Neither

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  “Yeah, he's... pretty special,” Tex says, fiddling with her glasses.

  “So I've heard.” They're both pretending the other one doesn't know about the whole immortal thing because talking about it out loud is just too weird. It's one thing for me and Mom to talk about it, but it's another to have a group discussion.

  “I know you know, Tex,” Mom says, stomping on the eggshells and using her mom tone.

  “Know what?”

  “You're a smart girl. I just hope you'll be careful.”

  “I will,” she says. I said the exact same thing to her when I told her about Peter.

  “Okay,” Mom says. “You sure you don't want anything? I can whip up some pudding or something.”

  We walk down the stairs, meeting Dad. He has his own stern look on.

  “Claire, don't tax yourself. I'll do it.”

  “Sam, please.” The pleading tone in her voice gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Tex is clearly uncomfortable.

  “We'll help. I haven't been over here to make anything in so long,” Tex pipes up.

  “You mean ruin it,” I say, trying to pick up on her light tone. “Don't tell me you've forgotten the blueberry cobbler incident.”

  Her eyes narrow with fake anger. “We said we would never speak of it again.”

  “Speak of what?” Mom says.

  “Exactly,” Tex says, giving her a high five. I forgot how well they got along together.

  An hour later Tex, Mom and I are on the couch with three spoons and a giant bowl of chocolate chip pudding. We're all engrossed in the love story playing out on the screen.

  “French braids!” Mom yells.

  “What?” The girl on the movie has French braids, but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

  “It's on the list,” Mom says, yanking on my ponytail. “Tex, can we use your head?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she says, licking her pudding spoon. Mom proceeds to arrange Tex on the floor, with me sitting behind her so I have full access to her hair. It's not as long and thick as mine, but still, there's quite a bit to work with.

  “Okay, so you take a little bit here and another there, and start.” My first attempt is awful, so I undo it and start again. I'm fine with a basic braid, and I can do a fish bone on another person, but for some reason the concept of the French braid baffles me.

  “Ouch,” Tex says, when I unintentionally pull on a few strands.

  “Sorry.”

  “Be careful,” she gripes. I make a face at her back and try again.

  By the time the movie is over and the pudding is consumed, I have a halfway decent French braid on Tex's head.

  “Not bad,” she says, reaching up to feel it. “You wanna come over every morning and do that?” My fingers are actually tired from concentrating so hard on getting it right.

  “Good job, ma fleur. You're a natural.” I'm not, but it's still nice to hear anyway.

  Dad comes in to get the pudding bowl and taps Mom on the shoulder, giving her a look. She is coughing a lot, and I had to get her a second box of tissues. I've also been making Tex use the sanitizer.

  “I think that's it for me. Thanks for letting your old crusty mom hang out with you,” she says.

  “Oh stop it, you're awesome,” Tex says, getting up. She looks like she wants to give Mom a hug, but doesn't know if she should. Mom goes for her, giving her one anyway and kissing her cheek. Tex looks at me, and then starts to cry.

  “I'm sorry. I'm just so sorry.” She sobs on Mom's shoulder. It's been several weeks since I told her about Mom, but I guess seeing her in person and seeing how sick she is opens the gates to the water works.

  “It's okay. Shh, it's okay.” They stay like that for a while. I feel like I'm the intruder now. Mom has to let go of Tex so she can cough.

  “Claire,” Dad says, the sharp tone back in his voice.

  “I'm coming, I'm coming. I hope I didn't give you any of my germs.”

  “Who cares?” Tex sniffs. Mom gives her another squeeze.

  “Bye, Tex. Thank you for being such a good friend to Ava. I'm glad she has you.”

  Tex wipes her eyes and nods. Dad takes Mom back to bed and Tex blows her nose.

  “I can't believe I did that. I'm such an ass. She's the one who's...” She can't finish the rest.

  “I know. I feel that way every single day. She's always the one comforting me and it should be the other way around.” We both sit back on the couch and Tex tries to get herself under control.

  “I'm sorry I'm such a bitch most of the time. I don't mean to be.”

  “I know. It's a defense mechanism.” She gives me a look. “Peter's been all over the psychology textbooks. I guess it rubbed off on me.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “About what?”

  “Everything.” She doesn't want to say 'when your mom dies,' but that's what she means.

  “Honestly, I don't know. I'm still trying to get through every day. Even if I didn't have the whole Peter and Di thing, I still wouldn't know what to do. I don't think you can prepare for something like this.”

  “So the book was a bad idea?”

  “I would have tried really hard to pretend I liked it.”

  “You're not a very good actress.”

  “Yeah, I'm aware.” She gives me another hug and gets up.

  “I think I'm gonna go home with Viktor. He's good at this stuff. Hey V, I'm going to the car,” she says the last part not to me, but to the noctalis upstairs.

  “V?”

  “Yeah, don't you think it sounds sexy?”

  Not really. “Sure. Why not?”

  She beams at my white lie. Maybe I'm getting better at it.

  Jamie calls me later that night as I'm doing more homework with Peter.

  “She's gone, Ava.” His voice is both robotic and full of pain at the same time.

  “Brooke?” I sit up and stretch my neck. Ugh, I shouldn't have stayed in that position.

  “She left with Helena to find Di,” Peter says.

  “Thanks for telling me, you jerk,” I say, glaring at him. “You have to stop doing that.”

  “You were concerned about Claire. I did not want to worry you.”

  “You have to stop doing that,” I say.

  “Ave?” Jamie says.

  “Sorry, Jamie. I'm so sorry. Do you know when they'll be back?” They probably won't be coming back alone.

  “She just left. I miss her so much, it hurts.”

  “I'm so sorry.” I know he's better off. My life would be better off if Peter wasn't in it, but my soul and my heart wouldn't be. I can't judge his love if he isn't judging mine.

  “They will be back,” Peter says. “It is time.”

  I take a deep breath. “Don't worry, Jamie. It'll be okay. Okay?”

  “I hope so. I just want her back.”

  “I know, I know.”

  We are all chasing after the ones we love.

  Twenty-Four

  Brooke

  “So what's your story? You're obviously old,” I said to Helena as we ran. We'd crossed the border into Vermont a few minutes ago.

  “Thanks for rubbing it in, kid. You're what, five seconds old?”

  “Sixteen,” I said. Well, was I? How did you count your age when you were immortal? I would be sixteen forever, but the years would still pass me by.

  “Fifteen,” Helena sang. She looked it. “I wish you would trust me, Brooke. I'm a very good secret keeper,” she said as we stopped next to a lake.

  Quicker than I could, she had her clothes off and dove into the water. If I knew anything about Helena, I knew that she loved water. Anytime we were near a body of it that was deeper than a puddle, her clothes were off and she was in. The first time she'd transformed, I'd challenged her to an underwater race. She'd beaten me badly and hadn't let me live it down yet. She flipped water at me as I sat on a rock and let my wings come out. They didn't get wet, exactly, but they were useless in the water.
/>
  “You're no fun. Secrets are fun.”

  I didn't know why I wouldn't tell her about Ivan. She'd been trying since the second we met to tell me about Ivan. Reading between the lines, they thought I was here to destroy Ava. Honestly, I didn't know why I was here. Ivan and I had settled into a strange sort of life of feeding, lying in the sun and having lots of sex. We did what we wanted and took what we wanted. It was a heady and overwhelming time. I knew he didn't love me, because every now and then he would look off in the distance and I could tell he was thinking about another girl. Either Josie or Ava. They followed him like ghosts, haunting him every moment he was with me.

  “You should go see her,” I said one day after we had fed. We were both naked and lying on top of a fallen tree in the middle of a secluded clearing. I didn't even remember what state we were in.

  “See who?”

  “Ava.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you love her.”

  “I don't love her. I could love her. There is a difference, Brooke.”

  “Still. You should go see her.”

  Ivan got to his feet, on his guard. I smelled it a second after he did. There was another noctalis here.

  “Who is it?” I said.

  “My brother. Go downwind three miles and stay there. I have to run to meet him so he won't smell you. I will tell you when you can come back.”

  “The one who loves Ava?” I asked.

  “Go. Don't ask questions.” Ivan never gave me orders, so I knew it was important. The brother could not hurt me, but there was some reason Ivan did not want him to know about me. I would have to find out.

  I ran exactly three miles downwind from him, making sure my scent wouldn't blow toward them. I had to keep moving as the wind shifted, but I treated it as a game. It was only ten minutes later when Ivan found me.

  “Good job, Brooke. You are very good at hiding. I thought he would smell you, but he didn't.”

  “Was that the brother who is with Ava?”

  “No. This was Viktor. My other brother, Peter, is with Ava.”

  “Are you close?” I thought I knew the answer.

  “No.” He kept looking at the woods, as if he heard something I could not.

  “What is it?”

  “I have to go.”

  I was confused. “Go where?”

  “To Maine. To see Ava. My mother, Di, is intent on destroying her.” He reached out and broke a tree in anger. I had never seen him upset. I didn’t really understand it. I didn't get upset anymore.

  “How can you help?”

  “It is complicated and a story that would take too long to tell. I can't let anything happen to her, lover.”

  “Why?”

  He looked over his shoulder, as if he wanted to be gone already. “That is another long story, Brooke.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “No. You will stay here.”

  “Why?”

  His eyes narrowed and his human form rippled into his noctalis form for a moment. “Why do you have to ask so many questions? Just do what I tell you, love. It will be so much easier.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  I did not want him to leave me. I had not been scared since I became immortal, but thinking about not being with him gave me a feeling I did not like. It was unpleasant and I wanted it to go away.

  “Brooke, I will be back in a day. I want you to be safe. Will you stay here and be safe? Can you promise me that?” I would just promise him and then follow him. That seemed easy enough.

  “I promise.” The air around us jolted with something, and my hair moved with it. It was like something invisible had settled over my skin. I looked down, but didn't see anything. The sensation was gone as soon as I felt it.

  “Thank you. I will leave now. Take care, love. Remember to feed.”

  He kissed my cheek and that was the last time I saw him.

  Twenty-Five

  Peter

  The next day Claire is too sick to leave her bed, and Sam takes her to the doctor's. Ava goes to school, but her thoughts are distracted all day. She didn't want to go, but Claire begs her to.

  “How can I say no to her?” she says, trying to hide her red eyes under lots of eye makeup. “I just... I'm just so scared. This wasn't supposed to happen now. It was supposed to happen months from now. Not now,” she says, trying to get her emotions under control. I send her as much positive energy as I can, but it isn't much, because her despair is so heavy over both of us. It weighs us down like a chain, dragging us down. “And what about Helena and Brooke? They're going to find Di and what if they bring her back? What will we do —” I put my finger to her lips to stop her verbal torrent. Her thoughts are rushing like a river that I wish I could dam.

  “I will be with you. Every second.”

  “I wish that made me feel better.” She instantly feels guilt for saying it, afraid I would be offended. I am not.

  “I wish it, too.” I wish it more than anything else.

  I stay as close to the school building as I can, lying low under windows and up against walls. When she has classes on the top floors of buildings, I go there as well. I follow her as close as I can without going inside. Her thoughts come to me, scattered, scared, lost. I have been able to read her mind almost completely the entire day. I haven't told her. She is not doing well. Her heart races and slows in a way that worries me. The stress is starting to take a toll on her body. I keep watch on her body rhythms, making sure that she doesn't have a panic attack or something worse.

  She runs out of the school building at lunch and I grab her arm, pulling her into my chest. She doesn't say anything, and I don't either. I hold her until she takes a deep breath, her entire body shaking.

  “She's been admitted, but I don't know anything else. I've texted Dad, but he hasn't messaged me back. I don't know what to do.”

  “No news is good news,” I say, using a phrase I picked up recently.

  “I want to kill every single one of them. It's so hard not to. I just want them all to die.” I know. I've seen the images in her head of blood, death and fire. They do not disturb me, but they do her. I wish I could push them away and give her beautiful images of mountains, beaches and sunshine.

  “I wish I had something better to say. We will see her this afternoon.” She nods against my chest.

  “Are you okay?” Texas is right behind us with Viktor. Ava hasn't told her about her mother yet.

  “My mom's not doing well. I just don't know what to do.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “She asked me to go to school. How could I say no?”

  Texas looks at Ava, as if she wants to say something. I catch Viktor's eye, but he is concentrating on Texas. She swallows and reconsiders.

  “There are some times when you have to listen to your parents. When they tell you go to bed or eat your vegetables or not try to do gymnastics on the couch because you'll break your grandmother's lamp that she brought all the way from her honeymoon in Europe, you listen. This is not one of those times. If it was my mother, I'd be there. I know she and I don't get along that well, but she's my mom and I love her. We don't have half the connection you guys do. So get your ass to that hospital right now. I don't want to see your face back here. Go.” She points to the parking lot.

  For a moment, Ava imagines breaking Texas' neck, but then she dives at her, giving her a crushing hug. “I love you, Texas Sarsaparilla Anne Hamilton. I freaking love you. Keep an eye on Jamie.”

  “I know. I love you, too. Tell Claire I said hi and get better. Viktor and I will take care of Jamie.”

  Ava grabs my hand and marches to her car, resolved.

  “I don't know why it took someone else to tell me it's okay for it to be okay. I shouldn't need Tex to tell me that. I should be ballsy enough to do it on my own. I feel like I'm not myself anymore. I don't know this girl I've become.” She starts the car and pulls out of the lot without looking back.
/>
  “I do. She's the exact same girl that met me in the cemetery that night and kept coming back even though I told her I would kill her. She's the girl I adore. She's you.”

  “You always say the right thing. I think you come up with this stuff ahead of time and then whip it out when I need it. I love you.” She's said it several times today.

  She breaks a few driving laws getting to the hospital, but there are no police around. I take her hand as we walk into the hospital.

  “I have no idea where she'd be. Last time she came she was in the ER, but they've probably moved her to a room by now.”

  She goes up to the desk and asks for her mother's room.

  “Are you Ava?” the young nurse in yellow scrubs asks.

  “Yes. Could you tell me where she is?”

  “Sure, sweetheart. She's in room 203. Just down the hall and hang a left,” she says, pointing.

  “Thank you,” Ava says, rushing down the hallway to the room. She pauses for a second outside the door and takes a deep breath. I try to let go of her hand, but she won't let me.

  “I need you,” she says, so we walk in the room together. Claire is propped on a hospital bed, her eyes closed, and a heart monitor softly beeping next to her. There is an IV in her arm as well and oxygen line in her nose.

  “Ava? What are you doing here?” Sam is slumped over in a chair, his head resting on one of his hands.

  “I had to come and see her,” she says, her chin rising in anticipation of his disapproval. He rubs his eyes, trying to become fully awake. He looks at Claire before turning his attention back to Ava.

  “I'm not happy, but I understand. I knew you'd be here by the end of the day. Do you need a note?”

  “No, I already forged one,” Ava says, her tension easing the tiniest bit.

  “Clever girl,” Sam says with a brief smile. “Looks like you're a partner in crime, Peter.”

  “Your daughter can be very persuasive,” I say. Sam chuckles.

  “She can. So can her mother.” He brushes Claire's arm.

  “How is she?” Ava asks.

  “Looks like she had a cold that's turned into pneumonia. They've got her on antibiotics and we'll see. They want to keep her here.” I get out the only other available chair for Ava and stand next to it.