Back to You (Don't Forget Me Book 2)

by Sia Wales

  I pull in closer to his arm as our pace accelerates, anxious not to waste even a second of the little time we have left together. Despite this, the walk still takes a while, but he shows no sign of impatience and slows his pace to meet my more sluggish human one.

  I try not to get distracted by such sheer perfection, but it’s not easy. Each time I allow myself to admire his divine beauty, it saddens me. I’m so plain and simple. How can this heavenly creature have come back to me?

  He looks at me, taken aback by my tortured expression. He tries to read what is going on in my mind, frowning, worried.

  He looks down the street.

  “No one knows you are with me,” he says, waking me out of my reverie.

  “That depends. I guess Donn and the Council know.” The idea doesn’t seem to make him any happier.

  “That’s a real help,” he mutters.

  I shrug, acting like his dilemma is nothing to worry about.

  He mumbles something under his breath, so quickly I cannot make out what he says. He’s still anxious. We both look up to the clouds above, now darkening threateningly. Not as big a menace as the thought of the imminent horror of having to leave him.

  “I’ll take you home,” he says. I can’t make out if that’s a promise of a future never-ending or if he’s alluding to having to leave me so soon.

  “No,” I sigh. He must think I’m scared, and for the first time, I find myself wanting someone to be able to read my thoughts. He smiles at me, trying to lift me out of the black mood.

  “You’ll have to be a bit patient,” I explain. “I’m not big on goodbyes unfortunately.”

  He examines my face.

  “I can be very patient if I make the effort.”

  He leads me gracefully to a black car parked in the shadows to the left of the car lot entrance. For a moment, I had forgotten I had a car. This makes the immediate future a lot rosier.

  Jason helps me into the passenger seat, despite the fact that I have to drive to get back to Jeff’s house. To my surprise, he gets into the driver’s seat next to me, rather than getting on his motorbike. The silence seems even more thundering by the sudden rumble of the motor.

  Jason turns to me and smiles, and pulls the car into the darkened street, his excessive speed adds a new worry to my face. He maintains the breakneck speed as we head for the suburbs.

  I don’t want to talk about the other evening, but I’m not sure that avoiding the topic would be the best move either. He asks again about the wound on my hand; or is he talking about the wrist, with reference to what happened in the tower? I answer with a lie.

  After all, what happened the other night was nothing. I have been getting scrapes and bumps since I can remember, it’s the story of my life. I just got a paper cut with the show program, that’s it. An insignificant face, if I think back to everything that happened over summer. Without meaning to, Vuk reduced me to shreds, and I risked bleeding to death after the accident and Scott and Jamie bore the brunt of the many long days I spent in the hospital.

  Jason keeps his eyes on the road, his expression indecipherable. He is black with rage, and I try with all my might to think of a way to save the remnants of this evening with him.

  The dimly lit road certainly doesn’t ease the anxiety, until the bright lights of the highway make everything easier. We leave Boston behind us and the journey is so short that I don’t even have the time to fall into deep thought.

  When he pulls up in front of Jeff’s house, I’m still short of ideas. I’m not surprised to find the lights in the house still on. I know my dad is waiting up so we can spend some time together. After all, he did only come back two days ago.

  Jason cuts the engine and leaves his hands off the steering wheel. I take a deep breath. I have so many questions racing around my head, but they will have to wait, because Jason would have to go away any minute now.

  I suddenly feel so agitated that my hands start to tremble. I hide them by crossing my arms across my belly and look at him, but he doesn’t seem to come into focus.

  He smiles tenderly, comfortingly. It works, and so I launch into the least important of my questions. Without the sound of his voice, this fleeting paradise is incomplete.

  “Do you want to keep the car?” I suggest, without thinking about how I could justify its absence to Jeff.

  “Have you forgotten that on foot I’m a lot quicker than this old museum piece?”

  “You don’t have to go,” I cut in, too quickly, holding my breath for his reply.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him smile as he walks away. I jump out of my skin when I hear the car door slam shut.

  In less than half a second he has made his way around the car to be at my side. He opens the passenger door to let me get out.

  “Yes, Stella, I do.”

  “So you’re not staying?” I try again after a slight hesitation, the note of pleading perhaps too intense.

  “Not tonight.”

  “Ok.” I avoid asking him why, or maybe it’s those sapphire eyes of his that make me lose track of what I want to say.

  I keep staring at him until he turns his eyes away, his face serious.

  “I just want to see you smile, that way I can go happy.”

  I force a smile, but it seems so pointless. Jason slows down his pace to walk alongside me.

  “In less that 11 hours, I will be back with you,” he confesses in my ear, one corner of his mouth unable to resist turning up in a half-smile.

  “I’ll be counting the minutes,” I murmur, the joy choking the words in my throat. But my enthusiasm turns to dust as soon as I realize that in a few moments he will be gone. We get to the end of the drive and he leads me up the stairs to the front door. I can’t bear to see him leave after not seeing him for so long.

  He can feel my reluctance, so he slumps into the small wicker sofa on the porch. I settle in next to him, snuggling up against his cold shoulder. He stiffens and almost imperceptibly draws back half an inch. I feel the blood drain from my face.

  “What were you planning to do today in the courtyard?” I ask. My voice is far shakier than I would have liked.

  “I’m not really sure, my thoughts were a little confused.” He runs his hand through his unkempt bronze hair.

  “What kind of thoughts?”

  “I wasn’t in a good place,” he confesses. “I had decided to go on the hunt, right there and then.”

  He studies my grim expression. Then he offers me his hand, seemingly forgetting the heavy atmosphere that had fallen on us. I willingly take it. He tightens his fingers around mine delicately. His skin is as soft and toned as ice.

  “You almost did, right?” I gaze searchingly into his sapphire eyes and my heart tightens, but not quite as delicately.

  “I changed my mind at the last minute,” he states matter-of-factly, then smiles.

  “You would never have dared disappoint Aaron like that.”

  “Probably not. But I changed my mind when I saw you in the courtyard. It made my think twice. And Aaron’s experiences have taught me that it wouldn’t have been easy. I don’t know how many suicide attempts he has survived in the beginning, when he began to realize what he had done. As I said, things are not as black and white for us as they are for humans.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, a hole opening up in my stomach.

  “The night of the full moon, when you risked being killed. Well, I couldn’t have lived without you.” Aaron’s words, spoken in the library, race around my mind.

  He pauses, takes a deep breath, and continues once he has reached apparent calm.

  “Of course, I was concentrating on trying to make sure you stayed alive. I didn’t want to speak to anyone but you. But a part of me was weighing up all the alternatives.” His sapphire eyes turn pensive, he looks just like he did on that brightly lit night. A small smile spreads across his lips, perhaps thinking back to how he hid his identity to me, pretending to be ‘J.’

 
Then his expression darkens. The events of the last full moon flash in my mind, like a sped-up movie, dazing me.

  I can see and feel everything, as if it were happening right now; those furious yellow eyes, like in my recurrent nightmare; the cold rising from the sidewalk as I desperately tried to put some distance between Vuk and myself. Vuk, my best friend, who wanted to tear me to shreds that night. Far from the factory, he lay in wait at the service station. Out of his mind, he was not to know that what he was doing was wrong, dangerous. Just like he didn’t know that Jason was coming to save me. And he managed to, just in time.

  Involuntarily, I trace the outline of my finger, the one that still bears the trace of where he bit me.

  I look lost, enveloped in the memories of that night. But his last words go around and around in my mind. I shake my head as if to shake away the past and return to the present, trying to understand just what Jason meant.

  “What alternatives do you mean?”

  “Stella, if I had lost you forever, I would not have been able to go on. I was racked with guilt. But I didn’t know what I would do. I was sure I couldn’t count on Aaron and Preston.”

  “Who is Preston?”

  “Preston is my brother. You’ll meet him soon.”

  “I thought you were an only child!”

  “Not in my adoptive family.”

  “Do his eyes go red too?” I recall the flash of fire I saw in Jason’s eyes in the tower.

  “No,” he laughs. “I have the exclusive on the red eyes in my family.”

  “Why are Donn and Aaron’s eyes red, opaque, or shining like the other vampires in the Council?”

  “Well, as you already know, Aaron and I never feed from the source, from humans. Only from animals or bags of plasma,” he explains. “Donn doesn’t exactly follow the diet of my new family. But he was once a part of it, so he maintains control when he has to feed. This doesn’t change the color of his irises,” he explains patiently. “It is only hunger that turns our eyes black. It is a sensation that cannot be hidden if when it becomes a necessity. Or the color can change in those who have an unpredictable nature, like mine, or when we are overcome by powerful emotions.”

  I am almost sure that this is what causes Vuk’s eye color to change, but his eyes become jade yellow instead of flames of fire––perhaps because he is influence by the arrival of the full moon, not by the movements of the red moon.

  “And what’s the situation with your birth family?” I ask, my curiosity piqued.

  “I sometimes visit my parents. I never dared go near them without Aaron until recently. I thought I could harm them. My very existence is a risk, even now, for them.” His lips rigid, Jason is disgusted with himself. He looks at me, seeking understanding.

  “I see.”

  “Aaron told me that it won’t be a problem in a few decades,” he continues bitterly. “But everyone I know will be dead and the pain will be soothed with time. That’s easy for him to say, he couldn’t have gone to visit his father anyway.” His voice is so low, it seems like he is talking to himself.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking aloud.” He confirms my suspicion.

  “So,” Jason continues, “to justify the presence of Aaron to my parents, I told them he was my best friend, the brother I never had. I always used to go on at my parents, blaming them for not having given me a younger brother. But they knew I had left you before my sudden departure from Boston, and they began to think I was gay. So recently, I have been visiting them in the company of my sister. You’ll meet her too, very soon. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll feel you already know her. Anyway, if I hadn’t managed to find you in time, my plan was to go into the underground tower today and unleash the wrath of the Council.”

  His voice is so calm that it seems like he is mentioning a shopping trip, not the outbreak of war.

  I can’t believe that he really would have gone through with it, but his blue eyes shine, staring off in the distance as he recalls the moment he decided to put an end to his life.

  “So that was the plan,” he laughs dryly. “It’s all so easy for you humans! It’s wonderful to be human.” His words are enough to make me crumble inside and for the abyss to open up threateningly. I think about Donn’s words this afternoon. And I hear his voice, but it is not the perfect imitation that it is in my dreams. It sounds weak and anonymous… It’s not often a vampire has clashed with the Council. Facing death or whatever other punishment they have in mind…

  I am suddenly overcome with rage, which quickly morphs into terror.

  “How could you even think about doing something like that? As if it was your fault if you didn’t find me in time, on both occasions!”

  “I was trying to save you, you know!” He still has that faraway look in his eyes. “What would you have done in my place?”

  “There’s no point in even thinking about it.”

  “What would I do without you?”

  “The same thing you did before I came along to complicate your life,” I reply. I think I understand him now, I’m sure I would have done the same thing. But he can’t seem to see the difference, how things change from where I’m standing.

  “It’s so easy for you, right?” He laughs.

  “Yes, it is. All things considered, it’s not bad being a human, is it?”

  “I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut next time.”

  “Answer this. Would you rather I tried to take my own life if something were to happen to you?”

  “It’s not the same thing. I’m already dead. A dumb question.”

  “Yes, it is!” I retort. “But it’s not your fault if the Council decided to get me involved. You almost got yourself killed today! So quit trying to turn a drama into a tragedy. You must never, ever, consider doing something like that again!”

  “I won’t.” he exclaims. “I’ll never put you in danger again.”

  “Whatever goes on, it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I’ll never allow you to hurt yourself. I won’t!”

  Jason’s cold hand suddenly reaches out to caress my cheek and my mussed up hair.

  “As if anyone really could … except yourself.”

  I jump with embarrassment as soon as he touches me. I place a hand on my heart. I can feel it thumping madly, I even hear the beat in my eardrums. I’m tortured by a sense of guilt.

  I look up at the sky, as if searching for some kind of divine justice to take its course.

  I really do. Perhaps, if someone up there was listening in, I could be struck by lightning, split in two equal parts, like a tree in a forest. Or washed away by a night storm, a far more likely natural phenomenon in these parts.

  “Do you think I’ll ever get better?”

  “Sorry?”

  “That one day my heart will stop leaping from my chest every time you touch me?” I muse, more to myself than to him.

  “I hope not,” he replies, pinching my arm playfully, obviously pleased.

  I look at him for an eternal moment. I know that my eyes shine only sadness and melancholy.

  I’d like to sink 10,000 feet underground. If only an earthquake would swallow me up in its cracks. I want to lie face down, on the ground, so I’ll never have to look in a mirror, never have to see myself again.

  Almost a year had passed. But I would only have to wait for Jason to return a short while. It was a matter of weeks. I shared a love with Vuk. Donn, on the other hand… he seemed to test my emotions, and I was too much of a fool to realize in time.

  I am infuriated with him, to say the least. But his vouching for me, with blood, in the library tower, cancelled out his deceit… Or almost. Let’s just say he found a way to make me virtually forgive him.

  “Are you ok?” Jason asks anxiously.

  “No. I want to die. I want a slow agonizing death. Maybe that’s why this situation doesn’t bother me as much as it should.”

  “Well, I won’t allow that. You really are a kooky kid at times, S
tella May Whitely.”

  “Why don’t you say the exact opposite? Can’t you change your mind … ” That wasn’t a question, it is a request.

  “No. Because I love you.” His soft fingertip gently traces the outline of my lips.

  All I can do is stare at him, my eyes brimming with emotion. I take a deep breath. He keeps looking at me intensely.

  “When we were both human, it was all so much simpler.”

  “At least stop trying to console me,” I implore.

  “Ok,” he answers, resigned. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to make me suffer. I deserve it.”

  “No! Never.”

  “But why?”

  “Do you really think you deserve it?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “You seem to have masochistic tendencies lately,” he states rigidly. Maybe he’s referring to the relationship with Donn.

  “Don’t try to change the subject again.”

  “Ok, what do you want me to say? At least this way, I don’t feel like I’m talking to a broken record.”

  “I want you to despise me. To insult me in every way possible. Even in those few words of Italian that you know!”

  “Sorry,” he sighs. “I’m not gonna’ do that.” He closes his eyes. “I have to get back now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  He pulls one of his arms free so that he can take my chin in his hand and lift my face towards him. His eyes glued to mine, he moves in and kisses me.

  I look bewildered, like a perfect idiot. I must actually look quite comical because his eyes laugh. And he unfurls that crooked smile I love so much.

  “I’ll be back soon, I promise,” he whispers in my ear as his hand runs ice down my cheek one more time.

  “Soon.” I repeat, compellingly, hopefully.

  He stands. I haven’t budged an inch since I sat. Stiff, with pins and needles from having been immobile for so long, I struggle to my feet. I look into his eyes and cling onto his arm.

  It’s incredible that, despite all that has happened, he is still the same Jason. But is it just a foolish human instinct to expect major changes over a year? There is something, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. And in that instant, I realize why I find him different––yet the same––compared to a year ago.