Sam I Am

by Heather Killough-Walden

  He closed his eyes, for just a moment, and allowed himself to imagine her as his bride, in his home – in his bed. His mind swam with a consciousness created through wishes; filled with cravings, yearnings and desires.

  He was made of want. And, want he did. He wanted Logan. It was only his uncertainty, as a newborn entity, that held him back.

  He opened his eyes and they locked on her once more. He noticed how her long hair shimmered under the fluorescent bulbs in the hallway; it was the color of honey and beckoned like silk, long and wavy and touchable.

  And then her rare, golden eyes darkened, her pupils expanding, and he recognized that look. He knew what it meant.

  She was watching someone else. He followed her gaze to find that she was stealing surreptitious glances at a young man with long black hair and eyes like clouded emeralds. They were the color of oak groves from a distance. The color of life.

  Sam’s gaze darkened. The blue in his own stark eyes turned cobalt.

  The young man with the black hair seemed to feel Logan’s gaze on him. He looked up and, catching her before she could look away, he returned a secret glance, managing a quick smile.

  Sam barely suppressed a growl.

  Logan Wright was his destiny. But these other children? They meant nothing to him. They were nothing. They could only get in the way.

  And he was feeling hungry again.

  Logan unlocked her door and slid into the driver’s seat. Then she closed the door behind her, locked it again, and pressed her forehead to the steering wheel. She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. She took another deep breath and let that out as well.

  It was lunch hour, and this time around, she had no appetite. Her stomach felt as if it possessed both hard, painful knots – and a swarm of angry bees.

  Fifth period was coming up. And fifth period would mean Sam Hain.

  The new guy.

  Why was she so nervous? Because she knew that name. Didn’t she? It was so familiar to her, it was surreal.

  The young man in her dream had been “Sam.” And when Katelyn had gone on to describe how Sam Hain looked – Logan had actually begun to feel ill. Kate had illustrated the boy from her dream to near perfect detail.

  Logan must have looked as sick as she’d felt, because Kate asked her if she was okay. “Another fight?” she automatically assumed. Logan couldn’t blame her. Her family had so many of them, it was a natural guess.

  But Logan shook her head, ran her hand over her face, and told her that she hadn’t eaten breakfast. That was all.

  The first four periods of the day had gone by incredibly slowly. And blurringly fast. She recalled positively nothing that the teachers had spoken of. And she couldn’t remember what Katelyn had been talking her ear off about during the passing periods. All she could think about was the new student. Who she had yet to meet.

  Or even see in the halls.

  Those kinds of things happened, of course. The halls were packed and classes were spread wide through the labyrinthine construction of the school. It was possible to miss people for days, even. But it would have helped if she’d caught even the slightest glimpse of him. Just so that she could reassure herself – so she could confirm that it wasn’t, in fact, the boy from her dreams.

  Because that would be impossible. That would make her…. What? Crazy?

  Logan straightened in the driver’s seat and caught a splash of red in the blur of her vision. Her finger was bleeding again. When she’d woken up that morning, there had been a cut at its tip, in the exact same spot that she’d been pierced with the thorn of Sam’s rose.

  The wound wasn’t overly large, but it had been bleeding pretty badly.

  And now it was at it again.

  She sighed and stuffed her other hand in her front pocket, pulling out the extra bandage she’d brought with her to school, just in case. After she had it wrapped around her right index finger, she turned her attention to the notebook in the driver’s seat beside her. That was where she always kept her stories, just in case someone broke into her locker. Kids were forever breaking into other people’s lockers.

  Her stories were her private thoughts. She didn’t want anyone reading them. Not yet, anyway. Maybe, one day – when she was forty and famous.

  She picked up the notebook, set it against the steering wheel, and took the pen from the cup holder. With her thumb, she flipped through the pages already written.

  She smiled as she read….

  David Thorne, the vampire king with blonde hair and blue eyes and an Armani trench coat…. Michael Angel, the alpha werewolf leader of a motorcycle gang…. Anthony Salvatore, the raven-haired shape shifter demon who had searched the world for thousands of years for his bride…. Darien Locksley, the green eyed immortal warlock obsessed with a witch who doesn’t know she’s magic…. And Logan’s favorite, Samuel Falls. She stopped turning the pages and looked down at this story. It wasn’t finished yet.

  She still had quite a ways to go with Samuel’s story. As of yet, she didn’t even have a clear image of what the character looked like. And there were plot holes in the tale that she needed to get straightened out and filled up.

  But he appealed to her, even as incomplete as he was, and she didn’t know why. Some things just appealed to her. Like Dominic Maldovan.

  Her eyes glassed over a little as she recalled their meeting in the hall the day before. Logan had never been lucky enough to get him alone before. She’d always figured that, even if she had been lucky enough, he wouldn’t really want to talk to her.

  She’d been wrong.

  Logan closed her eyes and tried not to think of what a fool she’d made of herself in front of him. She couldn’t stand the thought of him thinking even less of her than she did at that moment.

  Logan hated that she was so weak in this. But the truth was, she had been wanting to run her fingers through his long black hair since the fourth grade, when he’d helped her up off of that playground.

  She still had the scar on her right knee – and it never failed to remind her of him.

  Logan sighed and opened her eyes, peering down once more at the unfinished story in her lap. “Samuel,” she said, aloud, as she rubbed her finger-tips over the words she’d written. “Just in time for Halloween.”

  She truly adored Autumn. It got her creative juices flowing; stories came easier, ran deeper, and rang truer for her in the Fall. Everything was just friendlier then, and that inherent, seasonal kindness made it easier for her to concentrate on writing.

  Allergies went away, the air cleaned itself, the night was clearer and closer, the leaves turned, insects died off, and you could wear sweaters every day. She loved sweaters! They meant you could eat cookies without worrying about it.

  And that was only the beginning.

  Autumn brought with it the best holidays. Like Halloween.

  Logan desperately loved October. It was, by far, her preferred time of year; a month she looked forward to for the other eleven months. The moment it began, Logan felt she had something to live for. The moment it ended, Logan felt she had something, at least, to look forward to.

  “What should I make you?” Logan whispered aloud now, once more thinking about the character, Samuel Falls. It should be something Halloween-y, she thought with a secret smile. Vampires were her fall-back; tall, sophisticated, deadly.

  But she had also created a wonderful new werewolf that never went through any of that awkward bone-popping, body crunching, furry-faced crap that werewolves on TV went through. She liked her wolves a lot. Then again, she also liked her devils and demons. So powerful – they could honestly do almost anything.

  As of yet, the words on the pages before her drew an unfinished picture of a young man who was trapped between her made-up world and complete non-existence. He needed to be fleshed out.

  “Sam,” she whispered again. And then she frowned.

  She uncapped her pen and wrote in the margin of the notebook.

  “Samuel Falls,” s
he said the name aloud as she wrote it. Then, “Sam Falls.” She wrote that one too. Lastly, “Sam Hain.” The new student.

  “Sowen,” she said aloud, correctly pronouncing the holiday, Samhain’s druidic name. And then, very quietly, she whispered “Samhain equals Sam Hain.”

  His head snapped up.

  She’d said his name. His true name. She’d called it out – quietly – but twice.

  He straightened, coming to his full height, and allowed the body he had been holding to drop to the ground. It crumpled at his booted feet and he ignored it, instead turning his face to the wind and inhaling deeply.

  He could smell her, even here in the alley between the student’s garage and the gymnasium. Her scent was a mixture of cinnamon and soap and… blood. She was nearby.

  He had watched her, minutes earlier, as she’d waved goodbye to her friend and headed toward the parking lot to leave for lunch.

  Only, she hadn’t left yet – why?

  Sam glanced down at the body at his feet. He was sated at the moment, more or less. The yawning emptiness inside of him had been filled and he no longer felt desperate. Angry. Hungry.

  This hunger was a new thing for him, as was nearly everything else he was experiencing. He’d felt it for the first time last night, before he’d done away with the man who had leered at Logan Wright. But once he’d taken his fill of the man’s blood, he’d felt much better. More powerful. Powerful enough to enter her dreams.

  Now, as he caught her scent on the wind and heard her laughter, he began to feel, once more, that entirely different kind of yearning. Slowly, he closed his eyes and willed the change to come over him. The blood of his victim dissipated and his black clothes were once more clean.

  He contemplated the dead student. With a single thought from him, the body of the young man burst into flame, burned up in sheer seconds, and then turned to ash. A wind rushed through the alley and carried the ash away.

  Sam watched the gray whirlwind pick up and leave and as he glanced back down, he caught the pale flash of his reflection in a puddle of water a few feet away. He paced toward it, his boots crunching the stray pieces of gravel and dirt under him.

  Then he gazed down at the reflection, studying it fully for the first time since he had been transformed. He stood tall; he was uncommonly attractive, and Logan’s words had draped him in the only color that suited him. He had much to thank her for.

  His black t-shirt stretched to cover the muscles he’d been endowed with. The motorcycle jacket gave him a hard edge. It was fitting.

  His eyes were ice blue. Nearly white. They were stark and piercing and now, gazing down into them himself, Sam came to understand exactly why Logan had shied away from him in her dream. He was handsome, yes. But he was also frightening. Imposing.

  This gave him pause.

  I’ve killed, he thought. The words floated, aimlessly, through his mind. Killed and killed again.

  And that was only the beginning.

  Logan Wright would do well to be afraid of him. She would be wise to keep her distance.

  In the watery reflection, Sam Hain’s gaze narrowed, becoming determined and cold.

  Wise or not – that just wasn’t going to happen.

  Chapter Four

  Logan punched down the lock on the car door and then slammed it shut. She stood there beside the car and waited to see if the door would catch or play it difficult and bounce back.

  It was her lucky day; this time it shut without a fight. Logan sighed a sigh of both relief and disappointment and ran a hand through her long wavy hair. It was technically still her parents’ car; she had to take them anywhere they wanted to go in it. And it was an old car; no automatic locks on this one. But it had four wheels and fairly good tires and it got her away from home. So, to her, it was a slightly rusty, dented, out of date chariot of freedom.

  Of course, in the summers, it bordered on painful because it didn’t have an air conditioner. She found, however, that she was able to put up with a lot of heat-induced tension headache and dehydration so long as it afforded her a way out of the family hysteria.

  It did have a radio. There was that. Unfortunately, there were two stations in her charming little town. One of them played non-stop country. The other played non-stop really old country. Neither was much to her liking.

  Logan threw her backpack over her shoulder and walked briskly toward the stairs that led to the back of the school. Fifth period would begin in ten minutes.

  On the fourth step, her backpack began playing Paint It Black. Logan set it down, unzipped the small front pocket, and pulled out her phone. The LED screen read, “Betty Crocker.” She smiled to herself and flipped it open. “Hi Mrs. Witherspoon, this is Logan.”

  He listened as the woman on the other end of the line spoke. He was able to understand what was happening because of Logan. She’d written it all into her stories. Cell phones, computers, cars, money, clothing – she’d placed the detail he needed to survive into her work, unwittingly creating him to the very finest detail.

  “Absolutely,” Logan was saying. “No problem, Mrs. Witherspoon. I’ll be there as soon as I can get away.” He watched as she looked up, toward the school, a calculative expression on her face. She nodded, as if the other woman could see her. “Don’t worry – I’ll take care of everything.” She closed the phone and dropped it back into the front pocket of her backpack.

  Logan stood on the step for a moment, considering her options. Randy Hodges hadn’t shown up to open the store that morning. The shop had remained closed all day, until a repeat customer had phoned Mrs. Witherspoon to ask whether there had been a family emergency.

  It appeared that Randy Hodges had gone missing. His car was still parked in the driveway of his apartment, but his neighbors hadn’t heard him come in. He lived alone, so there was no family to miss him, however Mrs. Witherspoon claimed that her calls were going straight to his voice mail.

  Which reminded Logan of Meagan.

  She sighed heavily and pulled her cell phone back out of the bag. She dialed Meagan’s number and was once more disappointed, if not surprised, when it, too went directly to voice mail. Next, she sent her friend a text. That would spark a reply, for sure. If it didn’t, then Meagan was dead – she never missed a chance to text her friends.

  When she’d finished, she closed her phone and peered back up at the façade of the school. “Well, I guess fifth period mystery new guy is gonna have to wait,” she whispered to herself. Not that she was exactly let down by the idea. In fact, any excuse to put off meeting Sam Hain personally, she would leap on and sink both tooth and nail into.

  She’d been worrying about it all day. And now that she realized what his first and last name actually meant, she felt as if she were slip-sliding back into a dream state, only while she was still awake. Psychologists had a term for that, she was fairly sure. Something like… going certifiably batty.

  With that thought, Logan spun around on the steps and took them back down to the parking lot two at a time. She shoved her key into her car door and got in, sinking into the seat with that familiar sense of power and freedom that always came when one got behind the wheel of an automobile.

  It was a control thing, she guessed.

  She started the car up and pulled it out of the lot, knowing that she was going to get reamed by her teachers for this little absence. But she didn’t care; she had a legitimate excuse. And once she told everyone about poor old Mrs. Witherspoon being left on her own, they would be forced to either agree with Logan or appear nothing less than heartless bastards. She loved those kinds of compromises.

  It was two minutes into her drive to the bakery that her cell phone rang. As a rule, she didn’t pay attention to the phone when she was driving. But she couldn’t help but wonder whether it might be Meagan, at last getting back to her.

  When she pulled into the empty drive in front of the shop, she turned off the car and immediately checked her phone. Instead of reading “Meagan,” the screen
displayed, “Deirdre Stone.” That was Meagan’s mother.

  Logan’s chest suddenly felt tight. There was a cold, hard feeling spreading through her as she returned the number and put the phone to her ear. It picked up after the first ring. “Logan?” Deirdre’s voice sounded higher-pitched than usual. And thinner. More tired.

  “Yes, Mrs. Stone, it’s Logan. What’s wrong?” She just knew something was wrong. It was as obvious as the sun at noon.

  “Logan, Meagan is in a coma. She’s here at St. Mary’s. They found her last night in the cemetery….” Deirdre’s voice cracked and Logan jumped to fill the silence and spare Meagan’s mother any further discomfort.

  “I’ll be at St. Mary’s as soon as I can close the bakery, Mrs. Stone. I promise.”

  Katelyn Shanks stared at the back of the new guy’s head. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. Even the back of him was gorgeous.

  She loved the way his deep brown hair looked so thick and soft. She could easily run her hands through it and then hold tight. She loved how his shoulders looked so strong. That special curve that men get where the neck meets the shoulder was so perfect on him; she wanted to sink her teeth into it. And the biceps that filled out the short sleeves of his black t-shirt were… were…

  Yummy, she thought, and leaned forward in her desk. She put her elbows on the surface and laced her fingers together, resting her chin on them.

  Sam Hain shifted in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his long legs and the ankle, and Katelyn’s gaze flew to the muscles that flexed beneath his tight, dark jeans. His motorcycle boots left slight black skid marks on the white linoleum tiles. He smelled like leather; she could smell it from her seat, which was three back and to the left of his.

  Katelyn sighed, and then, realizing that she’d done so out loud, she quickly glanced around the room to make sure no one had noticed.

  No one had. The girls were all eyeing Sam the way Katelyn was.

  The boys were watching the teacher, Mr. Lehrer, as the man spoke to them about the atrocities of World War Two.

  Look at them, Katelyn thought. Boys do love their war.