Falter

by V. J. Chambers

  I laughed. This kid. He was too amazing. Sometimes, when I looked at him, I was overwhelmed by how perfectly he was put together, how smart he was. I jumped up off the bed and swept him into the air.

  He shrieked in laughter.

  I pulled him close, hugging him. “It might mean I’m crazy.”

  He pushed at me, still laughing. “No. No, you’re not. I was only teasing.”

  I loved that, too. How he’d say things that he heard adults say, mimic them to perfection. He’d mean them seriously, like he was a grown up, but they’d come out adorable because he was still a little boy.

  “Teasing, huh? You think it’s a good idea to tease me?”

  He nodded. He was still pushing at me. “Yup. Put me down now.”

  I tossed him back on the bed. “I’ll teach you to tease me, little man.” I pushed up his shirt and blew an enormous raspberry on his stomach.

  More laughter. “Don’t! No fair, Daddy.”

  I tugged back, suddenly serious. “Hey, you’re okay, for real, aren’t you?”

  He sat up, pushing his red hair out of his eyes with chubby fingers. “Of course I’m okay.”

  I smiled at him. That red hair. Chance wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for my weird Lilith obsession. His mother Polly had been one more girl I’d had to put in her place. I’d used her, and she’d died for it. I wasn’t proud of that. But at least there was Chance, and he was wonderful. So, at least something good had come out of it.

  He pushed the rest of the way off the bed. “Do you want to play with me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “You want to play soldiers?”

  “No.” He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Soldiers are for little kids, and I’m grown up now.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I’m very sorry for not realizing you were so mature.”

  He slipped his tiny hand into mine. “It’s okay. I’ll forgive you. This time.”

  * * *

  ~azazel~

  “This is about the blood?” Dwayne Cryer said. He was sitting in the back of the van, tied up. We’d just taken off his blindfold and gag. “The sacred blood of life?”

  That was an interesting way to put it. “I guess so. Where do you get it?”

  “They came to me,” said Dwayne. “They pay me to distribute it.”

  “Wait, they pay you?” I asked. “You aren’t selling it to people?”

  “No,” said Dwayne. “They tell me who to give it to, and I do what they say.”

  Maybe they had clients on a subscriber plan, like Netflix or something. Weird.

  “And who are they?” asked Jude.

  “Um, they’re these guys,” said Dwayne. “Uh, the one guy who always brings me the blood is named Gary.”

  “And his last name?” I said.

  Dwayne shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I ever asked.”

  I rolled up my sleeves. “Okay, Jude, time to get a little messy.”

  “Messy?” said Dwayne.

  I spread out a rolled up piece of canvas. It had an assortment of knives and other sharp objects on it. I selected a box cutter and ratcheted up the gleaming triangle of its blade. “You take the blood yourself, Dwayne?”

  His eyes were as big as saucers. “N-no. Look, don’t hurt me. I don’t know anything about those guys. I swear.”

  “Sure you don’t,” I said. Like hell he wasn’t ingesting the blood. There was no way. He sold it. He must know what it did. How could he resist living forever? Being invincible?

  I advanced on him. “Who are the people who give you the blood? Tell me, and I won’t hurt you.”

  “I told you everything I know,” he said, his voice high pitched. “I swear to god. I don’t know anything else.”

  I sliced into his skin.

  * * *

  Dwayne Cryer was bloody, torn up, and dead. I kicked his corpse. “I was sure he was ingesting the blood. I thought he’d heal.”

  Jude was at the back of the van, looking a little sick to his stomach. He was never very good at dealing with stuff like this. “We weren’t supposed to kill him.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” I said. “I thought he was a vampire.”

  “We didn’t get any information from him.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I said. I looked down at my hands. They were covered in blood. “Dammit. We’re going to have to do something with the body.”

  Jude’s voice was thin. “Like bury it?”

  I considered. “Maybe.” I held out my hands. “Can you grab me some of those baby wipes I made sure we picked up?”

  “Where are they?”

  “In the shopping bags,” I said. I pointed.

  Jude knelt and got some of them. When he handed them to me, I realized that he was shaking.

  I scrubbed the blood off of my hands and arms. “It’s okay, Jude. Calm down.” I was glad I’d thought to put down a big plastic tarp over the floor of the van. We could wrap Dwayne up in that.

  “I really don’t think he knew anything,” said Jude.

  “Well, then I guess it’s not a great loss that I killed him before we got any information from him,” I said, tossing the bloody baby wipes on top of Dwayne’s body. I looked at Jude. “What?”

  Jude looked away.

  “He worked for the bad guys. I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.”

  His nostrils flared. “The fact you don’t think it’s a big deal is what makes it a big deal. You’re turning into my brother.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. This guy was a blood seller and a drug dealer. He knew what he was getting himself into.”

  Jude clenched his hands into fists, but he didn’t say anything.

  Fine. I dug my phone out of my pocket and dialed Boone.

  “What’d you get?” Boone said by way of greeting. “Anything good?”

  “I accidentally killed him,” I said. “But Jude doesn’t think he knew anything anyway.”

  “Killed him?” Boone was quiet for a few seconds. “Well, I guess it’s better than him going back and blabbing everything about us. I just wish we’d gotten something from him.”

  “Well, he said one of the guys who gives him blood is named Gary. But he didn’t know a last name.”

  “Gary,” said Boone. “Better than nothing.”

  “Sorry it wasn’t more productive,” I said.

  “No, you did your best.”

  “Um, any ideas what we should do with the body?” When we killed vampires, Boone often arranged for there to be explosions or other cover-up measures. They weren’t foolproof, but they were enough to keep the authorities off our backs.

  “Hmm... no, I don’t know,” he said. “Actually, you want to bring it back to headquarters? We can wrap it up and stash it in one of the freezers until I think of something.”

  “Good idea,” I said. I liked that much better than scouting out someplace local to try to dig a grave. I didn’t relish the idea of using a shovel. “We’ll be back within a few hours then.”

  “All right,” he said. “Man, I really wish we’d gotten more than Gary.”

  “We’ll figure it out, Boone. We just gotta keep at it.”

  We said our goodbyes, and I hung up the phone. Then I grabbed Dwayne’s feet. “Hey Jude, you want to help me wrap this guy up in plastic?”

  “Not really,” he said.

  But he did anyway.

  * * *

  Later, blood spattered and sweaty, we surveyed our handiwork. Dwayne now resembled a large plastic burrito.

  “Guess it’s a good thing we brought a change of clothes,” said Jude.

  “Yeah,” I said. I made my way to the front of the van to get our bags. I tossed Jude’s to him.

  He caught it. “Uh, you want me to go somewhere else to change?”

  “Nah,” I said. “On the off chance someone wanders by and sees this van, you taking off your bloody clothes is probably going to create suspicion. We’ll just change back to ba
ck.”

  He nodded.

  I turned around, reaching down to peel off my shirt. “No peeking.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Jude.

  I yanked my shirt over my head. “You say that, but when we were locked up together six months ago, you kissed me.”

  “We were on those aphrodisiac things that made us crazy horny,” he said. “You kissed me back.”

  I used some baby wipes to clean up some blood that was smeared on my skin. “I did not.”

  “You couldn’t help it,” he said.

  I probably wasn’t being fair to him. The vampires who’d been holding us had put a powerful aphrodisiac in our food, and it had been tough to resist. That was the night that I’d figured out Jason liked to have sex a little rougher than I’d thought.

  At first, I’d been frightened by the idea, but then, the more I’d thought about it, the more I realized it actually kind of turned me on. Jason was attractive to me precisely because of how dangerous he was, and playing little games together when we were being intimate was tantalizing and exciting. But then he’d strangled me, and that was... Well, everything was weird now.

  I didn’t want to think about this.

  “I guess you couldn’t help it either,” I said. I put on a fresh bra and pulled a clean t-shirt over my head.

  “Trust me, I’m not trying to see you without clothes,” he said. “Especially while you’re all bloody.”

  I shimmied out of my jeans and reached for the other pair I’d brought with me. “Oh, am I too violent for you, Jude? Did I ruin your image of me and now you’ve lost your crush?”

  He was quiet.

  I turned around. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. His back was to me.

  “You know, sometimes you’re really a bitch,” he said.

  “Sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “I didn’t mean...” I put on my new jeans and nudged him with the baby wipe container. I held it out like a peace offering. “You need some of these?”

  He snatched them from me. “I’m serious, Zaza. You’ve changed. You’re not the girl I used to know.”

  “Most people change in twelve years,” I said. “And I only do what I have to do.”

  He rubbed at himself with a baby wipe.

  “I didn’t enjoy killing that kid,” I said. “It really was an accident. But since I didn’t mean to do it, what should I do? Torture myself by feeling all guilty and telling myself I’m a terrible person and worrying I’m becoming a monster? No, thanks. I did that for way too long.”

  “You could feel a little bad,” he said.

  “Why? Will that bring him back to life?”

  He sighed.

  I touched my chin. “You’ve got a little—”

  “Seriously?” He shuddered. He wiped the blood off of his chin.

  “Look, I don’t kill for fun, and I don’t kill unnecessarily. I only do it when I have to. I’m not a bad person.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “You kind of did.”

  “No, I said you were acting like Jason,” he said.

  “Jason’s the tortured soul,” I said. “I offered for him to come with us, but he wussed out when he heard we were going to rough the guy up a little bit. Say what you want about him, Jude, but maybe he’s changed too.”

  Jude made his way to the front of the van. “You wish he’d come, don’t you?”

  I followed him. “Well, maybe it wouldn’t have been any fun watching you two fight the whole time, but... yeah, I guess so. Things got... strange between us recently, and I don’t know how to feel close to him anymore. Maybe if we were working together, we could fix it.”

  Jude settled in the driver’s seat. “Maybe. Or maybe you’ve both changed.”

  I sat down next to him. “What are you saying, like we’re growing apart?”

  “I don’t know. That sounded kind of like what you just said.”

  “No way,” I said. “That’s crazy. We’ve been through a lot together. We’ll get through whatever this is too.” Of course, I hadn’t slept in the same bed with him in over a week. But that didn’t mean anything. I’d been busy. That was all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Chance bounded across the restaurant and threw his arms around my legs. “Zaza, Zaza, Zaza!” he crowed.

  I grinned, kneeling down so that I was on his level. “Hey, Chance.”

  “I told Daddy you were going to come. I said you promised, and you would be here.”

  “And I’m here,” I said.

  “Come on, I’ll take you to our table.” He took me by the hand and tugged on me.

  Laughing, I let him lead me across the restaurant to a booth where Jason was sitting. There was a bowl of chips and salsa on the table. He was reaching for a chip, but then he saw us approaching. “Well, you made it.”

  “I said I would.” I tried to smile at him, but I found it hard to meet his gaze. I looked away, down at Chance. “Do you want to sit with me or with Daddy?”

  “I want you guys to sit next to each other,” he said. “And I’ll sit on the other side.”

  “Chance, you’re the littlest person here,” Jason said. “I don’t think you get a whole side of the booth to yourself.”

  “But I want to,” he said.

  Jason shot me a look. “Not that, um, I don’t want to sit next to you.”

  “No, we’d be more comfortable the other way,” I said, sitting down opposite Jason.

  “Fine,” said Chance, folding his arms over his chest and pouting.

  “Don’t be like that,” Jason said, reaching for him and pulling him into the booth next to him.

  “Look at you,” I said. “You’re all discipline-y and everything.”

  Jason blushed. “I’m just...” He turned his attention to Chance. “You want chips and salsa?”

  Chance nodded. “Yes, yes, yes! Lots of chips and only a tiny bit of salsa.” He showed us how much by holding up his thumb and forefinger.

  “This kind isn’t that spicy,” said Jason. “Maybe you want more than that.”

  “Just give me a little bit at first,” said Chance. “And if I want more, then you can give it to me then.”

  I had to smile at that. He was so cute. “That’s very logical, Chance.”

  “What’s logical?” he asked.

  Jason put some chips on Chance’s appetizer plate. “It means that what you said made sense.” He used a spoon to give him some salsa.

  “Not that much,” Chance protested.

  “Chance,” said Jason in a warning voice.

  Chance glared at him.

  “Don’t eat it if you don’t want it,” said Jason.

  Chance folded his arms over his chest again.

  Jason sighed. He gave me an apologetic look. “He’s hungry, that’s all. Sometimes he gets cranky when he hasn’t eaten.”

  I stared at the two of them in wonder. “You’re like a dad, Jason.” It was hard to believe that six months ago, Jason had been so terrified of being a bad influence on his son that he’d avoided seeing him and wouldn’t be in his presence without me around. Now, he and Chance spent a lot of time together, and I was busy most of the time. “I guess I haven’t been around much.”

  Chance picked up a chip and barely touched it to the salsa before putting it in his mouth.

  “Well, we’re glad you’re here now,” said Jason.

  “We go out to eat every Tuesday,” said Chance. “And sometimes on Thursdays too.”

  “Those are the nights I have him,” said Jason. “I’m not really a very good cook, and I don’t want to bother Marlena and Hallam to make enough dinner for us all the time.”

  “Well, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind,” I said.

  “No, they deserve to have their own family, just the two of them and Kenya.”

  Chance spoke up, gesturing with a chip. “Baby Kenya is getting big.”

  I bet she was. I was missing that too, wasn’t I? I picked up a chip for myself. “Well, we should learn to cook. How hard
can it be, anyway? The apartment I crash in at headquarters has a kitchen, and you could bring Chance there. We could try making things. You know, if you want.”

  “Headquarters?” he said.

  “Well, since we didn’t want to bother Marlena, and she’d be using the kitchen at home.”

  “Maybe,” said Jason.

  “You guys are ignoring me,” said Chance.

  “Chance, don’t be rude,” said Jason.

  “No, he’s right,” I said. I turned to him. “I’m very sorry. It was rude of me to ignore you. How about you tell me what you’ve been learning in school lately?”

  Chance shrugged. “Stuff.”

  “We met your teacher, you know,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said.

  “Do you like your teacher?”

  “She’s okay,” Chance said. “She yells at bad kids sometimes, and then she’s scary.”

  I laughed. I caught Jason’s eye. “I’m glad I came.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, it’s good you’re here.”

  I reached across the table to find his hand. Our fingers brushed.

  But then we both recoiled, pulling back. Touching each other was just too much.

  * * *

  ~jason~

  I hopped down the steps with my duffel bag slung over my shoulder. I was heading to the gym, something I’d been doing lately to try to funnel out some of the violent thoughts that kept bothering me. I liked being able to get out of the house and go somewhere that I could sweat it all out. It was therapeutic.

  Chance wandered out into the foyer. “Daddy!”

  I stopped to scoop him up. “Hey, little man.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the gym,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “To lift weights,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “So that I can get strong.”

  “You’re already strong,” he said. “You’re way stronger than me.”

  “Well, I’m bigger than you.”

  Chance rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s bigger than me. Except Kenya. I’m bigger than she is, but she’s a baby.”

  I set him down. “You’re getting bigger every day. You should enjoy being small while it lasts. You can fit inside all the best hiding places during hide and seek.”