“I won’t hurt you. I don't know how many times I can promise that. All of this is very...unique. I've broken every rule to be with you. And I'd break them all again, I swear it. Nothing matters unless I’m with you.” Tavin shook his head, realizing how desperate he sounded. The situation was almost humorous in its irony. Here he was, a thousand year old demon begging for a human girl to love him. If he had thought the angels bothered with his type at all, he would have sworn this was a cosmic punishment.
For the first time, Emily’s expression was guarded. He could look into her mind, see her thoughts but he knew that right then that would be the worst form of violation. He wanted to give her the distance she so obviously needed. Besides, he needed to hear her words, hear her say what she was thinking.
“You're a bundle of mixed messages, Tavin. First you say that you won't...no that you can't hurt me. Then you tell me that we being together will be my death. See in my world, that sounds a lot like a threat. So which is it? A or B? Because I'm getting whip lash here.” Emily's voice shook and Tavin hung his head in shame. He knew he was being confusing. He was confused. “I won't hurt you, not ever. But it doesn't change that our relationship could cause you harm…” He told her.
Emily blew out an angry breath. “Okay, you're still not answering that question...so moving on...” He watched her as she anxiously ran her fingers through her hair. He wanted to do that himself, to feel her hair. But it was obvious that would be the wrong move right now.
“So...you have to drink from me to live...you feed on my, what...life force?” She asked. Tavin nodded. He could see the wheels spinning in her head.
“Are you still...drinking from me?” Emily's words were so hesitant and he knew this was taking a lot for her to process and comprehend. The fact that she was indulging him at all, showed how amazing she was. Tavin suddenly realized what she asked him and he put his hands up. “No!” He told her, practically yelling his answer. Calming down a bit he lowered his hands until they hung limply by his sides. “No, I haven't fed from you since that first night we were together.” He said softly.
Tavin watched as Emily's brow furrowed in thought. He loved the little lines that formed between her eyes when she was thinking. He had memorized every detail of her face and never thought he would get tired of looking at her.
Emily began to pace. Tavin watched her nervously, wishing she would just say what was on her mind. The suspense was unbearable.
“So...if you're not drinking from me...you're not eating right?” She seemed to be sorting through the information systematically. Tavin nodded in affirmation to her question. “And if you're not eating, you'll what...starve?” The hitch in her voice lifted his heart. After everything he unloaded on her, to have her still care about his well-being was almost too much to hope for. He didn't want to upset her, wishing he could lie. But he promised her total honesty.
“Essentially yes.” He said quickly.
Emily's frown deepened. “So if you don't drain me...you'll die. Am I getting this right?” Her voice hardened again and all of his hope slithered away. Tavin only nodded. Emily's face flamed red. “So you're telling me, this whole situation is just a flipping Romeo and Juliet waiting to happen? That if you don't EAT ME, then you freaking die? This is crazy Tavin!”
Tavin flinched at her tone. The volume of her voice ringing in his ears. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? It was the truth. She was right.
“So one way or another, one of us dies...right? Right?!?” She demanded from him. He nodded again. “Use your words damn it! You're not a mute!' Wow, he had never seen her so worked up. She was actually scary in her rage. She could put many a demon to shame in her ferocity.
“Yes, Emily, you are right. It's one life for the other. If it's not yours, then ultimately it will be mine…” Tavin paused, breathing deeply. “And there's no way to change it?” She asked, choking on her question. Tavin shook his head but remembered to give her the words she requested. “Not that I've found. And believe me I've looked. This seems to be our fate. I'm so sorry.” His words sounded weak and pathetic in the face of their reality.
Emily stopped in front of him, her eyes wild. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Even raging and ready to kill, she was magnificent. “So you invade my dreams...'mark' me.” She used her fingers as quotes. “Then decide, hey, I'd really like to get to know her. And then you pretty much seduce me; make me fall in love with you, knowing all along that you are GOING TO DIE? Do I have this correct?”
Tavin felt a huge lump in his throat. Her accusations stung. Because again she was right. He had selfishly enmeshed himself into her dreams, allowed them to become as close as two individuals could be. And too soon he would be leaving her all alone. With everything Emily had already experienced in her life, he should have known what that would do to her. Why hadn't he realized? He had only been thinking of himself, of his new feelings. He really was the basest kind of evil. And he hated himself for it.
“Emily, I have been selfish. But I was drawn to you. I was like a moth to a flame. I couldn't stay away. I love you!” He pleaded with her, trying to convey everything he felt for her.
He reached out his hand, needing to touch her, just for a moment. When she recoiled from his touch, he knew it was too little too late. He had single handedly destroyed her trust. Aside from the secrets he had kept from her, the truth of his demonic self; it was the knowledge that she had fallen in love with him, only to be ultimately left without him, that Tavin realized was too much for her handle. So she rejected him, denounced him, essentially closing the door to her heart.
He moved away from her, turning his eyes from her condemnation. “I want to wake up Tavin.” He heard her say from behind him. He couldn't look at her anymore. “If you wake up now, I don’t know whether I will be able to see you again. It is taking more and more of my energy to come to you.” He could hear the harshness in his voice. He was a lump of stone. His feelings dampened by her anger, her hatred and her fear.
He felt her hesitate, even in her fury; he sensed she wasn't entirely sure she wanted that. But he could also feel her resolve. Her need to get away from him, from this revelation, outweighed any stirrings in her heart.
Emily closed her eyes. “Whatever Tavin. I need to wake up. I need to get away from you. From all of this. It hurts too much.” Her words sounded strangled and he fought against the pain they caused.
Her blonde hair blew wildly around her as a warm wind began to blow. Her brown eyes were wet with unshed tears and her cheeks were flushed with her anger and fear. She was gorgeous. He loved her, beyond anything, and she was rejecting him. God it hurt.
“Then wake up Emily. You’re in control now.” He saw her surprise and then her concentration as she made herself disappear, made herself leave him…possibly forever. As she faded away, their eyes met for the last time and he knew those eyes would haunt him for the rest of his existence; however long that may be.
Chapter 30
“Stay awake! Damn it!” Emily splashed cold water on her face and pinched her cheeks. The girl looking back at her in the mirror was a stranger. Her normally soft blonde hair was frizzy and out of control. The brown eyes, wary and tired. Dark circles prominent in an otherwise ghostly pale face.
She was exhausted, ready to drop. When Emily thought of sleep her heart beat quickened and her palms began to sweat. She couldn’t do that. She didn’t know what waited for her in the dark behind closed eyes.
Emily stood in the girl’s bathroom at her high school, pleading with herself to stay awake. She had forced herself to stay awake since finding out about Tavin. She was so angry and fearful of what he was. But mostly she couldn't face what waited for her after Tavin eventually left forever. The thought of that scared her more than anything else. So she wanted to stay as far away from him and that anguish as she could.
Part of Emily still needed him, craved his presence, but it was hopelessly tangled with gnarled, dark emotions. She was being
ripped in two. One half told her she was being silly; that Tavin loved her, that she should enjoy whatever time they had left...together. But that other half, the more reasonable half, yelled at her for her stupidity. Aside from the fact that he was a soul sucking demon, she couldn't hand over any more of her heart knowing it was going to be crushed into a million pieces when he was gone.
She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, overwhelmed again by the warring feelings inside of her. Emily heard the door of the bathroom swing open. She looked up and saw Sasha standing just in front of the now closed door. Sasha looked like she wanted to turn around and walk back out, but without another word, she slammed into the nearest stall.
Emily felt knots up in her gut. Guilt had become an unfortunately familiar emotion. She hadn’t talked to Sasha in almost a week. She had slunk through the hallways of the school, staying under the radar. She ate her lunch outside in the biting cold December air. She walked to and from school. Every day Emily felt more and more like a shadow. She didn’t talk to anyone and no one talked to her.
Seeing Sasha made her realize how much she missed her best friend. She wanted to tell Sasha everything but how did she explain what she was going through? That she had just broken up with her demon boyfriend who only existed in her dreams? Emily laughed at the absurdity of it.
“What’s so funny?” Sasha asked harshly after coming out of the stall. She angrily turned on the tap and started to wash her hands, making a point of not looking at Emily in the mirror as she did so. The look on her friend’s face was closed and hostile; a far cry from the effervescent Sasha that Emily knew and loved.
Emily stopped laughing, realizing what she must look like. “Uh, nothing. Just thinking about...never mind. How are you Sash?” Emily sounded like a moron incapable of stringing two sentences together.
“How am I? Well let’s see. I haven’t talked to my best friend in over a week because she’s morphed into a crazy bitch. Oh and I failed my Geometry test.” Sasha pulled her lip gloss out of her pocket, judicially smearing it on her lips. Emily winced.
“Okay, I know I deserve that.” Emily said. Sasha whipped around to face her. “Oh yeah you deserve that. And a hell of a lot more if you ask me. I have always been there for you Emily! I have stood by you through everything and all you do is treat me like crap! I, however, do not deserve the attitude you’ve been dishing out. All I wanted is for you to get better, to talk to someone about what’s going on with you. I feel like I don’t know you anymore. I get that you have a lot going on, but who doesn’t? When was the last time you asked me about my life? Asked me about how I was feeling? Oh, that’s right; you haven’t, because we spend 95% of our conversations discussing you!” Sasha angrily thrust the lip gloss back into her pocket.
“I’m sorry Sasha. You’re right. I’ve been a horrible friend. It must seem that I take you for granted. I just…have a lot going on.” Emily trailed off. She knew immediately that she had just lit the match and that Sasha was about to explode. “A lot going on?!?! Are you serious? It’s not like you've told me anything that’s going on! How am I supposed to understand what you’re going through if you don’t talk about it?” Sasha’s face had turned red with her anger.
Emily looked at her, realizing that she wasn’t alone, that she knew she could talk to her. It was so tempting to unload everything. The fear and paranoia were crippling. She was breaking underneath the weight of all these secrets. Why couldn’t she tell Sasha? If she thought she was crazy so be it, but at least she got it out.
She opened her mouth, prepared to tell Sasha everything. “Don’t do it.” A voice whispered. So clear that Emily turned her head in its direction, knowing someone would be standing there. Of course, no one was. Sasha was looking at her like she had three heads. “What are you doing?”
“She won’t believe you. No one will.” The voice taunted her. The voice dripped in malice. Emily felt the prickles all over her skin. A crawling that something was there.
She closed her mouth and turned away from Sasha. “I’ve got nothing to say Sasha. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you but I don’t know what else to do.” Emily wouldn’t look at her, because she didn’t want to see her friend’s anger. She heard the frustrated release of breath and then the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing.
Emily turned back around and realized she was alone.
********************
Emily began the long walk to her house after school. Her legs felt heavy; her arms seemed to hang limply at her sides. She could feel her eyelids drooping and all Emily wanted to do was crawl into the pile of dead leaves on the sidewalk and take a nap. But she couldn’t. She had to stay awake. She didn’t want to see him, couldn't face the fate that had been handed to her.
Her thinking took on a note of irrationality. She knew she wasn’t thinking clearly but she was going on thirty-six hours without sleep. She had stayed up the entire night before, pumped herself full of coffee and Red bull. She knew she couldn’t continue this way indefinitely. People actually died from sleep deprivation. But she wasn’t really thinking about that. She wasn’t thinking logically about anything. All she knew was she had to distance herself from Tavin and sleep was what brought them together.
Emily drug her feet and could barely lift them up to walk. The air was cold and she could smell wood smoke. Looking around her, the world seemed to be moving on despite her personal battle. Thanksgiving had come and gone with barely a thought from her. Her mother had attempted to make a dinner; Emily spent the day in her room. The days rolled on despite her turmoil.
There were kids running down the street, happy to be out of school. There was an old man raking leaves in his yard; a woman unloaded groceries from her car. Autumn held on with a tight fist, even as winter bore down on the world. The air smelled like snow, the sky darkening earlier every day. The heaviness of the air matching the heaviness in her chest.
Emily would have given anything to feel that normalcy. To worry about nothing more than what to make for dinner or completing her homework. Heck, she’d even take worrying about her drunken mom.
Her mom. There was a whole new set of weird. Her mother had kept to her word; she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since her return. But she was like a step ford wife. She got up every morning, went to work. She came home in the evening, attempted to make dinner, which often came out inedible. But she was trying. And she had started going to church. Not just once a week, but every evening she attended a Bible study group at the Pentecostal church across town.
Every day this week Emily came home to find her mom reading the Bible in the living room. Emily was relieved that thus far her mother had refrained from shoving her born again crap down her throat. But there was a fanaticism in her mother’s eyes that reminded her of the maniacal glint she took on when she was plastered. It seemed as if her mother had traded in one addiction for another.
To be honest, Emily didn’t have time to be worrying about her mother’s new found closeness with God. Right now, she had to try and stop the overwhelming urge to fall asleep.
The air was cold against her face and numbed her nose. Forecasters predicted the year’s first snow fall that night and from the bite in the air, Emily wouldn’t be surprised if it happened. She was so out of it that she didn’t hear the car pulling up behind her. It wasn’t until she heard someone yelling her name that she came to.
“Earth to Emily.” A male voice yelled at her. She turned slowly around. She recognized the Land Rover idling behind her. Jeremy had his head poked out of the window. Emily hadn’t spoken with Jeremy since their break up. Not that he hadn't tried to talk to her, but she had effectively shut him out as completely as she had Sasha.
Emily was tempted to keep walking but didn’t want to be completely rude. “Hey.” She called back, moving her book bag to her other shoulder.
“Do you wanna ride?” Jeremy asked her. She heard him unlock the passenger door. Emily hesitated. Her sleep deprived mind was immediately evaluatin
g Jeremy’s motivations. Some small part of her realized how ridiculous she had become. That everyone had to have some ulterior motive. She had become completely paranoid; no wonder she had lost everyone close to her.
“Um…” She didn’t know if she should accept or not. Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Emily, it’s freezing out here and it’s another five blocks to your house. Besides you look like you’re going to fall over. Come on. I won’t bite. Promise.” Jeremy laughed. He seemed genuine. Emily wanted to get off of her feet and the rest of her walk seemed too much.
Before she talked herself out of it she made the decision to accept Jeremy’s offer. She got into his warm car and felt like she could melt into the comfortable leather interior. “Thanks.” She mumbled, not looking at him. She felt Jeremy glance at her for a moment and then put the car into drive.
They drove down the street, neither saying anything. Why did every interaction she have with people need to be so awkward? She chastised herself. Jeremy was obviously thinking the same thing. After a few minutes he finally broke the uncomfortable silence. “So why isn’t Sasha taking you home anymore? I’ve seen you walking home the last few days. Don’t tell me the princess finally got a job.” Jeremy gasped in mock horror. Emily laughed.
But then it made her remember with a painful clarity the real reason she was walking herself to and from school. She abruptly stopped laughing, the smile disappearing from her face. “Uh, no. We’re not exactly talking right now.” Emily looked out the window, wanting desperately to change the subject.
She could sense Jeremy’s incredulous look. “You’re not talking? For real?” Emily knew that the he could never imagine the two of them on the outs. Any disagreement they had in the past had been minor and easily remedied.
“Yeah, for real.” Emily answered him, wishing he had an ounce of Sasha’s intuition when it came to her moods. Because she really didn’t want to be talking about this. It hurt too badly. Losing Sasha on top of everything else was almost too much to handle.
Irresistible Fear Page 20
