“It’s not a gimmick, Melanie.” Ryder looked away from me.
“What’s not a gimmick?” My eyes were so wide I thought they might fall on to the bed. I panicked as he still didn’t look at me. Up until this point, I had no idea Ryder might be delusional. “That can’t be real, Ryder. There’s no such thing as vampires. They live in scary legends and horror movies.”
“Welcome to my horror movie.” He looked back at me, his eyes full of sadness and fear, even in this dark bunk. I swallowed hard, realizing all the little things that hadn’t added up all weekend might now add up to a big fucking deal.
“I don’t believe you.” My whole body shook as I forced the words out.
“Do you want me to drink your blood to prove it?” In a flash his mouth was against my neck. “It probably tastes as sweet as you smell.”
I stifled a scream and did my best not to plead for mercy. “No.”
No food, no windows, the sharp teeth, the cool feel to his skin.
Ryder was a vampire.
My choices weren’t good. I could accept this madness or step away from him, into the unknown.
The devil you know, those words never rang so true.
“Look at me,” I said, softly, as I guided his face back to mine. If he was going to hurt me, I was going to go down in beautiful oblivion. I couldn’t force myself to walk away. And whatever he was going to do to me would be a hundred times better than rotting away in some jail cell. “Whatever has happened to you, it doesn’t make you any less of a person. It doesn’t cancel out what you think, what you feel.”
He shook his head against my fingers. “It does. I’m not a person anymore. I’m a monster. I lost everything for this band, and then I have to listen to shit like what happened during sound check every single day. Nothing’s ever good enough for Drake. He doesn’t care what he destroys to get what he wants. Do you know I haven’t seen my girls in a year because of this?”
Ryder had been married to a semi-successful, totally beautiful actress named Shannon Seymour. Perky little blonde thing who starred in a sitcom about ten years ago. Their divorce had been splashed all over the gossip rags last year. At the time, Erin emailed me all the dirt, with a smiley face in the subject line. I never responded. Now as those images flashed through my mind, I wondered if that was her way of trying to drag me out of my adulthood jail and back to the land of the living. If she only knew how tangible Ryder’s pain was while I sat here in his bunk. That he’d never be a part of the land of the living again.
The irony was not lost on me. It emptied me.
“I’m so sorry.” I whispered. “Maybe your wife—“
“Ex-wife.”
“Whatever. Maybe she’ll come around, and understand that you’re no different than you were before. That you still love them.”
“No! You have no idea what you’re talking about. You hardly know me.” Those words cut my soul. “You don’t know what I was like before. If I didn’t love them with every fiber of my being, I would maybe be able to accept that they’d be better off without me as this beast. But they’ll never be better off without me as a father.”
Hot tears slipped down my cheeks. How must those little girls feel, mourning the loss of a father who they didn’t even realize was dead? Or undead. One that was everywhere they looked, except for the place they needed him to be.
“Tell me about them.” I knew this was risky, but Ryder needed help processing this pain.
Thankfully, his face softened and his eyes filled with the love of a proud father as he began to talk. “Isabella, Issy, is nine. She’s my little tomboy. First string on the All Star soccer team. Olivia is my princess. She’s six. She wants to be an actress. Just like Mommy.” Ryder reached for his phone and pulled up pictures of two adorable little girls with shiny dark hair just like his. “Shannon still sends me photos. I don’t know if she’s trying to make me feel better or torture me.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“I know. Thank you.” He put the phone away, almost as if it caused him physical pain to look at the pictures. “This job cost me everything.” His voice was little more than a whisper.
I sighed, the weight of his sorrow closing the sides of the bunk inward. “I understand.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but with all due respect, you couldn’t possibly.”
It was time to take the plunge. After all, Ryder was a vampire, he could surely sympathize with the fact I was a murderer. Right?
“Remember when you asked me what I was running from?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I gave up everything I cared about for my job too. I got this great job in the investment department in one of the biggest banks in Boston. So many people I went to college with are still struggling, looking for jobs, and I got recruited before I even graduated. I made enough to pay my student loans, pay off my car, and still have a life. Or so I thought. I talked my boyfriend into staying in Massachusetts instead of heading back to Oklahoma after graduation. I thought we could really make a go of it. I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. But I didn’t realize that maybe I wasn’t so lucky to get this job after all. There was a reason they went after me so hard, and it had nothing to with me. It was them. The demands they made on us were more than we could possibly accomplish. We worked late, we worked weekends. They never said there were any conditions when they offered to cover tuition, then they had me. All I could do was work. Sometimes eat, and barely sleep.”
“So you quit your job and decided to sow your wild oats on the road with a rock band?” Ryder wasn’t on board with what I was saying yet.
“No. It’s a nice surprise, but that’s not why I’m here. I totally alienated Jamie, my boyfriend. He was so sweet, loving, and had such a great view of the world. And I resented him for it because I was miserable. We never did anything anymore, we barely had sex. I basically abandoned him in a place that he knew no one. So when I came home early because of the blizzard, I was so looking forward to unplugging, forgetting everything, and just getting to know Jamie again. I really wanted things to go back to the way they were. But I was too late.”
“Did he break up with you?”
“No. I came home and found him in bed with the downstairs neighbor.”
“And you took off?”
I shook my head, and spoke softer. My words came in slow motion. “I wish. Something foreign took over my body. I’d never been so angry in my life. Not at him, at myself. For fucking things up so bad. I smashed their skulls together until they were dead.” I was afraid to look at him as my words hung in the air. Hysteria brewed just under my skin, saying all of this out loud for the first time. “Then I was stuck in the apartment with them until the travel ban was lifted.”
“Oh man.” Ryder put his hand on my knee and squeezed it. That little gesture comforted me more than I ever thought it could.
“I hate what I did, so much. They didn’t deserve to die for my mistakes.” Sobs choked my words. “But the worst part of it was Angela’s two girls, they came home right as I was about to leave. I can’t get them out of my head. This thing, which took over my life, took over your life, it took their mother away from them just like it took your girls from you.”
Ryder didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. I didn’t know what he thought, what he felt. The fear that he would cast me out, reject me like Jamie had, overwhelmed me. Had I said too much? I wanted to beg for his acceptance. But I was a big girl, and I had to accept the consequences of my actions.
“Well,” he said finally, his mouth slightly curling up in a sad smile. “I guess we both have something to hide.”
Ryder followed my body back to the mattress. I just wanted to lie down quietly and process what just happened. We had bonded in the darkness, over darkness.
Each of us had been responsible for someone taking their last breath. It was a kinship very few could understand.
Softly I sighed as Ryder tangled his hand in my hair, pulling i
t away from my shoulder so he could nuzzle my neck. I stiffened when he lightly nipped my skin. My spine came up off the bed, even with his leg thrown over my thighs.
“What’s wrong, babe?” He hovered over my face, the hand that was in my hair now cradling my cheek.
I was embarrassed to say it out loud. My eyes, wide and unblinking, stared up into his. I could see his concern even in the shadows of the curtain we hid behind. His fingers gently stroked my jaw line.
“It’s just that, you know,” I turned my face towards the wall, closing off my neck with my chin. “Your teeth, like, right there.”
Ryder turned my face back towards his. “Have I ever hurt you?”
I shook my head against his hand.
“If I was going to hurt you, I would have done it by now.” He probably meant to comfort me, but he still sent a chill down my spine.
“But the blood. Don’t you need it?” What a hypocrite I was. Maybe he thought of me differently now, too.
“I don’t.” Ryder’s hands moved down my body, pulling me in by my waist against him.
“But then what do you eat? I haven’t seen you eat the whole time I’ve been with you.”
“We feed off energy.” Ryder explained. “Which is one of the reasons why Drake would like to play bigger venues. That and because he’s addicted to money.”
“That’s actually kind of cool.” Now I couldn’t help but wonder how many rock bands were vampires. I mean, it was the perfect scenario. Lots of people around, nighttime hours. And I couldn’t help but feel relieved that I was never going to look like a steak dinner to him. “But where does the blood come in? Does it? Every vampire story I’ve ever heard, they needed blood.”
“We don’t need it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like it.” He breathed against my neck. I bit my lip, I still felt anxious. What if he was lying? “The blood is like an erotic elixir to us. A mind-altering substance.”
Now I was intrigued. “Like alcohol?”
“Better than the finest wine you’ve ever tasted.”
Wow. Imagine actually intoxicating someone and becoming addicted to them, the essence that ran through their veins. What power they would have over you. Could Ryder feel that way about me? Could I hold that power over him? As much as it terrified me, I wanted to find out.
“Well, that’s not fair.”
Ryder burst out laughing. “What do you mean?”
“So you get this intoxicating high from drinking blood. What does your partner get, besides drained?”
“Melanie, it works either way.”
“What?” I didn’t get it.
“You can drink from me, too.”
My chin dropped to my chest. Could I do it? Drink someone’s blood? “How?” My voice came out as barely more than a breath.
“You’ve watched vampire movies, right? Dracula? Interview with a Vampire?”
I nodded.
Ryder licked the length of my neck, making me shudder. He ran his hands under my shirt, pulling it up over my head, sucking on my nipples through the lace of my bra as he pulled off the rest of my clothes. With an expert pinch, my bra unclasped, leaving me exposed on the bunk for the rest of this lesson. His fingers danced down to my thighs, tickling, teasing, and parting them open. Ryder rolled up on to his knees, bowing down between my legs. His fingers worked their way inside me. Again my spine came up off the bed, but for a totally different reason. I twisted my fingers into his long hair, guiding his face down so his tongue could take over for his hands. His mouth kissed and sucked, already sending me into another dimension.
I hardly knew who I was anymore when I felt him enter me, but not in the way I expected. Ryder’s teeth pierced my thigh. It burned, but the heat felt good. It pulled me in as he drank from me. I felt dizzy, but it wasn’t a sick dizzy. It was ecstasy. Like the world was rearranging itself in a way meant just for me.
I wanted this feeling to last forever. I never wanted him to stop. I wanted to give myself over completely to him. Mind, body, soul, blood.
When he released me, I gasped. It was more painful than the bite. He crawled up the length of my body, hovering over me. He looked feral, as if he was considering his prey before he came in for the kill. His mouth still dripped with my blood, it fell on my chest like melted wax. He lowered his lips to mine, his mouth warm and slick. My blood tasted sweet on his tongue. I sucked greedily, as if without the blood I lost, I wouldn’t survive.
Ryder lowered his body onto me, crushing me against the bed, his weight smothering but comforting. He pulled my arms up over my head, pinning me down with one of his hands hard against the seam of the mattress, my palms awkwardly against the wall. He ground his hips against mine. I wrapped my ankles around the small of his back, moaning, since it was all I could do not to beg him to enter me.
Fireworks exploded in my brain when he finally found his way inside. He thrust hard and deep, so he could give himself to me as completely as he had taken from me. His lips never left mine. I wanted to scream out but couldn’t. My muscles clenched, tensed, spasmed before my body finally surrendered fully to him.
Ryder, fueled by my blood, wasn’t finished yet, he kept going as my body throbbed around him. He whispered my name before his body went limp, reaching his peak.
My life before that moment just didn’t matter anymore.
Drake sneered at us, or maybe just me, as we returned to the club just minutes before showtime. I didn’t care anymore. I knew his dirty little secret. Somehow, I felt like that gave me an advantage over him.
Of course, until he learned my dirty little secret.
Ryder looked amazing in his tight jeans, black velvet suit jacket with a dark blue T-shirt underneath. Sophisticated, but still dangerous. His long dark hair shined under the blue lights, giving him an ethereal look. His skin flushed with my blood flowing through his veins.
I thanked God that somehow I had the instinct to pack all my clothes from my old life, my fun life. I wore tight black jeans with a lacy shirt, blending in just like I needed to. The bite mark on the inside of my thigh throbbed, a burning reminder of Ryder’s earlier confession.
Fans milled around the floor, with a dedicated throng tightly packed against the stage. I would have expected there to be more people. A small place like this should have been sold out, and I should have never been able to find an empty stool at the bar, but I did.
“Malibu and Diet, please.” The bartender nodded. I still felt a little dizzy from sharing blood with Ryder. The rum probably wasn’t the best idea, but good ideas hadn’t been my strong suit recently.
I looked up at the row of TV screens above the bar. This must be a great place to watch a game when there wasn’t a show. It must have been just past eleven, because the news was on. I felt so disconnected from the rest of the world. How quickly I slipped into Ryder’s alternate reality.
I handed the bartender one of Jamie’s ten dollar bills in exchange for my drink. At first I thought he gave me way too much change, but then I realized I was in Detroit and things were cheap here. I sipped the coconut rum through the skinny straw, and almost dropped my drink when I looked back up at the screens.
Angela’s face stared back at me. A smiling picture of her, wearing too much makeup, at some family gathering. Before I could recover from the shock, the screen flashed to someone who had to be related to her, they looked just like her. But alive, and devastated.
Fuck.
I had to expect this. Of course people would be looking for her. She hadn’t been home to greet her girls. But now it was Monday, and no one had found her. Yet.
I had to wonder if anyone was looking for Jamie. Looking for me. Besides work, of course.
God, when they put it all together, I was so screwed.
I drained my drink within seconds and waved the bartender back over.
He sighed, visibly not impressed, but he poured me another drink. I let him keep all the change from that ten since he clearly disagreed with the rate I was putting the rum an
d cokes away, and spun my chair around so I could watch the show.
Soul Divider opened the show with one of their biggest songs – a clever little reminder to those who might not remember who they were. They tore through their greatest hits. The crowd, obviously loyal fans, sang along to every word. So did I. Their music made me feel good. At one time, I would have been up front, fighting for my piece of real estate in front of Ryder, but now that I was confident I had his attention, I didn’t have to do that. Drake played the part of charming front man to a tee; you would have never thought this was the same person who bawled out his whole band and the club staff just hours before. He shook his ass to the delight of the mostly female crowd, and bantered good naturedly between songs. I recognized his catch phrases from all the times I saw the band in the past. Nothing had changed for Drake. The venue may have shrunk, and the stage show might not be as elaborate, but other than that, I felt like a teenage girl watching the show.
Drake strapped on an acoustic guitar after maybe about a dozen songs, and introduced the next song as the new single. I’d never heard it before, and I had a good feeling that a lot of the crowd hadn’t either from the amount of people who swarmed the bar and lined up at the bathroom. Some even made their way out to the parking lot for a smoke. Even from my barstool, I could see the steam seething from Drake’s eyes. This had to be killing him. No one wanted to hear their new stuff. The crowd considered Soul Divider a nostalgia act.
Ryder played with his eyes closed, sometimes squeezed shut, probably wishing he was anywhere but here.
I knew where I wanted to be. Back in the bunk, alone with Ryder.
Somehow I hoped that I could make this nightmare better for him in some way. That I could be a bright spot in a never-ending night.
We never discussed anything after Detroit. I felt oddly presumptuous heading back to the bus after the show as if I belonged there. For all I knew, Ryder could kiss me goodbye and ride off into night without me.
Night Moves Page 4