“If he’s going to be late, I’m going to murder him,” Marcus says as he swirls the blood around in his glass so hard that it spills out the side. We’re currently waiting at a restaurant Claude told us to meet at to discuss details.
Marcus asked him to meet with all of us, but Claude said he’d only meet with Marcus first to discuss matters. After his reaction to me last time, I have my doubts he’ll care if I show up.
“And… he’s late. Death will come to him,” Marcus decides.
“Now, I know Aria and I get along amazingly well, but please, tell me how we could get to the level of togetherness you two have!” I say while keeping every ounce of sarcasm out of my voice.
“First you look at their face and let it fill you with regret and disgust.”
“Should I be taking notes?” I ask.
“Then, when they try to murder you, you murder them back harder.”
“Awesome. How do you know which person should do the murdering first?” I ask like I’m genuinely interested.
“Always be the first. It’s less work,” he says. “My phone isn’t connecting in here; I’m going to step outside and call him… is that okay?”
I wave at the vampires surrounding me. “Yes, I think I’m pretty safe.”
“Good,” he says as he sets his untouched glass back down before heading toward the door. It isn’t ten seconds after he slips out the door that a new body fills his seat.
“Well hello, gorgeous,” Claude says. He’s wearing the gaudiest suit I’ve ever seen. Huge lavender flowers cover the entire thing.
“Ew,” I say.
His eyes narrow. “For some reason, I happen to feel like you’re playing hard to get and it’s adorable. What are you doing here?”
His phone starts ringing, so he pulls it out before looking at it. I notice it says “The Dumb One” before he ends the call and sets it to the side.
“You should probably take that,” I say.
“Ah, he can wait. I have prettier things to do… like you.”
I was stupidly taking a sip of my water when he said that, which instantly makes me gag and choke at the same time, so I end up choking up water right onto his godawful suit. “Please don’t ever say anything that disgusting again. I nearly died!”
His eyes narrow as he gives me an annoyed look. “This hard-to-get stuff isn’t very cute.”
“Good. I like being ugly.”
He grabs Marcus’s napkin and pats at his shirt like I actually doused it in water instead of coughing just a few sprinkles on him. He tosses the napkin to the side before leaning on his elbows and smiling at me. “So please tell me. What are you doing with my—”
I think he was going to say brother, but I’ll never know because Marcus wraps his hands around Claude’s throat and begins to squeeze. In the human world, this would be called murder, but seeing as they’re vampires, it’s just a bit of good ol’ family fun before dinner!
Claude smacks at him and I’m not sure Marcus is planning on relenting until I say, “He’s here to help us.”
“Shit. I forgot. Just seeing him try to flirt with you made me want to show him what death tasted like,” Marcus says as he gives one more good squeeze before letting go.
Then he comes around to my side of the table and sits down beside me before pulling me so close, I’m nearly on his lap.
Claude is silent for a moment, his eyes flicking from me… to Marcus… back to me. “No…”
“Don’t even look at him or I’ll pluck those unworthy eyes from their sockets,” Marcus growls.
Claude’s eyes get huge. “No! No, no, no… my little brother… has a human for a lover! Oh, my gods above! Marcus, you didn’t! Remember how you’d walk around and call me insane for fraternizing with humans? You’d be all ‘You’re so fucking stupid even looking at a human. Do you understand how inferior they are?’”
I raise an eyebrow as I look at Marcus. “Inferior?”
“Don’t listen to his irritating prattle. Who do you trust more? Me or this waste of space?”
I really want to remind him how he treated me when we first met, but I also have to be the good boy, so I just smile and say, “You, my sweet love.” Which, in retrospect, comes out sounding horribly sarcastic, enough that it made Claude cackle.
“Oh, how delightful! Now more than ever I can assure you, Finnigan, that I could make your wildest dreams come true. I’m much superior to my brother,” Claude says as he reaches out and draws a heart on my hand with his finger.
While looking him in the eyes, I pull out hand sanitizer and scrub it off.
Claude never stops smiling. “I see you picked a nasty little thing as a partner, brother. You must like him because his brain doesn’t work properly. So… what did you call me here for?”
Marcus stares at him for a ridiculously long time. So long that even I start getting uncomfortable. “I can’t say it,” he eventually decides on. “It hurts me to even say it.”
“Oh! Do you need my help? How sad for you. What do you need help with? Showing your lover how good sex can truly feel?”
“Finn, I tried, but I have to murder him.”
I pat his leg. “You know how when something’s right there, and you could go for it but you hold off just a little and then when you finally grab it, it’s that much better?” I ask.
“Ah… so you think holding off a little, contemplating it more will make his death more gruesome and therefore more fun?”
“Not exactly but yes!”
“Are you… comparing my life and death to edging?” Claude asks. “I’m strangely even more turned on right now, you sly yet sexy creature.”
“Never mind. Murder him,” I decide.
Marcus sighs. “Claude, I’m going to push aside our differences and that one memory I have of you trying to murder me, because I need your expertise.”
“Hmm… alright, I’ll listen,” he says, annoyingly handsome face wearing an annoyingly handsome smile.
“There’s a vampire who’s after Finn and we need to figure out who he is before he kills us,” Marcus says.
“Us? Marcus, you’ve rarely been bested in a fight. Yet… you’re worried about a vampire? While we are twins, I received the charisma and good looks and you received the brute-like strength and easy-to-anger attitude.”
Marcus ignores that. “I think he’s older than us… all of us.”
Claude sits up straight, toying grin gone from his face as he seems to comprehend the words. “Someone who is older than the true vampires?”
“Yes, I know it’s… ludicrous—”
He shakes his head. “But it’s not, dear brother.” He turns to me and explains, “I’ve been researching the origin of true vampires for years. It started off as a way of me trying to figure out if Marcus and I were truly related, back before things like DNA testing, and then became a rather fond obsession of mine. So someone older… an elder vampire. Oh, why didn’t you say so sooner? I have so much stuff to share, I would have brought it.”
“I tried, remember? And you kept doing that annoying thing you do where you continually interrupt me just so you can refuse to listen?” Marcus asks. “Get what you can and meet us as the VRC department tomorrow.”
“Wonderful. Is that cute feisty one going to be there?” he asks.
“Feisty?” Marcus asks in confusion.
“Karsyn,” I explain. “You’d better watch your back because if you think Marcus is vicious, Karsyn’s even worse.”
Claude looks delighted. “I do love a challenge.”
Chapter Fifteen
FINN
“You promise you’re doing alright?” Marcus asks. It has to be the tenth time he’s asked in the past hour, but I know he’s just trying to show me he cares, especially after how I acted earlier today when I saw the body.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I assure him as I pull the covers back. Since it was clear that we weren’t moving back into our own house for a while, Marcus stopped at our house and got more
of our stuff, making the room feel more and more like home.
I can’t say that I dislike it. While I do prefer being at Marcus’s home, this place gives me an odd sense of security. I guess because when we moved into this house after the accident, it became my refuge. It’s where I hid from the world and where I was surrounded by people who loved and cared for me. Having Marcus and the dogs here is just an added bonus.
Speaking of dogs, Artie has already taken over the entire bed, body sprawled out, making me miss our king-sized bed. And then there’s Hela, jumping as high as her tiny legs can lift her in an attempt to make it onto the bed. Currently, she’s failing by about four inches.
“Please talk to me if you’re not,” Marcus says.
I look over at him and give him a smile. “I will. Your brother is also fine with a capital F.”
That worrying crease to his forehead instantly irons out as his expression shifts to one of annoyance.
“No.”
I knew that would fix him. “No?”
“Don’t speak about my brother unless his name is surrounded by words like decapitation, maiming, murder, or rat infestation.”
“Rat… infestation?”
“He’s scared of rats.”
“That’s very good to know. I might stop by the pet store and grab one for Karsyn and me. It’ll be like our very own chastity belt.”
Marcus snorts. “You’ll come in with them strapped all over your chest like those infant swaddle things. I feel like it might stem from the time he fell through the floor of this place and into a basement filled with them. I guess he couldn’t get out without help. It’s not my fault I forgot about him.”
“Isn’t he a vampire? Couldn’t he just… flutter out?”
“It was a pretty far fall and he was like seven.”
“And you didn’t notice your brother was missing for…?”
“Two days.”
“You might be horrible! You weren’t like, huh, my brother should probably be home about now?”
“Maybe a little. But we’d take turns going out to find food and sometimes it took longer than we thought to get back.”
“Huh… sounds like you two butted heads since the beginning,” I say as I hit the lights before wandering over to the bed in the dark. Marcus turns on the bedside table lamp before I can strip and get under the covers like the evil man he is.
“Yes and no. We were close… we were the only thing we had. Our parents rejected us as soon as they figured out we were ‘unnatural.’ They wanted to kill us, but we managed to escape and survive merely by the fact that we weren’t as easy to kill. They claimed demons had taken us over.” He looks over at me. “I loved my brother dearly growing up. It was us against the world. Us against everything because we were monsters in a world that’d never seen a monster before.”
“I’m sorry. That had to be horrible,” I say as I pull my clothes off.
I still hesitate before taking my leg off when the light is on. I know he can probably see me just as well or even better when the lights are off, but if it’s dark, I can’t tell if he’s looking at me and I can pretend he’s not.
“Thanks. But we survived. It was many years ago. Then he turned into a pretentious annoyance. Like a mosquito or a…”
“Vampire?” I helpfully suggest as I set my fake leg in its spot by the side of the bed. Then I remove my arm and set it in its spot before trying to slide under the covers. I can’t because there’s a giant creature on the bed taking up the entire spot left for me. Artie had dived under the covers when Marcus lifted them, even though the room is certainly not cold.
“Not vampire,” Marcus says, sounding offended I’d suggest such a thing.
“I can’t fit on the bed.”
“Just lie on top of him,” Marcus says as he tugs me toward him.
I let him pull me over the top of Artie who seems to think that this is an ideal situation. “Where’s Hela?”
“On my head,” he grumbles.
I reach up to his pillow and feel Hela snuggled right up against his head. So there I am, squished between Artie and Marcus, and even though I generally can’t sleep very well with no room to move, tonight it feels welcoming.
“Your father has already hovered around the room twice. I’m not sure he even sleeps anymore,” Marcus says.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been safer,” I tease as Artie takes that moment to stretch by putting his foot right against my back and shoving me into Marcus. “Never mind! You guys are abusive!”
“We are? Artemus can sleep on the floor. I brought his bed!”
“How dare you?” I hiss before reaching over to Artie and scratching under his chin even though he’s currently trying to deskin me with his rough paws. “It’s okay, Artie, I’d make him sleep on the floor before you.”
“Really? You’d fit better.”
I glare at him. “Nope,” I say as I snuggle up against Marcus. When we first started sleeping together, I made him switch sides on the bed so when I’m on my side, I can wrap my arm around him, but it pushes my weight into my other arm.
I know if Marcus figured that out, he’d break his neck to make me switch sides, but right now, I want to pull myself into Marcus, I want to hold him to me and squeeze him tightly because I’m not sure I’m as all right as I’m pretending to be. I knew he was back. I knew he was coming for me, but now… now for him to have gone to this much work just because of me. And what’s his obsession with me? Why am I alive today? Why wasn’t I one of the ones the police found? Why wasn’t it my body the medical examiner was picking apart?
Marcus reaches out and pushes my hair back before cupping my cheeks. “It’ll be okay,” he says, voice gentle and sweet.
I nod. “Thank you.”
“How about I tell you more about my brother?”
“I’d love that.”
So I listen to a story about his brother trying to steal a chicken and somehow, Marcus’s dry humor makes the whole situation ridiculous and hilarious, enough that I manage to push all those other thoughts back and focus on him and only him.
Just the way I wish it could always be.
As I walk through the doors leading out to freedom, my classmates and friends crowd around me. They’re talking about plans for the weekend, and I keep telling them that I already have some friends who asked me to do something because I don’t want to tell them I’m more interested in going with Orin and my sister to the theater than a party thrown by the seniors. I try to blame it on them having gotten sick of their parents sometime during the last sixteen years while I was still just trying mine out.
A car pulls up and honks before the front door opens and a woman jumps out. She runs toward us with a huge smile on her face, arms held wide open, and I immediately stop. I try to back up, but I slam into my crowd of friends who seem to be inadvertently blocking me in.
“Finnigan!” she says as she grabs me in an unwanted hug and pulls me to her as I stare at her.
This can’t be real. Why the hell is she here?
“Oh, my little Finnigan, you’ve grown up so much! How’d you get so big?”
I want to tell her she’d have seen me grow up if she was there for me, but I realize that I’m glad she wasn’t. I want nothing to do with her.
“Why are you here?” I ask, voice clearly showing my irritation as if the way I was refusing to hug her back didn’t already show it.
“I’m going to drive you home today,” she says.
There’s no way in hell Orin would let her waltz back into my life and just “drive me home,” so I start to pull back.
Instead of letting me go, she presses her mouth up next to my ear as her nails dig into my back. “If you do not get in the car with me and let me drive you home, then I will make a fucking fuss. I’m out of jail, I’m clean, and I can fight to get you back. It’s really unhealthy for a young child such as yourself to be raised by a vicious vampire. I did some digging and I know Orin isn’t fit to raise you.”
My body stiffens. I would rather die than go back with her. I’d give up everything to stay with Orin where I feel like I belong. Where I feel like I’m loved. Where someone cares for me and doesn’t abuse me.
“Fine. You’re just driving me home, right?”
She smiles then, glad to have gotten her way. “Right!”
“Okay, let me tell my girlfriend bye,” I say, lying through my teeth.
“Aw! I’d love to meet your girlfriend!”
I turn to one of my best friends, a girl who fully understands that I’m gay and am definitely not her boyfriend, but she’s smart enough that she plays along. So when I go in for a hug, I say, “Please call Orin for me and tell him that my mother picked me up.”
She nods. “Is it okay?” she asks, seemingly worried. Funny, when she has no idea why or how much she should be worried.
“Yeah, see you Monday,” I say as I give her cheek a kiss and pull away before following my mother back to her car. I have no idea if she actually does have something against Orin, but if all she needs is to tell me something or bitch at me about something, then I’ll take it. Especially if it means I can go back to Orin and Aria.
I get into the car that smells like smoke, throwing me back to my childhood, and I hate it. But I’m older now. I’m old enough that I could fight her.
She smiles at me before she pulls out and heads down the road. “How’s my baby girl?”
“Who?” I ask obstinately.
“Aria, of course.”
“Ah, I didn’t know you knew she existed.”
Her plastered-on smile begins to fall. “That’s because you constantly hid her from me like she was your child instead of mine.”
“Maybe because I didn’t want her abused like you did to me.”
“I didn’t… abuse you.”
Clearly, we have different definitions of the word.
I take a deep breath. We just have to make it through this. I just have to choke my way through it.
How to Elude a Vampire (VRC: Vampire Related Crimes Book 2) Page 14