by Nashoda Rose
I’d laughed. Then laughed even more when she threw a pillow at me. Then another. And another. Then she yanked on her clothes and was halfway to the hotel room door before I stopped laughing. I wasn’t done with her and had no intention of letting her leave.
Then I did something very uncharacteristic of me, and the laughing had already been uncharacteristic, I bent, snatched a pillow off the floor, and threw it at her. That started the pillow fight that ended up being a wild fuck among thousands of feathers.
“At the moment, you are my shit to deal with, Abbs.” I waited for the punch in the arm or her words of retaliation. It never came. I glanced at her and she stared out the window, her thin brows drawn low over her glassy, tear-filled eyes.
It was instinctive. I reached across the space between us and swept the back of my hand down her cheek. “Christ, Abbs. I didn’t mean it like that.” How did I say this without hurting her feelings? “I never wanted a relationship or a child.” And this was why I kept my distance from chicks. Dealing with their emotional shit was like lighting my head on fire.
She nodded. “Yeah. Me neither. Guess we don’t always get what we want.”
Silence.
“Babe, you won’t become a vampire.”
She didn’t say anything.
I swerved onto the shoulder and put the car in park. “If you don’t drink blood, you can’t Transition. Period. And I won’t let you drink it.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Damn it, look at me!” When she ignored me, I cupped her chin and forced her to meet my eyes. I might hate being here, but I never shirked my responsibilities, and right now, Abby was mine. “You won’t be a vampire, okay? I won’t let it happen. We do this detox shit and you can go back to your coven and we can forget any of this happened.” I didn’t mention the baby because the chance of it surviving was slim to none.
Silence.
My fingers pressed into her chin and she tried to jerk away, but I tightened my grip. Her hand reached up and latched onto my wrist as she dug her nails into me until I let her go.
“Abby.”
She met my eyes and we stared at one another for several seconds. She licked her dry lips and my eyes darted to her mouth.
“So what happens, Damien? I live in a box and you guard it?”
“Pretty much.” This was so much worse than I imagined. And I imagined this scenario as being pretty fuckin’ bad. “Balen says it will be worse at night, but once the craving fades, you won’t Transition.”
Her head dropped forward and her hair shielded her face. “Think the baby will survive the detox?”
“Christ, Abbs.” How the fuck could I answer that? I put the car into gear and swerved back into traffic. “I don’t know.”
She shrugged and leaned her head back on the headrest. “Yeah, I guess not.”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed her hand unconsciously caress her abdomen while she looked out the window. It was a sight I’d remember for the rest of my life.
Beautiful.
Mesmerizing.
So unaware and peaceful, and yet, what was about to happen would be anything but.
Balen said she’d more than likely lose the baby. But I couldn’t tell her that.
Abby had been a fling. A hot, sexy witch I fucked while I’d been in town. That was all it was supposed to be. I’d made that clear before I’d taken her back to the hotel. She’d known I was leaving to go home to Florida.
I was supposed to fuckin’ forget all about her.
But I never had.
“I WANT TO TALK about your childhood today,” Rebecca said.
I sat crossed-legged on the sunflower-printed couch, two white throw pillows, which I’d thrown across the room numerous times in sessions, nestled beside me, and an assortment of stuffed animals perched along the back of it. I was thinking about Delara, not what Rebecca was saying.
In the past two weeks, Delara was distant, not sleeping at the gallery most nights and returning in the wee hours of the morning. Her eyes were red rimmed and I wasn’t sure if it was from being tired or she’d been crying.
Last night, I woke at dawn to her and Jedrik arguing in the alley below my window. I heard snippets of words mentioned when Jedrik raised his voice. Something about Liam, Abby, and Waleron.
“Rayne?” Rebecca said.
“Yeah, sorry.” I looked up.
“Your childhood. Before Anton.”
I’d avoided talking about my childhood over the last few sessions. “I don’t remember much.”
“Let’s start with your parents. What were they like?”
I pulled a pillow into my lap and played with the tassels hanging from the corners. “When I was ten, they died in a car crash. I barely remember them.” My father received an emergency call from the hospital; a bus had flipped over on highway 400. They needed him and my mom in the E.R. Both being doctors, they often had emergencies. Anton had been a neighbor who had become a good friend of theirs. He looked after me if they were both called in at the same time.
They never made it home that night. Ironically, their car was hit by a truck on the highway and killed them both instantly. The driver of the truck was never found.
“Rayne, you’re avoiding the question,” Rebecca said. “That is what happened to them, not who they were.”
I tightened my hold on the pillow. “I was too young to remember them.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” Rebecca tapped her pen on her thigh, and with her silence, I knew what it meant. She’d sit and wait until I gave her something.
“Mom was quiet and calm and cared about everyone. Even when I got into trouble, I remember her being… I don’t know, just loving.”
“So, you were a curious child? Got into trouble?”
I shrugged. “Once I walked out the front door and wandered two streets over and sat on the edge of a pool. I couldn’t swim. Mom called the police and my dad had to come home from work. The owners of the house found me and I got a lecture from the police.”
“What did your parents do?”
“I don’t remember much. Just the police officer with the big moustache crouching down in front of me. He was so big and scary.” I looked at the pillow I clutched to my chest then said, “My mom and dad hugged me. And they cried.”
“So you were a pretty brave little kid?”
“I guess. I mean, I wasn’t scared of much.” Plus, I had Serafina, although I kept my friend a secret from my parents. They knew about the Ink because they taught me the words of how to call to it, but I was only allowed to if I was ever in danger. Of course, that only encouraged me to call to my Ink when they weren’t around. Serafina and I would play games and laugh—she was my best friend. Until Anton.
“And your father, what was he like?”
“I sought his approval for everything. I remember wanting to make him proud, but I don’t think he was.” I didn’t remember much of him because my memories were mostly of Anton.
“I’m certain that isn’t true, Rayne. Your perception maybe, which is a pattern of anorexia—never feeling good enough. But it isn’t true.”
It didn’t matter anymore. My father was gone.
“Did Anton take your father’s place? Maybe he was the one you could never please?”
My heart beat against my chest and my eyes darted to her. I hated talking about Anton and she knew it. “What do you mean?”
“He was your guardian. Is it possible you tried to make Anton proud, needing that approval since you could no longer get it from your father?”
It sucked that she was so insightful, but then again, maybe it didn’t.
I was getting better. My legs no longer trembled when I walked and I hadn’t felt dizzy in over a week. But still, every piece of food I put in my mouth I thought about, and it was a battle.
“Maybe. I don’t know.” But I did. I did try over and over again to please Anton, but it was never good enough. He forced me to use my abilities, and I was never stron
g enough or good enough for him. He pushed me and pushed me for hours a day. Even when I was exhausted, he forced me to do more, to try harder.
I sighed, tossing the pillow aside. “I could never live up to Anton’s expectations.”
“He was a terrible man, Rayne. You’d never meet his expectations, no matter how hard you tried.”
He’d trained me as if I were a robot, pushing me until I collapsed. When we moved to the compound, it became worse.
I remember a woman being there. I’d never forget her because I thought she was Anton’s wife or something and she was to become my new mother. But, after that day, I rarely saw her. Roarke joined us then and I discovered I wasn’t the only one who was different. Of course, Rebecca couldn’t be told any of this. All she knew was I married my guardian who’d been abusive and controlling.
“You were a child who lost her parents in a horrific accident. Of course, you needed approval and love from whoever was closest to you. Unfortunately, that became Anton. We will reconstruct your perception of not being good enough. We’ll need one incident from when you were a child. Let’s start with a memory with your father. Okay?”
I nodded and took out my journal and wrote about the day my father taught me how to ride a bike on my fourth birthday. I remember he was upset because I continuously fell.
As Rebecca helped me rewrite the story, I realized he hadn’t been upset or disappointed with my inability. He’d been upset I fell so many times and scraped my knees and palms.
He hurt because I hurt.
When had that changed? When had my perception of that story changed to something ugly?
There’d been tears in his eyes as he watched me obstinately get back up on my bike again and again.
He’d been proud of me for never giving up.
Weeks of constant thirst, my mouth so dry it felt as if I had sandpaper for a tongue and dried glue at the back of my throat. But it wasn’t water I craved; it was warm blood. The urgency to sink my teeth into anything that had a heartbeat. Everything else around me was a blur and I couldn’t focus on anything except blood.
I heard a voice in the distance, an echo inside my head, as if it were my own, but different. “Please,” it said. It was begging and harsh with a hiss in every word.
“I brought you water,” a voice said.
The bed sagged and the scent grew stronger. Blood. Fresh blood. It would end the thirst, end the pain.
But through my hazy vision and my bloodthirst-driven mind, I saw him—Damien.
No. God no, don’t make me.
But the urgency was too strong, like a great white shark seeing bloody prey. My control no longer existed. Only the instinct to take what my body needed in order to survive.
A strange unfamiliar hiss emerged from my mouth as I dove for his throat.
My fingernails ripped into his neck first, the scent of blood magnifying as I saw red rise to the surface of his skin.
Glass shattered and hands grabbed my upper arms, tearing me away and throwing me back onto the bed.
“Abbs. Fuck. Stop.” The voice shouted like a tuba banging inside my head. Damien? What was wrong with him? Why did he sound panicked?
Thirsty.
So thirsty.
Damien was forgotten as the overpowering scent of blood threw me into a fierce frenzy. I licked my lips and frantically struggled against the hands holding me down.
“Nooo!” I screamed.
My voice was no longer distinguishable as I cursed and hissed, fighting the restraints of his hands. He forced me to lie back, his weight on top of me. His hands dug into my shoulders, pressing my slight frame into the mattress. My body flung back and forth, desperate to get free and end the torture.
Just one drop to stop the pain.
“Abbs, for Christ’s sake, listen to my voice.”
I shook my head, managing to get an arm free as my knee came up between us. I punched, hitting something hard, not knowing what, but I heard a grunt. My other arm was released as the weight on me suddenly lifted.
“Fuck,” he said.
My eyes widened as he stood beside the bed.
Damien? I couldn’t focus on him. My eyes kept darting to the blood dripping down his neck where my nails had dug into his flesh.
A loud hiss echoed in the room and I leapt for the blood. I hit his chest hard, but he’d been ready for me because I was thrown back onto the bed again.
“Abbs, baby, please.”
That voice, I knew that voice. But my mind played games with me and I didn’t know what was real anymore. What was happening to me?
My eyes darted around the room, unable to see anything clearly.
I lived in a red fog.
“Abby!” the voice said louder. Footsteps approached me, and with it, the scent of blood grew stronger. “It’s me, Damien.”
Damien. Was he here? Who was trying to hurt me? I didn’t understand what was happening.
Hands suddenly grabbed my wrists and held them above my head on the bed. Instinctively, I reacted, squirming, fighting, and screaming until my voice crackled.
I struggled until my limbs gave out. Then I moaned while rolling my head back and forth on the pillow. The weight lifted off my wrists, but I lay unmoving while I listened to the footsteps fade away.
A door opened then slammed shut.
It was gone. The scent of blood was gone.
Panic gripped me and I scrambled off the bed and ran for the door. I fell on my hip halfway across the room and crawled on my hands and knees to the door. To the blood that was on the other side.
“Please,” I cried. “Please.”
I slapped the door with my palm over and over again until I couldn’t any longer. Then I lay on my side on the floor and clawed at it until everything went black.
“No fuckin’ way,” I shouted into my cell as I paced back and forth across the scuffed hardwood floor. “I can't do this. Screw it. The witch is way past saving. We’re too late.” I didn’t want to say her name or it would solidify that the girl in that locked room was Abby.
“It’s the poison in her blood, Damien. It eats away at your insides until every sense focuses on one goal—blood.” Balen’s voice was calm, but forceful. “This will pass. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
I kicked out at the ragged, cheap area carpet that had pastel stripes and frayed ends. “She’s crazy. That girl is not her anymore. I'm telling you, we’re too late.”
Balen sighed. “Unless she has tasted blood again, it’s not too late.”
“No wonder the Wraiths wanted to kill us if we drank from a vampire.” I paused outside the door of the bedroom and peered through the small double-paned window Jedrik had installed, so I was able to check on her without entering the room at night when she was in a blood frenzy.
“She’s been lying on the floor for hours.”
“It’s a thousand times worse at night,” Balen explained. “Keep the door locked and leave her alone. It took me weeks to learn that being around anything with blood pumping through it made it a fuck of a lot worse.”
I never wanted to enter that room again, yet somewhere inside that crazed girl lying in there was Abby. “How long?”
Silence.
“Jesus Christ, Balen, I need answers. It’s taking everything I have not to walk out that fuckin’ door and leave.” But I wouldn’t. I knew I fuckin’ wouldn’t, because it hurt to see her like this. It ate away at my insides like acid, a slow burning pain that was destroying me.
Fuck, she was destroying the coldness I had built up around me. Every day, a piece chipped off and I felt more. I hurt more.
Danni’s voice blasted into my head through telepathy. She was one of the rare few who could speak telepathically long distances. “Don't you dare give up on her, Damien. Stop thinking of yourself and help her get through this.”
“Tell your woman to stay out of my head.” I yanked the phone from my ear, tapped end, and tossed it on the kitchen counter.
Running my han
d through my black, jagged strands, I approached the room and turned the doorknob. Her body blocked the door, so she slid across the floor as I shoved it open before closing it again.
I crouched beside her and her eyes flicked open. I tensed, ready for another battle, but instead, they weren’t filled with bloodlust. They were soft.
“Damien?”
“Yeah, baby.” The insanity passed—for now. Until dusk. Then it would start all over again. She was like this during the day, her normal self, confused and scared. That’s what fucked me up the most.
I slipped an arm under her back and the other under her thighs, picking her up and striding over to the bed. I gently laid her onto the mattress and straightened the twisted sheets, pulling them up over her. She gripped the edge and I noticed her fingernails were all chipped, some of them bleeding.
I ground my teeth. This shouldn’t fuckin’ be happening to her, damn it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a husky voice. “For last night.”
She said that pretty much every morning for the past two weeks, and yet she had no recollection of what she’d done. It wasn’t hard to figure out with the scratches on my neck and arms. Now I knew why Jedrik had left chains hanging on the bedposts. I had to admit, I’d been too cocky, thinking I’d be able to control her with muscle power alone.
And in the beginning, I could, but it was becoming worse, and soon I’d be forced to use the chains on her at night.
“I know.” And I did. I saw it in her beaten expression, her eyes drawn and tired. There was no spark, no stubborn gleam.
“Leave me here.” Her voice was barely a whisper and was harsh, probably because of her screaming. “Go home, Damien.”
I snorted. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
She half-smiled; then it fell away. “This is my fault. I did this. I can’t… I can’t do this any longer.” She paused. “And neither can you.” A tear escaped the corner of her eye and I almost reached out to wipe it away.
Do not go near her. I had to keep myself distant. Couldn’t get too close. “You have to eat, Abby. I’ll make you soup. How about mushroom?” I didn’t wait for a response and headed for the door.