by Atha, DL
It was perhaps my only opportunity, and my mind seized on it immediately. Shoving the door open with all my strength, the sharp metal edge caught him square in the groin, sending him to his knees. He sucked in air in a loud whoop as he doubled over at the waist cursing out loud.
I wasted no time slipping out of the truck and sprinting across the yard. Begging the front door lock to open, I was shocked when the key slipped in on the second try. I didn’t bother to close it behind me or look over my shoulder. It was a waste of time; Joel would just bust it down if he wanted in.
My hands were shaking as I punched 9-1-1 into the phone that hung on the kitchen wall. It was ancient; the yellow color had faded to more of an off-white with time.
The operator’s voice was calm and collected when she answered. “9-1-1. State the nature of your emergency.” Her sterile voice was probably supposed to make me feel better. It didn’t help.
“Help me! Please. Oh God! My ex-husband’s going to kill me! Send the police!” My voice sounded shrill even to me. I screamed my address at her, hoping to God their system was equipped with some kind of GPS.
“Calm down, ma’am. I’ve got it. You’re on the board and help is on the way. Where is your ex-husband now? Is he with you?” she questioned, her fingers efficiently striking a keyboard in the background.
“He’s right behind me,” I whispered into the phone just as the line went dead.
Joel stood behind me, one hand holding the cord in his gloved hand, the phone jack empty in the wall. Damn those old wall phones. The receiver was still in my hands when he pulled it almost gently from my grip, setting it back on the base.
“I’m gonna let what happened out in the yard slide—for tonight that is. But you know you’re gonna have to pay for that little stunt, Tam. You can’t hit a man in the balls and expect to get away with it.”
I almost nodded my head as he spun me around to face him, like I used to do when he threatened me. I caught myself just in time, but how easy it would have been to slip back into my old role of the victim and in those few seconds, I forced myself to remember all the good in my life that had come from leaving him. I pictured my apartment and the decorations I’d made with supplies bought with my own money from the job that I’d gotten. And I thought of Mom and what she’d said that night when her spirit came to me. He might kill me, but he would not own me again. I took a steadying breath to help my resolve.
It didn’t hurt that I knew the police were on their way. Joel was no idiot, and he’d heard me give them my address. I’d be safe tonight, and even for the next few nights. Joel was good with the police. When he came for me, it’d be when no one was expecting it. He’d be the thief in the night with the airtight alibi, and I’d be the wrong person at the wrong time kind of accident.
“Where you been anyhow? Thought for sure you’d make it back for your mommy’s funeral. What took you so long, girl?”
Next to me, he leaned against the counter, his long legs stretched out in front of him. I could feel his eyes on me, studying my face. I strained to keep my expression passive—like he didn’t scare me, like I didn’t give a shit that he was here. At least that’s what I wanted him to think.
“Don’t worry, baby. I sent the old broad some lilies. Orange ones were always her favorite, right?”
“How long have you been here?” My voice was surprisingly calm. Guess that psychology class had helped a little after all.
“Oh, I came a few days after I got the divorce papers in the mail. Friend of mine brought me up here in his boat. I stayed with him out on Indian River. That wasn’t very nice, babe, leaving me like that. And that lawyer of yours. She was a real bitch. Got uppity with me just ’cause I wanted to talk to you face to face.”
“She knows you talk with your hands,” I whispered. “And I didn’t want to talk to you ever again.”
“But you wanted to talk to your momma, didn’t you?” he smiled. “Maybe you should have talked to me first.”
He twisted a lock of my hair around his finger, inching me sideways until I was forced to stand directly in front of him if I wanted to stand at all, my head pulled back as far as my spine would allow as he twisted his fingers close up to my scalp.
With my hair as leverage, he held my face still as he ran one smooth finger over my lower lip. I couldn’t control the shaking that overtook my frame but I forced myself to meet his eyes, to at least pretend I wasn’t afraid of him. It was disturbing after so long to see him again because looking at Joel was like staring a contradiction in the face. How could anything that looked that good be so bad? He was heroine in a pretty box. With a bow on top.
“The police are coming, Joel. Surely you don’t plan on being here when they make it,” I whispered through trembling lips.
He smiled, leaning into press his warm mouth to my cool forehead covered with the sweat of fear. “I always win, Tam. You just need to come on home,” he whispered into my ear before releasing me. “Don’t end up like your momma.”
Expecting him to leave since the police were no doubt on the way, I was confused when he walked to the sink, filling up a large plastic tumbler with water.
“Sleep tight, babe,” he said, raising the glass to his lips and taking a long draw of the water.
I followed a few steps behind him to the door. He left it open as he stepped out into the cold night. I was still confused until I saw him splash the water up onto the door of my truck, washing the urine and all proof that he’d been here away. Smart bastard. Although I doubted the police here would have gone to the effort of testing my truck for his DNA.
He was well past gone before the headlights of the police cruiser illuminated my drive. I was standing in the front door, leaning on the frame for support while they parked. Joel could have killed me several times over before they ever got there.
A long-legged policeman stepped from the car; the lights still on, the engine running. He didn’t plan to be here long from the looks of it.
“We got a domestic dispute call, ma’am. What’s the problem?” he asked, walking towards my door. One arm swung loosely beside him, the other rested on the stock of his handgun. Another officer warily stepped off to the right. His weapon wasn’t drawn, but his gun hand itched so bad his fingers twitched.
I could see the bias in the eyes of the first cop; rumors of me must have fully circulated the department. I should have expected that, as it was a small force.
“My ex-husband was here. But he left when I called 911,” I answered.
“Officer Delaney, ma’am.” He tipped his wide-brimmed hat as he climbed the steps, taking them two at a time. “Can I come in?”
I nodded yes, moving backwards from the door to let the officer pass. As he crossed the threshold, a sudden wave of dizziness washed across me. My senses swirled around me as the deafening crush of white noise erupted in my brain; bile rose in my throat. Instinctively, I cupped my ears, but the roaring continued unchanged. The voice had quieted while Joel was here but the roar had now returned with a vengeance.
“You okay?” Officer Delaney was asking. I struggled to hear him over the crush in my head.
“I’m all right. Just a headache,” I lied and swung the door shut behind him.
One hand still on his gun, he looked cautiously around the living room. “Nothing looks out of place,” he remarked, walking on into the kitchen.
The other officer was taking cautious steps towards my small back yard. “I’m going to look around the rest of the yard,” he said matter-of-factly to his partner.
Sinking down on the couch in the living room, I waited until the first officer finished surveying the two bedrooms and bathroom of my snug house. His partner had finished with the backyard and was standing beside the porch, busy talking on his radio.
“Like I said, he left when I called 911,” I said through clenched teeth, my fingers digging into my temples.
“Just like that? You called the police and he left? Didn’t lay a hand on you? Didn’t touch a thing?”
“So you hit him first? Without him laying a hand on you?” He pulled out a notebook and started to write.
“He’s not here to press charges, Officer. Thanks for coming. You guys have a real good night, okay?” There was no point wasting any more time so I walked to the door, holding it open to give him the message.
“By the way, ma’am, what was he driving?” the officer asked. He waited for my answer with the pen and notebook in his hand.
I exhaled in disgust. “I don’t know. I was thinking about surviving! Not cars.”
Maybe I’d have noticed if Adrik’s roar hadn’t been humming away in my head.
“Uh-huh. What was he wearing? What’s his name again?” the policeman asked, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
I must be the worst witness ever. “His name is Joel. Joel Parker.” In exasperation, I sighed. “I think he had on flannel. It rubbed across my skin, but I don’t remember the color. Detective Scott told me today that Joel was back in town,” I added.
“So this was the first time you’d seen him?”
“Since I came back into town, yes.”
“What a coincidence.” He smirked. “I’ll let Detective Scott know about this call in the morning. You do know filing a false police report is a criminal act, right?” he questioned.
“What the hell does that mean?” I shot back.
“Ma’am, I’m just saying it’s a little strange. You find out Mr. Parker is back in town today, and then you report he’s here tonight. Nothing’s been tossed around in the house, and there’s not a hair out of place on you. Are you sure your ex was even here? The detective mentioned you might pull something like this,” he said, scowling at me as he walked out through the door.
“Here’s an idea, Officer. Maybe my ex is smarter than that smart-ass of a detective. So you go right ahead and let the ‘Detective’ know in the morning,” I said, making quotations in the air. “If I’m dead by then, I’d ask you to let him know that too, but I’m betting if I were, you guys would probably never figure it out. Take care,” I added as I slammed the door in his surprised face.
A few moments later, the police cruiser disappeared down my drive. Inside the dimly lit interior of the car, I could just make out the outlines of the officers. The front passenger window was rolled down, and a long arm held out a cigarette. Watching them from the window next to the fireplace, I let the curtains slide back into place. I locked the doors more as a precaution than anything else. Joel wouldn’t be back tonight.
Doubtless the police would take some routine surveillance trips down to my house during the evening. They would hate for me to turn up missing on their shift. It wouldn’t look good after they’d reportedly found nothing a few hours earlier.
It was the safest I’d felt in days, but it was an illusion. I had merely pushed off the inevitable. The day of reckoning with Joel was coming. I’d failed miserably in convincing the authorities that Joel was guilty. Once again, I’d let Mom down.
I was down to my last option.
Chapter 9
I was digging through the snow before the glare of the cruiser’s lights had cleared my driveway. Intoxication and terror had fueled my aim off the back deck the night before when I’d flung the bottle with as much strength as I could conjure. So it was with only the vaguest idea of where the bottle had landed that I began searching.
My fingers were numb with cold and my pants soaked through with melted snow as I clamored across the frozen ground on icy knees. The white noise of the vampire in my mind had become deafening again. A couple of times without meaning to, I stopped in my searching to claw desperately at my ears even though the movements were wasted. It didn’t help.
Instinctively, I’d move away from the sound when it became crushing, and I soon realized that if I moved to the right, the roaring would lessen. If I moved to the left, it got louder, to the point of pain, although the words were still inaudible and I realized he was speaking to me in the only way he could, steering me to his blood.
I was in tears from both the pain in my head and fear when I finally felt something hard and round under my right knee. I stretched my hand down through the snow and grasped the rounded contour of the bottle, whispering a thanks to the blanket of snow that had protected the bottle’s fall. As I worked to pull it to the surface, I lost my balance and reflexively shifted my knee, snapping the neck of the vial off in my hand.
A dark stain formed in the snow, and I watched in horror as the stain spread quickly across the surface. The snow absorbed the fluid like a sponge, and I felt sick to my stomach. I needed it too much to have wasted the blood like this.
I held the remnant of the bottle up to the moonlight. Only about a fourth of the previous contents hadn’t spilt out, and I set it aside for later. I wasn’t certain that the remaining blood would be enough, so I scooped the red snow up in my hands and ate it out of my palms, licking my skin where it melted and ran down my forearms.
I felt the vampire’s satisfaction as the blood touched my lips and his contentment when it hit my belly and stayed safely down. It was the first peace I’d had this evening. For a few moments, he was quiet and my mind was thankfully silent.
Above me, the stars studded the night sky in a glorious display. They seemed brighter than when I’d first come outside. It’s usually so cloudy in Sitka that you can’t make them out, but for the moment, the sky was cloudless, and despite my circumstances, I crossed my legs and leaned back, studying the view. My hands were so benumbed with cold that I didn’t even notice the icy temperatures as I stretched them out behind me for support and let my head fall farther back to trace the Milky Way’s ribbon through space. What would it be like to study these patterns in the stars for centuries?
I didn’t have more than a few moments to ponder my own question before my mind was buzzing again with the vampire’s unrest. He wanted more of me. My head roared with desires that I couldn’t completely make out or fully understand. Except one command which was loud and clear.
“Drink.”
It echoed repeatedly in my mind until I imagined I could make out the word emblazoned in the stars. It reverberated in the wind, and even the ground underneath me spoke those same syllables. I could feel the earth’s utterances in the pads of my fingers even as the pit of my belly burned with hunger for more.
The remnant of the vial rested beside me in the snow and I didn’t hesitate as I lifted it to my lips and drank the rest of the liquid. I was committed to exploring this final option because I was trapped even if no one else realized it. How could anyone judge me for the lengths I was willing to go?
But I knew as I sat there listening to the voice of the vampire in my consciousness that I would be judged for my actions. Mom would be so ashamed if she knew what I’d done. She wouldn’t understand that I was doing this for her too—that I needed peace for her. And for all that Joel had done to me.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” The scripture came unbidden to my mind, one of Mom’s favorites. I guess that was the one beautiful part of her being in Heaven; I would never disappoint her again and she would never know of the unholy things I had done in her memory.
But Peter would judge me if he ever found out, and he’d be disappointed by what he’d see only as impulsivity. He wouldn’t understand that I needed to be free of Joel, and that I couldn’t face a lifetime of running from him. Peter would think the risks were too great, and that I’d only changed who I was running from.
But I had a plan and no part of it involved letting Peter down. What could go wrong?
> I tossed the empty, broken glass towards the woodpile, hearing it explode into thousands of pieces, before I stumbled back to the house, shocked at what my life had become.
It wasn’t immediate but within a quarter-hour, I begin to feel blurred, as if the outlines of my body and my mind were smudged and not as distinct as they had been. What were my thoughts and what were not my thoughts were difficult to distinguish.
I was in my own house; the house I’d grown up in, and the interior hadn’t changed much in the decade I’d been gone. Yet some of the furnishings looked unfamiliar, as if I was looking at them for the first time.
The light switch on the wall was exactly where it should be. I knew it had been there for years, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was supposed to do. I flipped it up and down twice, knowing that I should know and looking strangely at the light flickering over my head. How odd it seemed.
You need to go to bed, I told myself.
I walked to the living room door and checked the lock again, fairly certain that the idea was mine, but before I’d turned to go back the bedroom, I decided I would go for a hike.
There’s somewhere I need to go. It’s important.
I was unlocking the doors before I realized it made no sense to hike at ten in the evening.
What is wrong with me?
The surgeon’s journal lay on the mantle. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. It looked different I thought at first before I decided that it simply looked older. I remembered seeing it lying on a small cluttered table littered with soiled bandages. I could see the doctor hunched over, scribbling furiously on the pages. I touched his familiar handwriting. I recalled being unable to read it because I was illiterate.
And then I remembered I was bilingual and had read the entire journal cover to cover.
Two lives intermingled in my veins—two sets of memories to piece together and sort through.
Adrik was here. I’d invited him in, and now he was with me. I could feel him, and yet I couldn’t quite find him. But he was near, a presence lingering at the edge of my consciousness. He was the constellation that you couldn’t see when you looked directly at it, but if you looked away, you could see the haze of stars hovering at the edge of your vision. He encroached on my awareness, and I was feeling more smudged and less distinct with every passing second as his blood seeped into my system.