by Karen Lynch
“I’m Roland. Why are you in Sara’s apartment?”
She froze, and her eyes widened. “Roland? Sara’s friend?”
“Yes.”
She lowered the lamp, holding it against her chest, almost like a shield. “I’m Sara’s cousin, Emma. She’s letting me stay here for a while.”
Cousin? Disbelief and suspicion filled me. “Sara doesn’t have any cousins.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, she does. My name is Emma Grey, and I’m from Syracuse.”
She looked past me at Pete. “You must be Peter.”
“Yeah.”
“My wallet is on the kitchen counter. You can check my ID if you don’t believe me.”
Pete went to the kitchen. Emma and I stayed where we were, watching each other. I shifted from one foot to the other, and she reacted by taking a step back. Her reaction bothered me. Why was she so afraid of me? If she really knew Sara, she had to know we wouldn’t hurt her.
Pete came back and held a driver’s license out for me to see. “Emma Grey from Syracuse, like she said.”
I took the card from him and studied it for a moment. No one smiled for their DMV photos, but there was a sadness in the face on the card that tugged at me.
I looked at Emma again. “Sara’s never mentioned a cousin in all the years I’ve known her.”
She bit her lower lip. “You can check with her if you want. Or you can call Nate.”
“I believe you.” Her wary expression told me she was hiding something, but she was telling the truth about who she was. “I don’t know why Sara didn’t tell us you were coming here.”
Emma shook her head, her eyes troubled. “I…asked her not to tell anyone about me. I just want to be left alone.”
Emma
Werewolves. There were two werewolves standing less than ten feet away from me. The fact that they were in their human forms did little to dispel the terror clawing at my gut. They were hunters, and for two decades, the fear of them had been ingrained in me. Friendly or not, it was impossible not to feel threatened by their presence.
I should have recognized them. Sara had pictures of them in her apartment at Westhorne, and she talked about them all the time. But I’d been too shocked, waking up to find two strange men in my room.
The red-haired one named Peter smiled at me. They were both tall and well-built like most werewolf males, but he seemed less intimidating than his friend. Roland was another matter. The way Sara talked about her best friend, I’d imagined a sweet, smiling boy. He wore a smile, but the intensity in his blue eyes unsettled me. It was as if he could see through me, right into the darkness of my past.
“You can put down the lamp. We won’t hurt you,” Roland said, reminding me of the heavy weight in my hands.
With trembling hands, I set the lamp down on the nightstand and straightened to face Sara’s friends again. No one spoke for a moment, and I wasn’t sure what to say to them. I felt exposed without the lamp between us, as small as it was.
“Are you okay?” Roland asked, startling me.
“I’m fine.” Or I would be when they left.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, his gaze sweeping up my body. “You don’t look okay. Are you sick?”
I must have looked pretty bad for him to ask that. I shook my head. “It was just a bad dream. I’m good now.”
“That must have been some dream,” Peter muttered.
“It’s a little scary being alone in a new place,” I lied. I was less afraid of their presence, but I wouldn’t be able to relax until they were gone. I looked from Peter to Roland. “Why are you here at this hour? And how did you get in?”
“I have a key,” Roland answered. “My mother and I took care of the place for Sara and Nate over the winter.”
I remembered Sara mentioning the woman who watched the place for her. “Judith?”
He nodded. “That’s her.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Sara trusted him with her place and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I didn’t like the idea of anyone else having a key to this apartment while I was here.
“You don’t need to watch the place anymore,” I told him. “You can leave the key here with me.”
He opened his mouth, and for a moment, I thought he was going to argue. But then he gave a small nod and removed a key from the set in his hand. He held it out to me.
I shook my head and pointed at the dresser closest to the door. “You can put it there on top of the dresser.”
Frowning, he did as I’d asked.
I swallowed hard. I hated the fear that clogged my chest, but what if Sara was wrong about her friends? They might be good people, but they were werewolves, and werewolves hated one thing above all others. They also had incredibly sensitive noses. What if they smelled me and somehow sensed what I used to be? What would they say if they knew I’d once been their mortal enemy?
I knew Nate’s story, how he’d been made a vampire just to hurt Sara. Roland and Peter were okay with him and held no animosity for him. But Nate had been a vampire for a week. I’d been one for twenty-one years, and in that time, I’d done unspeakable things. Somehow, I didn’t think the werewolves would be as forgiving if they knew exactly what stood before them now.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you for coming to check on me. It’s late and I-I’m very tired. I’d like to go back to bed.”
Once again, Roland looked like he was going to say something, but he seemed to change his mind. “No problem. Sorry we frightened you.”
I shook my head, attempting a smile. “It’s my fault for asking Sara not to tell anyone I was coming here.”
Peter gave me an apologetic smile and headed down the hallway to the front door. Roland looked at me for a moment longer, and then he followed his friend.
I waited until they were at the door before I walked to the bedroom doorway. The hallway was dark, but there was enough light from the bedroom to see Peter’s quick wave before they let themselves out.
I let out a long breath and sagged against the doorframe. When I heard the faint sound of their feet on the steps, I ran to the door and slid the deadbolt. Leaving the door, I went to the living room to peer through the drapes at the two figures getting into a classic Ford Mustang. The car rumbled to life, and they drove off.
It wasn’t until the taillights disappeared from sight that my strength deserted me. I slid down the wall and sat on the floor with my knees drawn up to my chest as I fought to stop the panic attack hovering at the edges of my frayed composure.
I’m okay. I’m safe. It was my first night on my own in a strange place, and I’d woken up to find two strange men in my room. Anyone in my shoes would have reacted the same way, especially someone with my past.
Except there was no one else with a past like mine. Nate and I had talked for many hours, and he was the only person who could even remotely understand what I was going through. As far as we knew, we were the only two people in the world to have been made human again after being a vampire. It was like being reborn and given a new lease on life.
It was also lonely and isolating to not be able to share your experience, your guilt, and your crushing fears. Nate had been a vampire for a week, and it had affected him so profoundly he couldn’t even come back to the place where it had happened. What did that mean for someone like me?
I still wasn’t sure why I’d agreed to come here when Sara offered it to me. She and Tristan would have set me up anywhere in the world, and I came to live in the home of a former vampire in the heart of werewolf territory. Either I was looking for some twisted form of penance, or I was trying to prove I was stronger than my demons. Perhaps both.
It grew chilly sitting there in only shorts and a tank, but I couldn’t make myself get up and go back to bed. The dreams I’d been able to forget temporarily because of my unexpected visitors came back with perfect and heartless clarity. No matter how much I tried to block them out, the ghosts of my past were always there, forcing me to relive
their horrors over and over.
I was raised Catholic, and I was taught there was a heaven and a hell and a place in between. A place where God sent you to suffer your sins until he decided to take you into heaven or send you to hell. I’d stopped believing in God after a week with Eli. God couldn’t be real and abandon me to that kind of horror.
Now I wondered if he was real after all. I’d lived in hell, and my soul was too tattered to go to heaven.
Maybe this was my purgatory.
* * *
I grimaced and scrubbed at the skillet for what seemed like the hundredth time. How could anyone burn eggs so badly, even someone who hadn’t touched a stove in twenty years? I’d thought I’d be able to make scrambled eggs, at least. Good luck there.
Letting the skillet slide back into the hot, soapy water, I looked at the two blackened slices of bread sitting in the toaster. Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn’t do anything right. What was I thinking, trying to do this on my own?
Laughter reached my ears through the window I’d opened to let the smoke out. I looked down at the two teenage girls walking along the waterfront, shopping bags swinging from their arms. They were probably sixteen, and seeing them brought back a memory of going to the mall with my best friend Chelsea. Back then, my biggest worries had been what clothes to wear and how to convince my parents to let me stay out an hour later. I’d had no idea that monsters existed outside of my nightmares.
Stop this. One thing I’d learned since I’d been healed, it was that there was no use in looking back at what might have been. The past was the past, and I couldn’t change it. I’d gotten a chance to start over, something no other vampire victim could do. For them, the only release from that life was death. Sara saw something in me that had made her save me, and I wouldn’t repay her kindness by wallowing in self-pity.
It was a beautiful sunny day, and I was hiding out in this apartment when I should have been out there exploring and getting to know my new home. I came here to start over, and it was time to get on with it.
I dried my hands on a towel and went to my room to change into capris and a light top. There was a slight chill in the breeze coming through the window, so I grabbed a thin sweater in case I needed it. Cold was another sensation I was adjusting to. Vampires didn’t like extreme cold, but they could tolerate lower temperatures than humans. This past winter in Idaho was the first time I’d been cold in a long time.
I stuffed the sweater in my messenger bag along with my wallet and phone, and headed for the door, feeling optimistic and free.
Ringing came from my bag as I opened the door, and I grabbed for my phone. Only a handful of people had my number, and I would happily talk to any one of them.
I didn’t recognize the number on the screen, and I answered hesitantly. “Hello?”
“Hey stranger! How’s Maine?”
“Sara!”
Lightness spread through my limbs at hearing her voice, and I realized how much I’d missed her. I’d gotten so used to seeing her every day.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you today. Shouldn’t you be resting after your trip?”
“I have a little jetlag, but nothing I can’t handle. I slept for most of the flight. Besides, I wanted to talk to you and see how you’re doing. Do you like the apartment?”
“It’s wonderful. Thank you so much for everything, especially the studio.” I didn’t mean to get emotional, but my throat tightened anyway. “It’s too much. I can’t ever repay you…”
“None of that,” she ordered softly. “What else should I do with my money if I don’t take care of my family? And you are my family. You couldn’t get rid of me now if you tried.”
I laughed as tears spilled down my cheeks. For so long, my life had been dark, an endless cycle of violence and blood. Sara not only saved me from that, she had shown me her enormous capacity for love, and she’d refused to let me withdraw into myself. Whenever I’d felt alone, she’d told me over and over that she and Nate were my family now. She’d made me believe there was something worth living for on the days I hadn’t wanted to.
“Don’t you cry because then I’ll start, and Nikolas will want to know what’s wrong. You know how he is.”
“Yes.” I swiped at my wet cheeks.
“It’s so weird that you’re living in my place, and you’ll be seeing all the people I used to know.”
“Does it bother you that I’m here? Because I can go somewhere else. It’s no problem –”
“No, I love having you there,” she rushed to say. “I hated the idea of the place being empty, so you’re actually doing me a favor.”
“Okay.”
“I guess it’s too early to ask who you’ve met there. You know I’m hoping you’ll change your mind about meeting Roland and Peter.”
I swallowed, thinking of the two werewolves standing in my bedroom doorway. “Um, I kind of met them already.”
“You did?” Excitement filled her voice. “You called them?”
“Not exactly.” I took a breath and told her what had happened last night.
“Oh, Emma, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I’m good now. I was a little freaked out last night, but I think they were too when they found a strange girl in your place.” A little freaked out. Talk about an understatement.
“What a way to start your stay there.”
I smiled. “Not what I expected, but I should have known better after all your stories about this place.”
“And now that you’ve met Roland and Peter you can see how great they are,” she pressed gently. “They ran in there to save you even though they had no idea who you were.”
I toyed with the strap of my bag that still hung on my shoulder. “They seemed nice...”
“But they’re werewolves,” she finished for me. “I understand, and I’ll try not to push. It’s just that they’re great guys and I think you’ll love them, too, once you get to know them. That’s all I’m going to say about it. I promise.”
“Thanks.” I let out a breath. “How’s Russia?”
“Amazing,” she gushed. “I met Nikolas’s parents, and they’re great. His dad looks so much like him they could be brothers. It’s a bit weird, actually. I think it’ll take some getting used to.”
“Two Nikolases? I can’t imagine.”
She laughed. “There can only be one Nikolas. And speak of the devil…”
I heard some rustling sounds on the other end of the line along with the unmistakable sounds of kissing. After a minute, Sara came back.
“Where were we?”
I chuckled. “You were telling me there can only be one Nikolas.”
“So true.” She sighed happily.
Nikolas spoke, and Sara said, “Give me one more minute.”
“You have to go?” I asked, feeling a pang of disappointment.
“We’re having dinner with Nikolas’s parents. His mom is making a special dinner to celebrate our mating.”
“That sounds nice.” I’d forgotten they were hours ahead of me, which made it evening there now. “Have fun.”
“I’ll call you in a few days, okay?” She sounded happy, but there was an edge of worry in her voice. Worry for me. “And if you need anything or just want to talk, call me anytime. I’m on the house phone now, but I have my cell phone.”
“I will. Don’t worry about me. I was about to go out and look around when you called.”
“Great! Go to Bill’s Bakery and have a chocolate croissant. You’ll thank me.”
We hung up, and I stood in the hallway, feeling a strange mix of happiness and melancholy. Sighing, I let myself out and locked the door.
Sara’s building was at the end of the row, and I stood at the corner, looking down the waterfront. A line of shops and restaurants ran down the left side of the road. To my right was the ocean. Ahead of me, the town waited to be explored.
The first thing I noticed was the small coffee shop next door to Sara’s building. I could only shake my
head and smile. Why on earth would she buy me that fancy espresso machine with a coffee shop next door? She was determined to spoil me.
The sun was warm on my face despite the cool ocean breeze, and I stopped to turn my face to it for a moment before I moved on. For the last two decades, I’d been a creature of the night, too young a vampire to survive daylight. I hadn’t known how much I’d missed the feel of the sun on my skin until I was healed. At Westhorne, I’d spent every minute I could outside when the weather had permitted.
I started walking again, passing a bookstore, a pub, a drug store, a bakery, and a small grocery store that also sold souvenirs, based on the display in their front window. It was all so clean and quaint, the kind of place featured in one of those travel magazines. And people actually smiled and waved at me as I passed them. Where I’d grown up, I knew a lot of the people in my neighborhood, but strangers didn’t greet each other on the street.
I’m living in Mayberry, I thought as I returned the smile of an older man walking a Golden Retriever. I’d been outside for ten minutes, and already I was half in love with this place. Why would anyone ever want to leave here?
I reached the end of the waterfront and stopped, debating where to go next. The intersecting street wound up a hill where a white church steeple peeked above the tops of the trees. Feeling adventurous, I started up the hill, and five minutes later, I came to a Catholic church and a high school. This must be the school Sara had gone to. She’d mentioned it more than once.
I’d never finished high school because Eli took me at the start of my senior year. I planned to enroll in school because I wanted to graduate and go to college. I could probably do online courses or do an equivalency exam, or even ask the Westhorne security guys to fake my senior year transcripts. But I wanted to have the experience that was stolen from me. I wanted to cram for an exam and hang out in the library, as lame as those things probably sounded to every other teenager. I knew school had changed a lot since I was a student, which meant I’d need to brush up over the summer. I used to be an A student, so I was confident I could get back up to speed.