by Bee Murray
The constant fighting and exhumation of painful memories had left me drained. I was tired, hangry, and confused. But there was no escape.
We were stuck together... at least for now.
Tuesday didn’t seem to want to do anything but make an autopsy of my vampiric history… I wasn’t exactly willing to go over every detail for the eight hundredth time; probing and poking for details and ignoring the painful memories her questions evoked in me.
The connection she had found between Baldwin and my mysterious maker hurt, but no worse than the undercurrent of malice in her accusations.
I had never pretended to be perfect. I’d been a goddamn monster, literally, figuratively, spiritually? Definitely.
Effort. Ugh.
I had hurt Tuesday, and I could easily spend a lifetime making that up to her. But with all that considered, it still felt like Tuesday was being unfair.
Maybe.
Slightly.
Maybe I was still the asshole.
If we didn’t talk about the whole mass murder aspect of my life and focused on the fact that I was killed, forced to rise again as a member of the living undead, promptly abandoned and left to make my own way in the world as a different person—a different species — she was being unfair.
I pulled open the sliding door and stepped out into the very early morning. Enough of the night remained to allow me to walk in the half-light. It was enough… a small blasphemy.
I took a deep breath of the clean woodland air and closed my eyes.
I felt exposed out here. It was dangerous here. Secluded. But it was also… calm.
I heard movement behind me and twisted. I was on edge, I wouldn’t deny it. Tuesday leaned against the sliding door frame and glared at me with an unmistakable glint of loathing in her eyes. I wanted to throw things at her or yell or scream, but my monster was itching for a fight and I knew I couldn’t lose control.
Not with Tuesday.
Not again.
“Are you ready to talk about this plan or are you just going to stay out here and sulk?” Tuesday called out. Her voice was frosty and tight, and I’d had just about enough of this act.
“I’m so fucking TIRED of hearing about plans, Tues. How much of this do you honestly expect that we’re going to plan. We’re trapped in the woods with a band of assholes hell-bent on killing the both of us hot on our tails? You’re so busy focusing on the past, you can’t see what’s coming for us. Really? How about the fucking future, Tuesday? What does that look like?”
I really shouldn’t have screamed at her.
Her eyes filled with tears and she slammed the sliding glass door closed hard enough to make it shudder on its track before she stomped out of the room.
Shit.
“Tuesday, I’m sorry…”
My voice trailed off when I realized she wouldn’t be able to hear me.
Maybe it was the stress of everything. Or maybe too much time had passed for us to really make a go of it. Tuesday and I were more like oil and water than we had ever been oil and vinegar...
Or, you know, maybe it was simpler. The human and vampire mix wasn’t exactly known to be compatible.
Maybe I was a classic dumbass who thought that we could somehow pick up where we’d left off.
Times of crisis bring people together—but they also drive people apart.
Just another thing I can blame my maker, and Baldwin, for.
I still had trouble fully wrapping my mind around that connection.
There was evidence. That had been her in the photo. It couldn't be anyone else.
How had they even met? Had she been stalking me? Keeping tabs on me somehow? Was she taking credit for my stratospheric rise to fame like some clandestine mentor?
But how had I not known what was going on??
Every interaction I’d ever had with Baldwin over the last five years flashed through my mind, but there was nothing that popped out at me that could have tied him to my maker.
Baldwin had found me at a bar.
Everyone found me at a bar.
Back then, I was trapped in an excruciating cycle of trying to pretend as though everything was normal while denying my new nature until I snapped. Tuesday left me—the band and I had just completed a set but it hadn’t been well-received. I had been sitting at the bar forcing drink after drink down my throat, determined to get myself drunk enough to do what needed to be done for the second half of our show.
When Baldwin had handed me his card and told me to call him if I was interested in going solo someday, I thought he was just yanking my chain.
I’d forgotten about that interaction for weeks, until one night I felt desperate enough to make the call. I had picked up the phone and attempted to call a dozen times but always chickened out at the last minute, convinced no manager in their right mind would accept a client who could only come out at night.
But I did it.
And he accepted me, very few questions asked.
Baldwin created my persona and he got me in with Cainin Records.
In his own fucked up way, Baldwin had saved me. He had given me a reason not to walk out into the sunrise the next day.
If we were looking for honesty, my mysterious maker created me as a vampire, but Baldwin Kennison created Vinnie Quake, and made me a household name.
I owed him almost everything.
The betrayal—that cut deeper than any stake that had been hammered into my chest in the last 24 hours.
I kicked the rocks on the porch and watched as they crashed into the dirt. I looked back through the window, hoping that Tuesday would come back, but I knew she wouldn’t.
It was going to be a long, long day.
We were missing something. I was sure of it.
Baldwin and my maker. That sultry, crimson bitch.
It made little sense… unless it made perfect sense.
Why would they work together? Why me? What did she get out of this? How far does this go? If they were working together, why kill me now?
My head hurt, and there was a pounding starting behind my eyes. What was the point in being undead with superhuman strength if you could still get migraines?
My mother’s voice floated into my mind randomly. If your head hurts, dear, get a drink or something to eat. Gotta keep your blood sugar up!
Blood sugar.
Hilarious.
But she had a point.
I hadn’t really eaten anything aside from the pigs’ blood that Tuesday had acquired for me. And there was only one cup of the stuff left in the fridge in the outdated kitchen.
I’d been living off the stuff for the last five years, but if the last few days were any indication, it wasn't enough. Especially now that I was actually doing stuff—physical stuff.
Pigs’ blood was fine for a lazy vampire, but all of this… activity was taking a lot out of me. And all I could smell was Tuesday.
However, because of my idiocy, a voluntary feeding was not an option. Which left… nature.
I stared at the darkened forest and swallowed hard.
Yikes.
I was definitely a city vampire.
Great. Just great.
All the vampire movies and TV shows I’d seen before I’d been turned always showed these big, badass vampire men taking down wildlife with ease.
However, I’d never gotten that memo, and no one had shown up to lead a training session on bringing down big game—and I was definitely never going near any goddamn bears.
Those... Wild vamps could hunt cougars up the side of a cliff face while I hunted… in luxury. They could lose all the skin on the bottoms of their feet while they were busy running around practicing field craft—I had minions who waited on me hand and foot.
But the hunger was real, and the forest was full of heartbeats.
Full of blood.
If Tuesday was actually talking to me, she’d tell me to get over myself and go hunt a deer. But, knowing Tuesday, she’d probably pull a rifle out of a clo
set somewhere and go hunt one herself. Tuesday has always been a doer, not a talker.
That thought motivated me.
Commune with nature.
Get yourself a goddamn SNACK.
“I’m going for a walk!” I yelled at the cabin. I didn’t care if she was listening or not.
I jumped off the porch and strode toward the woods with determination in my step. There was no answer from the house, but I tried to push away the sudden stab of disappointment when Tuesday’s face didn’t appear in the window to watch me go.
It shouldn’t have, but the sense of disappointment and loss settled deeper into my soul.
I still couldn’t shake the feeling that we were missing something big.. It was going to come back and bite us in the butt or worse—stake us right through the heart. Something else was out there. Something bigger than this. I just wish I knew what.
First things first.
I pushed through the pine boughs and inhaled deeply, my first nature walk since I’d been a boy scout.
Snack time.
* * *
***
* * *
Fallen trees and boulders covered in moss littered the path that led away from the cabin. I picked my way through dark tree trunks and dense branches that waved and swayed in the breeze. I inhaled deeply and the scent of rain, evergreen, rotting leaves, musk, and earth filled my nose.
The trees here came alive at night. Not in a creepy, magical way, but — they stood proud and tall, sentinels guarding the getaway to one of the last great wilderness spaces. They don’t make it easy for trespassers. I’d seen nothing like this in the city… They even sanitized the parks in the city. These woods were feral… like the part of me I tried to keep hidden. It was harder to keep it caged here.
The scruffy redneck from the highway’s words of wisdom filled my mind as I stepped over another fallen log.
“You can find yourself… or lose yourself—”
Losing myself was looking more and more appetizing with every passing moment.
Dawn was coming faster than I wanted to admit, but I told myself that the pale light that danced across my skin was moonlight that had been filtered through the dense canopy of trees. That was enough to make me push ahead.
My enhanced senses allowed me to see clearly, but the forest still worked hard to keep me out. I tripped over bumpy roots and fell over tangled brush; the barbs dug into my skin and took tiny droplets of my blood as payment.
The branches that scraped across my forearms were still wet from the afternoon rain we’d driven through on our way to the cabin, and for the first time in a long time, I felt truly vulnerable just from being alone.
The darkness swallowed me with each step I took as I moved deeper into the forest’s embrace. I knew that the cabin, and Tuesday, were just steps away, but they may as well have been miles away.
Everything was quiet except me. The crack of branches under my feet sounded like gunshots as they echoed through the trees. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make myself move more quietly. In the city I could have been a hunter—but in reality? Not so stealthy.
The trees parted suddenly, and I stood in a clearing and strained my ears to detect the telltale thump of a nearby heartbeat or the sound of a scurrying creature.
But the silence stretched out and wrapped around me like a blanket.
Every hair on my body stood on end as I looked around the clearing and peered into the darkness for clues, even though I knew I would find none.
Something, or someone, didn’t want me here. That much was clear.
The wind sent a shudder of movement through the trees and I bit back a yelp of surprise. Anxiety made my skin crawl, and I backed up slowly, eager to get back to the relative safety of the cabin. If the woods didn’t want me here, who was I to question that?
A single, mournful howl of a wolf broke through the silence and I moved faster and ignored the answering rumble of my monster.
Wolves? Hell. No. I did not sign up for freaking wolves. This is not Twilight: The Real-Life Revival.
My body warred with itself and our dual-nature. The human side of me, if I could even claim humanity still, wanted more than anything to be back in my room. Safe behind the sliding glass door.
But my monster, that powerful apex predator of a vampire, wanted more. He wanted to stalk, to kill, to capture, and — to feed.
My hands shook, and I balled them into fists to keep myself focused as I ran along the path that led back to the cabin. Roots and rocks rose to trip me, and I bumped against the rough bark of the trees as I went.
Graceful predator, indeed.
The call of the wolf had acted like some sort of alarm clock, and the rest of the forest seemed to shake itself awake around me. Overhead, the pale light of dawn crept ever closer.
Where there had been silence, a cacophony of noises surrounded me. Heartbeats, the jarring cries of birds, and the ominous crash of unseen creatures as they moved through the underbrush.
I was a city boy through and through, and I definitely didn’t belong here. This nature shit could mind its own business.
The lights from the cabin glimmered through the last few feet of forest and I turned and ran for it, no longer caring what Tuesday or anyone else might think.
I burst through the trees, and a sharp shriek pierced my eardrums. Tuesday had been half-sitting on the broken picnic table. But as I rushed out of the woods, she jumped up. She brandished a large piece of firewood, holding it up over her shoulder like a baseball bat.
She eyed me curiously and relaxed just a little as she registered the fact that I wasn’t some monstrous intruder. I mean, I was, but she knew me. That was different. She relaxed her hold on the log and leaned against the bench. It lurched drunkenly to the side and she frowned at it as it shifted under her weight.
“Shouldn’t we go inside?” I gestured towards the cabin and shifted my weight from one foot to the other. After my little escapade in the forest, my entire body was on edge.
Tuesday crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at the pitiful excuse for a table that she leaned on.
“Did you hear the wolf?” she asked finally.
“Yeah. I didn’t know we had wolves up here.”
Tuesday shrugged and pursed her lips as if she wanted to say something but didn’t know how. That was weird. Tuesday always knew what to say. Always.
My monster was growling and pressing against my self-control. I felt antsy. The need for action hovered right below the surface. Any action would work.
Feeding.
Sex.
Hunting down that wolf.
All three in random order. It didn’t matter. My monster had heard the call of the wild; he was determined to answer it.
I, however, wanted to get back into the cabin.
Not happening, buddy.
“Look. I’m… sorry. We’re both under a lot of pressure and for me, it feels like I’m gonna crack at any moment.”
Tuesday focused on the lightening sky instead of me while she spoke.
If my heart had been beating, it would have seized in my chest at her words, hope and desire bloomed in my chest.
“I don’t know what to do, Vinnie. I don’t have any of the answers and that scares the piss out of me.” She whispered as she shook her head in defeat.
Everything in me longed to comfort her. To hold her close and tell her that everything was going to be ok, but I couldn’t move.
“I’m sorry for forcing you to relive that time with Baldwin and… your… maker. I had hoped… I guess I hoped that you might have some small memory or that we’d missed a detail that would help. It’s not fair for me to think I’m the only one who hurts —” She finally turned her gaze to me. “You died, Vinnie. She turned you into a... a vampire. Your manager and person who basically, I don’t know, built your career, betrayed you. You’re allowed to have feelings about that and I’m sorry I wasn’t listening.”
The early morning light ill
uminated her skin and flickered across her anguished, upturned face. I could see the damp sheen of tears across her cheeks. Everything. Every moment, every feeling, every memory crashed down on me and I couldn’t stop myself from lurching forward to gather her up into my arms.
Spiderwebs and dry leaves still clung to my shirtsleeves, remnants of my flight through the forest, but it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered but Tuesday.
Not Baldwin, not my maker, or my record label, certainly not the assholes who were hunting us, or the wolf lurking somewhere in the woods.
“Vinnie, I don’t know how to do this. You and me. I don’t even know if we should.” Tuesday pressed herself into my embrace and whispered her words into the collar of my shirt.
“I don’t know either,” I whispered back. I pressed a kiss into her hair and inhaled deep. She still smelled so fucking good. My fangs itched to taste her as the memory of her jasmine scented blood forced its way into my thoughts, but I ignored them.
“I excel at fucking things up, Tuesday, you know that. You’ve always said that it’s like my dominant life skill. I will make you angry, I will probably ruin things in a dozen different ways, I might even scare you. But right now, all I want is to hold you.”
Tuesday stilled at my words and then she moved against my body, her breasts rubbed tantalizingly against my chest and I closed my eyes to savor the moment.
There was no way to hide the physical effect she had on me, and I didn’t bother trying. She felt my arousal pressing against her and she froze for a second; the decision playing out in her head and across her face.
I stayed silent. Whatever she decided, it was her choice to make and hers alone.
“You only want to hold me?” she finally asked, looking up at me from underneath the dark fringe of her eyelashes. Her hips ground against mine and a small growl escaped my lips.
“Don’t toy with me, Tuesday. My control has limits.” I growled back through clenched teeth.
She studied my face and then reached up to run a single finger down my jawline and then rested it on my lips.
Her eyes were serious as she looked at me, and then she glanced up at the sky above us. I didn’t care if the sun was rising. All I cared about was right here.