by Sonia Hartl
Stacey took her position by the window directly across from the vault. She’d shine a flashlight at us if anyone approached. Frankie held out the keys he’d gotten from Gwen. I grabbed them and unlocked the front doors. The alarm began to blare the moment I stepped over the threshold. The number pad flashed red as Frankie punched in the numbers with shaky fingers. The building went silent, and I exhaled. One part down.
Right as we gathered behind the teller line, a beam from the flashlight bounced off the metal vault door. I ran to the front door, and a set of headlights parked in the first space shone right into my eyes. White spots danced in front of me.
“Is it Gwen?” Ida asked.
“No.” I’d never seen Gwen drive a car before. I didn’t think she knew how. “Maybe it’s somebody who needs to use the ATM.”
A man with sandy hair, gray around the temples, stepped out of the car. His round cheeks sagged with age, giving him the look of an uptight walrus, and he wore jeans and a wrinkled flannel shirt. I nearly didn’t recognize the bank manger out of his suit until I caught sight of the same stern expression as he had this morning.
“It’s the manager. Stay down,” I said.
Rose, Ida, and Frankie all ducked, hiding behind the row of teller windows. I crouched by the door as the manager entered the vestibule. He had his phone to his ear, likely talking to security, and said he’d been on his way home when he got the call about the alarm going off. We assumed they’d alert the manager. We had no idea he’d be driving right by when it happened.
How unfortunate for the both of us.
As soon as he opened the front door, I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. His phone clattered to the floor. I smashed it with my foot and snapped his neck. His eyes immediately dimmed. I let go of his body, and it crumbled to the ground as I took a step back. That was the first time I’d ever killed someone without giving them a chance to run.
The blood in my veins pulsed in an uneven rhythm. I couldn’t call what I was feeling guilt—I’d become too numb to killing for that—but it was something similar. Like I’d lost a fundamental piece of myself I’d never get back. Like I’d just cut one of the strings that tethered me to humanity. How much worse would it be once my living memories were gone?
Leaning down, I laid my fingers over his eyelids and forced them closed.
“Are you holding a funeral over there?” Ida sneered at me from across the counter.
I stood and dusted off my hands. “Forgive me for trying to afford him a little decency.”
I didn’t know why I bothered. Both she and Rose didn’t get my code. I didn’t really care that they thought it was a joke. It mattered to me. It was the only thing that kept me from feeling like a complete monster every minute of every day.
I joined them all by the vault, where Rose spun the crank wheel. It clicked, but when she pulled, it wouldn’t open. Frankie read the combo off again, same results. “What’s happening?” she asked.
“The vault door is on a timer.” Frankie slapped his forehead.
“I forgot Gwen said something about that.” He held down two buttons on a keypad by the vault and put a new combo in. Some mechanism inside the door clicked, and Rose opened it freely.
The heavy door dragged open slowly, and Rose slipped inside. “I need another key to open my box. One that belongs to the bank.”
“It should be hanging on one of the hooks.” Frankie followed Rose into the vault, and Ida and I closed in behind him. He grabbed a long, thin gold key off the wall. “According to Gwen, this should open the master lock.”
My gaze kept darting to the front of the building, like Elton and Gwen would show up any second. The more time we spent there, the greater our chance of being trapped inside. My nerves wouldn’t settle until we made it back to Stacey’s house with Rose’s heirloom in hand.
Rose put both keys in the locks on her box and turned, opening the tiny door. She slid out a long gray box and flipped the top latch. Two silver combs with a dragonfly pattern lay at the bottom of the box, linked together by their teeth. A light coating of tarnish covered them, but otherwise, they were delicate and beautiful. No wonder she’d made them her heirloom.
A siren wailed in the distance, and Rose lifted her head. “What is that?”
“Police,” Frankie said. “We need to go.”
I’d tensed, as if I expected Frankie to make a grab for Rose’s heirloom and run, but he only turned around and fled toward the back of the bank. Rose grabbed her combs, pressing them tightly to her chest. We followed Frankie to the emergency exit and flung open the door. Stacey caught up to us near the short stretch of woods behind the bank. We ran under the cover of the trees, then doubled back to hit the main road.
Red-and-blue lights flashed in the parking lot. Through the windows, I spotted four police officers standing over the body of the manager. That twinge of loss hit me again, the wrongness of that kill seeping into my bones. I didn’t have time to stew in it, though. Frankie had already veered away from us, disappearing to wherever he was staying with Elton. The rest of us used their distraction to run across the street and disappear into the neighborhood on the other side.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rose stripped down to her underwear and threw her clothes into the fireplace. “We’ll burn everything we wore tonight. Not that I think anyone will look for us.”
“Frankie didn’t try to snag the combs,” I said. “When the police showed up and everything was chaos for a minute, I thought he might.”
“He might’ve if it was just us,” Rose said. “He wouldn’t betray Ida, though.”
Ida rolled her eyes and tossed her clothes into the fireplace.
“I think you can trust him. He’s had a million chances to ambush you with Gwen and Elton and hasn’t so far.” Stacey took her scarf off, her neck flap swaying as she spoke.
Ida started the fire while Rose dug out clothes from our suitcases. I pulled a navy sweater with a hole in the elbow over my head. The rough cotton chaffed against my skin. I should’ve thrown the sweater out decades ago, but it comforted me to have a piece of my old life. Even if it was just a bit of lifeless fabric that was ready to fall apart.
“The manager showing up was a surprise.” Ida put on a long black skirt and cream button-down shirt. She let out a giggle as she chewed on her thumbnail. “Did you see the look on that stuffed suit’s face when Holly slammed him into the wall? Priceless.”
“So hilarious.” I gave Ida a bland stare. While I didn’t hold the living in high regard, I didn’t give the bank manager a chance to run and wouldn’t be finding any sort of amusement in his death. “We have four more nights until the full moon.”
“We’ll lay low until then.” Rose stroked her combs with a loving finger. “There is no need to go out other than to hunt. We can’t risk Elton finding out our location.”
The ancient steps on Stacey’s front porch creaked. Probably just the wind, but the back of my neck prickled with awareness. A knock at the door, followed by bits of rotted frame crashing to the ground, had the four of us spinning around. My heartbeat picked up speed, and Stacey grabbed my hand. We weren’t expecting company.
“We fight our way out,” Ida said. “Everyone on the same page?”
We nodded. A grim finality settled over us. We’d been willing to push every limit to be free of Elton, and none of the costs concerned us. But I had crossed a very important line in retrieving Rose’s heirloom, killing without giving my victim a chance to run. It wasn’t one I’d come back from easily. Stacey motioned for us to move to the back of the house.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Go out the back. I’ll hold off whoever’s at the door.” She took one look at my expression and let out a long-winded sigh. “Please don’t get weepy about it.”
“I wasn’t.” I sniffed.
“Come on.” Ida guided me toward the patio. “Stacey can handle herself.”
“Holly?” The knock sounded again, followed b
y more falling plaster and a chorus of barking dogs in the distance. “Are you in there?”
My heart stumbled at her voice, and I shook off Ida. “It’s Parker.”
I hadn’t intended to see her again. We had our perfect moment already, and continuing to see her would only complicate my feelings. We couldn’t be together. End of story.
So why did the sound of her voice turn me inside out?
Stacey opened the door and stepped back. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Holly.” She ducked her head and looked up at me through her lashes. “If that’s okay with all of you.”
“It’s fine. Ignore them.” I gestured at the sliding glass door, and she followed me outside. We walked out to the old swing, with its rusted hinges, and took a seat on the sun-bleached cushions, still a bit wet from the last rain. “How did you even find this place?”
I couldn’t have found it on my own, and I practically lived here for four years between eighth grade and junior year. I never told her where to find Stacey’s house. For a reason.
It’d be better for both of us to walk away while we could still look back with a sense of warmth. Hanging on would only lead to angry words and hurt feelings, ruining the small amount of time we’d been able to make just ours. I didn’t want to lose that.
She smirked. “I asked Alyssa where the vampire lived.”
The lone girl who had escaped Stacey’s house. I hoped she’d have a long and happy life.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific when it comes to using that label in this house.” I picked at a loose thread on my sweater. A light gust blew over the yard from the trees, carrying the scent of rot and wood. “It’s dangerous for you to be here.”
Her gaze darted around the open backyard. “I wasn’t followed.”
“I’m not worried about that.” Not necessarily true, but it didn’t do any good to stress her out about it now. Elton could blend into shadows and move on the wind. As a well-honed predator, he’d had a century to perfect his skills in stealth and patience.
“Okay.” She gave me a twitchy half smile before looking away.
With the rush to get her out of the apartment, it looked like we were due to have our awkward after-sex moment now. It was a wonder we’d ever managed to kiss. She kept inching her hand closer to mine on the bench, and while I wanted nothing more than to put us both out of our misery and take it, we were burning our heirlooms in four days. We’d be saying goodbye to our memories and leaving this town. Parker would be moving to Tennessee with her mom.
I needed to end this now. It had already gone way too far.
I turned to her. “Listen, Parker—”
“Elton came—” She stopped, color rising on her cheeks. “You go ahead.”
“No. You first.” I grabbed both of her hands, and her fingers flexed beneath mine. I squeezed tighter. As if I could hold us both together. “What did Elton do?”
“He told me everything.” She bit her lip. “He made a lot of promises. We’d have new lives. Sunset walks on the beach, staying in grand hotels, poetry in the park. He made it all seem so easy. If I hadn’t met you, I’m not going to lie, he would’ve been very convincing.”
“He’s good at that.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice. The point was, he hadn’t convinced her. We’d be ending this before he could. I didn’t want to be angry with Elton anymore. I didn’t want to feel anything other than indifference, not when he’d be finished within days and just thinking about him made me tired. “What did you tell him?”
“I said I’d think about it, to stall him.” She took a silver cuff with a turquoise stone at the center off her wrist and handed it to me. “If I had gone through with it though, this would’ve been my heirloom.”
I turned the bracelet over in my hands. “It’s lovely. What’s the story?”
Every heirloom had a story. It’s what made object memory possible.
“There had been one year when things were really lean. My mom’s latest boyfriend decided to clean out her bank account before leaving, so she had no money for my birthday. This old lady, Vera, used to babysit me while my mom worked second shift. She watched the home-shopping network all day and smelled like cat pee, but when she found out it was my birthday, she let me pick anything I wanted out of her jewelry box.”
I gave the bracelet back to her. “What makes it special?”
Heirlooms couldn’t just be a nice moment from childhood. They had to be attached to the kind of memory that defined you. Their histories were personal, and while pushing Parker to tell me more wasn’t helping my whole plan to let her go, I had to know. I wanted everything she was willing to give me, for however long I could have it.
“It made me feel like someone was paying attention, back when I thought no one noticed.” She let the bracelet dangle between her fingers, its polished surface reflecting in the moonlight. “It’s the only thing I managed to hang onto through multiple moves. The first time I felt seen seemed like a nice place to store my memories.”
“It would be the perfect place to store your memories.” I gave her a smile, because I didn’t know what else to do when everything hurt. “Your heirloom is also the place where you store all your regrets.” I clasped my locket, letting the tarnished latch dig into my palm. “So you can carry them with you forever.”
“You keep talking about regret, but at least you got to make your own choices.” She kicked her heel against the grass. “You should trust me to make mine.”
I’d hoped to have more time with her, just a few more minutes to trace the curve of her lips with my mind, to wrap a fist around the memory so it would stay with me forever. I wanted more of her laughs and smiles. Enough to sustain me when she was gone.
But time had run out.
“I can’t keep doing this.” I stood to give myself some distance. The next words got lodged in my throat, but I forced them out anyway. “I need you to leave now.”
“Leave now?” She jumped up. “Where do you expect me to go?”
“Home. Tennessee. Wherever.” I had to look away from her scrunched nose and confused expression. I didn’t think it was possible for anything to be more painful than the night I turned Stacey.
Only now when I ripped away pieces of myself, they had nowhere to go. They just died on the grass between us. “We can’t be together.”
“But why can’t we be together after Elton is gone?” Tears filled her eyes. “I’ll go anywhere with you. Anywhere you ask me to.”
“Don’t you get it?” I raised my voice, startling a nearby owl. “I’m sixteen years old. I will always be sixteen. That’s never changing. But you’re eighteen, and in a few years you’ll be in your twenties, then your thirties. There is no real future with us.”
“You’re just being stubborn.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’re worried this thing between us might be real, and you’re scared. But you could turn me.”
“Absolutely not.” I wasn’t clear on a lot of things at the moment, but on that I was certain. “The entire purpose of this was to keep you alive. I told you how hard immortality has been for me. Didn’t you listen at all? Do you have any idea how many regrets you’ll have? What makes you think I’d put you through that?”
Afraid to look at her for a second longer, I spun around. I was a gentle push away from doing what she wanted. I could already see myself grabbing her wrist and plunging my teeth into her soft skin to suck the very life out of her while giving her enough of mine to become something else. I’d shred my own soul to ruin if that was what she wanted.
I ran my hands through my hair, the crimped strands bumping along my fingers. “Why do you want me? Why do you want any of this?”
Behind me, the comfort of her body so close to mine warmed my skin. “Because I’m in love with you. And I think you love me too.”
My breath caught. There was a special kind of wonder in loving and being loved. Of this one person, in all the billions of people, find
ing you against all odds. The rest of the world could fall away. Nothing else mattered except holding this precious, fragile thing in your hands.
Before I could lose myself to feelings I couldn’t act on, I snapped myself out of it. She couldn’t possibly love me. We hadn’t known each other for that long. She was just caught up in the romanticism of vampires and immortality and the night sky.
“You do, right?” She probed a little more as she stepped closer. “It’s not just me.”
I turned around. Her eyes searched mine, silently pleading for me to say what was in my heart. My throat had gone dry. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You were with Elton for months and didn’t love him, but you’ve only known me for a fraction of that time.”
“And the prince spent hours trying to force Cinderella’s slipper to fit one of the stepsisters before it slid easily onto her foot. So what is time?” She cupped my face and rested her forehead against mine. “Let me stay with you. Let me be with you and love you. It could be like this, the two of us, always.”
And that was the problem. She saw this as a fairy tale. She didn’t see the reality. I closed my eyes, held this moment, then let her go. “It’s not going to happen.”
“Why are you doing this?” She shoved me. Tears choked her voice, welled up in her eyes. “What’s so wrong with the two of us being together for an eternity?”
“It’s not you.” For the first time in my existence, I finally understood how that had become a line. “You don’t understand what you’d be getting into. Not really.”
“I understand perfectly fine.” She crossed her arms and glared at me.
Maybe she thought she did. The same way I thought I knew what I was getting into with Elton. But she’d never truly understand, because it wasn’t something she’d ever lived through. I could tell her what it was like to take a human life, but she’d never understand how numb you had to become in order to take pleasure in it. I could tell her about barely scraping together enough money to keep myself in a dumpy motel, but she’d never understand the feeling of being so alone, the sound of roaches scuttling along the walls became a comfort. She had no idea what a gift it was to keep the mortality she was so eager to throw away.
