by M. Leighton
“I don’t even know what to say,” he began, very obviously out of sorts.
I sat up in bed, suddenly feeling very prickly and defensive.
“What is going on, Brady? What happened?”
He shrugged, his expression indicating he was as genuinely puzzled as I was.
“I don’t know. I swear, I have no idea. It’s like all of a sudden, I saw Trace for who and what he really is.”
“And what’s that?”
Brady looked me dead in the eye. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t grin, he didn’t look apologetic. He simply looked sincere. And worried.
“The enemy.”
Although his words made the hairs on my arms stand up, I couldn’t help but question such a ridiculous statement.
“The enemy?”
“I know is sounds crazy, Peyton, but believe me, Trace is not who we thought he was.”
“What is that even supposed to mean?”
Brady’s lips tightened.
“You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
“Trust you? When you just turned on your best friend without a single identifiable cause? You’re nuts!”
“Peyton, I’m serious. I’d better not catch you anywhere near him, or—”
“Or what?” I interrupted defiantly. “You’ll ground me? You’ll take away my phone? You’ll take away my driving privileges?”
“I mean it, Peyton,” he growled.
“I’m sure you do, Brady, but if you think you can dictate who my friends are, you’re crazier than I thought you were.”
“As your older brother, I—”
“Older by what? Six minutes?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re my little sister, my responsibility and you’re supposed to listen to me. Even Julia has always left me in charge of you.”
I couldn’t stop the snort of derision that bubbled out.
“Julia? You’re playing the Julia card? That’s what you’re gonna go with? Seriously?”
We looked at one another, each of us undoubtedly thinking how ludicrous that sounded, and we laughed. It was actually a good thing, though. A much-needed tension-breaker.
Aunt Julia was the only parental figure we’d had since we were three months old, if one could consider her “parental” in any way. She had come to stay with us when our parents had disappeared on their anniversary trip to New York shortly after our birth. To say she was not happy with the situation would’ve been a humongous understatement. She’d taken to rearing children about as well as a shark takes to flight.
Over the years, as Brady and I had gotten older, the three of us had come to the mutual agreement that Brady and I would raise ourselves and Julia would sign things and pose as the person in charge. She was all too happy to go along with that arrangement and it had worked out surprisingly well. It hadn’t taken long for Brady and me to realize that we liked being in control of our own lives, that we liked it best when Julia was merely an absentee authority figure. We’d learned to rely on no one but each other and, thus far, no person and no thing had ever come between us or threatened that in any way. Until now.
“Alright, so maybe that was weak, but Peyton I’m telling you, you have to listen to me on this. It has to be this way. I can feel it in my gut.”
“Brady, that sounds—”
Brady sighed loudly, cutting me off.
“I know how it sounds. But promise me anyway. Promise me you’ll stay away from him.”
“Brady, I—”
“Promise me, Peyton.”
As I sat looking at his face, I knew that he wouldn’t give up until I’d done as he asked. And, even though he was basically forcing me to say the words, something about saying them soured in the pit of my stomach like spoiled milk. The whole experience didn’t set well, probably because even as I spoke the words, I knew I was lying to my brother.
“I promise.”
He exhaled and his tense expression immediately relaxed.
“Okay. Thank you,” he breathed. “Now was that so hard?”
I smiled, but said nothing, feeling as though I had just betrayed the two most important people in the world, even though that sounded as ridiculous to me as it likely would to anyone else who knew the history of my relationship with Trace. Somehow, in the course of one short night, he’d gone from a crush that I’d basically admired from afar, figuratively speaking, to someone I felt like I’d give up my life and everyone in it to be with. It made no sense whatsoever.
Brady chatted for a few minutes about inconsequential party-related things, none of which I cared about or really listened to. My mind was still stuck on Trace and how I’d just told my brother a colossal lie. Even though I felt some strange new connection to my sibling, to the blood that we had in common, I also felt a strange new connection to Trace and there was not a single fiber in my body that really thought I’d be able to stay away from him if he decided to pursue me. In fact, I knew without a doubt that I didn’t even want to try. I was already aching with regret that I’d let him leave. As Brady prattled on, I wanted to push him aside and run out the door to find Trace and feel his arms around me again, to feel the utter satisfaction of being held by him.
When Brady finally said his goodnight and left me in peace, the hollow, empty feeling of being without Trace seemed to permeate the entire room. I curled up in a ball on the bed and tried desperately to think of anything besides Trace and how my insides literally hurt at the thought of him walking out my door.
It seemed only to be getting worse and worse when a calm suddenly stole over me. I didn’t have to wonder what it meant. I didn’t have to look around to know what or who it was. I knew what was happening as though it had happened every day of my life. It was Trace. He was close. He had come back and I could feel it.
A light tap at my door sounded just before it opened a crack. I couldn’t see who was in the hall, but I didn’t really need to. Even though it would’ve made more sense for it to be Brady, I knew that it wasn’t so the voice that came next was no surprise. It washed over me like a warm tide.
“I know you’re awake. I can feel it,” Trace said. “Can I come in?”
Once again unable to speak, I leapt from the bed and went to further open the door, stepping back to allow him to enter. If I couldn’t answer Trace with words, I’d have no choice but to act, to show him my answers.
As soon as I closed the door behind Trace, he spoke. He was standing so close to me I could feel his breath stir my bangs.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I’m sure I could’ve said all that better. I just…I don’t know what came over me. It’s like everything from the last four years just exploded and I can’t fight it anymore.”
I stared up into his honey-colored eyes, melting in the heat of what I saw there, desperately wanting to say something to make him continue. But I couldn’t. Instead, we just watched each other, mutely.
Finally, Trace reached forward to wind the fingers of one hand around my neck and bury them in the hair at my nape.
“I wish you’d say something, Peyton. Tell me you feel the same way. Tell me you can’t stop thinking about me. Tell me you want me to kiss you as much as I want to do it. Tell me to leave. Tell me anything. Just say something,” he implored. Then, with a wry twist of his lips, he added, “On second thought, no, don’t tell me to leave.”
He chuckled and I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. Trace had always found it easy to make me laugh. We seemed to get each other in a way that no one else did, not even Brady.
I watched his smile fade as the silence stretched on. I felt the urgent need to speak rising up to choke my response, as though the need itself was keeping me from saying what I wanted most to say.
Trace sighed, a sound that broke my heart. “Wow! Twice in one night! What was I thinking?” he asked, slowly pulling his fingers from my hair.
Quickly, I reached up to grab his wrist and still his hand before he broke the contact with my skin. His eyes narrowed on me and then flickered down
to my lips, as if willing me to speak. When still I said nothing, I saw a tiny frown pinch his tawny brows together. He was as confused as I.
My only options at that point were to let him think that I had no romantic feelings for him or to show him that I most certainly did. As scary as it was to initiate something I’d dreamed of for so long, I stretched up on my toes and I pressed my lips to Trace’s cheek in a quick kiss.
I pulled back, my face aflame in embarrassment. I wanted to turn away so that I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes, but Trace moved his fingers from my hair to my chin. He applied just enough pressure to keep me facing him, giving me no choice but to look him in the eye. What I saw there made my knees turn to liquid as the hot lava of anticipation flooded my stomach.
What could have been one of the most incredible, fairy tale-perfect moments of my life was effectively ruined when Brady burst through the door. What I saw stole my attention from Trace immediately and completely.
Even if I hadn’t heard the whispers of a thousand voices explaining Brady to me, I’d have known the instant I saw him what he was. He was a make-believe monster. He was a movie myth. He was one of Hollywood’s most lucrative creations. Only he was real. He was a vampire. And he was standing in my doorway.
CHAPTER THREE
In an action so rapid it left me a little unsteady on my feet, Trace turned away from me to face Brady, pulling me behind his back in the night’s second protective gesture. I wasn’t able to appreciate it quite as much this time, however, as I was completely mesmerized by the transformation of my brother, a transformation I could see perfectly as I peeked around Trace’s shoulder.
Brady stood in the doorway to my bedroom, arms slightly abducted from his body, fingers clenched into tight fists, veins in his neck straining dangerously. He was making a threatening noise that reminded me of the warning hiss of a rattlesnake. But none of that really bothered me, not like the sight of his face.
Gone was the handsome guy we all knew as Brady. He’d been completely and terrifyingly replaced by a fierce creature.
The skin that covered his skull had turned a leathery gray color that reminded me of elephant hide. His thickened brow hovered low over his eyes in a menacing crouch, giving him the look of a predator. The elongated nostrils of his sharpened nose flared rhythmically with his heavy breathing. His mouth seemed different, too—wider than normal, with lips that curled back to reveal two fangs. They were razor sharp and more intimidating than any I’d ever seen, even on nature’s most frightening animals. Saliva dripped in long rivulets from them as Brady shook in fury.
Even as disturbing as his visage was, however, it was his eyes that scared me most. Trained unerringly on Trace, they burned in Brady’s face like two bright red, fiery coals filled with an evil hatred that made the blood in my veins run as cold as ice.
In the back of my mind, I marveled at what I was seeing. On some level, I knew I should doubt my eyes, doubt what I was seeing. But I didn’t. Somehow the whispers that I’d heard earlier on the deck and again only moments before were beginning to make sense. It was as though they’d spoken things that only my heart or my soul could understand. And they did. They understood what Brady was, and they believed it beyond all the doubts that my mind shouted into the silence. My brother was a bloodthirsty monster. And it terrified me.
“Brady?” I whispered, dumbstruck by the entire scenario.
As if in answer to my question, a growl sounded in front of me. It wasn’t coming from the still-hissing Brady, though. No, it was coming from Trace. It rumbled in his chest. I could feel it reverberating through his back where I was pressed against it.
Curious, I took a step away from him, a step that would bring me more toward the front of his body. I looked up at his face and paused, horrified. Trace was changing, too, but not in the ways that Brady had.
I saw him first in profile. Trace’s forehead and chin had shifted and stretched to accommodate a longer nose. It was somewhat muzzle-like and covered with a light dusting of tawny hair. I watched it wrinkle in agitation, like the intimidating snarl of a wolf. Beneath his snout was a wide mouth with a thin upper lip that curled up and away from a vicious set of teeth. They flashed in the dim light like lethal weapons. And I had no doubt that they were.
His body seemed to be in the midst of more change. His ribs flared out beneath his shirt and his muscles seemed to be more defined through his finely hairy skin. His waist seemed thinner than ever, his neck thicker.
Before I could think better of it, I gasped, drawing Trace’s eyes to me. Though they were smaller and sharper, they were still the color of sparkling amber, the color I’d always associated with Trace. And they watched me. Steadily.
I took another step away from Trace, then another until I was standing between the two creatures, looking from one to the other in utter disbelief. It was surreal, more so than I could fully process. I struggled to wrap my head around the truth of what I was seeing. In the back of my mind, I kept waiting for the laughter to start, for one of them to deliver the punch line, to tear off their elaborate masks like the pranksters they were. Only none of that ever came. I watched the two people I loved most in the world face off against one another like mortal enemies, both trapped inside bodies that I barely recognized.
As I stood between them, praying that they wouldn’t come to blows, something I would have no idea how to stop or prevent, I felt a wrinkling, bubbling, churning sensation erupt on the back of each of my hands. It spread quickly up my arms. As the feeling ascended toward my trunk, I felt a tearing work its way through my chest, as if something was literally pulling me apart.
At first it wasn’t very painful, but the longer it went on, the more painful it became. And it was more than a simple physical pain. It was like the pain of a thousand heartaches breaking my soul apart and rending my skull in two. And then I saw what it was doing to me physically.
My left arm had turned a sickly gray color, my flesh feeling cold and tingly. My right arm felt hot and flushed and looked slightly more muscular and hairy. I held both limbs out in front of me to examine them. I was both horrified and fascinated, because, as I brought them together, the changes became less obvious. But then, as I spread them wide, reaching toward Trace at my right and Brady at my left, the changes became more pronounced. It was as if the close proximity to each of them magnified the struggle that was taking place inside me.
As I stood in stunned silence, the tension between Brady and Trace escalated to a level far beyond dangerous. It was Brady’s movement that shook me from my internal struggles and thrust me back into the moment with alarming clarity.
Brady took one enormous step toward me and, with it, unwittingly tipped the scales in his favor. Immediately, I felt the impact of his nearness in a visceral way as it ripped through my body and threatened to overtake my appearance. I felt the cold, tingling sensation permeate my chest, my neck and face, and begin to work its way down my right arm, cooling the warm flush of Trace’s influence.
Although I had no idea what was going on, wouldn’t have believed what was happening if someone had told me about it, I knew instinctively that eventually there would be tough choices to make. Painful choices that would forever change my life and the lives of those I loved most.
It seemed that we all became aware of Brady’s influence at the same time. It was then that I felt the tethers that stretched between Trace and me reach out to draw him close. Responding immediately, Trace stepped toward me.
Even though his body was only a foot or two closer to me, I instantly felt an increased calm at his nearness. I barely heard Brady’s warning hiss, but when I did, I looked up to smile at Trace so that he wouldn’t feel compelled to draw any closer to me.
“Sorry. I’m okay,” I said reassuringly, genuinely feeling better with him a bit nearer to me.
At this, Brady’s anger seemed to spiral upward, increasing his influence on my body. In response, Trace took steps to bring himself even closer to me, his chest nearly tou
ching my shoulder. Instantly, I felt the shift as warm became hot and the flush of Trace’s nearness pushed Brady’s sway further and further out the left side of my body, like the burn of sunlight chasing away the fog.
It was that insult that pushed Brady over the edge.
With an inhuman growl, Brady threw himself at Trace, glistening teeth bared and deadly. He went straight for Trace’s neck.
If it weren’t for Trace’s lightning fast reflexes, Brady would’ve torn his throat out. But as it was, Trace managed to get his arms up in front of him, wedging them between his body and Brady’s, giving him the ability to hold Brady and his snapping jaws at bay.
My heart stuttered to a stop and then restarted at a breakneck pace. A surge of adrenaline seemed to purge my body of any influence other than my own, as if it cleansed my cells of all things foreign. It was that feeling of being back in control, of being just me rather than a lightning rod for either Brady’s or Trace’s dominance, that gave me the courage and the determination to step up.
I knew that if I didn’t do something, I would have to stand there and watch Trace and Brady tear each other apart. So it was with near-panic suffusing every muscle in my body that I stepped forward, somehow managing to insert myself between the wrestling bodies of my brother and his best friend.
At first, the contact appeared to invigorate both of them, vicious snarling and frantic grappling breaking out from every direction it seemed. But then, when a blast of determined irritation worked its way up from my gut to explode through my palms, I laid a hand against each of their chests and I pushed with all my might, an unfamiliar, guttural sound erupting from my lips as I strained. Instantly, I felt them calm. I felt it in my soul as much as I felt it against my flesh, as if the animosity simply drained away.
Once more, I pushed at the two chests threatening to crush me and, obediently, they separated to give me room to breathe. When they did, I was free to inhale, which I did as quickly as I could. With fresh air filling my lungs, I looked up into their faces. It was then that I noticed with no small amount of shock that they both looked exactly as they had every day of their lives up until those few moments before. They had both returned to normal.