“Impressive,” Carl said in a tone of voice that suggested it wasn’t impressive at all, and got in the car. I rolled my eyes and got in next to him. I wasn’t going to trail him on my bike when we were just going out for lunch. Or whatever it was Carl wanted to do. If we headed out at night, well that was a different story. But those days were over for me.
I wasn’t sure if they were over for Carl, but considering he’d had a vampire girlfriend I liked to think so.
We drove to the other side of town in silence, listening to a radio station that had poor signal so the music came and went in waves interrupted by senseless static. We stopped in front of a diner that looked like it had escaped from the neighborhood where I used to live – sad and past its expiry date.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“Talking somewhere the walls don’t have ears.”
“You trust these people?”
“It’s not about trust as much as respect. They know that if anything comes out I’ll know it was them and I’ll come after them.”
“That’s pretty dark, even for you,” I said, following him to the diner door. He shrugged and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to believe him.
The diner looked like it came straight form a movie, with pale insides and tables screwed to the ground with red leather seats that were ripped here and there. When we sat down a woman with grey at the roots and lipstick the wrong shade of red for her skin brought us menus.
“What’ll it be?” she asked, chewing gum with an open mouth. Carl ordered us two coffees.
“So, now that we’re in your ‘office’,” I said looking around, “what did you want to talk to me about?”
“I thought you wanted to see me,” he said. “You called.” He leaned back in his seat and jammed his fists into his pockets. He was heading on to his late forties but he still had a pretty good build. He was muscular, albeit a little soft around the edges, and I still wouldn’t want to be in the same room with him when he had a gun.
“Stop your bullshit, Carl,” I said and leaned back, mimicking his posture. He looked at me for a moment that was loaded with a lot of comebacks and retorts like the good old days. Instead he leaned forward, put his elbows on the table.
“Does the name Zane Masselli ring a bell?” he asked. I narrowed my eyes at him. I’ve been dreaming about the brother, Zane, for nights on end now, but the coincidence was too great to be true.
I shook my head.
“You should. He’s the brother of a Victor Masselli, a target Ruben wanted you to take out years ago.”
So it was the same person, then. Great. My throat tightened at the mention of Ruben’s name. Guilt and remorse still accompanied me that he’d died. I still felt it was indirectly my fault, even though we’d moved along. I’d met his daughter and we’d been through an ordeal of our own, but finally I’d owned up to my sins, and she hadn’t been as mad as I’d thought.
She didn’t want to talk to me, but hey, her father was dead because of me. People could only be so forgiving.
Fear swirled in the pit of my stomach. I’d been having nightmares about Zane, about the victim shouting his name over and over. I could still see the yellow eyes in my mind’s eye, the dark skin, the black hair. I shivered.
“You’re asking me this for a reason, I’m guessing?” I asked. I looked up at Carl and he nodded slowly.
“He’s coming after you. He wants to avenge his brother’s death, and he found you. Word has it you’ve been harder to trace since you went underground, but he found you.”
My ears rang and I pushed the heels of my hands against my forehead.
“I didn’t go underground. I quit.”
Carl shrugged. “In the assassin world there’s not much of a difference,” he said. I shook my head. I wasn’t an assassin. I was a killer once upon a time, but I’d stopped. I wasn’t a bad person.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know. You’ve got to be prepared for when he comes.”
I thought about it. My thoughts were chasing around in circles and I tried to make one coherent thought out of them. But then I looked up at Carl.
“You knew about this? You knew he was looking for me as long ago as before I quit?”
He shrugged again and I was starting to get annoyed with his don’t-care attitude.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked.
“Because he was far off the trail and there was no reason to worry you.”
“Nice of you to be so considerate,” I said and was being sarcastic. I hated being lied to. I hated people hiding stuff from me, and that was almost the same thing.
I sighed. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Get ready,” was the answer, like it was that simple.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. It was easier to be angry than to be scared. Maybe later it would all sink in, but right now Carl was just irritating me acting like he was on top of everything and it was his job to inform me.
“Is this why you’ve been off?” I asked.
Carl frowned and it was nice to see that he had another emotion besides being nonchalant about everything. “What are you talking about?”
I shrugged. “Aspen said you’ve been distant lately. Since you got back, from… you know. Fork Atkinson.”
“Aspen worries too much,” he said, looking away from me into the distance at something that was suddenly very interesting.
“Aspen also knows you well enough to know when she has reason to worry.”
“Well, if she really knew what was going on she would worry about you instead.”
I gasped. How did this suddenly become all about me?
“Yeah, and you being in jail was what, a walk in the park?”
He shook his head and he was finally getting angry, too.
“When I get in trouble it’s usually some bad guys that make life difficult. When you get in trouble it’s life or death.”
I groaned. He was right. I hated to admit to that, but he was right. I scratched my nail over a nick in the table.
“Don’t tell Aspen or Joel or anyone, okay?” I asked. “I just don’t think they need to worry about this until it’s really necessary for them to know.”
Carl nodded. Sure he was annoying, a pain in the ass and he irritated me more often than not. But one thing he could do was keep a secret.
We both ordered food that neither of us really ate. We ended up getting take-away packets and left the café. Carl drove me back to the academy and dropped me off. Instead of going inside straight away I pulled out my phone and dialed Aspen. I sat down on the curb next to my bike, waiting for her voicemail to pick up. She would be asleep.
“Spoke to Carl, there’s nothing to worry about. He’s just being his usual self,” I said and hung up.
I dialed another number, and I sucked on my lip while I listened to the phone ringing. I didn’t even know if he would pick up. Half of me expected him to either leave it to roll over to voicemail and just avoid me that way. The other half expected him to silence the call in my ear.
But he answered.
“Adele,” Tyrone’s voice came over the speaker loud and clear. “What can I do for you?”
There was definitely a difference in how he spoke to me now. It was all business, where before it used to be friendly.
“I was wondering if we could meet up. I would like to ask you advice on a situation.” It really wasn’t advice, it was more like a favor, but I was scared that if I said that he would just shoot me down. I was almost sure he would.
Why was I still trying to ask him then, once I got him in person? Because the anger I’d felt when Carl had told me that was starting to slowly give into fear, and there was a time when Tyrone and I were okay. A few weeks ago he’d saved my life even though he knew what I was and he didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t really human. I needed someone that was willing to have my back no matter what.
“I don’t know if that’s re
ally a good idea,” he said, and I felt hope drain away slowly.
“Please. Just to talk. If you don’t like what I have to say you can just say no and walk away.”
He thought about it for a moment. I thought about saying please again, but I didn’t want to sound like I was begging. There were limits, even for me, although they’d dropped a lot since I’d started out. Finally, Tyrone sighed.
“Alright, but I’m not promising anything.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. I arranged with him to come to the academy after my last lesson. It was going to be after dark, but inviting him to my home was going to be awkward and I didn’t feel safe anywhere else.
Suddenly everywhere after dark was a potential threat. As soon as the sun came out monsters could come out to play. I was safe in the day because Zane Masselli was a purebred vampire, but there were a lot of hours where there was no sunlight.
I was jumpy and edgy and my lessons didn’t go as well as they should have. I cut two of them short and just worked on theory because I couldn’t focus. By the time Tyrone arrived I was a nervous wreck. I’d asked Phil to stay longer so that I wouldn’t be alone, but that didn’t help. How good was he against a vampire?
Sure, he’d fried a master vampire once, but the sun had been out, and a lot of that was pure luck.
Tyrone pulled up in his police cruiser. The black and white was intimidating. He wore his uniform but he was without his bulletproof vest that I was used to seeing him in. He used to train with it on when we had our shooting lessons so that he would be able to move without it bothering him too much.
“How are you doing?” he asked, but he asked it in a way that made me feel like he didn’t really want to know, he was just being polite. I nodded and didn’t return the question.
When he got closer to me, he frowned.
“You look terrible.”
Well, thanks. That was nice of him to mention. I felt terrible. I was a nervous mess. It was so unlike me. The past year and a half that I wasn’t killing anymore had made me complacent. I was out of practice. I wasn’t used to looking over my shoulder. I had to get used to that again.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” he asked when I didn’t answer him with more than a shrug.
“I’m in a bit of trouble… there are people in my past that have come back to haunt me in a way, and I was wondering if you could help me out.” Saying it out loud sounded ridiculous and I almost regretted asking him to come out so that I could ask for help. But my fear was bigger than my pride.
“I’m guessing this is something you don’t want to take to the police. Otherwise you would have come to the station,” he said. I nodded. Tyrone was police but I didn’t see him as a cop. I saw him as someone that had had my back once, and could have it again.
“I just needed someone to help me out. It’s a bit of a sticky situation and I don’t want to drag too many people into it. I know you have what it takes to look after yourself. There are people in my life that aren’t as skilled at survival.”
Aspen was the first person that came to mind when I said that. She always was. Since we were young and my father had lost his shit all over the place, crippling her, I’d felt like she was too vulnerable to get through life alone. It was better now with Joel on the picture and my life not attracting too many devils anymore, but I still worried.
Tyrone took a deep breath and planted both hands on his hips. It drew my attention to the gun in his side holster. He rubbed his face with one hand and returned it to his hip. I was a very typical police stance, and I wondered if he’d done it on purpose or if years on the force had just shaped him.
“Adele, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad everything worked out in Fort Atkinson the way it did. I would have been devastated if something had happened to you. But I can’t get involved in a mess like that again, not without it being official police business. My career is on the line and I have to do what’s right.”
I nodded, bit my bottom lip. He nodded too.
“I’m sorry,” he said and got in his car without saying goodbye. When he was gone, I walked to my bike and bit back tears. It wasn’t about it not being official police business. In Fort Atkinson he’d been happy to do things under the table. This was about the fact that I was half-vampire.
I got on my bike and drove home.
Every shadow suddenly looked like it was jumping out at me. I wished I had a gun in my bike compartment, but most of them were at home. I wished it was still daylight, with the sun out and keeping me safe.
I had to get it together. I couldn’t be this on edge this early in the game. If I wanted to make it I had to get back in survival mode, push away the softer person I’d become and return to the hard unfeeling killer that I was before. This wasn’t about killing – although if it came down to me or him I would do it – but about not being killed.
I got home safely and locked myself in the garage, where I allowed myself to breathe freely for the first time. I wasn’t sure if Connor would still be in, or if it was late enough for him to have gone out already, but I really hoped he was home.
When I opened the door to the kitchen he came to me. He looked worried, like he’d been pacing instead of sitting down waiting for me.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “When you were late I got worried.”
“I’m okay,” I said and leaned against him, burying my face in his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He didn’t believe me. Maybe I really did look terrible. So I told him. After I finished, he walked away from me and stopped on the other side of the room. He blew out his breath audibly. When he turned around again he was angry.
“We’re never really going to get away from your life, are we?” he asked.
“What?” I asked. I hadn’t expected him to react like this.
“How long do you think it’s still going to take before all of this keeps catching up with us? Or are we never going to get away?”
Hit reaction caught me off guard.
“I don’t know,” I said. It took me a moment to react to what he was saying. When I finally wrapped my mind around it I was angry too.
“Do you think this is easy for me? I know what I did before was wrong, and I’ve changed my ways, but this isn’t just going to go away. You knew that when we started dating. Hell, you knew that when we met.”
We’d met with a stake between us, it was hard to think that he thought this was worse.
“I just didn’t think something like this was going to happen,” he said. Some of the anger had drained out of his voice. I nodded.
“Neither did I,” I said. I knew I should have thought something like this was going to happen, but I’d pushed it all to the back of my mind. I’d just let it all be part of the life that I wasn’t a part of anymore.
Connor sighed and came to sit by me again.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “Sometimes this is all a bit… much.”
I nodded because I knew what he was saying. I knew exactly what he was saying.
“I might have to go away for a while,” I said.
He looked up at me, surprised.
“Go away? You’ve hardly been home.”
“I know, but I have to lay low. I can either fight this, which is going to be messy because he’s a purebred and I’m not, or I can hide.”
“And you’re opting to hide?” he asked.
“Would you rather I fight?” I gave him a long level look, and finally he shook his head.
“No, I guess not.” He got up, kissing me on the forehead. “I have to head out. I’ll see you later, okay?”
I nodded and hoped that that was true.
It was a long, horrible night. I slept badly, and every sound made me jump. Somewhere after three I got up and opened my closet, finding all my guns. The Glock went under the pillow where I could reach it easily. I put the Smith & Wesson under my bed, and the stake on the nightstand. It wasn’t going to help me much if I was asleep and th
is guy attacked me – he would just be a blur and then I’d be dead if he really was serious. But it made me feel better.
Carl came through for me. I wasn’t always sure I could trust him for big things like this, but this time he was dependable. He appeared on my doorstep at the same time I pulled my bike out of the garage. The shutters had just rolled shut, it was that close to dawn.
“I have a place for you to stay, hang low until all this blows over.”
He held out a post-it note with an address on it.
“You think it will blow over?” I asked, taking the note from him. He shrugged.
“Either that or it will end up in a fight.”
It wasn’t very comforting to hear it, but it was the truth. I glanced at the note in my hand.
“This is the area I used to live” I said and looked up at Carl. “It’s not the safest area.”
Carl nodded. “I know. But I have a friend there who will be able to help you out and he has eyes and ears all over the place. If there’s one person you want at your back, it’s him.”
“I’m going to be staying with a guy?” I asked. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I mean, I’m here with Connor.”
“And Connor won’t be able to protect you against this guy. He won’t like you living with another man, but he’ll like you even less when you’re dead.”
“Thanks for candy coating that,” I said sarcastically.
Carl shrugged. “Hey, take it or leave it. But don’t come crying to me if someone blows a hole in your head.”
I switched on my bike and drove away, leaving Carl standing alone in my driveway.
This was just one big mess, and it was getting bigger and bigger. I pulled off to the side of the road and dialed Phil’s number.
“I’m not going to be able to come in today,” I said.
“You can’t keep doing this to your students. You’ve only just gotten back into a steady routing with them.”
“I know,” I said. “But it’s an emergency.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then he finally sighed. “Fine, do whatever you want, Adele. But if this isn’t working out, I can’t keep this spot for you forever. You’re one of my favorite people but I need some sort of consistency if I want this business to work.”
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