“She let me feel it move the other day,” he says quietly, a tiny smile almost coming out. If anyone would love that baby as much as it deserves, it is Jamie.
“That's really cool, Uncle Jamie.” I toss my napkin at him. He finally laughs.
“Sooo, Tex and I were thinking about throwing Cassie a baby shower. Unless one of her friends is already doing it.”
Jamie snorts. “You and I both know Cassie doesn't have friends.” She did have a habit of burning her bridges when it came to friends, even in high school. “Besides, she's done with most of her friends. They were the ones who got her into this in the first place.”
“So, do you think it's a good idea?”
“Who would come?”
“Tex and me and your mom and mine and...” I can't think of anyone else. “I could invite Aj.”
This makes Jamie laugh. Everyone adores my Aunt Jenny. Well, except my dad, but that's because they are brother and sister.
“We don't have to think about it right now. We have a few months to plan it out.”
“Sure.”
“I wish there was more I could do for you. I've been MIA as a friend.” He pulls my feet into his lap and starts massaging them. Oh heaven. Jamie gives the best foot rubs. I haven’t had one in months. We haven’t done anything like this in months.
“You've had a pretty good reason.” I close my eyes and lean back into the couch. I may have told Jamie Thing One, but there is still Thing Two and Thing Two-and-a-half. Still, Tex knows about those, so with my two best friends, I have covered both Things.
There is such a freedom in unburdening a secret, but it is our fear of what will happen after the secret is out that keeps our lips sealed. I wasn’t exactly afraid of telling Jamie. I was just afraid that saying it out loud, my mother is going to die, made it real.
But it is real.
Jamie finally departs, taking with him the rest of the groceries and my secret. He promised that we'd go out to Miller's that weekend like old times. Come hell or high water or an army of noctali, I would be there.
Peter comes down the stairs as soon as Jamie's truck is gone.
“Well done.”
“Thanks. It felt good.”
“I could tell.” There's something off about him. A nagging feeling that pulls at me. I take a moment, trying to understand it.
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine.” Oh please, I am the queen of I Am Fine-land, but I let it go. I had to pick my battles sometimes.
Mom finally emerges from her room a few minutes later while Peter and I are cleaning the kitchen. She appears to have gone totally Zen about the whole thing, asking if I would make her some tea in a completely calm voice, not taking any notice of Peter. I hope she isn't stuffing what happened earlier away in some dark place where it will attack her in some quiet moment. I hope I haven't broken her. Again.
“Was that Jamie I heard?”
“Yeah, he brought over my homework.”
“He's a good boy.”
“He is.”
She takes a sip of tea and scratches her head. She's not wearing a wig. It's the first time Peter's seen her without one. I'm surprised, but I keep my mouth shut.
Setting down her cup, she looks up at Peter for the first time.
“So you're an angel.”
“Not quite,” he says, making me laugh. Mom looks back and forth between us before taking another sip of tea.
“He's a little bit of everything supernatural.” I can tell she's mentally struggling with it. For some reason, actually seeing Peter in his noctalis form was more shocking than telling her he wasn't human in the first place.
“You look like an angel,” she says, tracing the rim of her cup. I had to agree with her there. He did. Something in the way she said it reminded me of a conversation we had a few weeks ago. About heaven and angels and what happens after you die.
Oh.
I send her back to bed after another cup of tea, and she doesn't protest. I'd like to go to bed myself, but someone has to be alert in case she has another episode.
By the time Dad pulls in, I've got the last load of laundry in the dryer, baked macaroni and cheese in the oven, set the table, and put my mother on the couch with a cup of tea and a romance novel. Booyah.
She's thoughtful, but calm. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, but as time wears on I expect it less and less. My mother is strong. Strong enough to see a vampire angel and not run away screaming.
And now it's time to say good-bye to Peter, at least for a little while. I'd rather tear my own arm off than be in a separate room, but it has to be done. I put on a brave face. Or try to.
“I will see you later.”
“Bye, Peter.” I give him a kiss on the cheek. He turns my head and gives me a soft one on the lips. Between that and his smile, my knees go weak and I almost fall when he zooms up the stairs. My heart wants to lunge out of my chest and chase after him, but I'm able to keep it in my chest.
“He's like Batman, vanishing into the night with a swirl of his cape,” Mom says from the couch.
“I prefer to think of him as the Phantom of the Opera. You know, without all the stalking tendencies and love for basements and singing.” I have no idea if Peter could sing. Probably. He is good at everything else.
“He needs a mask,” Mom says, going back to her book.
“True.”
Dad bumbles in, sighing heavily as he puts his briefcase down as if it holds all the weight of the world. Wasn't Atlas the one who held the world on his shoulders?
Immediately, he goes to the couch and Mom. She and I already had a chat about what we would tell him, and what we wouldn't. We both know that he would probably have a heart attack, and neither of us wants to go through that.
“Hello, Sam.”
“Hi, Taylor.” His face lightens up considerably as he goes to give her a kiss. It reminds me of the moment I had with Peter earlier. God, I have a one-track mind.
“How are you?”
Making my exit, I go to the kitchen to take the casserole out of the oven, giving them some privacy.
“Good. Ava's been taking good care of me.” We also made a pact that we weren't going to talk about the fact that I stayed home unless it came up — which it shouldn't. Dad didn't pay much attention to my school stuff unless I was failing or something. He left all that in my mother's capable hands. Which was hilarious, considering she was the one who'd let me play hooky today. Actually, it was more like painy, at least until Peter got back.
“She has?” He looks over at me, and though his voice is pleasant, his eyes are narrow and suspicious. I smile and nod, straightening my apron. Mom's letting me borrow it. I feel so freaking domestic.
“How was work?” Mom tugs at his sleeve, turning his attention back to her. He sits down, taking her feet into his lap as he tells her about a board meeting he attended. I tune them out, content to let their voices be the soundtrack to my dinner-making.
Between their talking and the chopping sound as I make a salad, the house feels kind of peaceful. I should stay home more often. The only thing that could make it better is in my room. I send my contentment his way. After all the turmoil of the day, we could use a little contentment.
We have a quiet dinner before I park myself on a chair and half-ass my way through the work I missed. It isn’t much, but there is a worksheet for geometry that I struggle with. Math has a vendetta against me. I don't know what I did to piss it off, but we've been at odds my whole life.
I happen to know for a fact that Peter is fabulous at math. He's good at everything academic, because he's had so much freaking time to study. Also, his brain works ten times faster than mine. Sometimes he makes me feel like an ogre. A stupid, glompy ogre. As long as he finds my glompiness endearing, I guess that's all I can ask for.
“Ava, are you feeling okay? You look really pale.” Have I mentioned my mother is awesome? There is no way with what happened this morning that I could get through a day of
school tomorrow.
“Yeah, I'm not feeling that great.” I lean over in my chair, putting my head on the armrest. Mom gives me a look that says I'm laying it on too thick.
“Maybe you should go to bed.”
“Yeah, I think I might.” I try to inject just the right amount of weariness into my voice.
“Maybe you should stay home tomorrow.”
“I'll see how I feel in the morning.” We're totally talking in code, and Dad's completely unaware. He's too busy brushing her wig behind her ear. She'd put it on before he got home from work. I think she wants to smack his hand away but doesn't.
Tex texts me as I'm walking up the stairs. I groan inside, but read the message anyway.
Movies? U, me, the boys?
Maybe, but nothing mushy. no vampires either.
No romcoms, no vamps. got it.
ttyl.
Peace, bitch.
“Guess it's the movies,” I say to Peter when I finally walk in my room. He's always in the same position. Back against his trunk, book in hand, feet stretched out in front of him, hair in face.
“For the date?” Somehow he knows what I'm talking about.
“Yeah, whenever we get around to it. Where is Viktor, by the way?” I belly flop onto my bed, exhausted. I am sure I just lived through The Longest Day Ever.
His eyes don't leave the page. “Searching for information.”
“He's a good brother.” Compared to Ivan, The Traitor.
“He is.”
I watch him as he reads. It's better than any reality show. “Why did he stay in that cave in Russia for so long?”
“It was a cabin,” he points out.
“Whatever.”
He pauses, as if he isn't sure Viktor would want him sharing the information.
“He loved a girl. She died.”
“Was she human?” I want her to be. I want to know that our love is possible. If we didn't have the Claiming and the curse and all that. If it were just the two of us.
“No. She was a noctalis.” Damn.
“When did that happen?”
“1914.”
“Wow, that was a long time ago.” It feels like another world, another planet from mine. Back then they had radios and cars only went 10 miles an hour. Women couldn't vote. I probably wouldn't be able to be half as sarcastic and snarky as I am. It would be awful. The only thing that would make it worth it would be Peter.
“Love between our kind is unusual. We do not need companionship and it is not how we procreate.” I giggle when he uses the word procreate. What can I do? It's a reflex.
“Sorry. I just think it's a funny word. Keep going.”
“He met her in Paris. They only had a few months together.”
I put my chin in my hands, and he closes the book. I wonder if she is the noctalis he saw die. “What happened?”
“She turned to dust one day when we were on a hunt.” His eyes meet mine unflinchingly, and I don't want to talk about this anymore, but I was the one who asked.
“Viktor has spent most of the time since thinking about it.”
“Wow.” It's kind of romantic, I guess. It makes me feel bad for Viktor. It also makes me understand him a little bit better. His stoicism is just a broken heart. Aw. But that's not going to happen to me, or to Peter. Not while I can still fight.
Peter
I watch her try and sleep through another fitful night. I tap her shoulder a few times and she rolls over, sighing and moaning. Her dreams plague her. Unconsciously, her hand scratches at her wrist where I have taken her blood. I lean forward and smell her skin. Intoxicating.
It is still true, what I told her that first time she came back to the cemetery. She is reckless. And beautiful and smart and witty. Everything that she should be.
For not the first time, I wish I had never entered her life. If I had not Claimed her, we still could have ended it. I would have spent the rest of my existence thinking about her, but she would have moved on. My resilient Ava.
What would her life have been like? I push some hair away from her face. She might have gone to college, studied whatever she wanted, and met a boy and fallen in love. Real love. Human love. They would have married and had children and a house.
I could see her, sitting on a porch swing with a baby in her lap, her head thrown back in laughter. And a man taking her picture. I cannot see what he looks like, but he is human. I could see her lying on a flowered couch, a book in her hand. Her face, softened by age, her hair a luminous white. Grandchildren run in to bestow hugs and kisses on her. She smiles with eyes that have seen the world.
All of it. I see all of it in one flash. I have taken it all away from her.
That night I Claimed her was a mistake. Perhaps Ivan would not have harmed her. If I had left her alone, he would have and Di would have. If Ava wasn't a threat to her, she would have been that human girl.
It was my fault. My own selfish fault.
I trace her face with my fingers. This sarcastic, stunning human. I couldn't be without her. That first night, Ivan told me that I wanted her. I did want her. In so many ways. In every way.
She says my name in her sleep and reaches out. I take her hand and kiss it. Her eyes flutter open and then close. I pull her to my chest, resisting no longer.
Ava surrendered to me, and she isn’t even aware of it.
I would have to remind her. Every day.
Twelve
Ava
True to her word, Mom lets me stay home the next day, dealing with Dad so I don't even have to see him in the morning. I wake to the smell of baking. This is a good sign. I roll over and find Peter immersed in another historical fiction. This time it's a continuation of Pride and Prejudice. I hadn't gotten a chance to read it yet, but he seemed engrossed.
“Hey, baby.” I didn't get much sleep and I know he noticed. I'm also trying to be nicer after trying to guilt trip him last night. I am not very nice to him sometimes. He never seems to mind, though.
“Baby?” He blinks once.
“I don't know. I just thought I'd try it out. Doesn't really work.” Nicknames for Peter? Not so much.
“You slept badly.”
“Yeah, I'm aware. Thanks for letting me know.”
“I am concerned.”
“Aw, thanks, Peter. That's so helpful.”
“You are more sarcastic when you do not get much sleep.” And now I want to punch him. Then I see his face and he's all beautiful in the morning sun that peeks through my curtains and falls across his face as if it was painted there. And then I want to kiss him. So much. But I can't.
I forgo the kiss because he smells so clean and crisp and I know I've got morning breath. I roll out of bed and somehow get my feet under me.
The baking smell calls to me, but my toothbrush screams louder. By the time I get my scary sleep-deprived face to look a little less sleep-deprived, Peter's finished the book and Mom's calling up the stairs for me.
I wave good-bye to Peter and he goes back to his book. Sighing, I tromp down the stairs and am instantly enveloped in the smell of cinnamon rolls. Pure heaven.
“How you feeling?”
“Meh.”
She's looking a hell of a lot better. Her skirt is pressed, her blouse is ironed and her blond wig is on straight. I'm wearing holey sweatpants, a t-shirt from eighth-grade ballet camp (yes, there is such a thing as ballet camp) that was once white and my hair is so tangled it might be mistaken for dreadlocks.
“Well, anything is an improvement on yesterday.” The oven dings as I crash onto one of the stools at the counter.
“True. What's with the Betty Crocker?”
“I haven't made them in so long and I just felt like it.” At the exact moment my feet cross the last step, she brings out the tray of the most gorgeous cinnamon rolls I've ever seen. Seriously, those things could give Peter a run for his money on the deliciousness scale. They might go so far as to be earth-shattering.
“So,” she says, taking off her o
ven mitts with authority. “How are you really? You scared me.” I try to swallow, but my throat won't work properly.
“I'm sorry.” I ruin everything. Way to start my morning off with a bang. With the thing I feared more than anything else. More than losing Peter or wanting to save him and become a noctalis.
Hurting my mother. The worst crime I could ever commit.
“Love rules without rules.” If I didn't feel like such a horrible person, I might have rolled my eyes.
“That doesn't make it right.”
“True love conquers all,” she says.
I fill a glass with water, hoping I can swallow my guilt. “And now you're quoting Disney.”
“A dream is a wish your heart makes,” she sings, drizzling glaze over the cinnamon rolls. My face forms a smile. I can't help it. She always brings me up when I'm down. What am I going to do without her?
Before my morbid thoughts can swirl into a freak out, she dabs glaze on my nose.
“Come on, ma fleur. Yesterday is over. Move on. Today hasn't even started. Why ruin it now?” I wipe the frosting off and lick it off my finger.
She's right. I have to learn how to bring myself out of the dark place without her. Peter's pretty good at it, but I can't rely on other people to save me. I have to save myself. No time like the present.
I smear some glaze across her cheek in return. Instead of laughing, she yanks me to her side, crushing me in a hug.
“That's right, baby.”
With my new resolve to live in the moment, I spend the morning and afternoon on the couch with a fluffy novel. Of course I also consume not one, but three cinnamon rolls. My stomach was so wrecked from the previous day that I felt instantly better with some calories in me.
Mom asks where Peter is and I tell her he's hanging out in the woods. It sounds better than waiting in my bedroom.
“I'm not even going to ask,” she says and starts washing the cinnamon roll pan.
~^*^~
“Baby, can you go out and get me some milk and eggs? Oh and some tissues?” The keys to her Jetta land next to me on the couch with a jingle. I wouldn't be caught dead at school in the outfit I'm wearing, but going to the local market didn't bother me. My outfit would be considered fancy, because it was clean. Sort of. Compared to the other people at the store, I'd be wearing Coco Chanel. But that's how Maine is.
The Noctalis Chronicles Complete Set Page 36
