Sun Damage (The Sunshine Series)

by Rae, Nikki

  “Get up,” I say, making sure my gaze is burning right through her.

  Her eyes are watering, like she’s trying to shut them. She knows I won’t allow that.

  “Right now.”

  Sophie’s legs lock in place, and I offer her a hand when she tries to stand, expecting her to reject it but she grabs onto my hand. Hers is freezing cold. She needs blood and I’m the one that can give it to her. I need to hold her together.

  “We’re going inside now,” I say, turning toward the hotel entrance. “Then you’re going to sit down and try to calm yourself before we start talking about this.”

  I add the last part for everyone’s good. If she gets too upset, who knows what her strength of mind and emotions would do to the hotel building or the people staying inside of it? Sophie turns to me, towards the building. She stares into my eyes but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even ask me to stop. A sense of calm comes over me when she looks into my eyes, like she wanted me to control her at this moment but didn’t realize she wanted it until it was happening. Maybe it’s easier that way. Easier than trying to form words or thoughts around all of the things I’ve had to tell her and all of the things she’s gone through because of me. All the things she still might have to go through because of me.

  We walk the few feet to the hotel entrance and we go inside without incident. Another protector, Daniel, an older vampire with light brown hair and hazel eyes, is standing by the front desk, waiting for us. He’s disguised as a security guard so no one notices him, and he nods when he sees me. I nod back.

  We check in separately even though we’re both going to my room. Once we’re inside, I move my suitcase off of the arm chair so she can do as I instructed. She sits without protesting, holding her hands out in front of her so she doesn’t get blood on the upholstery. I go into the bathroom and wet a cloth with warm water and come back to her.

  She’s quiet, concentrating on her breathing as I wipe her hands clean and bandage them the best I can with a few Band Aids I found in the bathroom. Then I leave her alone, standing in front of her as she stares at the dingy blue carpet.

  “Are you calm now?” I ask after a while.

  She takes in another deep breath and then nods. “I’m hungry,” she whispers after a long stretch of silence.

  I stand once more. “I’m not forcing you to do anything anymore,” I say. “I just want you to know that.” I took my hold off of her as soon as I realized she was coming back to herself and thinking somewhat rationally under everything threatening to cave her in. Sophie nods slowly, making eye contact with me again once she’s tested if she can stand. When she does, her face is right next to mine.

  “I know that,” she whispers. “I’m hungry.”

  I move even closer, wrapping my arms around her waist. “I’m here.”

  I want to kiss her so badly but I stop myself. This isn’t about what I want or need.

  I hear the fangs come out of her gums with a soft click. Her breath is wet and warm against my neck, like it was when she woke up from being dead.

  “I trust you,” I say because I think if there was ever a time that she needed to hear that, it’s now. “You can trust yourself too.”

  She doesn’t say anything else before sinking her teeth into the space above my collarbone. It’s quick but painful. Probably because my own infection is going to start acting up any day now. My goal was to make it through the rest of her tour without showing any symptoms, but as usual, I’ve overshot things and thought we had more time before everything came crashing down.

  First everything turns red, then fades into yellow, and then white. I lose my balance, and I’m not aware of it until Sophie is falling backwards too. I’m on top of her, back in the armchair. I position my knees on either side of her legs as she presses into me even more. Body and fangs.

  Then her thoughts flood in. Please no. Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me. Don’t ever leave. Then the walls go back up.

  I gently run my hands through her hair and kiss her on the forehead. I can’t tell where I am right now from the weakness, but I try to whisper to her.

  “I’m here.”

  Sophie wraps her arms tighter around my waist, letting them travel up my back, first over my shirt, and then under. Her touch soothes and electrifies me. I can’t help doing the same with her, running my hands gently over her until she finally lets me go, releasing her mouth from the wound.

  Usually, I’d place something over it so she wouldn’t have to see, but I’m too wrapped up in this, too wrapped up in her to care about any of that. I don’t think she realizes it at all. Her lips slam into mine within seconds. The thoughts have stopped streaming into my mind but the emotions have only begun. She doesn’t realize what she’s doing of course, flooding me with images and colors while we’re still connected, while my blood hasn’t even fully left her mouth yet. Part of me wants to pause this, part of me wants to make this part stop so we can talk, so I can tell her everything but more than that, I want her. She presses herself closer, like she can fall into me, through me.

  I will always let her.

  She takes off my shirt at the same time I’m picking her up and moving to the bed, but we don’t get that far. I’m too weak to carry her all the way across the room and she doesn’t seem to mind when I place her gently on the floor. She takes off her own shirt, too eager to be that much closer to me.

  She places one of my hands against the mark I turned her with. My mark–our mark. And I lay my wrist into the open palm of her other hand.

  “Sophie,” I whisper into her ear.

  “Shh.” She cuts me off with another kiss.

  My mouth, my chin, my neck, then back up again. Her voice is calm and quiet in my ear. “It’s okay.”

  Hearing those words from her does something to me. After months of lying to her, hanging onto that word in order to stay sane and stay strong so nothing shattered. Her using my own word provides me with a net to fall into once I’ve jumped. And I jumped a long time ago but now I’m not afraid to fall.

  My hands fumble from her waist to her jeans, unzipping them as she crawls over me, helping me get them all the way off. She helps me with mine as well. Her hair falls over her shoulders, cascading in dark pink ripples down to her chest, framing the vertical scar from her belly button up. It’s white now, almost non-existent. My mark is stronger. We’re stronger.

  “I love you,” she whispers into my ear before her mouth finds mine again. “Please don’t take that away.”

  We close our eyes against each others’ touch. She tastes like me when I kiss her, but I don’t care. Her fangs graze my tongue and I don’t even feel it.

  “I’m here,” I whisper, shifting so she’s underneath me, so I am the one shielding her, covering her. I kiss the place right below her ear and she makes a small noise but she isn’t scared. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”

  I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that she wants to bite me again but she wants me more, pulling me close so there is absolutely no space between us, not even air. Nothing can come between us, I realize.

  No one will hurt us. No one.

  Chapter 19

  Tears for the Creatures of the Night

  “Make me feel like I am breathing, feel like I am human.”—The Neighbourhood

  I shut the door behind me and I’m in the bathroom of my old apartment at Stevie and Jade’s.

  Myles is standing by the door, right next to me. But he doesn’t look like he can see me.

  This must be his memory of that night.

  It would be so easy, he thinks the words and I hear them. I could turn her now before she knows what’s happening. I could take her blood. Become human. He doesn’t move anything but his eyes, scanning over my unconscious body, my fingers still loosely holding on to the razor.

  I knew she was suffering, Myles thinks. But I never could have imagined this.

  Myles kneels down next to unconscious me. I can hear how weak my pulse
sounds. “Sophie,” he says. “Can you hear me?”

  The girl in the bathtub stirs a little but he hasn’t brought me back yet.

  His thoughts flood my mind once more. No, it wouldn’t take much at all to become human. Funny, that’s all I ever wanted for the longest time, but now that the choice is in front of me, I can’t imagine ever hurting her.

  Myles looks over my leg without touching me. The red stain in the tub spreads more.

  How did the little girl I left asleep ten years ago become so broken? He asks himself. Is part of it my fault? I was supposed to be protecting her, not letting more darkness in.

  “Look at me,” he whispers, holding my weak head in his hands.

  My eyes finally open. “Fuck,” I whisper.

  ***

  I don’t know how much time has gone by when I come back, my body tingling, my face hot, my head resting on Myles’ chest. He brushes some hair out of my face. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean for you to see that.”

  I could be angry that he thought for a fleeting second of killing me, but I can’t exactly blame him either. If his vampire life is—was—even half of what mine continually is, I’d be desperate too. It would be easy to hate him for everything he’s done. At least it should be. He’s lied, taken away important parts of my life, and made everything more complicated than it’s ever been. But it’s easier to leave the hatred where it is: in the past with my human life. He did everything he could do so Michael wouldn’t hurt me and here we are, still running. If anything, I feel bad for him. I can’t imagine how hard it is for him to come so far and still fail.

  “I didn’t know you wanted to be human,” I whisper.

  His warm breath heats my closed eyelids. “Before I met you I did.”

  “What changed?”

  “I met you,” he says. “And the only way to be human would be to kill you.”

  He doesn’t have to explain any further.

  I kiss him on the cheek, too afraid to open my eyes just yet. If I do, I’ll have to believe what happened last night was real. I settle back down next to him, not having anything to say. In the darkness behind my eyelids, none of it happened.

  Michael didn’t really find us. Therefore Manny isn’t a protector. He didn’t help Michael and then turn around and help us. Myles isn’t infected. He’s okay. We both are.

  Still, I wonder if it’s light out, if the sun is up. Funny, now I’m waiting around for the sun to protect me, hiding indoors until it’s up instead of vice versa. I’d laugh if things weren’t so screwed.

  I look to the darkened window and a slight chill goes through me.

  “Cold?” Myles asks.

  I nod against him.

  Myles reaches behind us to the bed and pulls the covers off of it without moving much at all. He wraps it around both of us and it smells heavily of flower detergent but I kind of like it.

  It’s quiet again. My heart pounds softly in my chest as his settles in against his ribcage. It’s only a matter of time before everything else becomes real, before the walls come closer and closer and the cracks continue to spread.

  I’m tempted to not say anything, to let the panic and questions slip by me, but I can’t do that. I can’t ignore this. “How long?” I ask. I have to clear my throat before going on. “How long have you been infected?”

  Myles runs a hand through my hair and it shoots small tingles through my spine. My hand, I realize, is still touching the mark on his neck from a few hours ago. It should be healed by now but I see it. I can’t help wondering if I marked him by accident. The same way he had done it to me. Whatever the case, I never want to remove myself from this part of him. It’s simple in this place where everything else has become so complicated.

  “Since Michael attacked you last winter,” Myles says so softly I can barely hear him.

  I take in a sharp breath. The air around me has turned to broken glass. “How did it happen?”

  Myles cups the side of my face. “Close your eyes.”

  I do, and once they’re closed, I can see everything.

  I’m in the same hospital bed I was confined to last winter. Myles is holding my hand. I’m awake but there are so many painkillers in my system that all I’m doing is staring at the TV across the room.

  I remember that day. That was the day they took the tube out of my throat and I could breathe by myself for the first time in weeks. At first, it was terrifying. My body was trying to hold on to the thing that kept it alive for so long. Then it was gently ripped away and I couldn’t get air into my lungs fast enough. Jade was there too, I remember. Holding my hand and trying not to panic as the doctor and nurses hovered around, waiting to see if maybe they made a mistake. Maybe they should have left things the way they were.

  After my body finally calmed, accepting that I was the one providing the air now, Myles came to sit with me in the bed, holding my hand and watching old movies.

  It’s quiet, the low hum of some black and white musical in the background. Then Myles suddenly stands, kissing my forehead before he leaves the room. I don’t even seem to notice.

  But the me who is watching all this happen is fully aware, and I follow him out the door, where he nods at a middle-aged security guard who smiles in his direction. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “Make sure you’re not too close in about an hour, her parents are coming to visit and I don’t want it to look weird.”

  The man smiles again, and it’s only now that I realize he isn’t human. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I know he’s different. A protector.

  “Got it,” he says. “Is she any better?”

  Myles stops walking, like no one has taken the time to ask him that question. “Yes,” he says, a small smile spreading across his face. “Thank you.”

  I follow Myles outside, into the dark and icy parking lot. There are Christmas lights hung on apartment buildings across the street and snow crunches under his feet as he heads towards them. We walk behind the brick building, where no lights are hung, and Michael is waiting for us.

  “Why are you doing this?” Myles asks.

  Michael crosses his arms. “You know why,” he says. “The girl is a threat. I do not want any threats.” He smiles, the bones in his face highlighted by the moon overhead. “Besides,” he says. “It entertains me, watching you struggle.”

  Myles’ fists clench and unclench. “I’m not using her against you,” he says.

  “Then why do you need her?” Michael asks. “You love her?”

  Myles says nothing and Michael closes the distance between them.

  “I loved Ava,” he rasps into Myles’ face. “And you took her away.”

  Myles’ jaw clenches and unclenches. “That wasn’t love, Michael,” he whispers back.

  Michael leans away from him slowly. “Maybe there is a way,” he says. “For you to be together. For a while.”

  Myles swallows as Michael’s fangs come out, as he bites into his own wrist.

  “Please,” Myles whispers, but he isn’t begging. “Just leave us alone.”

  Michael smiles like he’s told him a joke. “One drop,” he says. “And I will consider it.”

  I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and for the first time since the memory began, I’m aware of Myles’ hand on my head outside of the memory in the real, present world. I shift away from him so we’re no longer touching. I’ve seen enough. My eyes open and Myles is in front of me once again, okay for now.

  I wrap the blanket around me tighter.

  I take his hand in mine carefully. I inspect the pink scar that’s been there since the accident. It’s the same one he used to save my life. “Did you drink it?” I whisper.

  “No,” Myles says. “I pricked my finger.” He turns his hand over and if I squint, I can see a tiny white point on his pinky.

  “It wasn’t a lot,” he’s quick to add on, closing his hand once again. He kisses my forehead. “And it was further away from my heart and brain, so it’s going to be a long
time before it affects me.”

  I take a deep breath. We cannot be talking about this right now.

  “Why?” I ask. “Why not just kill us?”

  Myles tenses. “That’s what he’s been trying to do,” he says quietly. “This is just...for after.”

  “After he kills me?” I ask.

  Myles doesn’t say anything, and I don’t want to think about that either.

  “If you were infected, how did you turn me? How am I not re-infected from drinking your blood?” I sit up now, leaning against the bed.

  He adjusts the comforter around my shoulders. “Like I said,” he tells me. “It hasn’t really affected me. My blood isn’t completely overtaken by his.”

  None of us say the word that hangs in the air: yet.

  “Michael’s blood can’t hurt you anymore because of how different your own blood is now,” Myles says. “Because it’s supposed to be used as an antidote.”

  I take yet another deep breath. If I don’t, my lungs will collapse completely.

  “Have you been sick?” I ask.

  I can feel Myles begin to shake his head, but he stops himself. “A little.”

  “When?” I ask.

  “Right before you got sick,” he says. “It was just one night, my hand went kind of numb and I got a little sick. I’ve been fine since then.”

  The way he talks about it, it’s hard for me to not get angry. How can he be telling me all of this without getting upset? How can he not worry about it at all?

  Instead of asking him any of these questions, I divert my attention to myself for a while.

  “I could help you,” I offer. My voice is so low that I can barely hear it. “If you drank my blood, you’d have the antidote, wouldn’t you?”

  He shakes his head. “I already told you, Sophie,” Myles says, his voice almost shaking, but it’s so subtle that I barely hear it before his voice stabilizes. “The only way you can cure a vampire of vampirism is if they drained all of your blood completely. As in killing you.”

  I won’t accept that. “There has to be a way that you can do it and not kill me,” I say. “What if, just as I’m about to die, some other vampire gives me their blood?” I start to get excited at the very idea. This is something I can fix. It’s so logical that it’s almost insane.