Wisdom mba-4

by Аманда Хокинг

  “Towels! We need-” Static. “-bring them here?”

  “Yeah, fine. Sure. I’ll bring you towels,” I said. Mae started to say something else, but the call dropped, which was just as well. I didn’t want to listen to the static anymore.

  I had nothing better to do, so I went to the bathroom and gathered up a bunch of towels. I’m not sure how many they needed, so I just grabbed a lot. I thought about grabbing more stuff, like blankets and pillows, but Peter had already gotten a lot of stuff to make the place livable.

  Since no one was around to stop me, I took the Lamborghini, but I parked it out of the way when I get to the bridge. A bright red sports car parked right by the underpass would stick out. Carrying a stack of towels down a slippery ravine proved more difficult than I had thought it would be, but I managed.

  Peter had torn out more of the concrete, so the hole into the tunnel was much larger than it had been before. I could stand up and walk in, and there was still plenty of room around me.

  Before I even got to the cavern where they were staying, I could hear Daisy’s voice echoing off the walls. She had a lovely singing voice, especially for a small child, but she was butchering the lyrics to “Hey Jude.”

  I found her in the tunnel just outside of the entrance to the cavern. Her blond curls were tied back in a ribbon, and she crouched down on the concrete. A tub of fat sticks of colored chalk was spilled out next to her, and she scribbled furiously at a picture on the ground.

  “Hey, Daisy,” I said, walking over to her. She appeared to be coloring a picture of a flying, purple hippo, but I could be wrong.

  “Hi, Alice.” She glanced up at me, but her concentration was clearly on the picture.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Good. I got new chalk today cause I was bored. Mae says we can’t have music or Sesame Street down here. I hope we move soon.”

  “Yeah, that’ll probably be good,” I agreed. “Is anyone else around here?”

  “Peter’s inside.” Daisy pointed to the entrance. “Mae is gone, and I don’t know where that other guy went.”

  “What other guy?” I asked, tensing up.

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “The other guy that lives here.”

  “Oh, Leif?” I had actually forgotten that he’d be staying here too, and my stomach twisted. I hadn’t talked to him since I found that picture of Milo and me. Then I remembered what Bobby had said about Leif being a killer, and that didn’t make me feel any better.

  “That’s a silly name,” Daisy commented.

  “It sure is. Well, I’ll let you get back to your coloring,” I said, and she just nodded.

  The cavern looked much better than it did before, but you could only dress up a sewer so much. Mae had draped brightly colored curtains all over to add separations and to cover up the walls. In one corner, Daisy had a massive pile of toys and coloring books.

  Three mattresses had been made up and sat in different areas, and Peter laid on the one closest to the cliff, reading a book.

  “Hey, Peter.” I walked over to him and dropped the towels by the bed. “I brought you some towels.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” He set aside his book and sat up. “Mae didn’t think you heard her. She ran to Wal-Mart to pick up more supplies.”

  “Why didn’t she send you?” I asked.

  “Apparently, I forgot too much stuff the last time I went.”

  “I see.” I looked around the cavern. “You’ve really dressed up the place.”

  “It’s better, I guess,” Peter shrugged. “I was busy all day looking for somewhere to else to move.”

  “Did you find anywhere?” I asked, sitting next to him on the mattress.

  “Not yet. But we will soon.”

  “That’s…” I leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees, and didn’t know what to say. It felt mean saying it was good that he was leaving soon. “Why are you leaving with them?” He gave me a look. “No, I mean, you can go anywhere. Why are you leaving with them? As opposed to anywhere else on earth.”

  “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t want to wander the earth alone,” Peter said. “Mae and I were never as close as even she and Jack were, but I’ve always cared about her. I want both her and Daisy to be okay.

  “And I’m doing it for Ezra too,” Peter went on. “Ezra’s done everything for me, for Mae. He’s been the rock that held together a lot of shit.” His voice went low as he thought of what they’d been through together. “But he can’t protect Mae from this, and I know it kills him. So I’ll go with her, I’ll take care of her, because he can’t.”

  “How is Daisy doing? Is she better here?” I asked.

  “Not really.” He glanced towards the tunnel, where Daisy had begun to sing the theme song to Sesame Street. “She wakes up screaming all the time because she’s in so much pain.”

  “Pain?” I asked. “Her transformation is long over. She shouldn’t be in pain.”

  “It’s not from that,” he shook his head. “She’s so hungry, all the time, and it leaves in her almost constant agony. A child’s body really isn’t meant to handle the change.”

  “Oh my gosh.” I swallowed hard, listening to her sing. “What does Mae think about all of this?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter sighed. “I think she’s just starting to realize exactly what’s she done to Daisy. Up until now, she’s been able to justify it that she saved Daisy, that the life she gave her would be better than death. But with Daisy being in so much pain, I don’t think Mae can say that anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, unsure of what else to say.

  “Not everything with Daisy is horrible, though,” he said. “Some of it’s just weird. She keeps trying to chase down rats and kill them, so I have to stop her from doing that.” He raised his eyebrows. “She eats cockroaches.”

  “What?”

  “She catches them and eats them whole, and then she gets really sick and throws them up because she can’t digest a bug. That’s why we need the towels.” He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. “Along with the bugs, she throws up blood, so we have to feed her two or three times a day to keep her to keep her hunger down and her pain at a tolerable level. We’re going through so much blood.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “Well, on a positive note, she’s learned to say the alphabet in French,” Peter said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Mae thinks it’s good for her brain.” He shrugged. “Daisy’s actually really smart. She’s just… uncontrollable and blood thirsty.”

  “Well, that’s always fun.”

  “What about you?” Peter turned to me, his green eyes staring through me the way they always seemed to. “How are things in your life?”

  “Great,” I lied. I could never tell him about what’s going on with me and Jack, especially since the two of them were actually repairing their relationship. “I’ve been training a lot, so I’m getting pretty strong.”

  “Good.” He smiled, and it made me feel weird. Peter smiled so rarely, so when he did, it felt sorta magical, like a shooting star. “Now that’s one less thing I have to worry about.”

  “What?” I rested my head on my arms and watched him.

  “You.” He looked away and picked at something on the concrete by his foot. “I still will, I’m sure, but at least in some part of mind, I’ll know you’re safe.”

  He picked up a stone and tossed it off over the cliff. We listened for it to hit, but we never heard a sound.

  “How far do you think it goes?” I leaned forward, straining to see the edge.

  “I have no idea. But if Mae asks, it’s not that far,” he said. “She started freaking about Daisy falling to her death, but I think Daisy’s smart enough not to jump off a cliff.” He cocked his ahead. “Then again, she does eat bugs.”

  “It wouldn’t really be that bad if she did fall off, would it?” I whispered and felt like the worst person ever for just saying it aloud. I could hear
her in the tunnel, a little girl singing a song and coloring with chalk. “Never mind. I didn’t mean it.”

  “You know what the worst part of it is?” Peter asked, still staring off at the cliff. “She grows on you. I know she’s an abomination, and she’s gonna end up hurting people and millions of defenseless cockroaches. But… she spent an hour learning to braid Mae’s hair last night, and when she concentrates, her face gets all scrunched up, and she sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth.” He looked over at me and smiled, and when I didn’t say anything, he shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You had to be there I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  “I never had kids,” Peter said, somewhat abruptly. “Ezra did, and Mae did, obviously.

  I can’t remember if I ever even wanted kids.” He furrowed his brow. “When I became this, I never thought about it. I shut it out.” He sighed. “The same way I tried to shut you out. I’m not very good at keeping things out, I guess.”

  “I’m glad you don’t,” I told him quietly, and he looked back at me, his eyes meeting mine in a way that used to take my breath away. It still did a little, but I tried not to show it.

  “I’m going with for her too.” He kept his eyes on me, but I knew he meant Daisy.

  “And I’m not totally miserable. I want you to know that. This isn’t what I had planned or even what I thought I ever wanted, but… I’m happy helping Mae raise Daisy, in my own twisted way.”

  “Good.” I swallowed hard, gulping down the sadness and relief that mixed inside me.

  For so long, I’d been afraid that Peter would never be happy again. Not because I was so fabulous that I didn’t understand how he could be happy without me, but because I thought he’d closed himself off to happiness. That he’d been hurt one too many times, and I’d contributed to that.

  But he hadn’t. In his own way, even Peter had found happiness with the choices I made.

  “So, you’re doing training?” Peter looked away from me. “What does that entail?”

  “A lot of fighting, mostly.” I rubbed my hands over my arms, trying to stifle the emotions I felt. “Um, like working on my agility and mastering my strength. Stuff like that.” I shrugged. “I wish we worked more on tracking, though.”

  “Tracking is easy,” he said.

  “Maybe for you.” I’d been tracking the killer for weeks and had barely come up with anything.

  “For all vampires,” he said. “Just bite them.”

  “What are you talking about?” I looked over at him.

  “You can track whoever you bite, especially if you have an emotional connection,” Peter explained, and he gave me a look. “Come on, you have to have realized that by now.”

  “No, I-” I furrowed my brow. I’d bitten both Jack and Bobby, so I tried to concentrate on them, to see if I could get any reading on them. I couldn’t be more bonded with anyone than I was with those two, but I didn’t feel anything. “I can’t track anything. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You can master it better if you try, but you’ll really only feel it if they feel threatened,” he said. “Like if they’re hurt or in danger. But if you’re with Jack and you see him get hurt, you probably wouldn’t notice the tracking, because you’re already witnessing it and feeling it. You understand what I mean?”

  “I think so, but…” I trailed off, trying to think if Jack or Bobby had been in danger when I hadn’t been around. Somewhat disturbingly, I realized that they hadn’t, and Bobby had been in a lot of trouble lately. I was really, really bad luck for Bobby.

  “That’s how I found you,” Peter said.

  “What?” I pulled myself from my thoughts and looked up at him.

  “That night that those vampires were following you, back when you were still mortal,” Peter said.

  I had walked downtown by myself to talk to Jane, and on the way back to my apartment, Lucian and Violet had jumped me. Peter had come out of nowhere and killed Lucian, thus saving my life.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “I had been around town. I came back for you, and I bit you.” He lowered his eyes, and though he tried to hide it, I heard a tightness in his voice. “But I tasted Jack on you, so I… I left, but I stayed around town, deciding what to do.

  “That night, when the vampires were after you, I felt it,” Peter went on. “It’s like a panic. The fear and adrenaline you feel, I feel. I can’t see anything, but it’s like phantom limb syndrome, except I can’t feel a missing leg - I feel what you feel.”

  “Can you still?” I asked.

  “Not so much,” he shook his head. “Maybe if the fear was really strong, but that was a long time ago, and your blood has changed. It usually only lasts a few months, even when you care about someone a lot.”

  “So you just-” I stopped cold and realized I knew exactly what Peter was talking about. I’d been thinking that I hadn’t felt anything with Jack or Bobby, but they weren’t the only two people I’d bitten.

  I’d bitten Jane too.

  “Oh my god.” The color drained from my face, and my stomach knotted up. My heart stopped beating for a minute, and I could barely breathe.

  “Alice?” Peter put his hand on my back and leaned in toward me. “Alice? Are you alright?”

  “I felt Jane die.”

  “What?” Peter put his other hand on my knee and moved closer to me. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jane, I bit her, when I saw her, and I knew I shouldn’t have, but then she went to rehab, and I thought everything was okay, I thought everything was better.” My words came out rushed, and tears tumbled down my cheeks more rapidly.

  “You bit Jane?” He’d started rubbing my back, but I don’t think it helped any.

  “Yeah, I bit her and-and then in Australia-” My breath caught in my throat.

  I remembered the terror I had felt when I woke up. The panic and fear surging through my veins. It’d scrambled my thoughts, and my heart wanted to hammer out of my chest. I had never felt that kind of intense fear before, and that’s how Jane felt. That was Jane dying.

  “Remember?” I looked at Peter, his worried expression blurred through my tears.

  “You came into the room, and I was freaked out, and I didn’t know why, and I couldn’t shake it. And I was mad that I felt that way! I was mad, and that was Jane!”

  “No, Alice, you don’t know that was Jane.” He tried to reassure me, but I’m not sure that he believed what he was saying.

  “No, it was! Jack called me later that night, and he told me she was dead, and I-” I cried harder, and I wiped at the tears with the palm of my hand. “I felt her die, Peter! I felt what she felt, and she was so afraid! She was terrified, and I didn’t do anything!”

  “You couldn’t do anything.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close to him. I buried my head in his shoulder and sobbed. “You didn’t know, and you couldn’t do anything.”

  Peter stroked my hair and tried to tell me it was alright, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t just that I’d felt Jane die, and I hadn’t done anything about it, although that weight of the guilt threatened to crush me. It was that I knew how scared and how horrible it had been for her to die.

  Even though I’d known she’d been murdered, part of me had been able to hold out that it had been painless. If she’d been bitten before she died, she would’ve been unconscious, and she wouldn’t have known what happened.

  But now I knew. She had felt everything. She’d known she was dying, and it had been more horrifying than anything I had ever felt before.

  Even after I stopped crying, I let Peter hold me in his arms. I should’ve pushed him away for a lot of different reasons, but I didn’t have the strength for it. His arms were strong and safe, and I was afraid if he let go, I’d fall into a million pieces.

  “What happened to Jane isn’t your fault.” He spoke into my hair, so his words came out muffled. He kissed the top of my head and stroked m
y hair back from my tear stained cheeks.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head and pulled away from him. He left a hand lingering on my arm, and I let him. “She’s dead, and I have to make it right.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll find a way.” I swallowed hard and didn’t look at him. I couldn’t tell him my plans to destroy the bastard that had killed Jane. Peter would freak out as bad as Jack would, if not worse.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, Alice,” he warned me.

  “What me?” I laughed, and the flat sound echoed off the cavern walls. Suddenly, I felt ashamed of the scene I had made, and I wiped at my drying face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. It just… hit me.”

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Peter assured me.

  “Yeah, I really do.” I wiped my hands on my jeans and stood up. “You’ve got your own stuff, and you don’t need to worry about my shit.”

  “It’s alright.” He stood up with me and pushed up the sleeves of his shirt. I started to stumble out another apology, and he held up his hand. “Alice. It’s fine.”

  I lifted my head, willing myself to look at him, and for a moment, I thought about Jack’s apologies from earlier tonight. He felt guilty for forcing me into life because he knew the vampire life wasn’t everything I’d hoped it would be.

  Looking into Peter’s eyes, I wondered if I’d feel the same way if I chose him instead, if our bond would’ve given my life the meaning I was so desperate for.

  “Peter!” Daisy shouted, breaking my thoughts.

  She dashed into the room, her skirt flying around her, and ran towards Peter. At first, I thought something had happened, but when she jumped at Peter, she screamed with glee and giggled as he caught her in her arms.

  “What are you doing, kiddo?” Peter asked, holding her to his side.

  “I finished my picture!” Daisy said.

  Rainbow colored chalk smudges covered her pudgy cheeks and arms. One of her hands was balled into a fist. I thought she held a piece of chalk, but she pulled it away from Peter, like she was trying to hide it.

  “What have you got there?” Peter asked, and she put her fist behind her back. “Let me see.”