You show me there’s still light,
You are the light,
And I want to walk with you…
In your light.
Not a single whisper from any of the hundreds of club-goers standing perfectly still in the darkness. I can’t see them anymore, because it’s just me and her and both our voices in perfect harmony. It hurts. It burns in a way I can’t describe except maybe like being stabbed in the gut and having my innards ripped out of me.
Bleeding out.
The way Elizabeth did. The way I should have, too, the night when Roman intervened and gave me eternity.
This song, Lore’s voice, the memories that Benicio—fucking Benicio—pulled out of me.
Let ’em go.
Eventually the song ends, the last few strains hanging in mid-air, a grand a due amoroso, a perfect a prima vista, an absolutely impeccable improvisato.
My mic hits the ground with a heavy thud that sends a sharp screech through the common. The world comes back, but nobody moves. Nobody so much as blinks, and I find myself stepping toward Lourdes with the sort of intent that I have no explanation for. She holds her ground, even when my hand wraps around her microphone, tugging it from her fingers and hurling it into the darkness. Then my hand seeks out hers, my fingers sliding into the spaces between her own.
“Come home with me.”
Her eyes search my face, looking for answers, but in the end she gives me the only thing I’m really looking for: a nod.
And a second chance.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lore
It’s exactly the way I remember it and so familiar it makes my heart ache. Afternoon sunlight slants through the windows. Dust motes dance through that radiance. I breathe in old paper and vinyl, cork grease, plastic and the softly-lingering presence of hundreds of other scents: perfume, cologne, cigarettes, shampoo, hair spray, and people.
Not just any people, but family. This place is my home away from home, and it has been since I was sixteen years old. I cut my teeth in the working world behind that pitted, wooden counter. Today, there’s a new cashier, younger than I was then, and only employed here to keep him from getting in trouble at home. He’s a good kid from a crap family.
I give him a cheerful wave as I pass by. “Hey, Joe.”
“Hey, Lo.” He smiles, blushes a bit, and ducks his head to take care of a customer.
There’s the jingle of the old-timey cash register. When I peek over my shoulder, Joe’s eyes follow me, his face drawn with concern because we’re play-acting at normal right now. We’re pretending that everything is okay. That he’s fine, that I’m fine, that everything is going to be all right.
We’re trying to get past the fact that I’ve been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for six months.
I turn away, because I can’t stand to see that look on his face. The look that wonders if I’m actually better or if he should hide the box-cutters. It’s an expression I’ve gotten pretty familiar with. Hell, I wasn’t even allowed to wear a bra until yesterday; a precaution, they said. Just in case.
I’m pretty sure all the precautions were for their peace of mind, not mine.
My feet eat up the space between the front door and the back rooms. The office door is open, and as I lean against the faded paint in the squared-off archway, I take a second to look at him. Really look at him. Like this place, he never changes. Brown hair, warm eyes, and a tall body that’s so lean, he still looks like a gangly teenager for all that his head is bowed, fingers working over an adding machine. I’ve known him forever, since we were kids together. The record store brought us closer; it was the thing that saved us both.
“Hey, Daniel.”
At the sound of my voice, he looks up, mouth ajar. Teeth click together a second later as he stands. With a pencil still gripped in one hand, he makes his way around the desk and toward me. “They let you out.”
“Yeah.” I give a slight nod and shove my hands in my pockets. “Apparently it was all about finding the right meds.”
And saying the right things.
“So, you’re better?” There’s doubt in his eyes, and tentative hope. “You can come home?”
Such a loaded question, and the shoe is on the other foot now. He’s looking at me the way he should have six months ago, when I was in the hospital on suicide watch, not eating or sleeping or even taking my medication. He’s staring at me with sweet longing, praying that he doesn’t have to fear for me anymore. He wants it all to go back to the way it was before. Before I disappeared. Before I came back. Before I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming, remembering in dreams the things I couldn’t recall while awake. He wants to pretend, and I could let him, I suppose. But the pretending only goes so far.
I will always love Daniel in some little way.
Love him, yes. Stay with him…
“No,” I tell him, reaching out to touch his face. “I’m not coming home.”
I had a lawyer deal with the paperwork for my half of the record store, turning my share over to Daniel so that I could walk away. I can’t do this, no matter how familiar the dust motes are. I can’t be with him, no matter how comforting his smile is. This place still rings with the sound of my screams, still echoes with the desperation in my soul. Worst of all is the wind chimes.
He seems to know without knowing. May have known all along. “Where are you going?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “I just came to say goodbye.”
Then he shakes his head. “What about the wedding? What about everything?”
It hurts, having him bring it up like that. “You would always wonder, Daniel. You would always look at me and see crazy. Always wonder when the other shoe would drop—”
“I wouldn’t—”
“You won’t have to,” I say. He goes quiet then, eyes averted. “The whole town looks at me like I’m nuts. I can’t stay here.”
“Who cares what they think?” he whispers.
“I do.” Those words finally silence the arguments, and in the crackling wake, I reach for his hand, open it, and press the tiny engagement ring into his palm. “I can’t go my whole life knowing that everyone knows.”
Because home or no home, it’s not the same as it was. Turning, I take a step, but a hand wraps around my elbow and tugs me back.
“You’re not walking away from this.”
The hand tightens on my arm, spinning me around until I’m facing him again. My breath hitches in my throat. A scream gathers in my chest. There is no Daniel, and everything around me goes dark.
There’s nothing left but teeth.
I startle awake mid-scream, one hand pressed flat to a cool car window, the other reaching out toward the dash. Vertigo spins my world on its axis, and my heart leaps into my chest, but a moment later, everything settles back into place, the car racing evenly between the lines.
“Christ,” Xaine blurts out. He shoots me a sidelong glance but returns his eyes to the road almost immediately. “Think you could not do that again?”
“Sorry,” I mutter, turning my face toward the passenger window. There’s a feeling of heavy dread sitting on my chest and a heavier lethargy weighing down my limbs. My body’s still reeling from whatever Benicio did to me, but the adrenaline’s long gone, leaving me with an impotent feeling of anticipation in my gut. Something’s happened, happening, about to happen; whatever it is, it’s got me curling in on myself until my arms are wrapped tightly across my breasts and my shoulders are hunched to my ears. A quick look at Xaine tells me he’s not unaware, and judging by the flashes of blue I keep catching in return, he’s watching me like I’m the unpredictable predator here.
Now that is funny.
“Either sleep or don’t,” he mutters. “You’ve nodded off like three times, and it startles the shit out of me every time you jolt awake.”
“Trust me, if I could sleep, I would,” I snap back. “I’m tired as hell.”
“Then go ahead,” he says, like i
t’s the most logical thing in the world. “I’m not going to eat you.”
“It’s not you.” I give a little shake of my head. “I don’t ever sleep well.”
“They have pills for that.”
I deliberately change the subject. “Who’s Elizabeth? You said her name, back at the club when you… um…”
Kissed me.
“Who’s Daniel?” he counters swiftly. “You said his name right before you screamed me off the road.”
“He’s ancient history,” I shoot back. “And Elizabeth?”
“Also ancient history,” he says. “Except actually ancient. Didn’t your mother teach you not to ask people private questions?”
“Saying someone else’s name while shoving your tongue down my throat wasn’t exactly a private moment,” I offer up wryly. “And who are you to lecture me about what my mother taught? Aren’t you the harbinger of sin or something?”
He almost laughs at that. “Hardly. I keep my sin to myself, thanks.”
Sighing lightly, I let my head fall back against the leather seat. Everything’s still hazy around the edges, and I feel more tired than I can ever remember feeling in my whole life. Everything is so heavy—
Limbs like lead, too weighty to lift. Can’t move the fingers. Can’t turn the head. Struggling to breathe. Feels like the world is sitting on my chest as fire burns through my veins. Can’t scream, can barely open my eyes, and then I only want to shut them again.
Tubes. Tubes and blood.
Pale faces stare at me, blank and lifeless, no sign of empathy or kindness. My mouth is dry, but everything else feels like it’s underwater. I’m floating, sinking, struggling to find enough air. Paralyzed; not even my throat works, so I settle for moving my lips.
The worst part is…
… I’m alone now.
“Please…”
“Please, what?”
My eyes pop open, and I roll my head to the side to look at Xaine. “What?”
“You said…” He waves me off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”
“I’m really sorry.” And I am. I’ve only known Xaine a few days, yet somehow I’ve ended up here, in his car, on the way to his house after all the things ever. “About Benicio and your show and everything.”
“It’s fine. It’s all going to be fine.” He pauses for a second and then asks, “Where did you get the lyrics to my song? It’s not like they’re on the internet. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
I manage a bleary kind of smile. “My mom was there that night.”
“What, she’s got the didactic memory? She couldn’t share the wealth a little?”
“I’m adopted.” The irony hits me right about the time another yawn does. “My dad won the tickets off a radio station. It was one of those invite-only things, a few hundred people, well, I’m sure you remember. My mom’s a bit of a fangirl, wrote the lyrics on a bar napkin and brought that home as a souvenir because they couldn’t afford anything else in those days. There was a meet-and-greet after the show; you signed the damn thing for her.”
“I did, huh?”
“Yeah, ‘To Laura, nice tits.’ With a big ol’ X right across the bottom in black permanent marker.”
“That was nice of me.”
“Her name’s not Laura.” The memory tickles in the best kind of way, and seeing Xaine’s expression is the frosting on the cake. “I got that napkin on my sweet sixteen, along with a ticket to see your show in Buffalo. ‘Passing the torch,’ or something like that.”
“You still have it?” Xaine’s voice sounds odd, like he’s trying to wrap his brain around something. “The napkin, I mean.”
“Oh, no. Sold it on eBay ages ago.” Total lie. It’s back at my apartment, framed and hanging on the wall next to the ticket stub. “Used the cash to buy a pair of Noah Carmichael’s underwear.”
That gets a chuckle. “Now I know you’re lying, because I have it on good authority that Noah goes commando under those jeans.”
“Pics, or it didn’t happen,” I say, smiling faintly, my head lolling on the seatback. “I can put those on eBay, too.”
Xaine smirks, but after that, the conversation lapses. It gives the tired an opportunity to catch up with me, to cocoon me in a lulling blanket of near-silence until a hand reaches out to chuck me under the chin.
“Hey, we’ll be at the house in a few minutes. I need you to stay awake so I can stuff some food into you.”
But my eyelids are already closing, sliding unerringly downward despite my struggle to keep them open. “You’re not the asshole people say you are. I don’t know what…”
…to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to offer that will make them stop.
The pain gets worse every time they come back. A new bed and new blood. The sheets are soaked with it, painted red and brown. It weeps out my pores, oozing through my skin, absorbed by the cuffs that hold my wrists and ankles, drying and cracking, making me sticky and itchy by turns. The acidic, sanguine stains eat through my flesh, leaving raw patches that burn when they finally come to wash it away.
Like a looping nightmare, he returns, with his amber eyes and pristine suit, storming into the room like he did before. “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“She’s alive.”
“Trust me,” Xaine’s voice interrupts, “I’m shittier than even they realize.”
“Hm?” I draw in a deep breath, sitting up straighter as his voice pulls me back again. When I finally manage to process what he said, I frown. “No, you’re not. You’re kinda nice, actually.”
“Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone.” A hand grasps my chin again, lifting my head. Blue eyes come into view—Xaine’s eyes—and I’m suddenly aware of the galloping pace of my heart. His dark brows pull together until there’s a crease in the space between those vivid aquamarine irises. He actually manages a pretty good imitation of concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say with a nod, but I’m not entirely sure that’s the truth. “Just sleepy.”
“So what about your friend back at the club?” Xaine lets go of me, but I keep my head tilted in his direction. “Do you follow strange men into the night very often?”
“That seems to be a recent development.” I shoot him a wry smile, but he actually looks a little horrified. “Well, it’s not like I had a choice, he’s kinda convincing, you know?”
Too convincing.
Benny and his magic hands.
Xaine nods, giving me that small concession. Whatever Benicio’s gig is, it’s based on his ability to dope someone out of their gourd and drag them into a dark alley for a little one-on-one. I don’t know what would have happened if Xaine hadn’t intervened, but I’m glad he did, and although I barely know the guy, I feel safer in this car with him than I’ve felt anywhere in nearly a year.
“So,” I venture, “I get the feeling like you know something about it?”
“I might,” Xaine tells me. “But even knowing what I know…”
“…it doesn’t make sense.” The voice is harsh, angry, a jagged knife slicing through my lacerated mind. “Is there any sign of change?”
“None at all,” a second voice intones; softer than the first. The doctor, I think. “We’ve drained her and replaced it thrice from varying donors. If we do it again, she’ll most likely die.”
It hurts to breathe, but I keep dragging the metallic air into my lungs, gasping every few seconds like a fish out of water. I’m weak. So weak that I can’t move a single muscle in the entirety of my body. So weak that I can’t drum up enough saliva to swallow. My mouth is parched, my lips are cracked, my throat is raw from the screaming I did at the beginning. I want to die, but I can’t. Bodies don’t give up like minds do, like hearts do. As much as I want it all to end, I keep taking breaths, one after the other, because out of Pandora’s Box came Hope.
And I have to hope that this will come to an end.
“Find another donor. A stronger one. An o
lder one.” The sentence is handed down without a sliver of compassion. “Do it again.”
“Please, not again…”
“Again?” There’s no humor in the voice this time, no low chuckle of amusement. “How many times has this happened?”
I keep getting snippets of memory dropped back into place, shaken loose at random, so I don’t answer him for a few minutes, don’t even acknowledge that he spoke. I have the idea that maybe if I stay still enough, quiet enough, that the flashes of memory will meld together into something cohesive.
No such luck. Everything taunts me, just out of my reach, and Xaine is not a patient man.
“Lore.” He jiggles me a bit. “How many times?”
“Only once, I think, right before Jax pulled me out of the motel room.” I pause before adding, “You called me Lore. Everyone else calls me Lo.”
Xaine ignores that completely. He has his hand behind my neck, holding it in place with the strong curve of his thumb and forefingers, and he turns me so that my eyes have no other option but to meet his gaze. He wants all the answers to all the questions, and I have exactly none to give him. On top of that, I’m listless, fussy like a little kid, and all I want to do is fall into a bed somewhere and sleep for about twelve hours. I don’t want to think anymore, don’t want to talk, hell, I don’t even want sit upright at this juncture.
“You shouldn’t have let him catch you alone,” Xaine scolds.
“I wasn’t alone.” Mumbling nearly incoherently, it’s a struggle to keep my eyes open. “I was in a bar. He kinda… snuck up on me.”
“Cocksucker…”
Next thing I know, the car door opens and there’s a feeling of weightlessness, the lulling sway of steady footsteps. Vaguely aware of being carried, I’m more than okay with it. I doubt I’d have the wherewithal to walk, and with his vampire strength, Xaine could pack me to Tijuana and not break a sweat.
I only notice snippets after that: the pause at a doorway, the beep of a deactivated alarm, the rumble of Xaine’s voice as he speaks to someone outside my narrow scope of vision. Admittedly, that’s limited to the front of his shirt right about now, but some part of my brain is still functioning well enough to be thankful he’s even wearing a shirt. Then there’s walking and stairs and more walking until we hit a room that’s as cold as the polar bear enclosure at the Griffith Park Zoo.
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