I can stop myself. He tears my bra from my body and licks up my breast. He avoids the nipple that’s sticking out, begging for it. He kisses around it in a circle. I'm melting into him.
A voice interrupts the madness, "What's going on in here?"
I'm pulled from ecstasy as a flashlight blinds me. I shy away. Whit grabs the man at the door and lifts him off the ground. He bites into his throat and drains him on the side of the road. I see his uniform and his car on the other side of the road and grimace.
Whit drops the dead policeman to the ground and slams the truck door. He starts the truck and drives.
