by A. M. Hudson
“I should’ve protected you. It was my job, Ara.” Mike looked at David for a second. “They…they say you have the same mark on your neck as that kid who died—Nathan?”
What? He died from a vampire bite?
David nodded.
A vampire? Not you, David? You didn’t do it, did you?
He closed his eyes. Mike studied the both of us, no clue we were exchanging our own private words. I looked away from Mike, and my wide eyes studied every inch of David’s face. There was no way David killed Nathan. I couldn’t believe that. I wouldn’t believe it.
David looked up, his warm eyes softening as he opened them and muttered, “Thank you,” under his breath.
“They just can’t understand why—if it was the same guy—why Nathan didn’t report an attack,” Mike said. “Ara, you shouldn’t be alive right now. Your attacker was carrying some rare tropical disease. You died!”
“I died?”
“Yes. They pronounced you brain-dead. You flat-lined, they took out the breathing tube and your heart stopped. But then, the monitor—” he looked at the small screen behind me, “—it started beeping again. You kept going. Somehow, you found a way.”
The memory of the darkness filled my mind; the air became thick and hard to inhale, closing me in, the dry smell of dirt choking me. I looked down at my hand. “My ring?”
“It’s here.” Mike pulled it from his pocket and held it up; it looked so small and fragile in his broad, strong fingers.
“I thought I’d lost it. All this time, in the darkness, I thought I’d lost it.” My voice quivered as the reality of being alive set in.
David closed his eyes and looked away when Mike slipped the ring back onto my finger. I had no time to stop him—it just happened, and the hurt on David’s face tore my heart as it dropped into my stomach.
“They wouldn’t let you keep it on,” Mike said softly. “But I kept it close to me every day.”
Like a habit that had been formed over years, I twisted the ring around on my finger and studied the shimmering red of the ruby, regretting having asked Mike about it. “Where’s Vicki? My Dad?”
“They went for coffee,” Mike said. “They stayed for a while, but your dad needed a break—he’s not doing so well.”
“Can you call them?” I asked Mike, but looked at David quickly. I need him to go, David—I need to talk to you.
“Sure.” Mike nodded. “Sure, kid. I’ll be right back. David, man?”
David snapped out of his stiff-lipped stare. “Yeah.”
“Don’t let her go, okay?”
He nodded and took my hand, crushing the ring against my finger as he squeezed it. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her for you.”
Mike paused a second, ignoring the resentment we all heard in David’s tone, then, with his phone in hand, closed the door, and I turned to David, trying to stop my lip from quivering.
“I know,” he said. “I know where you’ve been. I tried to bring you back, but I just couldn’t reach you.”
“Why? Why did he do that to me?”
David’s face crumpled, but he stiffened immediately and held straight. “He wanted to hurt me.”
“Why?”
“Do you not remember what he showed you?”
Rochelle?
He looked away. “He’s never forgiven me. I thought we’d moved past it. But he was just biding his time until I fell in love.”
“But, that was fifty years ago, wasn’t it?”
David nodded, stroking my cheek with the back of his finger. “I’m sorry, Ara. There are no words…” He shook his head. “No words I can offer you to make this all right.”
I grabbed his hand and held it to my cheek. “It’s okay. You’re here. That’s all that matters.”
“No. What matters is that you’re alive, and that this will never, ever happen to you again.”
“So…he won't…I mean, he won’t come back for me?”
David shook his head, seeming to detain the words that might’ve accompanied the action.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because he left you alive, Ara. For what reason, I do not know, but the fact that you’re still here—that he gave you the chance to survive, and that he didn't kill Mike when he found you—”
“What? Jason was there when Mike found me?” I pushed myself up to sit.
David nodded, pressing my chest until I laid back down.
“How do you know?”
“I saw it all.” He rolled his chin toward his chest.
I looked away, going numb all over. “He told me he was going to make you watch.” I hoped he wouldn’t.
“It wasn’t like that, Ara. He wouldn’t show me.” His fists clenched. “I all but ripped it from his mind. When I saw you here, saw the tearing on your throat—I knew. There is only one person in this world who would do that to a girl everyone knew belonged to me.” He took off across the room, stopping by the window, with the daylight reminding us both that the real world still existed out there. “I went straight to him—forced him to show me. Only…I wish I hadn’t.”
“I’m sorry, David. I should never have went with—”
“No, Ara.” He appeared beside me, taking my hand. “None of this is your fault. None of it. I left you. I did this. Not you. You should hate me.”
That’s not possible, David. It’s not your fault—Jason did this, no one else.
He sniffed once, staying silent for a while, looking down at my ruby ring. “I will never understand why he didn’t finish what he started—but I am eternally grateful that he didn’t.”
“The darkness? He wanted me to be lost down there,” I concluded.
“No.” David shook his head. “No. He said something—as he left you. Something that just didn’t fit.”
“What did he say?” My brow creased; it felt so weird to use those muscles again.
“He kissed you on the cheek and touched your hair, but he did it so gently.” David absentmindedly copied the action of his brother. “He touched you the way I would. Then he said, You don’t know how special you are. I can break your body, but I’ll never break this.” David placed his hand over my heart. I looked up from my chest and into the confusion on his face. “It just doesn’t make any sense. I know him; I know what he’s capable of. Whatever changed his mind, you don’t know how lucky you are—how lucky Mike is. Ara, he was going to—” He closed his eyes.
An involuntary shudder edged up my spine. We both breathed heavily in the silence for a second.
“But he bit me. Why didn’t I change?”
David drew a long breath, masking the shaking in his chest. “I’m sorry, Ara. You—”
“I don’t have the gene?” Hot tears filled my eyes again. I felt myself being pulled backward—like I’d stayed put in the crowded lounge of an airport and watched myself leave. David looked away. “But, I…I changed my mind.”
“I know.” David nodded. “You just—it’s just not in your blood, Ara.”
My whole body stilled, my eyes closing tightly around hot liquid. “I don’t want to die anymore, David. I can’t be without you again.”
“I know. I know, my love.” He stroked my hair, holding my face to his chest, but there was nothing he could say. “You can never be a vampire, Ara. The promise of eternity was never mine to give.”
The emptiness of stolen dreams consumed me, and something died within my soul; all hope fell away to the darkness of my nightmares—like a rose, falling through eternity to a marbled ground of nowhere—laying lifeless and spoiled with a single drop of crimson on her pretty, white petal. The only colour she would ever see again.
David rested his forehead to mine and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.
“How can that be?” My words touched his lips in a breath. “How can it be over now that I’ve made up my mind?”
His jaw tightened. “Sometimes, Ara, life is cruel.”
“I can’t do this, David. I feel like I’ve lost a part
of myself that I’ll never get back—this can’t be the end.”
“You’re marrying him,” David’s voice quavered as he nodded toward the hall—to where Mike went to call my dad. “That’s as concluded as things get.”
“But you told me to. You wanted me to.”
David’s fingers tightened around my face. “I’m no saint, Ara. I want what’s best for you, but at the same time…” He let out a heavy breath. “I couldn’t care less if being with me meant the end of your future.”
“Then don’t let me go.” Hope filled my voice. “Stay with me. Run away with me, I’ll—”
“Ara? I can’t. You know I can’t. I have things I need to deal with—things I must return and take care of, and running away—” he looked down at my face, “—it’s not the answer, my love. Life is the answer, even if loneliness is the outcome.” I went to protest, but David shook his head and pressed his thumbs firmly into my cheekbones, gently pressuring me to silence. “You will have a good life with him. I know now that I’m leaving you in good hands.”
We both looked to the hall—to Mike, to my best friend and fiancé, practically bouncing around the corridor, smiling with more joy radiating from his heart than I had ever seen. When I looked back at David, he was already looking at me; his lips twitching as if words rested there—maybe words I wanted to hear him say.
“I don’t want to have a life anymore. I want to be with you.”
“I know,” he said sympathetically, like an adult telling a child her mother was dead.
“Don’t do that. Don’t speak to me with such finality.”
“I—”
“Please. I had a lot of time to think in the darkness, David, and none of it matters to me now.” I sniffled, wiping the liquid from my nose. “Love. True love—that’s all that matters.”
David shook his head. “You can never be immortal, Ara. I sat here, by your side, all this time, and I watched you die. I was helpless, unable to save you—forced to let you fade away a little more every day,” his voice broke to a whisper. “You disappeared into nothing, until every trace of what made you mine, what made you real—was gone.”
“But I’m still here. David, I—”
“It doesn’t change things.” A tight crease pulled his brow at the centre. “Look, I know I said once that I will always hope you would one day change your mind, but that hope no longer exists. It’s been ripped away by reality, Ara. I will not stay with you as a mortal—I have to leave.”
“Why? Am I so repulsive that you can’t love me with a heartbeat?”
David stood back and looked down at his clenched fist. “You know it has nothing to do with lo—”
“Then what is it?” I almost screamed. I could feel my face burning with heat. “Why won’t you just love me enough to think I’m the only thing that matters? I know I messed up. I know I’m moody and spoiled and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t let you take me away, I’m sorry I went with Jason, and what you’re doing to me now, David, is making me goddamn well sorry I ever fell in lo—”
“Ara!” He held a finger up, tilting his head awkwardly away as if he were fighting a deep, instinctual urge within him—what it was, I couldn’t tell. “Don’t say what you’re about to say. If you say it, it’s been said, and you won’t be able to take it back.”
I held onto the urge to yell at him, to scream at him, but I could only hold it so long; it burst out in a singular cry. I folded my face into my hand. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate—”
“Ara, Ara, stop.” He gathered me in his arms. “Ara, please, please don’t do this, my love.”
“No. You stop it. Don’t you call me that. You can’t call me that and then leave me.” I grabbed his shirt and looked deep into his eyes, my tears stopping. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t leave. I’ll die if you leave, David. I’ll never be able to co—”
“You have to cope, Ara.” He unfolded my fingers from his shirt. “You’ve got no goddamn choice.”
“No. I do. This is love. This is life. I’m alive.” I tapped my chest. “I’m alive. We get a second chance, David. Don’t waste that.”
“I won’t.” He looked into me, and I could almost feel him reaching out to stroke my face, but though his eyes said he wanted to, his hands stayed by his sides. “I’m leaving you so you can live. A life with me—running, hiding, like dogs, Ara, would be a waste. I will walk out that door—” he pointed across the room, “—and you have the choice to either say goodbye to me now, or never have the chance again.”
It hurt so much—in my heart. I rolled my head back, letting my face crumple with the pain of his impassively conclusive words. “David. Please. You can't. I won’t live without you. I won’t, and you can’t make me.”
But he took another step away from me. “I’m sorry, Ara.”
My mouth dropped with the disbelief my heart suffered for each inch of space between us. The fight in me turned to fear, and I tried to move my legs—to get up and run after him, but they felt like jelly; I could barely even move my toes.
“David.” I reached out. “David. Don’t. Please. Don’t go.”
He looked away from me, his eyes scrunching tightly in the corners as he closed them.
“David, I love you. If I could take it all back, I would. Just, please. Please stay with me—please don’t leave me again. I want to be with you.”
“But you can’t be with me, Ara.” He appeared beside me, stroking his thumb over the release of tears down my cheek. “I left you with scars from my involvement in your life, and it’s time to put it right again. I love you too much to let you get hurt like that.” His voice trembled; he steadied it with a breath. “And I can never watch you die again. I swear—” he clutched a fist over his heart, “—as long as I walk this Earth, as long as I continue to move, I will have to believe that you are alive—that you still exist, or I will not survive this human life.”
“No.” I reached for him, just managing to grasp his shirt before he could pull away. “David, please—you’re making a mistake.”
Behind David, the door flung open and Mike’s smile dropped when he saw my face. “What have you done to her?” he growled, bounding toward me.
The tense energy tore away from the space between us as Mike pushed David aside. My outstretched hand gripped tighter, but my fingers slipped, and David backed away, one painful step at a time.
“Ara? What happened?” Mike asked, tucking my abandoned reach into my lap.
“No—” I pushed up from Mike’s embrace and searched the room for David; he hesitated by the door, holding it ajar as his gaze quickly averted once it met mine.
“I know this will be hard for you, Ara. Believe me, I will regret this decision for the rest of eternity,” his silky voice trembled. “But I cannot love you the way you are. I will only bring you pain.”
“David,” I whimpered. I’ll die without you. Can’t you feel that?
“Non, ma cherie. The sun will rise again in your world, but for me, it never will.”
“Then stay,” I whispered one last time.
He shook his head. “We were just a dream of mine, Ara…but even dreams eventually die.”
My eyes closed as the words he spoke touched my soul and broke my heart; when I looked up from Mike’s embrace, my David, my knight—was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Death, those of us who outrun it, can never escape it. It held me in its clutches long enough to steal my life, and though I could breathe and talk and was capable of human emotion on the outside, inside I was a cold, putrid corpse.
He left me—backed away, turned around and held his head high as he fled my life for eternity. No second chance, no discussion—just gone.
My body would heal, so they told me—it would take months of rigorous and painful physiotherapy, but it would, eventually, return to what it once was. But they were talking about my ability to walk to the bathroom by myself or breathe properly when sitting up. None of them knew wha
t torments I suffered inside. Even the psychiatrist in Vicki couldn’t tell.
“Ara?” She broke my reverie, knocking on my already open door.
I looked up from pretending to read my book. “Hm?”
“Um—” She shuffled her feet. “Emily’s on the phone.”
“Vicki!” I slammed the book down. “I told you. No phone calls. I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“But, Ara, honey, it’s been weeks—she just wants to see you’re all right.”
“Do I look all right? God, I can hardly even walk myself to the bathroom, I—”
“Yes, you can, you did it this morning, remember?” She grinned.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want visitors.”
“Are you sure, honey? It’ll only be a few mi—”
“I’m done arguing. I said no.”
“Okay. I’ll uh—I’ll tell her to call back another day.” Vicki nodded and closed the door.
I stared at the empty space for a moment, lip quivering, arms weighted with grief. I just couldn't do it. I just couldn’t let Em see me. I missed her so much. I missed school, missed normal life, but I was so goddamn ashamed. I didn’t even want to look at my own father, let alone my friends.
“Hey, ba—” I jumped, wiping hot tears from my cheeks, hurriedly grabbing my book as Mike swung my door open. “Ara? Baby, are you crying?”
“Nope.” I held the book to my chest as he sat beside me. “I’m good.”
“So, these are tears of hilarity?” He looked at the title.
“Yup. Funny scene.” I forced a smile.
Mike’s eyes narrowed, his head seeming to shake, though it held still. I knew he wasn’t born yesterday, but I also knew that with the prudence they all exercised with me lately, he wouldn’t push for the truth. The question was etching on his lips, though; he wanted to know why I cried if I didn’t remember much about the attack, and a part of him, I was sure, wondered if David had something to do with it.
He asked me once, if there was some reason David had become so upset when he saw the wound on my neck—more upset than anyone else. I simply told him it was because David loved me more than anyone else, and Mike accepted that answer, temporarily. But he’d eventually start piecing things together, I was sure of it.