Somehow I’d never really thought Aspen would have gotten another nurse. There were just some people you could never replace.
“Do you still hear from Sonya?” Carl asked when we were halfway through supper. Everyone fell quiet, lowering their forks and staring at me. Sonya had been Ruben’s secretary. She was a vampire too, but she hated my guts. Maybe it was the fact that I’d killed vampires for a living while I worked there that did it. Ruben had died, a death that I still hadn’t forgiven myself for. We’d saved Sonya, but that was the last I’d seen of her.
“I thought she’d disappeared,” I said. An awkward silence hung thick in the room. My chest felt tight enough that I had to focus on breathing properly, and I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. Connor stretched out his hand and touched my arm, and I fought the flinch that travelled through my body with the contact. He shot Carl a dirty look for bringing it up.
“I was just asking. I ran into her the other day, or night, should I say.” Carl kept on talking like it was a normal topic. The tightness in my chest turned to a physical pain and I tried to breathe around it.
“Nice of you to share,” I said in a breathy voice and it sounded far off to me.
“Stop it, Carl,” Aspen said. He looked at her, opening his mouth to say something, but Aspen was like a force of nature when she wanted to be. Carl shrugged.
“I was just asking,” he said.
We left Aspen with a cloud over us. My sister pulled me down for a hug and held on longer than she needed to.
“It’s over and behind us, Adele,” she said. “Don’t let him get to you. He’s an asshole.”
“And yet we keep him around,” I answered.
“Because we all owe each other something.”
I nodded because she was right. There had been a time we could all have died if it hadn’t been for the other, and we tolerated sarcasm and idiocy as a result. But sometimes I really just couldn’t. Carl made me want to shove a gun in his face sometimes, and tell him to stop riding it.
But that would mean that I had to admit that it was still killing me. That I’d never forgiven myself for Ruben’s gruesome death.
Connor put his hand on my shoulder and I turned into him. He escorted me out of the house.
The shooting range was cold with the morning air, still asleep like most of the city. I switched on the lights and watched the artificial color seep into the room. After I checked the book to make sure of the time for my new student, I walked through to the martial arts side of the academy. Phil wouldn’t be in for a while yet, but I needed to wind down.
I lined up a boxing bag and strapped myself up. It wasn’t a real fight, and I could really have used someone that could hit back, but a boxing bag would do for now.
After a quick warm-up I started working the bag over, taking out all my pent-up emotions on it. The anger. The frustration. The pain. The guilt.
“If you break another bag you’re paying for it,” Phil’s voice travelled from the door. I spun around. I was heaving and panting, and my arms and legs were numb. I was suddenly aware of how sweaty I was.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Opening time,” he answered. I’d trained for three hours. He shook his head and put down his bag, pulling off his jacket and getting rid of his shoes. He found gloves in the cabinet to the side, and then he faced me, sinking into battle stance.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Doing you a favor. Rather beat me up, it’s going to cost me less than replacing another bag. I closed my eyes and tried to push it all away. I didn’t want to fight Phil. Not now that he understood most of what haunted me. It made me feel stupid.
But I couldn’t push down the burning inside of me. I couldn’t calm down and go through my day. I was scared I would get the urge to yank out a gun and shoot someone again. Or stake someone. That was, of course, the most satisfying.
And the most painful. If I’d betrayed my half-brothers before, doing it now would be unforgivable. Now that I had Connor in my life, and I was more vampire that human, the way I used to be. So I turned to Phil, mirrored his stance, and launched for him.
He was strong, but I was stronger. I had him on his back three times, the fourth he tapped out, breathing harder than I was.
“You’re getting better,” he said, sitting up.
I shook my head. “Just stronger because of who I am. What I am.” Sometimes it still felt like I should rather refer to vampires as ‘it’. I never used to see them as living beings. Not until I’d met Connor, and he’d loved me even though I’d tried to kill him more than once. Talk about tough love.
I sank down on the mat next to Phil. “I can’t do this,” I said. “I’m losing my mind.”
“One step at a time, Adele. Killing them didn’t bring any of them back. You need to forgive and forget. Or at least, forgive and move on.”
“That’s always easier said than done,” I said, becoming aware of my muscles screaming now that I was lying down.
“Come on, you have a student soon,” Phil said, rolling onto his side and pushing up before he offered me a hand. I nodded and took it, letting him pull me up.
“Thanks for that,” I said.
“Sure. I just love getting beaten up by a girl.”
I smiled.
A woman walked in through the doors. She wore sweat pants and a matching jacket, and her honey colored hair was pulled into a ponytail. She had dark eyes, almost black, that looked achingly familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen them before.
“I’m looking for Adele.” she asked. I nodded and walked to her. She looked me up and down, taking in my training clothes, the hair clinging to my face.
“I just look like the student, honey,” I said, annoyed that she was judging me. “You don’t want to learn from someone who doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. Trust me. This,” I gestured to myself, “is what you want.”
She shook her head and looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t mean to be rude. I’ve just heard a lot about you, and you don’t look the way people describe you.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. She was a slight thing, tall and willowy, with a lot of misplaced confidence. And she was talking about me like she knew me.
“How do people describe me?” I asked.
She shrugged and looked like she felt stupid.
“Invincible,” she said. I wanted to ask who she’d been talking to. How she knew anything about me. Who knew enough to call me invincible? But I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to ruin the effect. Instead I told her to go get changed into something a little easier to move in, and pointed at a change room.
When she came out she wore black slacks and a pink top that looked cute with her hair. Cute and innocent. Not dangerous at all.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Sydney,” she answered. “Sydney Cross.”
A shiver slid down my spine when she mentioned her name. Ruben’s surname had been Cross. But so was a lot of other people’s.
“Tell me why you want to learn how to fight.”
Sydney shrugged, moving from side to side on the mat, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
“I want to know how to defend myself. I want to be able to fight when it comes down to it. And to shoot. There are monsters out there, and I don’t want to become someone’s next meal.”
“It’s illegal for vampires to harm humans. The law has you covered. There are a lot of people walking around with no knowledge of fighting at all and they’re fine.”
Sydney nodded, looking at the mat. She drew invisible patterns with her toe that made me think she wasn’t being very honest with me. The smell of dishonesty hung in the air. It was something I was getting used to, smelling emotions like that. There were all sorts of questions hanging around her.
“Tell me the real reason,” I said.
“Why do you need to know so badly?” she asked, looking up at me.
“Be
cause I need to know what your intentions are. I take what I do seriously, and once I’m done with you, you will too. I need to know what I’m unleashing on the world.”
She nodded. When she spoke again she looked me in the eye.
“I don’t want to be a victim. Too many people in my life have been, and I won’t fall for the same thing. I want to stop that before it happens.”
Shivers ran down my spine. She sounded like a carbon copy of me. It made me want to scream. Instead I nodded once, and started her training.
I started her off on simple sparring. She knew nothing. As we practiced and I showed her some moves, I asked her questions. What she did, where she wanted her life to go, if there was any current threat she needed to protect herself from.
What I found out worried me. She wanted to learn how to fight something stronger than she was. As a woman I could understand that. I fought the same way – smart because women weren’t supposed to be strong. I tried to hide my strength, she didn’t have any. The difference didn’t matter.
She also wanted to learn how to work with guns. Not because she was interested in guns or had a special place for violence, but because she felt that guns were necessary. The concept of self-defense was starting to trickle away there, and I tried to fish for more information. She was careful about what she said.
When we were done with our session, she got out a green hand towel and wiped her face. She leaned against the wall, sucking on a water bottle.
“So, this will teach me everything I need to know, right?” she asked.
I nodded, drinking water out of my own bottle. She was going home. I was dealing with another student in ten minutes.
“If you stick with me, I’ll teach you everything I can, but it’s going to take a while.”
She nodded. “I’ve got time,” she said in a way that made me think she didn’t really. “Will you teach me how to stand up against vampires, too?” she asked.
The question was innocent enough, but I suddenly went cold. Everyone was aware of the vampires’ existence since they’d been allowed into society. The law was slowly catching up, closing loopholes when it came to vampire rights alongside human rights. But most people tried to turn a blind eye to the fact that we were dealing with preternatural creatures.
It was always easier believing the monsters were still just stories. The fact that Sydney had mentioned them meant she acknowledged them. But that she wanted to kill them? That just opened my closet full of skeletons.
Chapter 2
It was after dark when I finally rolled into the garage and the door slid shut behind me with a mechanical hum. The shutters were open already. When I walked into the kitchen Connor was busy cooking in his boxers and a t-shirt. He looked up at me and smiled.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Sorry. Phil had to run and I offered to take his last class for the day.”
Connor leaned toward me, spatula still in the pan, so he could kiss me. I planted one on his lips and walked through to the bedroom.
“Did you have an okay day?” he called after me. I got out of my training clothes and put it in the laundry hamper, getting into pajamas. I padded back to the kitchen on bare feet. When I sat down at the breakfast nook Connor had poured me a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” I said, wrapping cold fingers around the warm mug. “My day was okay. I had that new student this morning.”
“And?”
I shrugged, taking a tentative sip. “She’s okay, I guess.”
Connor dumped eggs and bacon onto a plate and sat down at the table with me. The idea of scrambled egg this time of night put me off. I guess breakfast was relative when it came to nightlife. He would go out later to hunt for blood. He could take it from me, but I didn’t like the idea of being an open vein for him. Sharing blood was very intense. I didn’t want it to change from erotic to everyday. Besides, I was still trying to adjust to being so much vampire sometimes.
It had been a year, and sometimes I still felt uncomfortable in my own skin. If that was because of my past – a killer who hated vampires – or if it was because I still didn’t always accept that I had two sides, I didn’t know.
“What’s bothering you?” Connor asked. When I looked at him his eyes were a soft blue, like the sky, and his face was worried. He could feel my emotions even more than any other vampire could. We were bonded through our relationship and each other’s blood running through our veins.
“I don’t know if I should keep this student,” I admitted. “There’s something very unsettling about her.”
Connor took a bite and nodded, urging me to keep talking.
“I thought she wanted to learn self-defense. That was what she’d told me over the phone when I’d agreed to take her on. But she wants more than that. Guns, fighting skill, the whole package.”
“It sounds like you,” Connor said and smiled. His fangs were white and gleaming in the artificial light. He’d been the only vampire I’d been able to stand. To fall in love with. Sometimes I still wondered why that had been. Some days I tried to image what he was like before he’d turned, when he’d still been a high profile business man, all over the news. When he’d dated a human woman. But I couldn’t. It was almost like a vampire was what he’d always been. Even if he was quite a young one. He never even wanted to develop the power that was at his disposal now. He was just… different.
“It does sound like me,” I admitted, forcing my concentration back to the conversation. “I’m just not sure if that’s a good thing.”
He reached over the table and touched my hand. The bond between us hummed slightly with the contact. It was strange in the beginning, but I’d gotten used to it. Learned to love it.
“I think you should do it.”
“Why?” I asked, getting up and taking some leftover meat and vegetables out of the freezer box. I put it in the microwave and leaned my hip against the counter while I waited for the food to warm up.
“Because you love what you do. I know you miss it.”
“I don’t miss it,” I said right away. Connor shook his head and turned sideways in his chair so he could look at me.
“I know you miss the adventure, the sense of danger, the active lifestyle that you used to have. Teaching is great and all, but it’s a step down from who you used to be. And even though you’re glad to be rid of that part, I know you’re wilting.”
Tears stung my eyes but I blinked them away. I turned my back to Connor and took the food out of the microwave, fiddling with the containers longer than I needed to. I wasn’t going to cry in front of him. I didn’t like it. It made me look like a girl.
When I had my emotions under control I sat down at the table again and took a bite of my own meal. It wasn’t great, and after two bites I pushed it away. Connor had finished his breakfast and leaned back in his chair.
“What could go wrong?” he asked.
A lot of things, but I didn’t want to tell him that. As much as he was a vampire now, someone that ran with the monsters, he was still pure and innocent at heart. He just wasn’t like the rest of them. He could trust. He could have faith in the goodness of people. I hadn’t been behind a gun for real for more than a year now, and I still had trouble trusting and believing people.
The fact was that most people had a personal agenda. If they did something, I believed it was for personal gain unless there was a damn good reason for me to believe otherwise. I may not have been rolling with knives and guns anymore, but I still had my mentality.
And not everyone was to be trusted.
Connor got up and walked to the room to get dressed. He was going to head out in a little bit, and I was going to go to bed. He didn’t have to work. His human life had left him with enough money never to have to worry again. The bit I brought in with my teaching was more like pocket money, and the job kept me out of trouble.
It wasn’t necessary.
When Connor came out of the room again he was freshly showered and he smelled clean
. He didn’t wear deodorant. Other vampires picked up on the smell a lot quicker than natural vampire smell, and Connor was one of the best chameleons I’d seen in my life. Few people managed to disguise what they were as well as he had.
Every vampire had a smell that tipped me off they were vampire. That was how I’d found them then. But Connor had been a difficult mark from the start. Now it set me at ease. I doubted there were a lot of people hunting him, and if I had trouble finding him, anyone else would have a hell of struggle. I wasn’t vain, just well-informed. I knew what my competition used to be.
Connor not smelling like anything made me feel better, because I knew he would be safe. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t my job to keep looking after everyone.
When he left, I went to the bedroom and changed out of my pajamas again. I pulled on black jeans and my padded jacket. The leathers I’d put away. I wasn’t going to wear them again. But I needed to get out of the house. There was a time when I’d lived for the night. I hadn’t had a day routine at all. It was part of the new me, the changes I’d made to give up the old life of kill or be killed.
I did it because it was the right thing. I didn’t have to like it.
I pulled the helmet over my head and backed out of the garage, watching the door roll slowly down. When it was closed all the way, I opened the throttle and tore down the quiet night. I opened myself up to the darkness, sending my feelers out around me.
Westham was alive. Everywhere I could feel people, like warm puffs of air. Most of them were home, settling into the evening routines. Some were out and about, finishing up their day, and for the others the night was only the start.
I drove through the streets, feeling the life around me, and feeling very isolated. My life was perfect in so many ways. I had Connor who loved me, Aspen was safe and we both loved Joel in our different ways. Phil was always there for me, as an instructor, a punching bag when I needed it, and a friend. And I had to count Carl as well, even if we couldn’t stand each other half the time. We’d risked our lives for each other once. It counted.
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