Not Dead Yet

by Jenn Burke

  He was a nice-looking kid, except for the miasma of sadness that surrounded him. He had curly light brown hair that cascaded around his face and ears in a poofy sort of halo, blue-gray eyes that were kind of dull at the moment but I suspected could spark like icy fire, and a prominent nose that kept his face from being too pretty. He was taller than me but not much broader—the guy needed to eat more.

  About halfway through the movie, Evan spoke up, his voice tremulous. “Is something wrong?”

  I made sure to stare hard at the screen. “Nope.”

  “You sure?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Okay.” A few minutes passed—during which I might have glanced at him once or twice—and he sighed. “I know the fangs are freaking you out, but I can’t do anything about them.”

  Well, now that he’d reminded me of them... I swallowed. “It’s fine.”

  “I can smell your fear, you know.”

  Not fucking cool. I leaped to my feet, and Evan flinched—which made me want to apologize. Which, in turn, pissed me off. Why should I apologize? I wasn’t the one who’d done anything wrong. I’d been trying to help him, and he’d attacked me. Mitigating circumstances, sure, but still. He had attacked me, not the opposite way around. I was perfectly justified in being wary. And where was my apology?

  That should have been the first damned thing out of his mouth.

  Throwing a glare his way, I turned my back and went to the kitchen. My skin crawled, demanding I keep my eyes on the predator in the room, but for once I ignored my self-preservation instinct. I was too pissed off to look at him for even another minute. Grabbing the half-finished bottle of wine from the fridge and my glass, I shot over my shoulder, “I’m going to have a bath.”

  I’d showered to get clean, but there was nothing like a hot bath, wine, and music to soothe the soul.

  Evan’s soft “Okay” ratcheted up my annoyance that much further.

  I moved back into the hallway where I could see into the living room. “The door will be locked, so don’t get any ideas.”

  That made Evan fold in on himself, which filled me with a dark satisfaction. Yeah, it was petty, and I was being a shit, but hell, if Evan’s actions could be explained away with mitigating circumstances, so could mine. I retreated to the master suite and the soaker tub Hudson had pointed out, which proved every bit as soothing as I’d hoped.

  The last of the wine helped too.

  I didn’t get out until my skin was pruny and all of my muscles were about the consistency of melted butter. Crawling into bed sounded amazing, but as I opened the bathroom door I noted how silent the house seemed. I couldn’t hear the TV or any movement.

  With a groan, I pulled my abandoned sweats back on, unwilling to investigate the house wearing nothing more than a towel. A few steps down the hall confirmed that the TV was indeed off, and Evan was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t in the kitchen, or the dining room, and not in the second bedroom on this floor or Hudson’s study. That left the downstairs bedroom. I ran into the basement, the first tendrils of panic edging through me. I didn’t even knock, but typed in the code and slammed the door open.

  Empty.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Okay... I could be panicking for nothing. It was probably fine. Maybe he’d needed to stretch his legs. Vampires still had to exercise, right? I’d call Hudson and ask. Simple.

  Except—fuck, my phone.

  A quick circuit of Hudson’s house confirmed he didn’t have a landline. And Evan’s phone was, presumably, with Evan.

  Okay—okay, Wes, think.

  I could try to find a payphone to call Hudson...assuming there was even a phone booth around. Trying to track one down would waste time if Evan was in trouble and not out for a walk. I could go to one of the neighbors’ places and ask to use their phone? Except it was well after midnight. Knocking on their door at this hour would freak them out and draw attention to Hudson, which he didn’t need.

  I could go to bed and pretend I hadn’t noticed. Evan was an adult. He could make his own choices.

  Except my last words to him had insinuated he was a monster, hadn’t they? What if that was what prompted him to leave?

  God, I was an idiot. Of course that was what prompted him to leave. It had been clear from the moment I saw Evan tonight that he wasn’t in the best of headspaces, and then I threw that dig at him?

  “Such an asshole,” I muttered to myself.

  There was only one solution. I had to haunt Evan, and maybe I’d catch up to him before he did something monumentally stupid. If I could haunt him. I’d only known him for a short period of time, so there was no guarantee I’d be able to find him. But if I didn’t try, and something happened...

  I closed my eyes and focused on the one thing that stood out to me about him—his sorrow. I didn’t think the emotion originated in his sudden transformation, since Hudson had said Evan wasn’t overwhelmed by the whole vampire thing. Something must have happened to him before he’d encountered Hudson that damaged him, and sometimes that kind of darkness lanced so deep it would never leave. Things would heal around it, hiding it, but it would never truly be gone.

  Something I knew from experience.

  I inhaled and pushed—harder than I’d had to do with Hudson, because I didn’t know Evan. The otherplane opened, welcomed me, transported me—and I stepped into an alley that looked a lot like the one where Hudson bit Evan. Dim, dank, horrible, with the bass beat of the club barely contained behind a closed, nondescript metal door.

  And with its own vampire-prey combo.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Fatigue slammed into me and I staggered, and the sound of my stockinged feet skittering against the gritty pavement drew Evan’s attention. His eyes glowed in the darkness, and his fangs had fully descended, which made me realize how not descended they’d been earlier. The man he had pressed up against the brick wall writhed against him, lost to the erection trying to burst out of his way-too-tight jeans, and maybe something else. Something pharmaceutical? He definitely seemed to be in a different world from the rest of us.

  “Go away,” Evan growled, and it was a growl—more animal than human.

  I held my hands out to my sides. “Just want to talk,” I said, careful not to use Evan’s name. No matter how far gone the guy Evan had pinned might be, I didn’t want to risk a name getting lodged in his memory.

  “Talk,” Evan scoffed. “Now you want to talk? After you spent all night looking at me like I was a—like I was—”

  “It was shitty of me.”

  Evan laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “No it wasn’t. Look at me. You were absolutely right to be afraid.” He slid the pad of one of his thumbs against his fang, drawing blood, then sucked the digit into his mouth.

  He turned his attention back to his prey, who was looking at him with wide black eyes, pupils blown. The guy moaned, tilting his head back against the wall. Evan focused on the long, bared neck, and his mouth opened slightly, as though he were about to start drooling.

  “Wait—”

  He bit.

  Fuck. Oh fuck. It was like the night with Hudson again. I darted forward, but I knew I couldn’t pull Evan off, not unless I wanted his prey to suffer the same fate he had. And if that happened—

  I was pretty sure that whatever was left of Evan Fournier would be long gone then.

  He took no more than a couple of drags before disengaging, licking the wounds, and spitting the blood out to the side. He stumbled back. The guy crumpled against the wall, and I rushed forward to check on him. The bite marks on his neck had stopped bleeding and looked like enthusiastic hickeys. He blinked bleary eyes at me, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t actually seeing anything.

  “So fuckin’ good,” he moaned.

  Right. Awesome.

  Evan crawled to the other side of the alley a
nd sat with his back against the wall. From the defeated look on his face, I didn’t think he was moving anytime soon.

  I hooked the guy’s arm over my neck and lifted him to his feet. It wasn’t easy—particularly since the haunting had already drained what was left of my strength from my shit-tastic day—but I managed to get him back inside the club. It didn’t take much to get the attention of a bouncer and hand the guy over to him with a vague explanation that I’d found him out back. Then I stepped into the otherplane, through the back wall, and emerged in the alley next to Evan.

  “Let’s go,” I said, appearing beside him.

  He didn’t startle, but he did look up at me with a puzzled expression. “What the fuck are you?”

  “Long story.” I grabbed his arm and yanked him up. Luckily, he worked with me and even though he stumbled, he managed to keep his feet under him. “Can you walk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then c’mon.”

  I started off toward the mouth of the alley and got no more than a few steps ahead before Evan jogged to catch up to me. Once I reached the street, I picked a direction at random and started walking.

  We’d gone about two blocks when Evan said quietly, “It didn’t even taste good.”

  “What, the blood?”

  “Hudson keeps telling me I’ll get used to it, but...” He wrinkled his nose. “Not so much.”

  “No?”

  “It’s like having unsweetened shredded wheat without any milk.”

  “Gross.”

  “Right?” He sighed. “I thought maybe a live human donor would—But no. It wasn’t any better.”

  “You, uh—you didn’t seem to have any problem with mine.” I cast a glance at him out of the corner of my eye and wondered if this was the issue Hudson had hinted at. Had my magic-filled blood spoiled Evan for regular blood?

  “No, yours was awesome. Like chocolate cake and rum and sprinkles and cinnamon sugar all rolled into one.”

  I was going to count that as a yes, he was spoiled. Shit.

  He took a deep breath. “But I was wrong to have attacked you. I’m—I’m so sorry about that. Hudson understood and he said you did too, but I should have said that earlier.”

  Well, there was my apology. And didn’t it make me feel like crap. Here was this kid who’d had his life turned upside down—largely because of me—and clearly had preexisting issues muddying up his brain. And what do I do? Rub his nose in it.

  “I’m an asshole,” I told him.

  “No, I—”

  I held up a hand, and noticing we were right near a small park, led him over to a bench. I sat down and felt more than a little pleased when he sat beside me.

  “I’m an asshole,” I said again, turning and bending one leg so I faced him. I brushed gravel and dirt off the bottom of my sock. “I shouldn’t have said what I did tonight. Or watch you like I did.”

  “You had every right—”

  “What, to kick you when you were down?” I grimaced. “No, I didn’t. No one does.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.”

  He braced his elbow on the back of the bench and leaned his temple into his hand. It was a defeated, tired posture, and it made him look achingly young and incredibly old all at the same time. “You didn’t have to come looking for me.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “I wasn’t going to hurt that guy. Er—well, I didn’t intend to hurt him. I was going to have one taste of a live donor, and then...” His eyes slid away from mine. “Then I was going to watch the sun come up.”

  I stilled.

  “Hudson told me the sun doesn’t make us burn up, but young vampires don’t have the tolerance for any UV light. It puts our system into shock and...” He shrugged. “Originally I was going to step in front of a train, but I’m not sure that would work anymore.”

  “Evan,” I breathed.

  “Kind of ironic that Hudson picked me that night,” he said quietly. “Of all the guys in that club, I was probably the only one celebrating my last night. What was supposed to be my last night.” He smiled but it was a sad, empty expression. “Drink a lot, fuck as many guys as I could, and then when the sun came up, jump in front of a train.”

  Bile burned my throat and my voice cracked. “Why?”

  “Have you noticed I haven’t called anyone? Or that there’s been nothing about my disappearance on the news?”

  I hadn’t, but I assumed he’d called someone while I wasn’t around.

  “Because there’s no one to call. No one to report me missing. No one to miss me, no one to wonder where I went, nothing. No one to give a single shit about me.”

  “I do. Hudson does.”

  “No, you don’t. Hudson’s taking care of me because he’s obligated to keep people safe. And he feels guilty as fuck for what happened—I can see it in his eyes whenever he looks at me.”

  I winced, because he wasn’t wrong.

  “You’re here because Hudson asked you to be. Don’t try to front that either of you actually cares.”

  Hearing my motivation laid out so bare—I won’t lie, it hurt because it was accurate. Up until now, I hadn’t given much thought to Evan as a person, and yeah, that made me a shitty human—or whatever. He’d been Vamp Junior, a thing, a creature who existed because of a mistake—my mistake, Hudson’s mistake—and all I wanted to do was pretend he wasn’t real. Despite everything I’d said to Hudson about making things better, deep down I hadn’t really bought into my own words. Or considered that Evan was a breathing and, yes, living being who needed to feel connected to the world.

  He needed a friend. Someone to listen.

  And I needed to grow the fuck up.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “But I’m here now, and I’ll listen to every word you want to say.”

  He looked at me, and then away, and I thought my offer was too little, too late. But his shoulders slumped and he brought his legs up on the bench, and started to talk.

  It was like listening to someone narrating a story that could have been in an anthology next to mine. Not exactly the same, but with enough similarity between the themes to make me shiver.

  Evan was from a small town in the British Columbia interior. He had what sounded like an idyllic childhood. He’d spent his summers hanging out with his best friend, Donovan, and when they hit puberty, their friendship changed. They shared their first kiss and their first fumbling forays into sex. As Evan spoke, it was clear how deeply his feelings for Donovan ran—for the first time, I heard brightness in his voice, which made me realize what a truly darkened version of Evan we knew.

  Donovan and Evan both got accepted to the University of Toronto, the perfect escape from their small town. Evan’s parents weren’t happy about it, and during an argument, Evan impulsively told them he was gay.

  They kicked him out.

  Been there, done that. My heart ached for him.

  But Evan and Donovan left that all behind. Their first year in Toronto was good—they had a decent apartment off-campus, classes were enjoyable, they made friends, and they settled into big city life easier than Evan thought they would.

  Then Evan got word that his dad died.

  He used the money that was supposed to pay for his next semester to get back to BC. But it was a fruitless gesture—none of his family, including his mom, acknowledged him. When he returned to Toronto a short time later, the shine and sparkle had worn off. He dropped out of school and found a shitty job. He didn’t want to go out, so Donovan started going out without him. Slowly but surely, Evan’s world diminished.

  Depression was an asshole.

  The kicker came two months ago, when he was laid off, went home early, and found another guy in the apartment he shared with Donovan. Evan wiped at his cheeks with the heel of his palm. “Turns out Donovan ha
d been fucking other guys for about a year.” He sniffled loudly. “I had given him so much and all he had to say when I confronted him was that I’d stopped being fun.”

  So Evan left. He couch-surfed for a bit, but he hated imposing on his friends, and nothing seemed to be improving. That’s when he came up with his plan. One last night of out-of-character debauchery and he’d end it.

  I grabbed his shoulder. Hard. “No. That’s not how this is going to go.”

  He rolled his shoulder, trying to dislodge my hand, but I refused to release him. “You don’t get a say in—”

  “Yeah, I do, because I’m now your goddamned best friend. Got it? You and I are going to be fucking attached at the hip from now on.”

  Evan stopped struggling. “You don’t have to sound so angry about it.”

  “I’m not angry about it. Or you. I’m angry at the world.” I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “I’m angry that this shit still happens.”

  “Can’t change the world,” Evan said.

  “No, but sometimes I scream at it. Makes me feel better.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Not here, though,” I said, eying the houses bordering the park. “I don’t want to have to explain to Hudson why we were arrested.”

  Evan followed my gaze, then looked back at me, mischief in his eyes. “Hudson’s bedroom is soundproof.”

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  We screamed until our throats were raw. We screamed until our voices were nothing more than croaks, and all that would come out after that was laughter at our shared ridiculousness.

  To think the world could have lost this kid.

  We collapsed side by side on top of the duvet and when I felt Evan’s hand reach for mine, I didn’t pull away. There was absolutely nothing sexual between us—Evan didn’t seem interested in me that way, which I was thankful for. I didn’t need that added complication. It was bad enough dealing with my attraction to Hudson. I was so totally not used to feeling like that about anyone.