by Rae, Nikki
He turns from the sink, wiping his hands on a dish towel before crossing them in front of him. “She’s alright,” he says. “It won’t happen again.”
“So I’m only hanging out with her?”
Suddenly, my palms become sweaty at the thought of hanging out with her instead of Myles today. This must be a hint of what he was talking about when he said I’d want to be closer to him.
“Don’t worry.” Myles laughs softly, relaxing. “It won’t take long. Then we can do whatever you want.” He rests his palms on top of the counter across from me, stretching his arms in front of him. “I feel it too,” he says, staring right into me.
Relief washes over me like a warm blanket. I refuse to believe it’s from my cheeks getting red.
Thankfully, he stands upright soon after, but when he says, “Promise you won’t be mad,” with a smirk on his face, I don’t exactly feel carefree.
“Why would I be mad?”
I watch as Myles heads into the living room, reaching over the back of the couch to retrieve a black duffle bag that I recognize as my own when I see the familiar day of the dead skull hanging off of the zipper.
“What’s that?”
Myles sets the bag down in front of me. “I didn’t think you’d want to risk being seen leaving here in the same clothes you wore yesterday.”
I simultaneously stand up and unzip the duffle bag, not really looking inside. “So you went downstairs, into my apartment, and went through my closet?”
He sits down again, picking up the skull keychain and studying it before grinning up at me. “Are you mad?”
I have to laugh, and the unexpected vibration that runs through my vocal cords causes me to become more aware of the Band-Aid stretched across my collarbone. But only for a second.
“No,” I say. “I honestly didn’t think that far ahead.” All I was thinking about was me, Myles, and some no less than PG-13 rated kissing. “Thanks.”
With a smile from him, I start down the hall toward the bathroom to change.
***
Myles, Malakhi, and I leave at eleven, driving for about forty minutes before I notice that the longer we drive toward wherever Ava and Evan live, the farther away we get from the city. Rows of honking cars stuck in traffic or trying to park become less frequent, apartments squished together on the sidewalk turn into houses that are spaced equally apart, then separated by trees and grass. It almost looks like the houses at home. Except these houses are mammothly huge.
“Holy crap.” It leaves my mouth when we’re heading down a long gravel driveway that leads to a huge, brown Victorian style house, the two large cones on top giving away how old it is.
Myles laughs at my reaction. “I told you,” he says. “Some of us are a little stereotypical when it comes to money.”
He parks the car on the side of the house, strapping a leash onto his dog before we get out of the jeep and walk to the front door.
Ava’s wearing a long sleeved, turtle necked, shirt and dark jeans when she greets me at the door. I can’t see any evidence of what happened to her the last time I saw her except that she’s paler than the last time I saw her, but other than that she seems okay. She gives me a shy smile, and then her eyes light up when she sees who we have with us.
“Malakhi!” Her voice raises only one octave. “I haven’t seen you in so long!” She leans down to ruffle his fur.
“Hey, Ava,” I say. “What’s up?”
Her gaze snaps to me as if she’s just remembered that we’re here too. “Hi,” she says to me. Ava turns to Myles. “Hi, Myles.”
He moves in for a hug, and if Ava didn’t look so strained at the contact, I would maybe find it in me to be jealous, you know, if I was that type. Instead, Malakhi and I stare at each other as we wait for them to say hello.
“How are you?” Myles asks when he pulls away.
“A lot better.” Her voice is soft.”Would you like to come in?”
We step inside her apartment, my boots making a clunk-clunk as they hit her hardwood floor, Myles’ converse are practically silent to my left, and Malakhi’s nails click between us.
Everything inside is dark brown: the walls, the floor. The only things that stick out are the leather sofas, which are a deep burgundy. It looks almost identical to Evan’s office.
“Your place is great,” I say to break the silence.
Myles unleashes Malakhi, who promptly closes the small space between Ava and I. She pats him on the head.
“Oh, this is Evan’s half of the house,” she says to him, but I guess it’s directed at me.
“Speaking of,” Myles butts in. “I should go meet him in the study.”
I can’t stop the snort that escapes me. “You’re serious.”
He wraps his arm around me and kisses me on the mouth. It’s a simple gesture, but it causes my eyelids to flutter and my heart to speed up. “I’ll text you when we’re done?”
I practically struggle to speak. “Sure.”
Myles disappears down the short hall and around the corner, leaving his dog, his friend, and me.
Ava surprises me when she breaks the silence. “I was just in the middle of feeding my chameleons,” she says, motioning behind us where there’s a staircase. “It’ll take a few minutes if you want to come.” Malakhi wastes no time climbing the stairs. It occurs to me that he’s probably been here a bunch of times. He knows where he’s going.
Ava laughs as we follow him up. “He’s so cute.”
At the top of the landing, there are four white doors that are all shut. Ava opens the one closest to the stairs and Malakhi zooms past her into the tan, carpeted room. She leads the way inside where there’s a bed with a tiffany blue comforter and dark green pillows, only obstructed by Malakhi’s curled up form. I take note that matching curtains are drawn over the windows that line the far end of her room.
A few feet in front of her bed is what looks like a huge screened in porch, but Ava proves that it’s not when she opens the door and there’s nothing but plants inside.
“You can sit on my bed if you want,” she says as she sticks her hand inside. When her arm is outside the cage again, there’s a large reptile with independently moving eyes attached to it.
“Whoa,” I say. “He’s cool.”
Ava smiles down at the green creature. “Oscar’s my baby,” she says lovingly. She looks up for a moment. “You want to hold him? I’ll show you how.”
I want to protest, but she’s already coming over to me.
I hold out my hand, and she inches her arm toward it, letting the little guy climb onto me.
“I’ll just feed them real quick while you have him,” Ava says. “He never lets Edgar eat if I feed them both at once.”
One of Oscar’s eyes stares at me, rotating like a camera lens. “How many do you have in there?”
Ava’s back is turned, presumably to feed them whatever she feeds them. “Three.”
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say, so I just say, “Cool.”
“So,” Ava says when she’s done and gently taking Oscar away from my hands, placing him back in his cage on an artificial tree limb. “I wanted to thank you for hanging out with me.”
“No problem.” I shrug.
She sits down on the opposite end of the bed, keeping an eye on the cage in front of it as faint rustling noises come from within.
“I was a little embarrassed when Evan told me he asked you to hang out with me,” Ava says suddenly.
“Really? Why?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I’m not good at making friends, but he told me that we have a lot in common and that maybe you’d be a person I could talk to.”
Malakhi notices that she’s sitting near him, so he re-adjusts himself so he can place his head in her lap.
“Sometimes it’s not easy for me to be around people,” she continues.
I nod.
“I get…nervous. I’ve always had anxiety problems.” She isn’t looking at me
, just Malakhi. “Most people don’t understand why I am the way I am; they think there’s something wrong with me.”
“I know how that feels.” I snort.
“Yeah. You look like you do.” And she doesn’t sound like she’s trying to insult me as she gestures to my trench coat and glasses that I haven’t taken off yet. “And…you know,” she says. “We have some vampires in common.”
The sadness in her voice tells me that it’s not meant to be a joke. I nod. We’re quiet for a few minutes.
“When I heard about what happened to you, I didn’t leave the house for almost a month.”
I swallow, fighting a wave of uneasiness. “Oh yeah?”
Ava nods. “I hadn’t heard anything about him in so long. I thought all of it was over.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well.” I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here.
“And then when I heard you were moving here?” Her eyes widen a little, but she’s still concentrated on Malakhi. “I wanted to move underground.”
“Why?” I joke a little to disguise my confusion. “Did Myles tell you something about me?”
She blinks a few times. “No. It wasn’t about you at all.”
“Then what?” I ask.
“Michael.”
I have to clear my throat. “What about him?”
“I mean,” she says, stroking the smooth white fur under her palm. “I know the club and surrounding apartments are a safe place. He wouldn’t be able to get in if he tried, but still…” She seems lost in thought. “I was afraid you were leading him straight to us.”
“Well,” I say. “He’s not going to be a problem anymore.” I try to fight the knot that’s beginning to form in my stomach. “Myles killed him.”
Ava’s eyes dart up to me, narrowing like I’ve just made a joke she doesn’t get. “What exactly did he say? Did Myles say that he killed him?”
I don’t realize that my hands have wrenched themselves into her comforter as I replay what he said to me that night.
***
Is he gone? I asked in my mind as I lay there with a breathing tube and a broken body. Did you. . .kill him?
Myles sighed, “They don’t want me telling you all of this now.”
Myles. I thought directly at him. You have to tell me.
He nodded. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
Are you sure?
He nodded again.
***
“No.” It leaves my mouth in almost a gasp.
“Sophie,” Ava says, her gaze finally settling on me. “Michael can’t die.”
My mouth must be hanging open. I shake my head.
“No,” I say it like the words will make it true. “Myles said he couldn’t hurt me anymore.” I can hear how stupid I sound. How stupid I was to believe in such a quick fix.
Ava places a hand lightly on my fist for a nano-second.
“I’m sure he meant that,” she says. “But if that’s what he said, he didn’t mean that he killed Michael.” She gulps. “Trust me. We’ve looked into everything. If there were a way to kill Michael, Evan and I wouldn’t be infected with his blood anymore. None of us would have to live in protected places. We would be normal.”
Even she can’t hide the ironic smile that plays on her face when she says that.
If we were talking about anything else, I may have been able to take note of it.
“Are you okay, Sophie?” Ava asks after I don’t know how long.
I realize that I’ve been staring at her this whole time. “I need to go.” I stand, Malakhi raising his head as he anxiously looks up to me.
“Oh, my God,” Ava whispers, slowly standing as well. “You had no idea, did you?”
I shake my head back and forth.
“Why did you think you moved here?” she asks.
My eyes begin to sting, but I refuse to let the tears fall. If I break now, I won’t be able to kill Myles. “To play music.” My voice is a ghost. “I need to go.”
My feet are swiftly taking me out of her room, down the stairs, and back to the entryway. I’m slightly aware that Ava’s following me and I’m about to ask her where Myles and Evan are, but both of them are already standing in the hall. They must have heard the conversation from down here.
“I’m sorry,” I hear Ava whisper behind me, and I don’t know if it’s meant for me or them.
Evan rushes past Myles, gently ushering Ava back up the stairs. He has to sense that I’m about to explode, and doesn’t want her to get upset because I’m upset.
“I’m sorry,” I hear her repeat as they both head back up the stairs. This time, it sounds like it’s for me.
Myles is staring at me. His face is the mixed bag of emotions: startled, confused, a little bit of angry, and a hint of sadness.
“Sophie—”
That’s as far as he’s getting. I hold up a hand to shield myself from the impending bullshit storm that is about to happen. I’m surprised it stops him.
“I want to know one thing.” My voice comes out evenly, but I have to fight to keep it that way. “And I’d really appreciate the truth.”
For a second, Myles looks like he’s going to ask me what I’m talking about, but he shuts his mouth and nervously runs a hand through his hair.
I swallow hard. I shoot the sentence out of my mouth before I have the chance to back down. “Is Michael alive?”
Myles stares directly at me the entire time, but his eyes seem to be somewhere else.
“Yes.” I barely hear it, but it’s there.
Without thinking, I’ve taken a step toward him, convinced I heard him wrong.
“You lied to me.”
His light blue eyes first blink, then meet mine, this time with a different emotion behind them: fear. “Yes,” he whispers. “I did.”
I squint as an attempt to keep the tears from falling and it works, but I know I don’t have long before they start. “You better have a good fucking reason,” I spit.
Myles nods, his eyes turning to the dark floorboards beneath my feet now.
“Well?” I wish I could keep my voice even.
His eyes slowly inch their way back up to mine. “He can’t die.”
The look on his face would make me feel bad on any other day. Not today. Not now. Not when everything he’s done could have been a lie. I cross my arms over my chest to steady myself.
“Yeah. Ava filled me in on that little detail.”
Myles blinks a few times when he glances at my face before he settles his gaze on the door behind me. Time passes. It’s only seconds, maybe minutes. It doesn’t feel that way.
Then he takes a step toward me. It’s small but enough to make me flinch. “I didn’t want you to worry about it,” he says. “You have to believe me when I say that you’re safe.”
“You were never going to tell me?” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, not even caring that I’ve started to cry.
“I wanted to.” I see his mouth move, but I don’t hear the words.
“But you didn’t.” My voice raises, but the volume does nothing to keep it from shaking.
He closes his eyes like I’ve thrown something at him and he’s waiting for it to hit a part of his body.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t.”
“So instead of telling me the truth, you brought me here. You brought all of us here.”
Myles has no response.
“This place is ‘protected,’ the club is ‘protected.’ How?”
Myles swallows.
“What’s keeping Michael from swiping me off the street and killing me?”
He looks up now. “That won’t happen.”
“Really?” I ask, on the verge of hysteria. “It’s a little convenient that the club where I work and the apartment I live in are ‘off limits’ to a psychopath that wanted me dead a few months ago.”
“I brought you here because I thought it would make you happy.” His voice is weak and fading.
I sniff. “Right. Right.�
�
I turn away from him, grabbing onto the door handle. I know the pull in my stomach at the thought of leaving his side is just from the blood and the bite and thinking about how much I wanted it last night brings more tears.
Maybe that was a lie too. Maybe it all is.
“Please, Sophie,” I hear him say. “We can talk about this. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
I hear him take another step forward. Part of me wants to have that conversation, but the other, bigger part wants to run far, far away.
“I’m out of here.” I fling the door open.
“You can’t walk, it’s too far.” He has the balls to grab onto my hand.
I spin around, fully intending to punch him in the face, but I doubt he would feel it. “I’ll take a cab,” I say instead. “I can afford it now.”
Myles seems like he’s frozen in time, but he lets me jerk my hand away.
The second I slam the door behind me and I’m in the open, I feel like my chest is being crushed; the sweltering heat only makes it worse. I feel like I’m going to throw up, but I manage to keep my breakfast down long enough to hail a cab, ride back to the apartments, and pay. I even get to stumble out of the cab and watch it drive away before I let my body take over, jolting my head into the trashcan a few feet away from the main entrance.
When I’m done, my body collapses and I’m sitting on the pavement, my back leaning against the stone building where I thought my dreams were coming true, but it turns out they may just be more nightmares. I position my head between my knees, feeling cold and hot all at once, my head spinning with thoughts, memories, and nausea.
“Hey,” a male voice says.
Instead of looking up, I stare at the dirty concrete beneath me.
Whoever it is kneels down, but doesn’t touch me. “You okay, Sophie?”
I recognize the low, scratchy voice now: Manny. Looking up only confirms this. His mustache accentuates his concerned frown. Great. The worst day ever can now be made complete.
“I’m fine.” And I could have convinced him if I didn’t burst into tears.
***
“In my experience, there ain’t nothing that makes the heart feel better than pancakes.”