by A. M. Hudson
“Give her to me.” David grabbed the limp body of my best friend from Mike’s arms, stopping as we met face to face.
“What happened to her?”
“I’ll give you one guess,” David said, his voice near to breaking. He pushed past, at human pace, cradling Emily so close one might’ve thought she was precious to him. Her arm hung loosely out from the hold, stained with rivers of blood, dried to her fingertips. Mike walked past me, caught in some voiceless, airless vortex; his eyes forward, his hand smoothing slowly down his chin.
“Mike, what happened?”
But he said nothing, as if I didn’t even exist. I pinched myself to make sure I did.
In her room, David leaned over Emily’s bed, studying her, tilting her head side to side, shaking his own. “Silly girl,” he said softly.
“Is it bad?” Mike stood in the middle of the room.
David took a step back, rolling Emily’s face away so we could see the sticky mess of hair and blood along the gaping surrounds of a wound across her shoulder. It looked like someone unsealed her with a can-opener then peeled back the flesh. My hand flew to my mouth, tight, to hold in the rising scream.
“That’s no bite,” David said, and I half expected his voice to be steady. “Her throat’s been all but ripped out. She went after Jason, didn’t she?”
Mike snapped from his voiceless trance and the hand to his brow seemed to push his body back to the wall. He coughed out the words, “She called him—confronted him, and he just…he attacked her.” He folded over, pressing his palms to his forehead. “Oh God. I didn’t know what to do. I knew hospital couldn’t help her.”
“No.” David stepped away from the lifeless body of my best friend and placed his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “No, you did the right thing. There’s nothing they can do for her now.”
“For God’s sake.” Mike fought for air, and as he looked at her, anger bled in the veins of his eyes. “This isn’t right. She shouldn’t look like that.”
“Mike, you need to sit.” David grabbed his arm and helped him to the floor against the wall.
My fingers twitched. Slowly, warmth crawled through the veins again. “Em?” I stroked her face, gently, weaving my fingertip over the lines of blood across her eye, nose and lip. “She isn’t gonna make it, is she, David?”
She looked so twisted and awkward, her face absent of the life, the glee it always held, even when she was sleeping. It was like someone had not only killed her, but stolen her last breath of happiness before they did.
“How could he?” I looked up at David, hovering near by, his eyes fixed on our Emily. All the things I’d started to believe about Jason—that maybe he had some small manner of humanity inside him, just slipped away—lost to this tragedy before me.
“Believe it or not, this isn’t like him, Ara,” David said, his gaze distant.
“What do you mean? He’s a monster!”
“I mean, this—” He turned Emily’s head to show the laceration, the tear that took out nearly half her throat. “This looks like an attack—something my brother was never capable of.”
“He attacked me! How can you say he—”
“He didn’t do this to you, Ara. He didn’t rip your throat out! Your bite,” he yelled, grabbing my face gently, turning it to see the mark. “Yours was a focused, calculated bite. Not this. Not Emily’s. Whatever she did, whatever she said to him, he meant to kill her—not change her.”
I rose quickly, stepping in to him.
“What do we do?” Mike asked, and everyone looked back at Emily.
“Nothing.”
I felt the terror rise in the room then, washing us all with cold realisation.
“Will she change?” Mike slid up the wall.
I waited, breathless.
“Her heart’s weak—”
A gust of air burst from Mike’s lips.
“It’s not likely she has the strength to take on the change.”
“No,” Mike’s voice was so quiet, his eyes, teared, stayed on his Emily. “She deserved better than this.”
“I know.” David placed a reassuring hand to Mike’s shoulder. “But she’s at peace now.”
The numbness incepted from the imminent death of Emily reseeded, leaving me reduced to tears, no longer holding back the quiver of my lip. And my heart only hurt more for the watching, for seeing Mike’s lip tremble too, his hands, so large, so protective, which couldn’t save Emily, couldn’t help her, slowly fall toward her, slowly lift her in his arms and cradle her as he sat in the pool of blood on her bed, rocking back and forth, unable to take it all back.
“She shouldn’t look like this, David,” Mike cried, his eyes closed. “She doesn’t belong here.”
My legs shook too much to stand; I dropped softly to my knees beside the bed and took Emily’s hand, so carefully, so as not to bend her arm backward or disturb the blood that rested there; why I felt it belonged, I don’t know. Perhaps madness stole a breath I owned for that one moment. But guilt took over like a disease, and I saw her future—the life she might’ve had if I’d not come here.
“Ara.” David touched my shoulder, squatting beside me; “You need to get Mike out of here.”
“No!” Mike raged, clutching Emily tighter. “I’m not leaving her.”
“You can’t stay here for this.” David stood. “It’s not right to watch a person die.”
“Please.” Mike’s tears fell past his lips, over Emily’s golden hair. “Please, I only just got her back. She can’t die. I can’t lose her.”
My heart felt starved for oxygen, watching Mike fall apart over Emily. This shouldn’t have happened to him. He got caught up in my world, and now, it’s hurt him like it has everyone else. “I’m sorry, Mike.” I stood and backed away, one slow, breathless step at a time.
Mike didn’t even look up.
David’s round eyes searched mine, his hand reaching to me.
No. I pressed both hands behind my back. I have to go. I can’t watch. I don’t need to see her wither away and die.
David nodded. “Wait for me in the music room,” he said softly, his voice smooth, unwavering.
My feet carried me, though I couldn’t remember the journey. I flopped on the couch by the piano and stared at a square of sunlight on the carpet.
Poor Emily. Jason bit her. Jason hurt her. Her last vision was of the boy she once loved, who talked with her about marriage and children and old age, grabbing her, and with dark eyes and a wild, hate-filled smile, hurting her.
“Oh, Em.” My head fell into my hands.
“Ara?” David slowly pulled me into his cold embrace. “I’m sorry.”
“How could he, David? How could Jason do this to her?”
“I can’t even begin to understand the method in his madness, my love. But, right now, we can’t think about that. There are more pressing matters.”
“How long?” I looked up, wiping my watery eyes. “When will we know if she’ll change?”
“Shortly.” He nodded. “Her heart’s giving out, but she’s too weak, Ara.” He squeezed me tight. “I need you to know that there’s little hope she’ll—”
“No.” I covered my ears. “Please don’t say it. Just don’t.”
“Okay.” He kissed the top of my head.
“I don’t want this, David. Any of this.”
We sat back against the couch with the orange and red autumn sun setting the room on fire around us, and a fierce, stormy wind battering the windowpane. It came on so fast—the storm, Emily, Mike’s love for her. Everything just happened so fast. I felt weightless, out of control, like sitting in a dinghy in the middle of a wild ocean.
The world is so unjust. I’m here, safe in the arms of the only thing in this world that really matters, while Mike is alone, crying for the first girl who ever loved him the way he deserved. He’ll never find that again. Like the way I feel for David, if he loses Em, he loses everything. He’ll die inside, and it’s my fault.
David’s
grip tightened around me. “Ara. Stop thinking, my love. You need stop thinking.”
“Why?”
“Because, I don’t like where your thoughts are going.”
“Then don’t listen.”
“Fine—have it your way.” He stroked his fingertips over my hairline, so gently that a tingle of numbness blanketed me with a deep calm.
“I’m tired, David.”
“I know.” He rested his palm over my forehead, forcing my face against his silent heart. “Just sleep, my love.”
“You’re doing that to me, aren’t you—you’re making me sleepy?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t…want…to…sle—”
It wasn’t the dark that woke me, but the sudden stillness, the taught limbs of my vampire; his back straight, his ears pricked, obviously listening. I felt groggy, overslept. I wiped my eyes, swallowing night breath with saliva. “David, what is it?”
“Shh,” he said in short.
I shushed, trying to hear what had him so captivated.
His shoulders sunk, his body becoming loose again. “Stay here.”
“Wh—” I started, but fell into empty space where David evaporated again. Although I had no intention of staying put, for some reason, I couldn’t move either. I knew there could be only one of two things he’d be running to, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know which one had come to pass. Either way, I’d lose a friend today, but right now, while I had no verdict, I could imagine everything would be okay—that Em would recover like I did, and we could all get on with our lives—normal lives.
But nothing stays the same, and a soft, shadowy cloud settled cold around my shoulders when I heard the tight sobs of the man I was once going to marry. I stood so slowly, my limbs almost empty, no weight to hold me down, and practically floated to Emily’s room, crying already for what I knew I’d find there.
“Mike.” David touched his shoulder, standing in the way enough that I couldn’t see. “Let her go—she’s gone.”
“No!” I gasped; David spun around to look at me, his body clearing the path for me to see. He tried to stop me, but I darted past him, falling to my knees in front of Mike, who had Emily wrapped so tightly in his arms I couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. “She’s not gone. Tell me she’s not gone.”
“I’m sorry, my love.”
“No. Em, oh, Em, I’m so sorry.” I touched my lips, my cheeks, my lips again, unsure what to do, what to say, think, touch. I wanted to touch her, bring her back, make it better, but Mike, the way he held her, the way he guarded her, imprisoned her, told me I had no right. Her best friend, and I had no right to touch her.
Mike took a raspy breath and rolled Emily out from his body, tracing her eyes with his own, as if she might open them, as if she might come back to him. “I can’t lose her. I just can’t go through this again.”
David edged closer. “She’s already gone, brother. You need to let me take her.”
“Emily, please,” Mike whispered into her hair. “Please don’t be gone. Please, my beautiful girl, you know how much I need you—”
My tears stung, frozen behind my lashes as I watched on, helpless, an outsider. Heartache, in the form of loss and jealously, spread like cement through my bones, making me heavy and stiff all over.
She’s his girl?
He adopted her love more than he ever did mine, and in the moment of her death, I felt only jealousy for that. But she was my friend too, I loved her, and now I’d lost her, like I’d lose everyone else. David had a week left, Mike would never speak to me again, and Emily—I reached for her, my fingertips floating slowly through the space between her and I—she would be buried vertically under a tree, where no one would ever find her; another missing persons’ case, and I would be alone.
I drew my hand back, not wanting to feel the bitter cold of death, real death, and sunk back on my shins. The morning lit the room pale blue, the light dancing under her floral print curtains, reflecting off the photo frame, the one that held the only photo we displayed of the masquerade—one without me in it. Her room felt alive with her spirit, so full of everything Emily that it was hard to believe she was a corpse in Mike’s arms.
I wondered how long he’d held her, how long she’d been gone. My heart fought to survive the pain of a tortured conscience, knowing I did this to her, knowing that because of me and my meddling with vampires, she lost the only thing she could never get back.
“What do we...what do we do with her now?” Mike asked, looking to David for help.
“We bury her.” The Council member, the vampire, the ruthless man who gets things done emerged, leaving all traces of emotion out of that sentence. I cringed, imagining that would be me one day—handed over to the undertaker who is all business, no emotion.
Mike’s eyes flooded with confusion, then realisation. He looked back at Emily. “Oh, God. No. Oh, Em. Wake up, please don’t let his be real.”
“Mike—she’s gone.” I held my fingertips just above her skin, feeling the cool rise off her like energy. “She’s so cold—you need to let us take her.”
“You get away from her!” he barked, practically spitting in my face; “You did this. You did this...” his voice broke away.
“Mike?” I held the tears back. “Mike, please, I—”
“I said leave us!”
David took a quick step in and had me across the room before I realised I’d been lifted; he stood between Mike’s gaze and me; his body, his stance defensive. “Mike, don’t take this out on Ara.”
“She did this.” He released a hand from Emily only to thrust a finger of blame at me; I leaned around and when I met with the murderous hatred in his eyes, drew a breath, covering my mouth.
David pushed me back a little more, glaring down at Mike. “What was that?” he growled. “You’re gonna hurt Ara because of this?”
“Just get her out of here,” Mike sobbed, hiding his face in Emily’s neck. “I don’t wanna hurt her, you know I don’t, but I—” He looked at me again, and the truth was there, in his eyes. “I don’t wanna look at her!”
“Mike?” My voice quivered; I reached for him.
“I said go, Ara!” Mike snarled like a rabid dog.
“Right, that’s it.” David shoved me softly against the wall, shielding me completely. “One more thought like that and I’ll put you down, brother. That’s my girl you’re thinking of there.”
Mike looked up, and with loathing in his eyes, shook his head at me. “Just get her out of here.”
All breath stopped short of my lips, leaving me dizzy, light-headed, like my body was flooding with poison. My face crumpled tightly; “I really am sorry, Mike.”
“Ara.” David reached for me as I pushed past him. “Don’t run,” he called. “Ara?”
I have to run. I have to go. My best friend is dead, my other best friend, the very friend who loved me, now wants to kill me over the death of a girl he just fell for.
It made no sense, made our entire past, everything we suffered, everything we experienced, feel like nothing.
How could he be so cold?
“Ara!” David, still in Emily’s room, called again as I tugged the front door open and grabbed my car keys. “Ara, please. I can’t chase you—I need to…” A loud, grumbling sigh ended his sentence.
As the engine started, so too did the pouring rain. David appeared from nowhere and grabbed the front fender, lifting it slightly as I tried to reverse down the drive. The tyres squealed over the wet ground, but David held tight, staring me down, rain saturating his dark hair.
“Get off, David. I have to go. I can’t be here.”
“Ara, just wait. For two seconds.”
I looked into his caring eyes, then shoved the car into neutral, folding my arms.
“Thank you.” He rested the front wheels back on the ground again, appearing by my door with a curled finger tapping the window. “Unlock the door.”
I sat, sniffling. I didn’t want to open it,
but knew he’d just break it and I’d have to get it fixed if I didn’t. Begrudgingly, I lifted the lock and David yanked the door open, falling to his knees beside the car. “Don’t leave, okay. Please, I need you here.”
The rain soaked the side of my leg and turned David into a dripping artwork. “Why do you need me?”
“Because I love you. You can’t drive like this—you’ll have an accident.”
“He hates me, David. It hurts. I can’t be here.”
“He’s in pain, Ara. He doesn’t mean it. I know he doesn’t. You—” he grabbed my hand, “you know he doesn’t.”
“No, David.” I wiped my nose. “That’s the problem—he did mean it.”
“Ara?” His hands shook so much I placed mine over his. “Please don’t run. Please? I need your help. I can’t bury her alone. She was my friend, too.”
My heart melted; I touched his face, wiping away the pain. He was always so calm. I didn’t think he cared about Emily like we did, but I’d never seen him shake before, never seen him let tears fall so easily. “I’m sorry, David.”
“No.” He pulled me from the car and hugged me right there, on the driveway, in the pouring rain. “You don’t need to be sorry—for anything—at all. This is all just a horrible, horrible mistake.”
“But I told her about Jas—”
“Yes, but you never meant any of this to happen.” He wrapped both hands along my cheeks, pressing his brow to mine. “She needed the truth. So did Mike.”
I nodded. “I know. But, I just...I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never had to bury a—what do we—?”
“Don’t worry about that part, sweetheart.” He brushed my hair from my face. “I’ll take care of that. I just need you to be there with me.”
“I can do that.” I sniffed, wiping my face with the backs of my hands.
“It’s going to be okay. Mike will—” David looked up then, toward the front door.
“What?” I looked, too.
“Stay here.” He turned away slowly.
“What is it?” I reached in and turned off the car, pulling the keys from the ignition. Then, I heard it, too—screaming. Mike!