Vampire born, p.4
Vampire Born, page 4
“Aria?” Cazzie called from upstairs.
“Coming!” I shoved the phone back in my pocket, telling myself that dredging up the past with Cazzie earlier was what had me so unnerved. I trusted Nick implicitly. He’d call or text when he was able, and when he did, he’d explain the delay. Simple as that.
But the churning in my gut didn’t seem to grasp the simplicity.
“I can’t get this closed,” Cazzie said when I found her in the master bedroom, sitting atop a suitcase that was bursting from all sides with clothes.
“Yeah, there’s no way that’s closing with all that in there. Don’t you have a bigger suitcase? Or even a smaller one to add to this one?”
“Greg’s mom borrowed the bigger one to go on a cruise last year and never returned it.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to take something out.”
Her face contorted. “I already put stuff back twice. I don’t have that many clothes as it is. I really don’t want to leave them all behind.”
“What about a trash bag?”
“Oh! Good idea! I’m pretty sure I have some of those big black ones under the sink in the kitchen. Greg uses them when he rakes the leaves in the back yard, which is basically, like, never. Let me go look, and I’ll be right back.”
I opened the case when she’d gone and pulled out the bulkiest items, and then I was able to zip it shut with ease.
Bounding down the stairs with the suitcase in my hand, I kept reminding myself of every plausible scenario I could think of for why I hadn’t heard from Nick. I hated that despite all the growth and healing I’d achieved over the last few years, my mind could so easily go right back to the wounded version of me, immediately suspicious and fearful. He didn’t deserve that, and neither did I. I’d worked hard to get past the damage Mike had wrought, and it irked me for it to rear its ugly head.
Whatever was delaying Nick would probably end up being a funny story at the end of the day. Maybe we’d even laugh about how crazy I’d let myself become there for a minute. He’d tell me I was being silly, and that I should know better than to ever have doubt where we were concerned.
“I’m taking the suitcase outside,” I called to Cassie as I rolled it across the living room.
“Okay. I found a bag!”
A shadow passed across the narrow window beside the front door as my fingers grazed across the knob but hadn’t yet grabbed it, and it was only then that my mind registered the white pickup truck now parked behind my Jeep in the driveway.
FOUR
NICK
Once I’d showered and we had the deer and the carpet secured in the back of the SUV, I set out with Graeco and Eligio in search of my laptop, hoping it was still inside my van. The closer we got to the flashing blue dot on the screen of Aria’s tablet, the more worried I became about what we would find. Though any memory of why I’d left the van still eluded me, I knew whatever had transpired between singing AC/DC in the sunlight and dining on deer blood in our living room must have been drastic.
As we got close enough for the map to zoom in, it became apparent that the laptop was located off the pavement in the woods, and I began to wonder if the van had left the road as well. Storm King Highway was narrow and winding, carved around and into the side of the mountain.
It had virtually no shoulders, with trees and boulders filling the steep drop-off that fell away from one side of the road and either sheer rock-face or more trees and boulders covering the upward slope on the other side. It could be a treacherous road, even under the best of conditions, so it wasn’t far-fetched to think that I might have had an accident.
The more I considered it, the more certain I became. It was the only explanation that made sense. Why else would I have abandoned my van and set out on foot? Perhaps I’d even collided with the deer and that caused the accident, which somehow seemed better than me stalking a wild animal and bringing it down.
As plausible as that theory seemed, it still didn’t answer the question of why I’d reverted to being a vampire.
Not to mention, the crash theory also raised its own set of concerns. What if another vehicle had been involved? What if someone else had been hurt? And even if it was a solo crash, what if another human had encountered me afterward in my crazed bloodthirsty state? Or what if a passerby had seen me leave the road or seen the signs of a crash and called for help?
The last thing I needed was to arrive and find law enforcement crawling all over the van, asking questions I couldn’t answer.
Thankfully, when we rounded the last curve on the map before the flashing dot, there were no cops, but there was also no sign of the van. No skid marks marred the pavement, and with no guard rail along this stretch of the highway, we were left to search the trees along the side of the road for any visible damage indicating something large had gone crashing through.
“There,” Graeco said, pointing to a spot farther down the short straightaway where the trees had been sheared away a few feet above the ground.
“Pull as close to the side as you can,” I instructed him, stepping out before he’d even come to a complete stop. I rushed to the edge of the drop-off to peer down at where my van lay on its passenger side several yards below me, nestled against a cluster of huge boulders. The tumble down the rock-covered, tree-lined, mountainside had left it crumpled from end to end.
“See anything?” Eligio asked as he came to stand beside me. “Yikes. That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not.” I had answers to where the van was and why I’d left it behind, but the knot of issues I needed to address had grown more tangled. I now had only a few hours to retrieve the smashed van and procure a rental for replacement before picking up Sage. And how on earth was I going to explain to Aria that I’d completely totaled our vehicle but had not even a bruise or a scratch on me?
“I don’t want to draw attention by blocking the road,” Graeco said through the open window of the SUV. “I’ll go to the lookout point and park and then double back here on foot.”
“Hold on,” Eligio said to him before turning back to me. “You want me to take the locator thingie and go find your phone?”
“Yes, please. I’d appreciate that.”
He retrieved Aria’s tablet from the SUV and then once Graeco had pulled away, Eligio and I began our trek down the plunging slope. At first, I took care with each step on the brutal terrain, still in the human mindset of fragility and the need to be cautious and sure-footed to prevent falling and breaking a bone. But as Eligio forged past me unconcerned, I remembered I was no longer constrained by human limitations and the threat of injury. I quickened my pace, and it only took a few steps for it to feel natural to trust my innate abilities without thinking about it.
But nothing about my abilities could prevent the sick feeling that settled deep in my gut as I reached our family vehicle and surveyed its destruction.
The front end was smashed in so far the motor had been pushed back to the front seats. The windshield was shattered, and the airbags had deployed.
The mangled driver’s door had been torn from its hinges and tossed aside, and the left-side sliding door was caved in toward the seat where Sage always sat.
I shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if she’d been with me. I could never forgive myself if she was hurt while I was driving, but what if she’d been there when I turned? If she’d seen me in the throes of bloodlust—tearing into a deer like a wild beast—it would have terrified her.
In Sage’s eyes, I am her protector. Her knight in shining armor. Her hero when things go bump in the night or when courage seems fleeting. When she looks at me with those adoring big green eyes, I believe I can be the man she sees. That I can be good. That I can be worthy of being her daddy.
To lose that and see her horrified by me instead would destroy me. It would be a punishment worse than death.
“Are you all right, sir?” Eligio asked as he regarded me.
I’d been standing with my eyes closed, my feet glued to the ground, and my fist pressed to my chest as what ifs cut through me like the sharpest knife.
“I’m fine,” I said, clearing my throat.
“You still don’t remember what happened?” Eligio asked as he walked around the vehicle. “Nothing’s coming back?”
“No.” I shook my head as I joined him at the front of the van. “Do you think maybe I hit the deer?”
He bent to take a closer look at the crushed front end. “Maybe, but there’s no visible blood or tissue in the grill or anywhere else I’ve seen. No patches of hair stuck to the metal. Doesn’t mean there couldn’t be some sign underneath the van on the side it’s laying on.” He returned to standing. “The deer’s spine was severed, but it was a clean break. Didn’t seem like he’d experienced the severe trauma you’d expect from an impact with a vehicle.”
“So, you think I killed him. Maybe I swerved to miss him and lost control? And then killed him after?”
Eligio gave a weak shrug. “I suppose it’s possible. But it’s highly unlikely a spooked deer would have hung around to be your meal. If I had to guess, I’d say you came across the deer while you were headed home through the woods. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, for him, anyway.”
“I just don’t know why else I would have crashed in a straight stretch of highway on a sunny day.” I looked back up the hill toward the road, wishing I could recall anything at all about the moment I left the pavement or what led up to it. “Maybe there was another vehicle involved, but they left the scene.”
“Could be. Mortals wreck all the time. Considering their limited reflexes and inferior senses, there could be any number of reasons.”
“You’re assuming I was still mortal when it happened. I have no idea when I turned back into…into this again.”
If Eligio was offended by my obvious disdain for our kind, he didn’t show it. He’d long known my feelings on the matter, and he’d been one of the only ones to show compassion when I’d made the choice to renounce my born state of being.
He moved to stand beside me and leaned in a bit, his voice low as though he feared someone would hear him. “I know you’re not happy about all this, things being what they are, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad to see ya, kid.”
A branch snapped behind us, and I turned to see Graeco approaching.
“Right,” Eligio said at full volume as he drew himself up and patted the tablet against his hand. “I’d best go find the phone.”
Graeco walked a slow circle around the van, and then he stood with his hands clasped behind his back as he watched me walk over to where the driver’s door had landed.
“I took the liberty of calling a tow truck,” he said once Eligio was gone. “I assumed you’d want the scene cleared before the vehicle is found by anyone else since you’d be hard-pressed to explain your pristine, uninjured state with the amount of blood you left behind.”
He examined the deep red splatters covering the interior side of the door.
I climbed up on the van to look through the open door frame, dismayed to see the amount of blood on the seat, the steering wheel, and the interior of the door frame, particularly the upper half where the seat belt was attached.
“My hair was caked with blood when I showered, and at the time, I wasn’t sure how much was mine and how much was the deer’s. Given what I’m seeing here, I’d say I must have had one hell of a head injury.” I jumped back down to the ground and dusted off my hands, unable to believe the magnitude of the words I was about to speak. “I think maybe the injury was drastic enough that my life as a human ended this morning, and somehow, instead of me dying as I’d believed I would in such an event, I reverted to my vampiric state. Do you have any idea why that would have happened?”
“Hard to say.” His thin shoulders shrugged as my eyes met his. “You made a deal with darkness, Nicolaas. You can’t seriously be surprised that it might not have been all you’d hoped it would be.”
“It was everything I hoped it would be, until this. I knew when I made that pact I was assuming the risk of death, and if I had died this morning, I would have had no choice other than to accept that, as any mortal must. But this—” I pointed to my mouth as I extended my fangs. “—this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
He tilted his head, one eyebrow arching to an arrogant point. “So, you’re saying you’d still prefer that you were mortal? Even though that means you’d be dead? You’d rather your lovely wife was a widow, and this daughter you adopted was without a father once again?”
“Of course not! I just—you know what? Never mind. Forget it. I don’t know why I thought I could talk to you about this.”
I moved away from him toward the back of the van, jarred by his words.
I’d believed I was prepared to meet whatever fate granted me as a human if it meant I could exist in equal terms in their world. In her world.
But now having encountered death and somehow survived it, I could say for certain that I did not want to be dead. In truth, it horrified me to consider that this morning could have been the last time I ever saw my wife or daughter. I wasn’t ready or willing to say goodbye to Aria. To Sage. The mere thought of it gutted me.
Of course, if they discovered the truth about who I was, it wouldn’t matter whether I was dead or alive. I’d still be left with nothing but goodbye.
And perhaps it would have been better for all of us if I had died. They’d be spared the truth, and instead of wandering through life with the knowledge that I’d lost them, I’d be plunged into the dark oblivion of whatever lay beyond for my kind.
No.
No!
There was no way we’d be better off apart. We were a family. We belonged together, and I wasn’t about to give up. As long as I was still here, still alive, that meant I still had a chance to make things right.
I couldn’t lose them. I wouldn’t. I had done the unimaginable to be with them, and I would do whatever it took to remain by their sides.
Unwilling to accept that I wouldn’t be picking Sage up and coaching her team that afternoon, I pried open the rear doors, bending the metal back with my bare hands until there was enough space for me to reach inside and grab the bags of equipment I’d need for soccer practice.
Walking back toward Graeco, I tossed the bags on the ground as he used his foot to brush aside a blood-soaked leaf, one of many in a trail that led away from the van into the woods.
“I need to arrange for a rental van. I’m not sure of the closest location, but if you can drop me off to wherever it is, I’ll be out of your hair while I sort out the rest of this mess.”
“You need to visit your mother first. As you know, the Gilde has an entire fleet of vehicles on hand, so procuring one for you to use won’t be a problem.”
With a deep inhale, I placed my hands on my hips, my entire body tense from the emotional roller coaster I was riding. “I don’t want a Gilde vehicle. I will rent one in my own name like a normal person and pay for it with my own funds. As far as my mother is concerned, as soon as I can reach her, I will, but right now, my priority must be my family.”
His shoulders stiffened and both brows shot up. “And what, pray tell, do you consider your mother if not your family? Is it not enough that you crushed her heart when you turned your back on her for a mortal woman’s love? Now, you would set Madam aside completely, disregarding the bloodlines you belong to and the family who raised you? The family who afforded you the opportunity to pursue who you chose to be?”
Anger rippled throughout my body, and I strained to contain the animalistic energy his judgment had threatened to unleash. The events of the day had left my fuse short, and it was difficult to battle my temper back and maintain control.
“Look, Graeco, I know you never agreed with my decision. You made that very clear at the time I was making it. But I didn’t owe you any explanation then, and I don’t owe you one now. My relationship with my mother is my own, and I won’t answer to you for it. What’s done is done. Or it was, and now it’s come undone. And if I can’t fix this, then everything I sacrificed, everything I put my mother through, is all for naught. I refuse to accept that. I refuse to give up on the life I’ve chosen. I’m running out of time here. I need to find a solution.”
“You’re a fool if you think you can reverse what’s happened and just pick up your mundane routine and go on like before.”
“Yeah, well, I was told I was a fool for ever thinking it was possible to have the life I wanted in the first place, and yet, I’ve spent the last five years proving otherwise. I will find a way; I promise you that. So, how about instead of your pessimistic condemnation, you offer some suggestion that might help? You’ve been around a lot longer than I have. There isn’t much you haven’t seen and very little you have no knowledge of. Surely, you know of something I could do.”
“I have no answers for you. You circumvented the Code and the natural laws of both the mortal and immortal realms. You knowingly and willingly consorted with darkness. It isn’t always possible for us to avoid the consequences of our choices. I fear you’re about to learn that the hard way.”
Eligio joined us from the woods, his shoes and pants soaking wet and caked in mud. He held Aria’s tablet tucked beneath his arm and my iPhone in his hand.
“You found it! Excellent.” I reached for the phone, glowering to see that it was also dripping and covered in mud.
“It won’t come on,” he said. “It was submerged in water. Oh, and I think I found the spot where you took down the deer nearby. He seemed to have put up quite the struggle.”
Inside, I cringed and outwardly, I cursed. The idea of me roaming the woods in a bloodthirsty killing rampage sickened me. I’d done everything I could to deny the existence of the monster inside me, and my stomach roiled at the thought that I’d become the very thing I’d tried so hard to destroy.
