Fortunately Clare expedited matters, although the subject was not so fortunate. ‘I still don’t get about yesterday, Nate. Why were you so concerned about Rowan?’
Rowan fixed me with those spellbinding eyes of hers again.
‘It is really difficult to explain … I just suddenly got worried. Rowan was not answering her phone or the door.’
‘She doesn’t always hear the door,’ Clare said, in an exaggerated stage whisper, whilst switching on the kettle.
Rowan was furious and I clutched the edge of the worktop, I had only just released. ‘Helllooooo? I’m here, Clare! You don’t need to talk for me, you know!’
I didn’t get the hearing issue. I knew Rowan struggled with her hearing, yet I hadn’t once noticed her struggling to hear me. Not once. I thought back: the night of the accident, the hospital, our telephone conversation; even when she came out of the shower, when she surely wouldn’t have been wearing her hearing aids?
I wondered if Rowan was thinking along similar lines. She looked at me for a moment, before looking away. The anger was being replaced with that confusion of hers. She was frowning and was definitely going through some kind of process in her head.
‘She was in the shower, so could not have possibly heard,’ I observed, factually.
It was my turn now. I could resist no longer. I started appraising Rowan with my eyes. I began at her long strawberry-blonde locks that were hanging loose, moved to her face, and the soft pale, vulnerable skin of her neck, pausing perhaps slightly too long at the point her pulse was flaunting itself. I took in her tight-fitting khaki-coloured top. She was wearing a delicate chain around her neck and I dragged my thoughts away from where I imagined a hidden pendant might be resting. My eyes travelled lower over her curves.
What was it with my heart though? It had been quite happy with its one beat a minute for one-hundred-and-ninety-five years – but now it was racing. If it was true, that the heart of every creature has a set number of beats within its lifespan – then my immortality, or near immortality, was buggered. Christ! What about Rowan’s lifespan? Her heart beats so rapidly. I groaned inwardly. Why did I keep thinking these wretched things?
My eyes were at her waist. It was small and led seductively to her voluptuous hips. She had a long denim skirt on today. I remembered the shower yesterday; if I could blush, I would be blushing now. I slowly raised my eyes to her face. She knew what I was doing – and was blushing for me. I immediately stopped breathing. It was a precautionary measure. Her blood-red cheeks did things to me nobody else’s did. My smile was guilty, but somewhat satisfied … because I had felt her pleasured reaction to the path my eyes had followed.
I didn’t intend to let Clare continue with her questions about yesterday and needed distraction, so decided to ask about Aunty Hetty. Madeleine would have been proud of me.
‘Oh, she’s fine as usual,’ Clare answered my enquiry.
To all intents and purposes, I was looking at the tiled floor, but I was aware of Rowan shuffling awkwardly and a momentary grimace. Immediately concerned, I spoke urgently, ‘Are you well, Rowan?’
‘I’m fine thanks.’ She refused to meet my now raised eyes.
‘Are you in pain?’ My voice was undeniably anxious. I saw Clare glance at me and then Rowan, before returning to me.
‘No, I’m fine.’ Was that irritation?
‘Perhaps we should all sit down?’ I suggested. How could I have let her stand for so long? I watched as she slowly made her way over to take a seat on the sofa, occasionally putting weight tentatively on her damaged foot. I scanned the room and couldn’t see the crutches anywhere. Why did that not surprise me? I didn’t dare offer her help, leaving it to my imagination to conjure her into my arms.
‘When are you due your next painkillers?’ I asked, feigning casual, as I sat down on the sofa next to her, leaving a good foot of space between us.
She looked at me challengingly, before replying, ‘I’m not!’ I was definitely irritating her.
‘Clare, have you Rowan’s painkillers there?’ I called. Clare was still in the kitchen putting the last of the shopping away. I avoided Rowan’s eyes because I knew exactly what she was feeling.
‘Of course!’ I heard a kitchen drawer move along its runners and then the sound of tap water filling a glass, before Clare entered the room.
Rowan muttered, ‘Thanks,’ as she took Clare’s offerings and placed them on the coffee table, making no attempt to take them.
I reached over and picked up the box of tablets. I pulled out the two sheets of pills; one was untouched, the other had a single empty pill pocket. I ignored her indignant gasp. I turned the box over to where a sticky label provided the directions of use: two tablets to be taken four times a day. The date was two days ago. It didn’t take a genius, or Clare’s tip-off, or the difficulty of our connection, to know that Rowan had not been taking her pills.
I chose now to look intently at Rowan. She looked defiantly back. I could be equally stubborn. I held the pills up, not looking away from her eyes. ‘Why?’ My voice revealed more anguish than I intended.
The bravado flickered momentarily, before returning firmly to its place. ‘What’s the big deal? I take them when I need them. Stop looking at me like that! God, you aren’t my father …’ And then she broke off, looking and feeling confused again. She was frowning.
‘No, I am not,’ I agreed quietly. ‘But I am the person responsible for your injuries and the pain they cause you. How do you think you being in pain makes me feel? You have no idea how much it hurts me.’
There were two elements to that statement, I reflected. But in this instance, I was solely concerned with Rowan’s physical pain, not my own troubles.
Her bravado was definitely slipping. ‘Please take your tablets.’ I had vowed never to use my charm on Rowan. But if this didn’t work, it would be for her own good.
She gave an exasperated sigh, before saying, ‘Give me the effing pills! I don’t know what all the fuss is about.’
I handed her the packet and she squeezed out a tablet. I raised my eyebrows. She huffed, and squeezed out the second. Taking the packet, I handed her the glass of water. Her hand touched mine. I knew it would be cold. Bugger!
She looked at me momentarily before looking away. She said quietly, perhaps to herself, ‘My dad never had warm hands.’ That was not the response I had expected, but I was more than happy with it. After she had taken her pills, she dramatically opened her mouth and pointed. ‘See – all gone. Happy now?’
‘Happier,’ I muttered, in response to her sarcastic tone.
I heard Clare chuckle in the kitchen.
‘Why do you always refuse help, Rowan? Why do you feel the need to struggle with everything on your own?’ I asked gently.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ And then I felt a punching surge of anguish and hurt and … understanding? Christ Almighty, what was she thinking?
She looked at me accusingly, and said ever so quietly, ‘You’re only here because of guilt, aren’t you? You’re only here because you feel so overly responsible and want to make amends.’ Her eyes were full of pain. I had to shut my own for a moment and take a deep breath to deal with her emotion.
When I felt in slightly more control, I opened my eyes and looked at her intently. I heard her gasp. I had lowered my shroud a fraction. I knew what she would be seeing in my eyes: just the tiniest glimpse of the depth of what I felt for her, but no doubt enough to provide some reassurance. Perhaps she could interpret what she saw in my eyes better than I?
I said quietly, my voice raw, ‘Rowan … I am here because I quite simply cannot stay away.’ Way too intense!
She was most definitely unnerved, but her pain was gone. She believed me. How could she not? After a moment, she reached out and picked up my hand. I didn’t withdraw it. ‘Cool, not cold,’ she said, as she stroked it with her fingers. ‘I don’t tend to feel the cold.’
My skin may have felt cool to her, but it no longer felt that
way to me. It was ablaze with her touch.
Clare walked back into the room and Rowan quickly removed her hand, much to my disappointment. Placing Rowan’s Fucking Furious mug of coffee on the table, Clare curled up in the armchair to our right, with Curiously Content in her hands.
‘Where were we? Oh! I remember – Aunty Hetty. Aunty Hetty’s quite a character, isn’t she, Rowan?’
‘She certainly is,’ Rowan agreed, affectionately.
‘You seem to be close to her,’ I observed.
‘Well, she’s basically been a mum to us,’ Clare said. ‘We lost our parents young.’
I knew that, but only now I had officially been told, could I express my sympathy. ‘I am very sorry,’ I said sincerely and looked intently at Rowan. She refused to meet my eyes.
I could feel Rowan’s grief and it was still raw. Thankfully, I was seated. I wanted to comfort her, to pull her into my arms and hold her, to make the hurt go away. But would that be possible for me? I had held her in my arms before, but would it always be safe? Could every occasion be safe?
‘It was a long time ago. I hardly remember them. They adopted us when we were babies. It affected Rowan more than me. I’d just turned four at the time, but Rowan was six, so can remember them more. Aunty Hetty took us in as her own.’
‘Was she your mother or father’s sister?’ I asked gently, attempting to refocus on the conversation.
‘Our mum’s,’ Clare replied. ‘But she was so young. I don’t think she’d even hit twenty when she found herself looking after us. She’s been wonderful.’
Tinks, who had slinked her way into the living room, now jumped on to Rowan’s lap and started purring. Rowan absent-mindedly stroked her.
‘She’s rather eccentric though, to say the least,’ Clare observed.
‘Barking, sometimes, I’d say,’ Rowan added, fondly. Tinks meowed loudly and leapt from her lap and stalked off. ‘Sorry, Tinks! What did I do?’ she called after her.
Clare continued, ‘Yeah – Aunty Hetty is really into saving the planet in a big way … the eco-warrior type. The number of times we must have sat by her side, with her chained to a tree.’
‘It was fun though,’ Rowan declared, in response to my raised eyebrows. ‘We used to get to camp in a tent and climb trees. Now it’s evolved more to recycling, and growing vegetables. I shudder to think what she’d say if she saw my pitiful excuse for recycling. I empty all the bins before her visits!’
‘Don’t worry.’ Clare chuckled. ‘Her reaction couldn’t possibly be as bad as the one to my decision to use disposable nappies with the boys. Blimey, I thought she was going to blow a gasket. But as I said, if you’re volunteering to wash and iron shitty nappies all day long … come to think of it though – she did offer!’ Clare laughed. ‘But it didn’t seem right somehow …’
‘And there’s the talking to her plants,’ Rowan smiled. ‘No, she seriously does talk to them,’ she replied to my look. ‘She tells them all about her day.’
‘When I picked her up, to go and see Rowan in hospital,’ Clare interjected, ‘I even heard her tell one of them not to worry, that she was on the case and Rowan would be okay!’ We all laughed.
‘She certainly seems to be quite a character,’ I agreed.
We were interrupted as the doorbell went. ‘Expecting anyone?’ Clare asked, already on the way to the door.
Rowan shook her head.
As soon as Clare was out of the room, I asked the question I so desperately wanted an answer to. ‘So have you checked your availability?’ I sounded too eager.
‘I have.’ She nodded and gave me a smile that seemed to seduce me from the inside out. I gulped. ‘I could do Saturday night, if that’s okay with you? Clare will be gone then.’
Yesss! Yesss! Yesss! ‘Fantastic!’ How could she make me feel like this? ‘I will get the tickets booked, and collect you at seven if—?’
I didn’t finish my question. I fixed Rowan with a serious, please do as I ask look. ‘I will deal with this. Shut the door and lock it behind me.’ And I was gone. Perhaps rather too fast before I was out of sight, but I had no intention of letting Jonathan Martin anywhere near Rowan.
He was pounding up the stairs when I blocked his way a couple of steps above the first-floor landing. Clare was running after him. ‘Clare, are you hurt?’ I asked anxiously. I had heard the air rush out of her lungs as he had pushed her forcefully out of the way on opening the door to him.
‘I’m fine. But the bastard won’t take no for an answer!’ she exclaimed angrily.
‘Let me deal with this,’ I said quietly. ‘Once Rowan lets you in, lock the door behind you.’
So this was Jonathan Martin? The same individual who had forced his attentions on Rowan aggressively in the hospital, had cheated on her, and had dared to lift his hand to her. How fortunate I was here.
Whilst I waited for the sound of the key re-locking Rowan’s door, I took the opportunity to study him, all the time playing with my prey as it naively tried to pass; my movements too quick for him to see, always blocking his route, he had yet to make any contact.
He appeared slightly older than Rowan, despite their having met at university. His dark hair was cut short. He was a little more than three inches shorter than me and of a stockier build. On his face, a line of fine scars across his nose and left cheek were clearly visible. I now officially liked cats. I had smelt the alcohol on his breath, the moment I had opened the door … and the threat to Rowan. He wasn’t just a nuisance; my instincts told me he was a danger.
As soon as the key turned in the lock, I exhaled the remaining air in my lungs, turned my palms upwards, looked skyward, closed my eyes which had yet to be used to meet his, and shed my human cloak. I let the creature I was, seep into my cells. I abandoned myself to the intoxicating sensation of the release and the raw feral energy that surged through my veins, purging that which was human from my physiology. My aura changed to that of the most threatening and powerful of all human predators. Chuckling, a foreboding sound for my quarry, I thought of the range of our personae: how charming we could appear; and how so far beyond terrifying we could reach.
How much had I wanted the opportunity to come face-to-face with Jonathan Martin?
‘So, it is just you and me, Jonathan Martin,’ I hissed, in an icy whisper that would slice cold and deep into his soul. My eyes were still shut, but I knew he had stilled, ceasing his frustrated attempts to pass. His disquiet hovered in the air, expectant, waiting. His heart skipped a couple of beats before it began pounding uncertainly. The stair creaked as he took an uncertain step back, and I heard his clumsy fall on to the landing a couple of steps below. Some scurrying activity had him standing; I could hear his nervous, shuffling feet. The sound of his gulp, as he struggled to moisten his now dry mouth.
He half choked, ‘Who the fuck are you?’
I grinned, widely, sinisterly. No fangs out – this wasn’t blood lust for consumption, more for decoration. Or it would have been, were we properly alone. I was very aware of Rowan upstairs; I could hear her, true to form, arguing with Clare about being locked in. She was frustrated, although I no longer felt it; intriguingly, her feelings had been expelled with my human cloaking.
I told myself, this could only be a warning. I had to remain in control.
‘What am I – is the more pertinent question, Jonathan Martin.’
‘Are you sleeping with the bitch? Are … you fu—’ His voice cracked mid-yell and ceased completely as my powers surged and a prolonged growl reverberated from my chest.
Silly, silly, silly: and he was university-educated? He really should not have said that.
My eyes snapped open, instantly fixing on their target. I smiled sadistically, knowing how they would appear: totally black, the whites completely swallowed up in their hellish depths; malevolently glowing as if illuminated from deep within. My snigger at his reaction was pure evil. The colour had drained completely from his face, the whites of his eyes shocked into their bulgi
ng, and his mouth gaped open; Edvard Munch’s The Scream sprang to mind. His body began to tremble, uncontrollably.
Instantaneously, I was right before him, yet he had been observing me through his terror, eight feet away. In contrast, the movement of my head as I leant in was slow, deliberate. I whispered in his ear, ‘Try and run.’ My taunting movement back was too drawn out to be human. I watched his stumbling and scrambling attempt at flight. And just as he thought he had made it to the door, I was there.
‘You can never run from me, Jonathan Martin. You can never hide from me. I can be in every shadow you see, every breeze you feel across your face, every prickle of your subconscious.’
Taking an angled step closer, so he was pinned against the wall behind the door, I moved my cocked head closer still. I spoke. My breath skimming across his contorted features, branding my words upon him. My voice could have journeyed directly from hell. ‘You ever speak about her like that again, I will rip your tongue out and feed it to you. You ever come near Rowan again, I will slowly, oh so slowly, tear you to pieces, limb by bloody limb. Your blood-curdling screams will amuse me, whilst your pounding heart pumps your lifeblood out of your agonised, broken body. You will beg for mercy, which I will not give. You will pray for death. And I will oblige; but slowly, oh so slowly.’
I hoped that had done the trick. I was actually worried he might have a heart attack, and that would be a particularly difficult one to explain to Rowan. ‘Have I made myself clear enough, Jonathan Martin?’ A frenzied nod followed. ‘Look at me.’ His eyes confirmed it. Only then did I reinstate my human cloaking. Oh, to have had him in an isolated room, all to myself.
‘Then you may go,’ I said, stepping aside, my voice having reverted to its more usual human tone.
I watched him struggle frantically with the latch on the door. When he finally got it open, I said politely, ‘Please shut the door behind you.’ He obliged by closing it gently – not wanting to tempt my wrath with a slam? I heard his stumbling footsteps and his strangled gasps for air as he fled.
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