Marty shook her head with purpose. “Nope. Just you. I don’t know those other people who’re dying young. I just know you.”
Fire burned along Wanda’s cheeks—her fear making her react. “Look, if I were meant to live, someone would have accidentally bitten me, too. So lay off!”
Nina rose with menace in her step, circling Wanda and Marty. She jammed her face in Wanda’s. “I can make it an accident,Wanda, when I ram my fist down your throat, I’m pretty sure I’ll nick some of your teeth on my way down.”
Wanda reared up. “Don’t you use those tactics with me, Nina Blackman-Statleon! I got nuthin’ to lose by popping you in the jaw right now. I’m dying. Not even you, big, scary night dweller that you are, can scare me compared to that!”
All three women went silent again.
Reality had begun to wind its sharp, deadly black tendrils around their brains.
“You’re dying, Wanda.” Nina’s throat worked furiously. “I just don’t think I can take that. I don’t think I can imagine my un-life without you always bitching at me in it. There’ll be no one to keep me from stomping Marty’s ass. I don’t want to seem all self-serving here, but someone has to stick around so World War Three doesn’t break out.”
“And there’ll be no lists,” Marty muttered with defeat. “Who’s going to write a list of the stuff I need for the baby? Who’s going to keep track of where we last had dinner? Who’s going to make me laugh because you just put Nina in her place?”
“Yeah,Wanda.You know just when to shut me up.Who’s gonna do that when you’re not here?” Nina’s voice cracked.
Wanda fought to keep from sobbing. “You’ll learn to take care of each other. You will, won’t you? Promise me you won’t drift apart because you fight so much. No, I won’t be here to referee, but who knows if I won’t be able to watch you from up there?” She pointed to the ceiling. “You do not want me haunting you in the afterlife. Just promise me you’ll always look out for each other. Look out for Marty’s baby, huh, Nina?You’ll be a good auntie.You can teach it that swearing really is an art form.”
“Will you at least think about it?” Marty croaked.
She shook her head with a firm back and forth motion. If she didn’t, she might falter. “I don’t know if I can. Everything I’ve been taught all my life says it would be wrong to interfere with fate. It seems almost like suicide—because I’d be dead if Nina bit me. And what if you two were caught turning me? Or are we forgetting all that shunning Nina talks about? Never mind—I can’t explain my crazy rationale, and I don’t have to explain my fears about what could happen to the two of you—you know what could happen. But if it helps at all, I did think about it. I thought really hard about it.” And she had, and even if that crazy niggle that kept her up at night with what-ifs was still niggling, she couldn’t. She’d done catechism—she knew what Hell and damnation was all about, and she totally didn’t want to go there. She sure as hell wasn’t taking Nina and Marty with her. “I’m too afraid of what might happen if I let one of you turn me and I do, for some uncanny reason, eventually end up dead—or worse, we get caught.”
Nina dragged a hand through her hair. “So this explains the Heath thing.”
Wanda was so used to playing dumb, it happened before she could stop it. “What do you mean?”
“I mean both me and Marty knew it isn’t in you to do the fuck-buddy thing. You’re all about nurturing and home and Martha Stewart shit. It explains why you’ve been keeping him at arm’s length.”
Heath. Just the thought that the kind of man she’d always hoped to find, but had given up on after her divorce, had shown up when her life was going downhill at a rapid pace, made her heart ache in her chest. “I should have never let things go even this far.”
Marty’s next statement was so true. “Because you’re in deeper than you thought.”
She covered her face with her hands, her voice muffled. “I really thought I could do this. Live for the moment, you know? Because that’s really all I have to offer, but I don’t think I’m very good at it. I tried . . .” She choked off a sob while the misery in her chest left her feeling like she’d explode.
Marty pulled Wanda to sit between the two of them, situating Wanda’s head on her shoulder. “Have you told him, and for that matter, your family?”
Tears fell down her face, but she knew what she wanted where Heath was concerned. “I haven’t told my mother or Casey yet. Heath found out in a way I wish he hadn’t. Tonight I’d decided I was going to tell him, maybe in a couple of days or so, but my doctor left a message on my machine, and Heath heard it.”
Nina eyeballed her with a stern expression. “That was very fair of you, Wanda.”
God, this was miserable. “Look, Nina. Don’t razz me. Please. He knows where we stand. We have incredible sex. That’s all he thinks it is on my end, too—whether he wants it to be something more or not. Now let it be, okay?” They didn’t need to know what Archibald had told her—not right now. They didn’t need to know the details of what had passed between her and Heath tonight. To go over it now would only pour more salt on her open wound. She wasn’t ready to relive that just yet. Not even with Marty and Nina.
But Nina and Marty gave each other glances, glances she’d typically question, yet Wanda didn’t have the energy to make them explain.
Nina wasn’t ready to let it go just yet—it was obvious in her next statement. “But it isn’t just sex, and if you plan to hit the graveyard and it doesn’t matter what you say because you won’t be here for any backlash—or God forbid, what I think you’re most afraid of, rejection—why not just tell him? You’ll have no regrets then.”
No regrets. None. She could never regret Heath. What surprised her was Nina’s attitude. “When did you go all moral, Nina? You were the one who said I should bag and tag him.”
Nina squirmed in her seat, letting her hair hang over her face. “That was before I got how much you dig him, and you do dig him, Wanda.”
Yeah, she dug. Way dug. “How about we just let me do this my way? You can tell him whatever you want when—when the time comes. After tonight, I may never see him again. He was angrier than I’ve ever seen anyone—even you, Nina.” By God was that ever the truth. She couldn’t breathe for his anger.
“So what do you suppose that means? That he was angry with you, Wanda? You don’t suppose he was angry because his fuck buddy was going to go and die on him, do you? Do you think that’s all you mean to him—if you were just fucking he wouldn’t have bothered to get angry!” Nina yelled from between clenched teeth.
“Nina! Stop. Stop now,” Marty ordered.
Wanda put a hand on Marty’s arm and squeezed. “I don’t really know what it means. It all happened so fast. I just know I really screwed up, and I regret the hell out of it, okay? But please, don’t beat me down for it—not tonight . . .” she said, her voice quivering and watery. “I only know Heath needs time to do whatever he has to do to cope. I’ve learned a lot from seeing your anger, Nina, and I know it means he reacted without thought because I caught him off guard. No one knows better than you what that’s like. When you’re in pain, you act out.”
Marty’s look was astonished. “Jesus, Wanda. You’re way reasonable right now.”
Her response was a dry laugh. “Isn’t that what I always am? Reasonable, conservative, rational in times of crisis, fucking ridiculously predictable. I was trying to be something I’m not with Heath, and it blew up in my face.” Her words hitched on a sob.
Marty’s eyes filled again with tears, but it was Nina who spoke. “But that’s what I love about you, Wanda. I love that I can count on you to set me straight, no matter how hinky I get.You’re not afraid of me—you call me on my shit—you love me anyway. Don’t ever, ever discount those qualities—because they’re who you are, and who you are is all the good things I wanna be. And that’s why I wish you’d tell Heath how you feel—be honest. Because that’s who you are.”
And Nina was right.That�
��s who she was—which was why she’d been so troubled all along when it came to Heath. Because she did want more than just the sex. But tonight, who she was just needed some space. “I can’t promise you anything—some of this depends on Heath, but for tonight, I just need to—to think, please.”
“But—” Nina began to protest.
“Deal,” Marty intervened, kissing the top of Wanda’s head. “We’ll do whatever you want. So, you wanna have girls’ night tonight? I’ll call Keegan and Nina can call Dracula so they know where we are, and then we’ll watch stupid stuff on TV—eat popcorn, drink blood, yak all night long.”
“Cool.” Nina’s smile was painfully phony. “I’m in.”
Wanda shook her head. “I know you guys are worried. I know you love me, but I think I just need some time to myself. Do you mind?”
Marty smiled, her eyes so sad Wanda almost couldn’t look at her. “As long as you promise to call us if you need us.”
“Yep. Promise. Now go. The paranormal men in your life will worry if you don’t.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” Nina looked directly into her eyes. She was telling her without saying out loud that each moment they had left was important to her.
Wanda trailed a finger along Nina’s oh-so-beautiful cheekbone, then chucked her under the chin. “Well, Elvira, I need some space, and if anyone knows what that’s like, it’s you. So fly on home.”
Nina got up from the couch, pulling Marty up, too. Marty slid her jacket on, and as they headed for the door, Nina held up her thumb and her pinky to make the sign of a phone, meaning if Wanda needed her, all she had to do was call.
“Promise,” she whispered.
Silence followed in their wake—a silence in voices only.
Wanda’s head swirled with their conversation. Over and over, she couldn’t seem to drown out Marty’s sobs. Nina’s choked, dry heaves.
Or the thought that she may have ended things with Heath without even trying because she’d been blinded by her own selfishness.
Bright was not in her color wheel today.
Regret, however, was.
“SIR! What are you doing? I’m trying to sleep, and heaven knows, since this human adventure has been thrust upon us, I feel like Methuselah. So do keep it to a dull roar.” He peered into the kitchen where Heath stood guzzling a bottle of his favorite beer.
Archibald tightened the belt of his thrift shop robe with a roll of his eyes. “Oh, young Heathcliff. What troubles you that you must drown your sorrows in discount beer?”
He still didn’t know if he could say it out loud. “It’s Wanda.”
“She drove you to cheap beer?”
“No, I drove myself to the store and bought cheap beer. We’re on a budget.”
Concern lined Arch’s face—so crystal clear, Heath almost couldn’t look at him for the stark devotion he saw in them. “I know you well, sir—something’s very wrong.”
Wrong, wrongful, more wrong, wronger. It didn’t get any wronger. “I know why she doesn’t want to be involved,” Heath said so suddenly, he surprised even himself.
“Please tell me it’s not because her twin sister carried Wanda’s baby for her, all while Wanda innocently thought her husband inseminated her sister via legitimate surrogacy, only to find out he was really, uh, inseminating her personally under the veil of candlelight and fine champagne. It can happen, sir. I’ve watched it on the daytime channels at the shelter.”
“She’s dying, Arch. Dying . . .” He let the word go—slipping from his mouth in a gruff, harsh whisper. His throat tightened like someone had their hands wrapped around his neck. He couldn’t, in all his years, ever remember feeling this helpless, this desolate. Not even after he’d been turned.
Archibald’s typically expressionless face instantly filled with concern, sympathy, dread. “Heathcliff . . . I . . . in all my thoughts about our fair Wanda, they never, ever . . .”
Fuck did he get the never, ever thing. “Yeah, me either. I suspected she was sick—just not this sick. Not dying sick.”
“But what is it? Is there treatment? Something we can do— a doctor?” His last word came out squeaky and very unlike Archibald, always so composed.
“I don’t know the specifics. I didn’t stick around to ask.” And he’d been mentally kicking himself in the gut since he’d left her because of it.
“You broke it off with her, Heathcliff?” Archibald let disappointment mingle with the astonishment in his tone. “I’d have thought better of you—”
Heath rolled his head on his neck, moving it up and down to try and ease the tension that just wouldn’t let the fuck up. “No, Arch. No. I just felt like I’d been kidney punched when I found out. I could barely ask questions. All I could think of was kicking the shit out of something—someone. I reacted badly, Arch. I said some things I can’t take back. But goddamn it, why didn’t she tell me?”
“The answer is obvious—she’s found deeper feelings for you than she intended. She doesn’t want to spend what’s left of her time here with people who will mourn her before she’s actually departed. This isn’t about you, Heathcliff. You’d do well to remember that. Certainly you understand?”
Heath ran a tired hand over his chin, littered with stubble. “Now I do. Four hours ago, I couldn’t understand anything—anyone. I saw red. She’s known all along and never said a word. That cut deep. I was a shithead, Arch. I yelled, ranted, behaved like a complete fuck.”
Archibald took the beer from him, placing it on the counter. He clamped a hand on Heath’s shoulder, reassuring, firm. “Grief has many facets, sir. I know you’re not proud yours displayed itself in the way it has, but shock, dismay, helplessness are all heady, powerful emotions.”
“I just couldn’t believe it . . .” He still couldn’t believe it. What he really couldn’t believe were the words he’d used to demonstrate that disbelief. At this moment, when the possibility of Wanda leaving his life forever was all he could think about, he wished for his immortality. If he were still a vampire, he had to wonder if his fucking heart wouldn’t throb painfully quite the way it was now.
Archibald brushed at his shoulder with a swift hand. “And now you have the information, Heathcliff. What will you do with it? Will you continue to let Miss Wanda believe you’re a putz, or will you make this right with her? Will you allow your grief to ruin what’s left of her life, or do you want your testicles back? I believe I last saw them in the coat closet when I put away that useless contraption called a Dust Eater—or whatever it’s called.”
Heath couldn’t help but laugh, but he sobered immediately. Archibald cupped his jaw, then slapped his cheek with a light hand. “You know what to do, sir. I have every faith.”
Heath grabbed Arch’s hand for the quickest of moments, gripping it hard—for reassurance, for comfort, for the one person in the world he’d always been able to lean on.
And then he knew what to do.
Just like that.
CHAPTER 17
“Heathcliff isn’t at home, Miss Wanda. But do come in—we have a chair now. A whole chair, can you believe that? Come in and sit, wait for Heathcliff.” His eyes, lined with wrinkles, kind, and warm, beckoned her into Heath’s apartment.
But she shook her head, pulling her coat tighter around her neck. “I can’t, Archibald, but thank you.You’re very good to Heath. I know he appreciates it. He speaks fondly of you often. I really have to dash, but would you give him something for me?”
“Of course, miss—anything. But I do wish you’d wait for Heathcliff. He only had a brief meeting with, uh, what’s her name?” He paused, running a finger over his forehead in thought. “Ah, yes—sticky lips Linda. He said he’d be back in plenty of time for dinner and afterward he had something very important to take care of. In fact, why don’t you join us? I’m making something called tuna casserole—yet another dish for heathens everywhere, which makes it of course, budget friendly.”
He made her smile even under the circumstances. “I—I
can’t. I really can’t. Just give this to Heath, please, and tell him I’ll see him soon.” She shoved a small, lumpy package wrapped in blue cellophane at Arch. Blue was Heath’s favorite color, he’d claimed in one of their not too personal conversations. She wiped a tear from her eye that had escaped despite her efforts to keep this a Kleenex-free moment.
She’d known Heath wouldn’t be home, and she’d come purposely at this time because of it. “I have to go, Archibald, but thank you—you’re a good man.” She cupped his cheek before turning and heading back down the stairwell, the clomp of her heels echoing against the acoustic ceiling.
Every muscle in her body was tense, tightly wound like a newly strung guitar. Her breathing was shallow—uneven as she got into her car to race home.
She was meeting Nina and Marty there.
Last night had been the kind of hell she was so worried she’d end up in if she let Marty and Nina turn her. She’d lost count of the times she’d picked up the phone to call Heath, only to put it back down as if it had bitten her. He had to come to terms with this on his own—she’d lied to him. Well, okay, maybe she hadn’t lied outright, but she’d kept something from him he’d deserved to know from the get-go. Had she been all moral and self-righteous to begin with, instead of letting her infatuation with him cloud her judgment, instead of thinking she deserved some kind of fucking pass because she was dying, she’d have given him the choice to stay or go.
But she hadn’t.
She’d taken it upon herself to make Heath’s decisions for him.
And that wasn’t just presumptuous—it left her disgusted with herself.
Today—well, today was a different story altogether. Today she was going to leave everyone else’s lives alone and deal strictly with hers—no matter what the outcome with Heath was after he found out what she was going to do.
And she wasn’t going to look back.
The Accidental Human Page 26
