by Amira Rain
“Look. The answer is yes. But—”
“So, right now, a murderous vampire coven has concrete plans to kill our baby daughter, and soon. How are we still sitting on this couch like that’s not the most horrifying thing ever, Hayden?”
Again, he sighed. “We’re still sitting on this couch because I’ll always keep you and Chrissy safe, no matter what, so it doesn’t even matter what the Warrens plan to do to you and Chrissy.”
“Oh, so they specifically plan to kill both of us?”
Hayden winced, as if he hadn’t been wanting to confirm this part. “Yes. They don’t want there to be any chance of you ever having another baby, for the same reason that they don’t want Chrissy to live. With your mom’s supernatural powers in your bloodline, they fear that any child of yours could be powerful enough to wipe them all out if turned into a vampire in adulthood.”
“So, they’re never going to stop coming for me and Chrissy, are they? This will never be over. And Carla is probably never going to stop trying to kill you, either. So, basically, our whole family is doomed. Basically—”
“Sydney, please listen to me. I’m going to keep us all safe, and this will all be over someday, and someday soon. Don’t you believe me?”
Wrenching my hands free from his grasp, I answered honestly. “Not as much belief as I need to have in order to stay here. I’m leaving, Hayden…and I’m taking Chrissy with me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Not even waiting to see or hear Hayden’s reaction to what I’d said, I flew up from the couch and began racing out of the living room. Right then, a thunderclap sounded outside, signaling a summer thunderstorm after a very hot, humid day. Like my frustration and anxiety about the situation with Carla and the Warrens, the thunderstorm had been slowly building.
Making good use of his superhuman vampire speed, Hayden raced to confront me and cut me off right before I reached the stairs. “I can’t let you take Chrissy, Syd…and I can’t let you go, either.”
“Oh, so you own me now? You decide what I can and can’t do?”
Stunning me, Hayden didn’t even hesitate in his response. “Yes. At least yes as far as I decide what you can and can’t do until this whole situation with the Warrens is resolved. You’ve now made it crystal clear that it’s necessary for me to do this, because if you had your way, you’d be out on the road with Chrissy right now, putting the two of you in extreme danger. So, yes…I decide what you can and can’t do now. At least until the situation with the Warrens is resolved, or until you can display better judgment.”
With my jaw dropping in astonishment, I felt like I’d been slapped. Hayden’s words couldn’t have possibly sounded any more paternal to me, and not in any kind of a good way, but only in a controlling, possessive sort of way.
I asked him if he thought he was my father now or something, and again, he didn’t hesitate in his response.
“Now you’re just being absurd. I don’t think I’m your father, but I am your husband, and I intend to do my job as a husband of keeping you and our daughter safe. If you want to interpret that as me acting ‘fatherly’ to you, fine, go right ahead. You can think or feel whatever you want, Sydney…but you and Chrissy aren’t leaving this farm. Not until it’s safe for you to do so.”
“And you actually think it’s safe for me and Chrissy to stay here?”
“Yes. It’s a lot safer for the two of you here than anywhere else.”
“But—”
“Just think about it. With you and Chrissy here, you not only have me protecting you, but you also have the protection of every single one of us Watchers. On the ‘outside,’ I can only spare one, maybe two, of my vampires to watch you in case the Warrens were to follow you and try to attack you. That’s why I have to keep you and Chrissy here, close to me.”
“Here, on a farm that’s going to be attacked for sure.”
Hayden sighed, raking a hand through his thick, dark hair. “You’re staying here, Sydney, with Chrissy, and that’s that. I really don’t mean to sound like a jerk about it—”
“Yeah, basically telling me that I’m a prisoner until I can ‘display better judgment’ doesn’t sound jerky at all.”
“Be mad at me. I don’t care.”
That last line got me. I suddenly cared that he didn’t care. I also suddenly cared that even though he’d said that he wasn’t going to let me go, he hadn’t said that it was because he loved me. It was only to keep me safe, probably simply because Chrissy needed a mom, and Hayden didn’t think he could raise her without me. Feeling horribly insecure for the first time in our marriage, I suddenly wondered if he did love me.
After several moments of stony silence, I just came right out and asked him this, causing him to scoff.
“Do I love you? Why do you think I’m so concerned about keeping you where I can best protect you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re more of a control freak than I thought. Or maybe you just don’t want me to die because you think you couldn’t raise Chrissy on your own.”
Again, Hayden scoffed, shaking his head. “Wow. You really don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
For some reason, this statement brought tears to my eyes, and I blinked them back before responding.
“Maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t know you well at all. But if that’s the case, whose fault is that? It’s not like I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with you since we’ve been married. It’s not like I was able to spend a lot of time with you while I was pregnant, either. So, you’re probably right, but it probably goes both ways. We probably don’t really know each other at all.”
Frowning hard, Hayden raked a hand through his hair. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we don’t.”
“And maybe we jumped into marriage too fast. Is that what you’re going to say next?”
“Now you’re just putting words in my mouth…and I think I’m done with this conversation.”
Fighting tears, I shrugged. “That’s fine with me. I don’t think I have anything else to say.”
“Fine. I don’t, either.”
Surprising me and hurting me, Hayden turned and began striding out of the open dining room and living room area without another word. However, about halfway to the hallway that led to the kitchen and the front door, he paused and turned to look at me.
“Until this is all resolved with the Warrens and Carla, I want you to stay on this property with Chrissy, Sydney. Have I made myself completely clear?”
With my arms folded across my chest, I fixed him with what I hoped was a proud, haughty sort of look even though I was still blinking back tears. “Yes…Dad. You’ve made yourself completely clear.”
With a snort of disgust, Hayden once again turned and began heading toward the hallway. “I don’t have time for this.”
Suddenly angry, I called out after him. “Of course, you don’t! You never have time for anything!”
Hayden whirled around, shouting. “You’re right! I’m always too busy trying to keep my family safe!”
He’d never shouted at me like that before. In fact, he’d borderline roared his words at me. Fresh tears instantly sprung to my eyes, but he didn’t even see them. He was already gone, striding into the hallway, leaving me to simply stand in the dining room with tears spilling down my cheeks, wondering how everything had suddenly gone so wrong between us.
Despite feeling tired, I had trouble falling asleep later that night, and once I finally did, I had trouble staying asleep. Once, I awoke feeling like I'd just had a dream about Hayden, but I couldn't even remember exactly what the dream had been about. Another time, I awoke after having had a dream where he’d locked me in the house.
A group of Warren vampires was approaching, and I somehow broke out of the house with Chrissy in my arms, intending to run to my car and drive somewhere far away. Hayden caught me before I could reach my car, though, shouting that running was useless and that I just had to get back in the house and let him protect me and Chrissy. I
t took me at least an hour to fall back asleep after that.
Finally, just before I awoke for good around eight in the morning, I had a more pleasant dream. In it, Hayden was holding me in his strong arms, kissing me. I clung to him, filling my nostrils with his heavenly, masculine scent, with all thoughts of murderous Warrens completely driven out of my head. This dream was far too brief, and when I came out of it, my pillow was damp with tears.
As angry as I still was at him, I couldn’t deny that I still loved Hayden and missed him terribly. I was also deeply troubled and concerned about the state of our very young marriage. Unless he’d been very stealthy about it, I was pretty sure he hadn’t even crept into our bed to get his nightly half-hour or so worth of sleep at any point during the night.
While taking a shower, I brooded on this thought, realizing that this was the first night we hadn’t slept in the same bed together since our wedding night. While I told myself that this was no big deal, I couldn’t ignore the fact that my stomach was twisting into knots.
*
When I brought Chrissy downstairs for breakfast, we found Jen and Carol eating pancakes at the island. Trying to be casual about it, I asked if either of them had seen Hayden that morning, and they both said no.
A moment later, Jen looked up from a towering stack of pancakes, frowning. “Why? Are you looking for him or something? And, also…did you guys have a fight or something last night? I thought I heard a little shouting or something, but I was already kind of sleeping in bed, and I was too sleepy to really get up and see what was going on.”
Eyeing me intently, Carol said that she’d also thought she heard shouting but hadn’t been sure.
Not wanting to really get into things with Jen and Carol right then, and maybe not ever, I said that everything was fine, getting Chrissy’s box of baby cereal out of the cupboard with my back turned toward Jen and Carol so that I wouldn’t have to look them in the eyes. Neither of them said anything in response, and Chrissy soon began babbling happily while I fixed her cereal, which thankfully took the focus off me.
While she ate in her high chair pulled up to the island, Chrissy’s babbling turned into shrieks of “Ah-Zhen,” and Carol and I tried to get her to say Mama or Dada. We didn’t have any luck, but one time, Chrissy did seem to say “Mah-Zhen,” which I took to mean that she was at least trying to say Ma or Mama. Jen was still apologetic that she’d “messed up” Chrissy’s first word, although I could tell that she was secretly pleased and proud that Chrissy was still saying her name so much.
I didn’t mind at all, knowing that Jen was just being a very proud and caring aunt. Each time Chrissy burst out with an “Ah-Zhen,” Jen fed her a tiny piece of pancake mushy with syrup, giving her a little wink while she did so.
When we were all nearly finished with breakfast, Trevor came in the house, looking beat with dark circles under his pale blue eyes. While washing his hands at the kitchen sink, he said he’d been on “patrol duty” all night, along with Sam, Hayden, Mel, and a few others, making sure that no Warren spies breached the vast property or the woodland around it.
Jen suggested that maybe he sleep for an hour to “recharge his batteries” rather than the usual half-hour required by most vampires.
Trevor said he definitely was going to. “So, maybe wait an hour or two before you go anywhere today, Jen, because I’m going to need time to grab a shower, too.”
Looking puzzled, Jen asked Trevor why her going anywhere should affect his schedule, and Trevor replied by saying that he was now officially her “bodyguard” for the time being.
“I’ll follow you into Sweetwater or wherever and keep an eye on you, just like we used to do when Sydney first came here to the farm.”
Jen groaned. “Oh, I hate having a ‘bodyguard.’ I just want to go into town and do what I want to do with no one bothering me.”
Drying his hands on a blue-and-white checkered hand towel, Trevor said that he wouldn’t be “bothering” her. “I’ll just be keeping an eye on you from afar, just to make sure that the Warrens don’t try to kidnap you or something while you’re out. Then, once all this business with them is over, your ‘secret service’ patrol will be called off, and you can go back to all your illegal activities in Sweetwater without worrying about anyone watching you and reporting you to the police.”
Pouting on a barstool with her arms folded tightly across her chest, Jen didn’t even acknowledge Trevor’s little joke about her doing “illegal activities” in Sweetwater. Instead, she simply demanded to know who had “ordered” her to be “stalked.”
Wearing a small smile of amusement, Trevor came over to the island and had a seat on a barstool across from Jen. “Who do you think?”
Scowling, she snorted, then spoke seemingly to no one yet everyone at the same time. “Hayden. My very own cousin commanded that I have a prison guard follow me around, just like I’m in jail or something. See, why does he always think he’s the overlord of this whole farm and everyone that lives here?”
I was about to remark that that was a very good question, but Carol spoke first, telling Jen to “please be respectful” in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.
In response, Jen contorted her face in a mask of near-comical confusion and outrage. “Respectful? Why? Hayden’s my very own cousin.”
Carol gave Jen the smallest of smiles. “I know…but he’s also the community leader of this farm, and the leader of our family, and it’s not an easy job. I think he deserves our respect, and he deserves to not have family members accuse him of being an ‘overlord’ around here and things like that. Not to mention that I don’t think that’s the way he sees himself at all. I think he sees himself as our ‘chief protector,’ which is what he is, and what a good leader should be. He’s still our family member, yes, but we should really talk about him with a bit more respect, Jen. I think we owe him that since he works so hard to keep all of us safe.”
Now I was really glad that I hadn’t shared the details of Hayden’s and my fight with Carol and Jen, because although I wouldn’t have accused Hayden of being an “overlord,” I might have come pretty close. And I didn’t want Carol to think that I didn’t respect my own husband, or appreciate what he did to keep everyone in the community safe.
The truth was that when it came down to it, I did respect and appreciate Hayden, but like Jen, I just kind of resented feeling like I was being “controlled” by him at the same time. After all, he’d come right out and told me that he wasn’t going to let me leave the farm, no matter what. It was kind of hard not to feel a little “controlled” after hearing that statement.
In response to what Carol had said, Jen just picked at the remaining half a pancake on her plate, looking vaguely irritated, although more than a bit guilty as well, before finally lifting her gaze to Carol after a long moment or two. “All right. I’ll give Hayden a little more respect. Okay? But I don’t have to like him putting Trevor up to do surveillance on me. I don’t have to like it.”
Carol said that was fine. Trevor asked Jen why she cared about being under “surveillance,” anyway.
Setting her fork down, Jen sighed. “I care because I made these cool new friends a few days ago, and they’re actually my new adoptive grandparents, too, and their names are Phyllis and Bucky. And we’ve been meeting up in Sweetwater and doing lots of cool, fun things every day, and we want to keep on doing lots of cool, fun things every day…without anyone watching to see where we go.”
Trevor asked what kind of “cool, fun things” they’d been doing, and Jen just shrugged.
“Going out to lunch, paddle boating in the lake, fishing in the lake, going to the park to eat ice cream and play on the climbers…and we’ve also been playing paintball every day.”
Trevor cracked a half-smile. “Well, none of those things are actual illegal activities. I was just teasing you about that. So, why do you care if I tail you all day?”
Jen shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter if everything I’m doing is techn
ically legal. Sometimes a person just doesn’t want her family knowing every single tiny particle of her personal business, like where she goes, and what she does there.”
Leaning forward with his elbows on the island, Trevor looked at Jen intently for a moment or two before straightening up on his barstool. “Tell you what. If you let me tail you with no more complaints, and without trying to lose me, I promise that wherever you go, and whatever you do, it will just be our little secret, and I won’t tell anyone else in the family. Provided that everything you do is actually one hundred percent legal, of course.”
Getting a little gleam in her eyes, Jen suddenly extended a pinkie finger across the island. “Pinkie promise me that. Pinkie promise that you swear to not tell anyone in the family a single thing about where I go or what I do as long as it’s one hundred percent legal.”
Looking a little confused, but also a little amused at the same time, Trevor hooked a pinkie around Jen’s. “It’s a pinkie promise.”
Having watched their interaction with quiet interest, Chrissy suddenly gasped, clapping her chubby little hands. “Ah-Zhen! Ah-Zhen!”
I smiled, brushing a few strands of flame-red hair out of her face. “Say, ‘Mama,’ Chrissy. Say, ‘Mama.’”
Clapping her hands again, she grinned. “Ah-Zhen!”
Still smiling, I kissed her cheek. “Say, ‘Dada!’”
“Ah-Zhen!”
I didn’t see Chrissy’s “Dada” at all that day, or the next. Or the next. Instead, I worked in the creamery and at the outdoor payment desk in the “pick-your-own” strawberry patch, bringing Chrissy along with me most of the time. Being that Hayden could have easily taken a break from patrol to stop by and say hello, it seemed clear that he was intentionally avoiding me. He wasn’t, however, avoiding Chrissy, seeming to strategically visit her at times when I wasn’t present. One day when I left her at home with Carol instead of bringing her to the creamery because she was being a little fussy, Hayden came by the house and spent an hour just holding her and reading to her, Carol reported.