by Amy Richie
“I’m not…”
“I’m not giving you a choice. Get dressed or I will dress you myself.” He retrieved the clothes from the chair and was back beside me before I even blinked.
I flinched back from the anger in his face. “Fine.” I took the clothes from him in a huff. “But I’m not hunting.” Like a child being punished, I stomped all the way to the bathroom.
I took my time changing, relishing the thought of making him wait.
I hope you hear these thoughts.
He was the most infuriating man I had ever met. Why couldn’t he just take the hint and leave me alone? If he thought for one second…
“You done yet?” He pounded hard on the bathroom door.
“No.”
The door flung open suddenly and he was standing on the other side. I hurried to pull the clean shirt over my head, still enough sense about me to be embarrassed.
“Looks like it to me.”
“You can’t just come in here. I’m getting dressed.”
“You already are.”
He pulled me roughly from the bathroom and pushed me down into a chair. In quick movements, he put my shoes on for me and pulled me back up.
“I could have done that myself, you know.”
“I’m done waiting. Let’s go.”
“Where…?”
“Shh.” He put his finger against my lips. “No more talking.”
“You…”
“Ah-ah.” He wagged his finger in front of my face.
I puffed my cheeks out, infuriated and hating him all the more. Who did he think he was, anyways?
“My name is Rueben,” he grinned, “and soon, I’m going to be your best friend.”
“Ha! Like that…”
“Nope.” His fingers stopped me from talking again. “Let’s go, Miss Claudia.”
When I didn’t follow him willingly enough, he wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me off the ground. It didn’t matter how hard I struggled, he was much stronger than I was.
He carried me down the steps and set me back on my feet in the alley behind my apartment. “Are you ready to come with me now?” he asked with a grin.
“Do I have a choice?”
His grin widened. “No.”
I clenched my teeth tight together. I wanted nothing more than to knock that grin off his face. When he started walking again, I followed close at his heels.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rueben led me to a small alley that dead-ended. Leaning against the far wall was a homeless man dressed in layers of rags. He reeked of alcohol and grease. My nose crinkled in disgust.
“You smell the blood, too, don’t you?” Rueben purred close to my ear.
“All I smell is alcohol.”
“No. Smell deeper.”
Almost against my will, I inhaled deeply through my nose. The smell of blood hit me like a brick. There was no other smell like it–a salty sort of smell that had my teeth throbbing all over again.
“I remember my first hunt,” Rueben circled me slowly, “a group of us went out to a nearby village.” I didn’t want to hear the rest, but his melodic voice hypnotized me. “There was a young woman there. Her hair was the color of a flame and her blood like liquid fire in my mouth. I couldn’t stop until I drained her completely.”
“Is this fairy story supposed to entice me to hunt?”
“As she lay there dead in my arms, I felt more powerful than I ever had before. Nothing can compare to it.” He came face to face with me. “Certainly not the cold dead blood that Marcus brings to you.”
“I’m still alive,” I protested.
“Only just barely.”
I sighed through my nose. “I…I’m…just fine.”
“If I didn’t feed for three or four days–even longer–I’d be just fine. You are close to desperation.”
“Marcus never let me go that long between…feeding.”
He stared into my eyes, trying to see past my scowl. “You will learn to hunt, Claudia.”
“I don’t understand what the big deal is,” I hissed.
“The big deal?” he scoffed with widened eyes. “You’re a vampire.”
“I know.” Tears were already starting to blur my vision.
“You…can be an amazing creature.” I saw the confusion and the disgust in his eyes, as if he couldn’t grasp why I wouldn’t embrace this new life I was given.
I didn’t consider it a gift, though. My life was taken from me. The only good thing I had gotten in return had sent me away. “I don’t want to be a creature,” my voice broke.
“You don’t have a choice. You are what you are.”
“Marcus took that choice from me,” my voice rose in volume. “He made me a monster and then just threw me away like trash.”
His head jerked back as if he’d been slapped. “You don’t understand; he didn’t have a choice.”
“Well,” I half chuckled like a crazy person, “looks like all our choices are being taken from us.”
“Claudia…”
“Are you going to help me or not?”
“By bringing your food to you?”
His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “I’m not hunting.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Then, I guess you’ll starve.”
“David said I could live on synthetic blood.” I knew I was being desperate, but I didn’t want him running off again.
“Is David going to make it for you?”
“I don’t know where he is!”
He wriggled his eyebrows at me. “Looks like you’ll have to do it my way.”
“I can’t hunt.”
“Only because you haven’t been properly taught; he should have made you.”
My temper flared as my urge to still defend Marcus after all he did to me came to surface. “Well, he didn’t. And you can’t either.”
His look of disgust changed to a sneer. I couldn’t decide which was worse. Then, he began to circle me like a vulture waiting for his prey to die. “Do you know what happens when you get really thirsty?” he asked in a low voice.
I ran my tongue lightly over my already throbbing incisors. “Yes,” I whispered in a shaky voice.
“No,” he shook his head slowly, “I don’t think you do.”
My eyes snapped open wide. “Stop it!”
“I’m not doing anything,” he purred.
Blood pounded painfully in my head, echoing against my ears until it was all I could hear. But it was my own blood. It had been too long since I last fed–way too long. “Stop,” I begged, “Just stop.”
“When you wait too long to feed, when you get really thirsty,” he went on without mercy, “all you can think about is blood, all you can hear is blood.”
I felt the cold stone of the wall he had backed me into, and still he advanced. “Go away!”
“I thought you wanted my help,” he said in a thick sweet voice.
“You’re n…not helping.” When had I started trembling?
“Yes I am.”
I shook my head violently from side to side. I felt the coldness on my cheeks. “N… no you’re n…not.”
“Claudia,” he was only inches away from my face, “You’ll thank me one day for this.”
I heard the air whooshing in and out of my lungs much too quickly. Rueben’s face was becoming fuzzy at the edges. My tongue swelled up to fill all the spaces in my mouth and still I could hear blood pounding around inside my head. “Thump, thump, thump.”
Suddenly, I became aware that it wasn’t my blood I was hearing at all. It was a heart, a human heart, pushing sweet blood through blue veins. Veins that were soft, soft enough for my teeth to cut through. It would be so easy, so easy to let the blood flow into my mouth. My teeth throbbed and extended to my bottom lip. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Definitely human–and not far away either. With a need I had never experienced before, I pushed Rueben away from me and followed the thumping heart.
I found the
man quickly, slumped over in sleep. The blood sang through his veins. I was aware of nothing except my need. There was no way for me to run from my hunger. The pain was already too great to bear. With the smallest of sighs, I sank to my knees and began to drain the man of blood.
As the warm fluid sloshed through me, a new feeling started to take over: A sense of power. It was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life.
The world opened up to me, let me see its heartbeat. I could run as fast as the wind blew, and see as far as the sun’s beams, and I could hear everything. My soft steady breaths were in sync with everything around me.
For the first time since I had been changed, I didn’t feel small; I felt alive. I wanted to touch the snow on top of a mountain and walk along the bottom of the ocean; and I knew that it was all possible for me. I could go anywhere or be anything and it was exhilarating.
Rueben pulled me away from the man before his heart stopped beating. It was disappointing not to get that last drop. “Why did you stop me?” I asked breathlessly.
“You’ll kill him.”
“So?”
“So,” he took a hold of my hand and led me back towards the sounds of the busy city, “It’s not the way of the Letrell family.”
“To hunt?”
“To kill,” he corrected.
“Please,” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve heard that old nursery rhyme they taught their children in the early 1900s.”
“In England?” He smiled wide.
“Go outside only if you dare; But you know who will be hiding there; the Letrell brothers lurk in the night; and you won’t live to see the morning light,” I quoted.
“My brothers always knew how to make an impression.”
“Dominick and Damien?”
“Contrary to what the children were taught, we do not go around murdering people.”
“I don’t want to either, but,” I smiled wide. “That was…”
Rueben chuckled at my new mood. “Filling?” he offered.
“Amazing. I feel like I could run clear to the ocean.”
“It’s not that far away.”
“Yeah, but now I feel like I want to. I want to see if I can walk on the bottom.”
“Of the ocean?”
“Have you ever?”
“No.” He kept his smile tight, but I heard the rapid beats of his heart.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you back to your place.”
My disappointment alarmed me. “No, I don’t want to go back there.” He gave me a sideways grin. “It’s too small there.”
“You need a shower.” His nose crinkled comically.
“Do I stink?” I made a show of smelling my clothes.
“The clothes are clean,” he reminded me.
“You’ll help me, right, Rueben?”
I turned to him, suddenly making him stop or run into me.
He smiled crookedly and sidestepped around me. I hurried to catch up. “You need help to shower?” he teased.
I giggled lightly. My entire mood was completely altered. “Maybe,” I teased back.
“I’m not sure how Marcus would feel about that.”
“He won’t care.”
Thoughts of Marcus made my smile falter slightly. I still missed Marcus, but suddenly I could see past that. I could actually see what my life would be without him, and I felt like I could manage it.
“You love him still,” Rueben said.
“How do you know?” I challenged. Maybe I didn’t love him as much as I thought. Maybe I just needed him. I needed him to hunt for me and keep me safe. What happened when I could do that for myself? What would be left of Marcus and me?
“You just feel that way right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“The thrill of feeding; the high you get right after you feed; it feels like you can do anything and all you want to do is try everything.”
“Yeah.” He was right about that, about everything actually. “I don’t want to just be weak anymore, though.”
“I knew you wouldn’t”
“Who would?”
It was easy to understand why Rueben found me disgusting before. I could understand now why he didn’t understand why Marcus allowed me to stay weak. If Marcus knew if could be like this, he should have forced me into it. All these wasted years. I shook my head sadly.
“He was only trying to protect you.” Rueben turned a corner and I followed quickly.
The tables had turned drastically since just that morning. Now Rueben was the one defending Marcus while I berated him in my mind. It felt like someone had finally taken my blindfold off; the blindfold that Marcus had put on me.
“Maybe,” I shrugged.
“You didn’t want to hunt, so he didn’t make you.”
“He should have.”
“I agree, but he was only trying to…”
“Protect me,” I finished for him. “I know.”
“You’re here now.”
“I’m glad he sent me to you.” I wanted to hold Rueben’s hand, but I wasn’t sure what kind of message that would send. “I’ll never go back to how I was,” I vowed. “Not now that I know.”
He smiled and pulled my hand through his offered arm. We walked slowly back to the apartment, neither of us in much of a hurry. I had a million questions to ask him, but the silence had settled comfortably around us and I was loathe to break it.
We stopped outside the apartment and I turned to face Rueben. “Are you coming up?”
“No.”
My face crumpled and I looked down at the ground. “Oh.”
He chuckled lightly. “You go on up and shower. You have a lot to think about.”
“When are you coming back?”
“A few hours?”
I started to relax then and even managed to smile up at him. The yellow in his eyes was fighting for dominance this morning. He smiled back at me without showing his teeth. He was so different now.
“You’re different, too,” he commented.
“I am?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re not so bad when you’re not screaming at me.”
“And you’re not so bad when you aren’t lying around feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Thanks.”
“Not a problem,” he grinned.
“I mean for not giving up on me.”
“I know.”
“I know that I was…” I swallowed audibly over the lump of hard emotion that had formed in my throat.
“Impossible.” He rolled his eyes.
“Something like that.”
“You’ll be okay now.”
The cool wind blew across the empty parking lot, lifting my hair and causing it to dance along my jaw. All around me, humans laughed and argued with one another. For the first time in a long time, I actually believed that I might just be okay.
“You’ll help me?”
“I will.” He nodded once.
I smiled up at Rueben and he smiled back at me.
I miss Marcus.
I know you do.
But I’m ready.
I know.
My green eyes narrowed slightly and his honey colored ones lit up in appreciation.
Chapter Forty
1986
“I’ve decided I’m going to kill Silango,” I announced grandly.
Rueben’s nose crinkled comically. “Oh, yeah?”
He turned the short piece of wood in his hand, running the blade of his knife across it expertly. Rueben’s creations always amazed me; how an awkward piece of wood became a beautiful work of art. Over the years, he had gone through different phases of collections.
“What’s it going to be this time?”
“This?” He waved the still unrecognizable chunk in the air.
“Yes.” I raised both eyebrows.
The sides of his lips curled up in what might have been a smile. These days, I didn’t see much of that. “This is going to
be a drum set.”
“Oh, are you creating a band now?”
“The Beatles.”
“Oh.” I sat back against the tree I was leaning on. Rueben and I had met at our usual spot: a small wooded area overlooking the city. We were still close enough to hear and see everything and yet far enough away to be alone. “I hope they never destroy this place.”
“I’m sure they will. The human race is expanding and they need somewhere to live.” He rounded out the top of the wood, creating what could have been the beginning of a drum.
I caught my bottom lip between my teeth. “Do you think I’m ready?”
He didn’t look at me, but I heard the stutter in his heart, so I know he heard what I had asked. “I don’t think you’re ever going to be ready for something like that,” he finally said.
“I’ll never get Marcus back if I don’t.”
We had talked about it enough over the years. Silango’s orders could not be ignored. If Marcus ever saw me again, he would have no choice but to kill me. The only way to cancel out Silango’s order was to kill him. Then, all the Letrells would be free.
“You’re not even a warrior, Claudia. You’re only a third generation.”
“I can do it.” I insisted. “You want me to, don’t you?”
“I don’t want you to go on a suicide mission.”
“I’m not giving up on Marcus.”
“You should.”
“Tell me again what he was like at Blakesly House.” Rueben had seen him just last month at the Letrell reunion that I had not been permitted to attend.
“I’ve already told you.”
“Did he ask about me at all?”
“We’ve already been over this.”
“Rueben.”
“He asked how you were doing. I told him fine. That was it.”
I sighed. That is what he had told me last time I asked, too. I knew there was more to it. Marcus missed me as much as I missed him, I just knew it.
“You haven’t found Sylvia yet, either?”
“I can’t track the sisters down. Paris says he saw them in India.”
“We should go.”
He scowled while still looking down at his carving. “I thought you wanted to kill Silango.”
“I thought you said I couldn’t do it.”
“I did.” He nodded a few times and then continued his drum set.