The Undead Heart

by Tate Jackson

  “But it’s the only way we’ll know. Just punch me in the ribs.”

  “If I punch you in the ribs, and you don’t heal like us, it would kill you.”

  “Then just break a little bone. Here, break my finger,” she said, holding her hand out to him.

  “I don’t want to do this, Beck.”

  “Just do it quick and get it over with.”

  “Fine.” He held her little finger, closed his eyes, and snapped it. “Oww!” she screamed, but as quick as the pain came, it was gone. “I’m fine. It’s okay. Calm down,” she told Potter, who was jumping around like he had to pee.

  “That was so wrong! Don’t ever ask me to do that again.”

  “I won’t, but we now know I heal like you. See,” she said, flexing her finger. “Does that mean that I am an immortal now, too?”

  “You know we’re not really immortal, but I would have to say, yes, you’re as to immortal as the rest of us. How are you going to tell Richard about this?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about this for a while.”

  “Just let me know first so I’ll have a head start,” he smiled as they walked back to the house.

  “I will, don’t worry,” she smiled back at him. “What are you going to say to the twins?”

  “I don’t know, but something has got to give. They can’t keep tearing everything up. If I have to, I’ll put them in separate houses.”

  “You can’t do that, they’re twins.”

  “I don’t want to do it, but I’m running out of options. They’ve busted out windows, punched holes in the floor, smashed the furniture, and now the wall. I’ve talked to them until I’m blue in the face, but it doesn’t help. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she said as they walked into the yard.

  Richard was back on the porch again, and her steps were back to normal.

  She walked up onto the porch, sat on his lap, and kissed him. “Thank you for fixing my steps.”

  “You are very welcome,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “Where did everybody go?” she inquired. “Harley went with Jeff to get a new distributor cap, and Damon, Shane, and Darian went home. Didn’t you see them there?”

  “No, we must have missed them,” she said, then looked over at Potter. “Hey, do you want to come to dinner tonight?”

  Potter raised an eyebrow. “What are you having?”

  “If you take me to the store, I’ll make you lasagna.”

  “I’ll take you to the store, Beck,” Richard said, sounding a little hurt. “Okay, let me get my wallet.”

  “I’ll go get one of the trucks,” Richard said. “Why aren’t we taking the car?”

  “And have my car smell like meat and garlic? And what if something spills? It would ruin the upholstery,” he said, shaking his head at her.

  “Fine, get the truck then, ya’ weirdo.”

  “You can take my truck. The air-conditioning works in it,” Potter offered.“Where are the keys?” Richard asked.

  “I think they’re in it,” Potter answered, jumping off the porch and walking across the yard with Richard.

  Beck ran upstairs, grabbed her wallet, and came back down. She was just closing the door when she heard the yelling.

  ‘You took it!’ she heard a voice yell. ‘No, I did not!’ said another voice. ‘Yes, you did!’

  Seanán came tearing around the side of the house like a bat out of hell, with Tiarnán hot on his trail. She could only tell them apart because Tiarnán’s hair was a fraction of an inch longer than Seanán’s. Tiarnán dove and grabbed Seanán’s foot, crashing him to the ground.

  “Give it back!” Tiarnán yelled. Seanán yelled back, “I don’t have it!”

  He kicked backwards, connecting hard with Tiarnán’s face, jumped up, and ran over to Richard’s car. When he picked it up, she reacted without thinking.

  “Not the car!” she screamed.

  She launched herself across the yard and snatched the car out of Seanán’s hands before he could throw it at Tiarnán. She sat the car gently back on the ground, and then turned back to Seanán, grabbed him by his shoulders, and shook him.

  “What is wrong with you?! That is not your car! You will stop breaking other people’s stuff! Tiarnán! Don’t you dare move!” she yelled when she saw him trying to creep back around the house. “You come here to me! “RIGHT NOW!!!”

  He walked cautiously over to her. She grabbed them both by the arm and yanked them to her.

  “This is it! If I hear you two are fighting with each other, or that you broke one more thing that doesn’t belong to you, I will tan you hides ‘til hell won’t have ‘em’! Do you understand me?!” she shouted, shaking them both one more time before letting go. “Yes ma’am,” they said in tandem. “Good. Now go home!” she snapped and turned around.

  ***

  Richard and Potter were standing at the edge of the yard with their mouths open, staring at her. Richard swiveled his head slowly toward Potter. Potter took off running without even looking at him, but Richard was faster. He tackled him before he’d made it halfway across the yard, and started wailing on him.

  “I warned you, you little shit!”

  “It was her idea!” Potter yelled. “I don’t give a fuck!” Richard yelled back, punching every part of Potter that he could, breaking every bone he hit.

  She was frozen to the ground. She’d never seen anything like this before. Potter was trying to defend himself, trying to get Richard off of him, but he never had a prayer. he finally broke out of her trance and ran over to them.

  “Richard! Stop it! Let him up!”

  When Richard looked up at her, Potter flipped him off him and jumped up. She jumped in between them.

  “Stop it!” she demanded when Richard tried to circle around her to get back at Potter. “Please stop.”

  “I warned him about keeping anymore secrets with you,” he growled. “I asked him to do this.” Richard stopped. “What exactly did you do?”

  “I injected his blood into me.”

  “Did you ever consider that it might kill you?!”

  “I knew there was a small risk.” He looked coldly at Potter. “And you let her do it?”

  “I made her a promise 120 years ago, but I didn’t know what I’d promised until today.”

  “But when you found out, you still let her do it?”

  “Aye, I did,” Potter admitted, stepping up beside Beck. Richard nodded and turned away to walk off, but turned back. “I’ll be back later,” he told Beck, and kissed her gently on the lips. e punched Potter in the mouth one more time, and then walked away. “So, I guess you’ll be taking me to the store then.” Potter laughed. “It looks like it, but now you’re making me two lasagnas with spinach and mushrooms. And I want garlic bread.”

  “I can do that. Let’s go.”

  ***

  He tried to comfort himself with the fact that Beck was alive, but couldn’t pull his mind away from how dangerous what she’d done had been. He’d finally gotten her back after all those years, and the first thing she’d done was risk her life. He was following Leso’s scent, and finally found him at the fairgrounds by the pond.

  He sat down next to him. “Beck’s a hunter.”

  “Run that by me again.”

  “Beck is a hunter,” he repeated. “No, she’s not.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “How can she be a hunter? She was human yesterday,” Leso questioned, confused.

  “She snuck off with Potter today and injected his blood into her body.”

  Leso was so shocked. “Holy Mother of God! Is she alright?”

  “She seems to be fine, but she could have died,” he said angrily. “But she didn’t. You didn’t run out on her again, did you?”

  “Not really. I told her I’d be back.”

  “You can’t keep walking away every time you get mad. Look at what you went through the last time you walked away.”
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br />   “I know, but if I had stayed, I would have yelled at her. I didn’t want to do that.”

  “You should have. I don’t think Beck would mind arguing with you,” Leso grinned.

  “I know she wouldn’t, but she was already mad at me. I didn’t want to make it any worse.”

  “Why is she mad at you?” Leso asked, confused.

  He explained to Leso how Beck and Potter had not told him what they’d done. How he’d found out about it when she jumped across the yard and yanked his car out of Seanán’s hands.

  “You should have seen her snatch those boys up. he scared the hell out of them. I bet they don’t break anything else for a long, damn time.”

  “But why is she mad at you?” Leso asked again. “You remember how I warned Potter about keeping anymore secrets with Beck?” he said quickly, trying to explain himself. “Oh, I remember. Who could forget seeing a beating like that?”

  “I warned him. He should have listened to me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I beat the holy hell out of him, just like I told him I would.”

  “In front of Beck?” Leso asked in surprise.

  “Yes, in front of Beck.”

  “How bad did you beat him?”

  “There may have been a bone or two I didn’t break.”

  Leso laughed. “That was stupid. You know how much she loves him.”

  “I know, but I did warn him.”

  “Wait a second. How did you not know that she had been changed?”

  “She still has her scent.”

  “Really?!”

  “Yes, her scent didn’t change at all.”

  “I’ve never heard of a hunter with a scent.”

  “Nor have I, until now, but I’ve never heard of a female hunter, either.”

  “True…Do you think his blood would work on Bev?” Leso asked quietly.

  “Are you serious?! Would you really consider that for her?”Leso nodded. “I would.”

  “You’ve got to know how dangerous that would be, Leso,” Richard said, stunned. He would have never thought that Leso would ever risk Bev’s life.

  “It didn’t kill Beck.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know that it wasn’t sheer luck that kept her alive,” Richard replied sarcastically.

  “I still think it’s worth the risk.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can spend more than just fifty years or so with her. I love her, and want to spend the rest of my life with her, not just the rest of hers. If she’s willing to try this, then I’m willing to let her.”

  It sounded crazy to him. Of course he wanted to spend eternity with Beck, but he would never have allowed her to risk her life to do it. Which was probably why she hadn’t told him she was going to do it.

  He looked at Leso. “So, when are you coming home?”

  “A few days, I guess. How did you control yourself when this happened with Beck the first time?”

  “I didn’t. I knocked her to the ground. Remember? Potter had to throw me off of her.”

  “Yes, but after he threw you off of her, you calmed down. I felt your mood shift. How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know. I just snapped out of it when I realized what I was doing.”

  “Could you have stayed with her without jumping on her again?”

  “I think I could have, but I left just to be sure.”

  “I can’t do that. While you and Damon were holding onto me, I was telling myself to stop, but I couldn’t.”

  Richard smiled. “You’ll adjust after a while.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Well, I’m going to go home and get ‘cussed out’ again,” he said, getting up off the ground.

  Grinning from ear to ear, Leso said, “Have fun with that.”

  ***

  “I can’t believe he jumped on you like that,” she said, tossing the garlic bread into the buggy.

  “I told you he was going to do it.”

  “I’ve seen the hunters break each other’s bones, but I didn’t know how much it actually hurt until you broke my finger.”

  “Hey! I didn’t want to do that.”

  “I know you didn’t. I’m just saying, what he did to you must have been excruciating.”

  “You have no idea,” he said, pushing the buggy into the checkout line.

  “How do you get use to that kind of pain?”

  “Well, you don’t. The goal is to not get your bones broken,” he laughed. She frowned. “I really though Richard was going to kill you.”

  “I didn’t. He wouldn’t have wasted his time whipping my ass like that if he was going to kill me. He would have just ripped my head off.”

  “How can you laugh about it? It was terrible.”

  “How can I not laugh about it? He is the only brother I have that can beat me in a fight,” he said, throwing the food onto the conveyer belt. “I know he can beat me, and yet, I still keep pissing him off,” he said, grinning.

  She asked angrily, “He doesn’t beat you like that all the time, does he?”

  “No, he hasn’t whipped the shit out of me like he did today for 120 years, but he’ll jump on me from time to time.”

  The man checking them out had stopped scanning the food and was staring at them.

  “What are you looking at?” Potter snarled. “Mind your own business and do your job.”

  When the man had dropped his eyes and started scanning the food again, Potter looked at her and smiled.

  She scolded him they walked out of the store. “You’re horrible. You scared the crap out of that man.”

  “I know. Cool, wasn’t it?” he laughed.

  “No, he really thought you were dangerous.” He gave her a strange look. “Beck, I am dangerous.”

  “Yeah, but not to humans.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “Because you protect humans.”

  “True, but only from vampyres. I don’t have a problem killing humans who deserve it, though.”

  “I didn’t know you could harm a human,” she said, surprised.

  “You never asked. I can kill any human I want and not even feel guilty about it later.”

  Confused, she pushed further. “But when you saw Mary Nichols killed, you looked so tortured.”

  “I was being tortured,” he said, opening the truck door for her. “I was watching a vampyre kill a human. I was created to stop it, to destroy the vampyre, and save the human. When I had to stand there and do nothing, it tore my soul apart.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “So, you have?”

  “I have what?”

  “Killed a human before?”

  “A few, but not for a long time. You learn pretty quickly that you can’t kill every human that deserves it. You’d never have time for anything else.”

  “Does humanity really seem that bad to you?”

  “We know how bad it is. It’s humans that need to open their eyes and look the hell around. Murder, rape, and child abuse all happen right under their noses, and they either don’t see it or ignore it. Even when they do get caught, what happens?

  “A few years in prison? Sometimes not even that? I heard what that kid, Alex, did to you. I didn’t know the details of what he did until Richard told Bev, but I knew what he’d done. Richard told me before that that kid got a year of probation. A year! For a brutal assault and rape!” he spat, driving the truck a little too fast.

  “Actually, he only got a year of probation for the assault. The D.A. dropped the rape charges,” she said.

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about! He should have been put to death or at the very least, rotted in prison. Why should we protect humanity from itself when they don’t care enough to protect it?”

  “The D.A. said they had to take his age into consideration.”

  “He was seventeen years old, for Christ sake! Did they really think he was going to change?”

&nbs
p; “You’re preaching to the choir. I was all for him going to jail,” she said. “It’s a dead argument anyway. It never even happened in this time.”

  “It did happen, Beck. It happened to you, and as far as me not killing humans, do you really think I didn’t want to kill that kid?”

  “I never really thought about it, I guess.”

  “Well, I did want to kill him. We all did, but Richard wouldn’t let us be involved, told us to keep our asses at home and let him deal with it. He wouldn’t even let us watch,” he said sadly.

  She couldn’t believe he was disappointed that he had missed it.

  To change the subject she asked, “Did Richard really warn you not to keep anymore secrets with me?”

  “Yep, I think he mentioned it between breaking my arm and my collarbone,” he laughed again.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Sure it is. I would have been just as mad if Richard had kept secrets like that with Jenny.”

  “Maybe, but you wouldn’t have attacked him like that.”

  “Only because I know it would turn out just like it did today.”

  “He is an amazing fighter, isn’t he?’ “Yep, and he doesn’t even practice. He just comes by it naturally.”

  He pulled into the driveway.

  “Be that as it may, he’s not going to beat on you anymore,” she said firmly.

  “Aww, don’t yell at him, Beck. He did warn me.”

  “I’m not going to yell at him. I’m just going to tell him to leave you alone about this.”

  “Okay. Let me know how that turns out,” he chuckled, getting out of the truck.

  “Just take the food into the house, you pussy.”

  ***

  Jenny, Heidi, Saphira, Bruce, Harley, Alexis, Charley, Daryl, Rita, Susie, Jonathon, Gavin, Isiah, Jeremy, and Bev were waiting in the living room when they walked into the house.

  Beck asked, “What’s going on?”

  But she already knew what they were all there for. She should have known that Seanán and Tiarnán would have ran and told everyone what had happened. Damn!

  “Is it true?” Daryl asked. Potter played innocent. “Is what true?”

  But no one even looked at him.

  “Did you take Richard’s car out of Seanán’s hands?” Charley asked. Potter spoke up. “I can explain.”