I shrugged. “It’s just something my shrink used to say.”
“I never knew you saw a shrink.”
“See?” I elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “I don’t make everything about me.”
“Do you still go?”
“To therapy?”
Travis nodded.
“No. We went to a few sessions before my mom left. It was… interesting,” I decided. “The woman was nice and all that, but I think for those kinds of things to work you have to be willing to put in the effort, and my parents were past caring at that point.”
I still couldn’t put on a finger on the exact moment Mom and Dad’s marriage dissolved. Maybe that’s because it wasn’t one big moment but a thousand little ones. I knew my sister and I hadn’t made it easy, but I also knew it wasn’t completely our fault. Or at least a part of me did.
“You know how older people always come up to you and say stuff like ‘enjoy high school while it lasts’ and ‘it doesn’t get any better than this’?” Travis said.
I snorted. Did I ever. “They’re so annoying.”
“I think they’ve just forgotten how hard it is to be a teenager. In their minds it was awesome because everything always seems awesome looking back, but it wasn’t then and it isn’t now.”
“And they didn’t even have to deal with vampires.” I brought my thumb to my mouth and bit down on the hangnail that had been bothering me. Yanking it out with my teeth, I turned my head and spat it onto the floor. “Do you think… do you think they used to be people, like us?” It was a question that had been lingering at the back of my mind since I’d seen the glimmer of empathy in the eyes of drinker Maximus had killed. I had meant to ask him, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the answer. Not the real one, anyways.
“Maybe,” Travis said after a long pause, although he didn’t sound very convinced. “I mean, a long time ago or something. People don’t do this to other people, Lola.”
“People kill each other all the time,” I argued.
“Not like this.”
“No.” I closed my eyes and saw the woman covered in blood slumped against her gate. The man lying out across the hood of his truck with glass sticking out of his face. The child facedown on the sidewalk. The guy with his fingers chewed off at the knuckles. “Not like this.”
Travis took my hand and squeezed it tight. I leaned against him, resting my head on his shoulder. We were quiet for a while, just two kids trying to make sense of the insensible.
“Lola?” he said finally.
“What?” I murmured.
“I’m sorry about your dad. I never knew… I mean, I never…”
“You don’t have to say anything.” And he didn’t. It was enough that he knew. A tiny weight lifted off my shoulders, so small as to barely be noticeable with all the other things weighing me down, but I appreciated it all the same. “We should probably get some sleep. I think the bag with the blankets you grabbed is in here. Can you get them? We’ll split the bed down the middle.”
Travis rolled off the bed so fast he landed in a heap on the floor. Picking himself up he stuttered, “S-split the bed down the m-middle?”
I drew my knees up and rested my chin on top of them. “Yes, Stuttering Stanley, right down the middle. You got a problem with that?”
“I can’t sleep next to you.”
“Well you can’t sleep out in the hall, so it’s either the bed or the floor. Look on the bright side,” I said when he continued to stand and stare at me as though I’d sprouted another head, “if drinkers weren’t running around killing everyone you never would have gotten me into bed with you.”
“That’s not even funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. Oh don’t be such a wimp,” I said when he groaned. “We’re not going to do anything. Talk about weird.”
“And gross,” he added.
“Totally gross. Just hand me a blanket and take the right side.”
After a few awkward minutes we each found a comfortable sleeping position: me on my back and Travis on his stomach. I pulled my blanket up to my chin and closed my eyes. I expected sleep to be elusive, but within what felt like seconds my mind went blissfully blank and I was sound asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Revelations
I woke before sunrise. For a moment I was disoriented, the unfamiliar surroundings of the hotel throwing me off until I saw Travis curled up next to me and then it all came rushing back. Every bloody, awful, horrible bit of it.
Careful not to disturb Travis – although at the rate he was snoring it would take more than me getting out of bed to do that – I rolled off the mattress and padded barefoot to the window. Drawing the dusty curtains aside with a flick of my wrist I peered out through the murky glass, but it was still too dark outside to see much of anything. I muffled a yawn with the back of my hand and let the curtain drop.
I thought about going back to bed for all of five seconds. I’d never been much of a morning person, but once I was up I was up.
Digging blindly through my bag of belongings in the corner of the room I managed to find a pink sweatshirt scrunched on the bottom and yanked it over my head. I considered changing out of my pajama pants, but since odds were the only person I’d run into this early would be a drinker, I didn’t bother. If they wanted to kill a girl in blue flannel duck pants that was their problem, not mine.
Remembering Maximus’ warning not to leave the room before sunrise I grabbed the baseball bat Travis had left propped up beside the door before I slipped out into the hallway. I’d never been that great at following orders. It was kind of nice to see some things hadn’t changed.
My bare feet sank into the plush carpet, reminding me I’d forgotten shoes, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going out. I was going up.
By the time I found the door that led to the roof the sky was beginning to lighten. Ribbons of pink and yellow cut through the inky swath of black and even though the sun wasn’t rising yet, it would be soon.
I’d spied the rooftop terrace yesterday afternoon before I went back into town to get Dad’s beer. Tucked between two dormers it was surrounded by a waist high fence made of slender metal bars with delicate tips and overlooked the elementary school on one side and the woods on the other.
I imagined there’d once been furniture spread out across the terrace. Fancy deck chairs and comfortable lounges. Maybe even a bar to serve drinks to the rich and snobby. Now it was empty and the fence, rusted in some places, black paint peeling off in others, wobbled a bit when I leaned against it to stare off across the forest.
I didn’t want to look at the elementary school and think of all the children who would have filled the classrooms come September. For a few moments I just wanted to watch what very well could be my last sunrise and think of life and laughter and happiness instead of death and blood and destruction.
I’d never given much thought to dying before. I guess most sixteen-year-olds don’t. We think we’re indestructible until we’re dead, and by then it’s too late to think anything at all. But with everything that was happening it was impossible not to think about it.
The drinkers had already proven how fragile life was. How easily taken it could be. How easily destroyed. I should have died three times already, and I wondered if my luck would hold out through a fourth. Because it wasn’t a matter of if my life would be threatened again. It was a matter of when.
“I thought I told you not to leave the room until the sun was all the way up.”
This time I couldn’t help it. I jumped. Clasping a hand over my racing heart I spun to find Maximus standing in the middle of the terrace, his thumbs hooked casually through the belt loops of his dark blue jeans and his expression inscrutable.
There was a scruff of beard on his face that only added to the dark and dangerous vibe he’d perfected down to an art form. Today he wore a white t-shirt instead of a black one, and he’d left the leather jacket… well, wherever he left his things.
&n
bsp; I spread my arms out across the top of the fence and leaned carefully against it. “The sun is up.”
“Barely.” He came up beside me and braced his hands against the metal bars, locking his elbows. Looking past me into the woods he said, “You don’t listen very well, do you?”
“Not usually.”
“That’s going to get you killed.”
“Funny, I was just thinking that.”
He swiveled his head towards me and frowned. “You were thinking about your death?”
“Why not?” My shoulders rose and fell in an easy shrug. “It’s bound to happen eventually, right? I mean, everyone else is dead.”
Maximus’ frown deepened into a scowl. “You’re not going to die.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I will protect you.”
By some small miracle I managed to keep my voice even. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
“Why?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “I’m serious,” I said when he turned his head away. “Why did you save my life? Why are you helping me? There has to be a reason. There are other people, better people—”
“You remind me of someone I once knew.” He spoke harshly, as though the words were being pulled up from the depths of his soul. The pain in his voice startled me, not because I didn’t think it was real, but because I hadn’t thought him capable of displaying such raw emotion. “Her name was Daniella and she was… very special to me.”
“Was?” I said softly.
His jaw tightened. “She’s dead now. The drinkers killed her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
I wanted to find out more about this Daniella who’d obviously meant so much to him, but I couldn’t think of a single question that wouldn’t come across as rude or offensive. Normally those kinds of things didn’t concern me, but there was something about Maximus that made me want to be better.
I didn’t want to be Lola, the girl who made out with guys because she wanted to feel good about herself when I was around him. I wanted to be Lola, the girl who was strong enough to face life as it came and roll through the punches instead of ducking under them. Even if those punches came from monsters with silver fangs.
Did it take a tragedy for you to come to terms with your own personal demons? Or was facing your personal demons a tragedy in and of itself? Either way, I finally felt ready to face my shortcomings… the biggest of which was still sleeping off a hangover one floor beneath me.
“Is the beer I got last night still down in the lobby?”
If Maximus was surprised by the sudden change in topic, it didn’t show on his face. “Yes.”
“I’m going to dump it out.”
“All of it?”
“All of it,” I confirmed with a hard nod. “My dad’s a drunk, Maximus. He has been ever since my mom left him.” And that, I thought, was the first time I’ve ever admitted it out loud. If I was going to die – and the chances were high, no matter what Maximus said – it would be without a single secret kept to myself. I was tired of them. Tired of the weight they put on my shoulders. Tired of the lies they made me tell. Tired of the way they made me feel.
I didn’t want to be angry anymore. I didn’t want to do things because I could. I wanted to be a normal teenager for once. Or at least as normal as I could get on the run from bloodthirsty vampires.
“Your mother left you?” This time Maximus did sound surprised.
“Walked right out the door and didn’t look back,” I confirmed.
“Lola, I… I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” I said, flipping his own words around. “Shit happens. Besides, I’m glad she’s not here. Travis had to leave his mom behind. I mean, she was probably already dead but… I don’t know if I could do that.”
“Travis left his mother behind?” Maximus echoed, a strange expression on his face.
I nodded. “Yesterday morning. We were almost out of town and my dad didn’t want to go back. Travis… Travis understood.”
“And that seems normal to you?”
I could feel his eyes on me but I kept staring straight ahead. A prickling sense of awareness filled the arm that was closest to him. A few inches to the left and I would be able to touch his hand. Unable to stand the temptation I let go of the fence and crossed my arms tight across my chest. “What’s normal? Not this,” I said, unfolding one arm to gesture out towards the empty parking lot of the elementary school. “None of this is normal. So I’m not going to judge Travis for not going back, because maybe I would have done the same thing, or maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t get that choice because my mom walked out, and my sister joined her, and my dad turned into a drunk, and I got forgotten in the shuffle.”
Maximus touched my arm. I looked down, staring blindly at his fingers as they reflexively tightened around my wrist. Hard enough to turn the skin white, but not hard enough to hurt. His gray eyes stared into mine and again I was left with the impression that he was seeing far more than I wanted him to, probing into places best left for the dark. “I wouldn’t forget you, Lola.”
I looked away. “You don’t even know me.”
“What makes you know a person more, time or circumstance?” The calloused pad of his thumb stroked across the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist. It was innocent. Soft. Gentle. And far more intoxicating than Everett’s kisses had ever been. “I know you are loyal and brave. I know you’re reckless. Stubborn. I know you don’t listen.”
I stared at his thumb, transfixed as he continued to rhythmically trace a circular path across the delicate lines of my veins. His fingernail was cut to the quick. There was scar above his knuckle; a tiny white pucker of flesh in the shape of a star. “Those don’t sound like compliments.”
He smiled. “More like observations.”
“If you knew me in real life you wouldn’t like me.”
“What’s more real than this? Come over here, I want to show you something.” He tugged on my arm. I could have resisted, but his palm slid lower and his fingers twined through mine and it felt so natural to hold his hand that I didn’t even think of pulling away. He led me across the terrace and pointed to a clearing next to the elementary school.
I squinted and shaded my eyes against the rising sun, trying to make out what he wanted me to see. “Are those… targets?”
Evenly spaced across one end of the field were five hay bales propped up on their side with white bull’s eyes painted on them.
“That’s exactly what they are.”
“What are they doing there?”
“I’m going to teach you how to shoot.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“That’s… awesome,” I decided. It was also exactly what I needed: a distraction to take my mind off everything. “When do we start?”
His gaze flicked down to my legs. “When you change out of your duck pajamas. You can’t shoot a gun in duck pajamas.”
I’d completely forgotten what I was wearing. Suddenly self-conscious I pulled at the two yellow strings dangling down from the waistband of my pajama pants. Here Maximus looked like a model straight out of a motorcycle magazine and I was wearing ducks and a wrinkled sweatshirt. A pink wrinkled sweatshirt.
So embarrassing.
“I should shower too, and eat something.” As if on cue, my stomach picked that exact moment to grumble. “I’m starving. Can I meet you out there in an hour? Travis is going to love this.” Or be terrified out of his mind; either reaction worked for me.
Maximus slid his hand free and stepped away from the fence. “You should bring your father as well.”
“Dad?” My nose wrinkled. “He doesn’t really function well before noon.”
“Then it’s time he starts.”
As it turned out, Dad was the best shot out of all of us. Well, except Maximus. The guy never missed, even when he closed his eyes.
>
Total show off.
I did my best Lara Croft impression, but no matter how hard I tried my aim was always slightly high and to the left. A tomb raider I was although, although what I lacked in accuracy I made up for in enthusiasm, and my hay bale was the first one to be completely blown apart.
By the time we finished my ears were ringing and I was having a hard time hearing Travis as he chattered away in my ear about how ‘cool’ Maximus was. I was glad Travis no longer thought Maximus was aligned with the bad guys, but he seriously needed to get his man crush under control. When I told him as much his ears turned bright red and he called me a not-very-nice name before he stomped off, muttering something under his breath about a backup generator.
Since Maximus was busy taking apart what remained of the hay bales and cleaning the guns we’d used, that left me alone with Dad. Grabbing the water bottle I’d brought with me from the hotel I took a swig before sitting down on one end of a long wooden bench. The elementary school’s playground fanned out behind me, a colorful mix of plastic slides and swings.
During target practice I’d managed to forget about everything for a while, but faced with the silence of a school that should have been bustling with activity as teachers got ready to begin teaching smiling, bright-eyed children it all came flooding back.
The ground was covered in woodchips and I used the toe of my sneakers to make a small pile, only to knock it aside with my heel. Forehead furrowed in concentration I started to built up the pile again, higher this time.
“You used to do that all the time when you were a kid.” Dad sat down on the opposite end of the bench. He managed to smile, but I didn’t miss the fact that he’d sweated through the back of his gray t-shirt and his right hand was trembling ever so slightly. Still, I had to give him credit. He was holding himself together. For now. “Everyone else your age would be on the swings or the teeter totter and you’d be sitting in the dirt building towers by yourself, happy as a clam.”
My shoulders jerked in a shrug. “I was just different, I guess.”
“You were always different, Lola. I mean that is the best possible way,” he said quickly when I looked up, ready to fight. “I wouldn’t want you to be like me, or your mother, or even your sister. We’re quitters. Each and every one of us. In little ways, and in big ones. But you’re not. And that makes me more proud than I can ever say.”
The Lola Chronicles (Book 1): A Night Without Stars Page 18