Cuddling Sucks in Coffins

by Holly Ryan

  “Well, maybe I’ll get a chance to tell him sometime soon since I broke out of his jail,” I said. “I’m sure he’s probably pissed about that.”

  “But without your slayer powers, you wouldn’t necessarily have to leave this house, would you?” Jacek asked. “You could hide out here.”

  “I mean, I still have my job at The Bean Dream...” I said, frowning. “Hiding isn’t exactly in my nature, though. Neither is not slaying. I can’t just do nothing while brand new vamps run amok at and around the cemetery. Someone could get hurt and...” Someone already had. Worse than hurt. Whether I had my slayer powers or not, I refused to let there be any more Tims. One was enough, and it had wrecked me. Still did.

  Sawyer nodded, understanding in his gaze. “So you escaped your cell, stole the policeman who wasn’t really a policeman’s clothes...”

  “Right before that was when Paul started strolling,”—I held up my hands—“as dark unknowns tend to do apparently, and really shook things up. You three can probably explain that part better than I can.”

  Eddie smoothed his wild blond hair out of his face, which did little good, and his mouth pinched as if the memory left a sour taste. “It started out as a bad headache, like I had a head full of angry, buzzing bees. Soft, at first, so I thought I was only imagining it.”

  Sawyer clasped his hands on the table and stared down at them. “And then rage and thoughts of violence.”

  “All directed toward you,” Eddie said. “I had no idea where it was coming from, but I knew it definitely wasn’t coming from me. I could never feel those things about you, Sunshine. Not ever.”

  Jacek put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Same.”

  “Last night,” Sawyer began, his features twisted with regret, “the headache and the feeling and the sound peaked very suddenly, right around the time you called for us through our bites. We were already on our way, and then...suddenly we weren’t ourselves. I remember every thought Paul spiked into my skull about you, about all the ways I could kill you with my bare hands, and...I won’t ever forget.”

  I could only imagine.

  “It wasn’t real.” I touched his arm as a reminder that this was real, right here and now, and his strained expression softened slightly.

  “Which only makes me want to beat Paul once and for all,” Jacek said, his voice a low warning.

  Eddie nodded, his lips quirking into an almost smile. “Nobody touches my Sunshine.”

  “I’d like to beat Paul for good, too,” I agreed. “No other slayer after me should ever have to go through this bullshit.”

  “You shouldn’t have to go through this bullshit,” Jacek said.

  “It worries me that he can just do his strolling right through our front door and into our heads.” Sawyer turned to me, his brow furrowed. “Everyone’s heads, including yours.”

  I sighed. “Do you think he’ll try this again? Strolling through the whole town like this?”

  “It didn’t work,” Eddie said. “You’re still alive, so he’ll likely do something else.”

  Sawyer frowned. “The amount of power it took for him to barge into houses and take over everyone in the city’s minds had to have run out for us to be us again. Paul likely needs to refuel.”

  “Which maybe gives me a couple days before he attacks again.” Or maybe hours. No, let’s go with weeks, or the glass-is-half-full option. Whatever time I had, I needed to use every bit of it to the fullest.

  A pounding at the back of the house sounded. I jumped in my chair even though I’d been expecting it. Jacek and Eddie tensed and surged out of their chairs, but Sawyer held his arms out to stop them as he shared a look with me. His expression gave nothing away, a show of his trust in me despite the cryptic instructions I’d given him.

  I nodded. Time was already being used well from the sound of it.

  “Is that...hammering?” Jacek asked.

  Sawyer squeezed my shoulder as he stood. “I’ll go help as much as I can.”

  “Help with what?” Eddie twisted in his chair to watch Sawyer walk out, then he and Jacek both aimed their questioning gazes at me.

  “You’ll understand in just a bit.” I wanted that statement to be true more than anything. While I kept my face blanked, my insides squirmed and a cold sweat tracked down my sides. I had to keep it together, now more than ever. “Jacek, do you have time to teach me some long-range stake-throwing tonight? Without my slayer powers, I’d like to do kill shots from as far away as possible until I get them back.”

  He posted his elbow on the table and winked. “Only if we can use Eddie for target practice.”

  I shook my head. “Negative. An Eddie without any extra holes is my favorite kind of Eddie.”

  Eddie’s lips curled.

  “Aww, one little extra hole never hurt anyone, right, Eddie?” Jacek stood and started toward the living room.

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “Spoken like the guy who announced to everyone at the blood bank that type AB positive was climatic.”

  Jacek stopped in the doorway and turned. “That was one time, Eddie.”

  “He meant climactic.” Eddie stood and straightened his white button-up shirt. “Pretty sure the climate has little to do with your preferred choice of blood.”

  Jacek jerked his chin for me to follow him to the living room. “Fun side note. You are also AB positive, Slayer.”

  “I better alert the Weather Channel, then.” I rose from the chair and started after him.

  A full smile cupped Eddie’s kissable lips, and his shoulders shook as I passed him.

  “Hardy-har-har,” Jacek said, but I could hear the grin in his voice.

  Eddie followed me into the living room and then waved on his way upstairs. “I’m going to research what slayer power looks like. Golden flecks?”

  I nodded as I dug through my duffel by the door for some stakes. “Kind of like a breakfast cereal. Thank you, Eddie.”

  Jacek slid a cushion off the couch and propped it against the far wall of the living room next to the TV. “Okay, so pretend that’s Paul’s face there.”

  I crossed the blue mats to stand about eight feet away from it, loosed a breath, and narrowed my eyes at the target. “Done.”

  “Remind me to never get on your bad side if you look at all your enemies like that.” He mock-shivered. “Scary.”

  I snorted but it morphed into a sigh when he pressed in behind me, wrapping one arm around my waist. He splayed his fingers on my lower stomach so my ass rubbed against his crotch. Roiling heat dipped between my thighs, but I tried to ignore it. Easier thought than done. With his other hand, he lifted my arm straight out in front of me and adjusted the stake so the tip pointed backward in my grip. His touch was electric, his lips a cool balm down the column of my neck.

  “Pretend you’re bringing a hammer down on a nail as you throw it. Wrist straight as you flick it.” He moved my wrist to show me. “Ready?”

  “No.” I pressed back into him and wriggled against his hardening cock, triggering a growl from him and a rush of blood straight to my core. “But I will be once you step far back. I don’t want to hit any vampires by mistake.”

  “Pretty sure you won’t hit what’s behind you.”

  I shook my head. “You haven’t seen me throw long-range.” Even when I’d had my slayer powers, I’d practiced and practiced, watched YouTube videos, and practiced more. There was a reason I preferred close combat.

  Chuckling, he released me, taking his brain-scrambling touch with him.

  I blocked out the steady hammering sound that echoed from the back of the house and what it meant. Instead, I focused on the couch cushion and pretended it was Paul’s face, on the grains of the wood in my stake, and threw it. It spun through the air and bounced harmlessly off the cushion.

  I whistled.

  “That was your first try,” Jacek said behind me. “It’s going to take a bit to get the feel for it.”

  “I don’t have a bit. I still have to patrol toni
ght.”

  He took my shoulders and squeezed. “Breathe.”

  “This might be easier if I had my slayer p—”

  “You’re not breathing.” He came closer so his body pressed against my back and tipped my chin so I would look at him. “You can’t do much else if you’re not breathing. I remember this from when I was alive.”

  I forced myself to stop, recalculate, and just exist in the kind depths of Jacek’s eyes.

  “Let’s try again, only this time see if you’re more comfortable throwing it without the spin.” He pulled another stake from my belt loops and fit it into my hand. “Contract your stomach muscles as you snap it out of your hand like a whip.”

  “Like a whip. Got it.” I closed my eyes, visualizing my movements so the stake hit the target this time.

  “Ready?” He let me go and moved back.

  I opened my eyes, tightened my gut, and let it fly. This time, it stuck briefly into the cushion before clattering to the floor.

  “That was better, Slayer. And dead center, too.

  I sighed. “I need to kill the cushion. I mean the vampires. That wasn’t a kill shot.”

  He crossed the blue mats to pick up my fallen stakes. “Cushion slaying takes a while to master. Take a handful of these and then hurl them as fast as you can, one right after the other. Move around the living room like the cushion is a moving target. You’re the slayer. Still. Move like one, and give that cushion something to cry about.”

  I nodded. He had a point, a sharp one that actually stuck. Standing still wasn’t how I typically handled vampires, cushiony or otherwise. Time to move. After fishing in my duffel bag for more stakes, I stood by the front door and glared down that damned cushion over my shoulder. Then, I spun around and chucked another stake. Without waiting to see if it connected, I launched myself into a roll over the blue mats, sprang up, and let loose another. Over and over, I did my graveyard dance, except instead of battling vampires up close and personal, I fought air, gravity, and distance. By the time I finished, a sheen of sweat drenched me.

  Among the six or seven stakes I’d just thrown, one held inside the cushion. My jaw dropped as I blinked over to Jacek.

  He grinned, his eyes sparkling with genuine pride. “We must warn the land to hide their cushions.”

  I laughed, pitching to almost hysterical, until it died completely when Sawyer strode in the front door.

  “It’s ready, Belle,” he said quietly.

  My stomach rolled. I bit down hard on my back teeth to keep from screaming and dropped my gaze to the blue mats. Sawyer had said I would need to become a monster to defeat a monster, and that transformation was about to begin. It was either that or certain death. And right now, I had more to live for than I’d ever imagined. Friends, lovers, family—all combined into three beautiful vampires who would move mountains for my mind, body, and soul.

  “What’s ready?” Jacek asked. “What’s going on?”

  I couldn’t even screw up the courage to look at him, let alone tell him the parts I could. So I crossed the distance between us and threw my arms around him, threading my fingers through his short hair and crushing him to me.

  He squeezed me right back, his lips nuzzling my ear. “Not that I mind, but what’s this all about?”

  Without a word, I released him and turned to Sawyer, who stood by the door with his amber eyes squinted as if to read my intent. They would know everything soon enough.

  “The light’s on the right side of the door,” Sawyer said.

  On my way outside, I shrugged on my jacket, shouldered my duffel bag full of sharpened stakes, and headed into the night. The chilly wind snagged my breaths and shivered through my thin My Little Pony T-shirt and my new Kevlar vest, courtesy of Jacek, but I hardly noticed as I passed the sidewalk that led to the cemetery and stayed on the narrow path that wound around the house. One good thing about having zero slayer powers was that the usual stomach cramps and itchy feet that urged me to the graveyard were no longer an issue. But I would still be going to the cemetery, just later than usual, so really the lack of cramps and itches was just something I happened to notice. Like the gate that led to the backyard. And the woodshed at the far end of the lawn.

  My heartbeat crashed against my ribs at the sight of the dark, squat building. A tremor ripped down my limbs as I lifted the bar on the door and opened it. Pitch dark crowded the inside. Cool, damp air rolled out, as well as the sound of streaming water. I could already tell it was perfect, in the darkest, most sickening sense of the word.

  I walked inside, leaving it dark for a moment, and followed the sound of the water. With my nerves pulled as tight as they were, the sound made me have to pee. It was a reminder of when I’d been in my own cell, terrified and alone. I touched the walls to guide me, and when my fingers came away wet, I knew I was standing in exactly the right place.

  Now or never. It was time to call Ronick to come get Jacek.

  Chapter Ten

  Dragging in a shaky breath, I touched my hand to the cut on my wrist. “Night’s Fall.”

  The cut flared white light, brightening my surroundings for a split second. Water raining down walls. A heavy door with a lock and a window. Then the light dimmed, and darkness pressed in again.

  “Slayer.” The voice came out of nowhere but also right next to me.

  I yelped, even though I’d been expecting it. “Ronick?” I said into the darkness, my voice breaking.

  “Is Jacek here? Did you find him?”

  I needed to think speedy thoughts. Blind in the dark, I lunged for his sword and scabbard. My fingertips connected with the hilt. So did his a moment later as I yanked the sword free of the scabbard. He tore it out of one of my hands, but then he shouted in pain. His grip loosened, and I wrenched the sword away. Then I shuffled backward, through the heavy door that also dripped with water. I shut it. Locked it with a loud click. Inhaled as I backed away, my eyes bugging out of my head. I’d done it. But I flicked the light switch to be sure.

  A buttery glow lit the space from above, confirming that I had in fact done it.

  Ronick stood in the back half of the woodshed, confined to a three-by-three space, between four dripping walls of holy water, locked up tight with no way out to hunt down and kill Jacek. The holy water collected into a basin on the floor and was pumped back up to the top to rain some more. Ronick looked at his surroundings, his mouth gaped open, and realization seemed to hit him right between the eyes as soon as he met my gaze through the wet glass window in the door.

  “Give me Night’s Fall’s powers,” I said, my voice like a whip snapping the air.

  “You get me the fuck out of here!” He lunged at the door, and a loud sizzle morphed with his scream on impact. A cloud of smoke burst from his body as he leaped back, thickening the air inside his cell so only two angry pinpoints of red peered out. “Get me out!”

  “Give me Night’s Fall’s powers,” I said again.

  He roared, rattling his frustration down the walls and quaking the wooden floorboards under my feet. “Fuck you, Slayer! I hope he draws your death out so long that you beg him to kill you!”

  Keeping my face blank while my stomach soured, while my insides cringed at what he’d said, I ticked my gaze to my left. Another empty cell waited right next to Ronick’s, only without holy water sliding down its walls. That cell was how I planned to get my power back from Detective Appelt. By imprisoning those who prevented me from surviving Paul, I might be able to live my own damn life for once. I was no different than Roseff, who’d held Jacek captive all those years. I had to become that type of monster, despite the slimy feeling oozing through my veins, despite the poisonous rot eating through my heart. This was exactly what monsters did to survive, and I hated it.

  I just hoped my vamps didn’t recoil in terror from me. Especially Jacek, who’d once been held against his will just like Ronick was now.

  “Bitch!” he shouted. “Let me out of here!”

  I turned and left, securing
the bar on the woodshed door behind me and smothering the fury of his threats. Then I focused on the bites all over my body, the slightest pinpricks that were barely visible, and when their tingling piqued, I called them to me.

  They appeared by my side within seconds, their amber eyes glinting with questions in the moonlight. Their gazes slid from me to the woodshed, surely hearing the muffled threats on my life seeping from underneath the door.

  “Jacek,” I choked out, the backs of my eyes burning. “Please don’t hate me.”

  “Never.” He stared hard at the door, listening, surely clicking things into place. He started forward, his customary grin long faded into the night. Stopping with his hand on the door’s bar, he shook his head at me. “I could never hate you, Slayer.”

  Then I would hate myself enough for the both of us.

  He eased the bar up and then shoved inside. I followed closely, Eddie and Sawyer at my heels.

  Ronick quieted as soon as he saw Jacek, and Jacek froze. Tension vibrated the air behind me as Eddie and Sawyer took in the scene.

  Ronick bared his fangs at me, violence twisting his expression. “You knew exactly where he was this whole time. You never had any intention of telling me where he was.”

  “No,” I agreed. “I didn’t.”

  “You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” he shouted. “I should’ve known right when I saw you, when I smelled you, you stupid—”

  Jacek slammed into the door with the force of a train, his palm smacking the metal. “If you finish that sentence, that will be the last thing you ever do,” he snarled.

  “Wrong.” Ronick seethed. “The last thing I will do is kill you for the death of my brother, but I’ll be sure to wait until after the dark unknown kills your little slayer here. And to think I was going to help her find the Slayer Senate.” His flaming eyes ticked to me. “You’re on your own.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, stepping forward to look him in the eye. “I’m not on my own. Far from it. You’ll give me Night’s Fall’s magic.”

  He laughed, a dark, vicious sound. “Or what?”