by Cara Coe
The sun started to dip in the sky. It became a brilliant orange disc instead of the unrelenting yellow hot ball it’d been all day. I was losing daylight. And Alex was way later than the hour he told me. With a groan, I strapped on my sack, called out to my dogs, and started walking.
With each step, I visualized how I could make that vamp pay. I could almost picture him engrossed in some laboratory findings while the second hand on the clock whirled away just out of his peripheral.
I’d been trekking for about twenty minutes when I first saw the smoke. Black curls of it snaked up and evaporated into the sky. Smoke probably meant life. Life meant Alex.
My walk became a run.
When I finally rounded the bend drenched in sweat and sucking in big, painful gulps of air, I saw it. A silver car slightly off the road with the front of it horseshoeing around a thick tree trunk. The black smoke rolling out of the hood looked ominous. Without thinking, I dropped my pack, ran to the vehicle, and stuck my head into the passenger window.
“Alex!”
He was slumped over in the driver’s seat. Rivers of blood ran down his face. Some of them were dried brown and crusted with fresh red liquid falling anew over the old ones. How long had he been here?
I yanked on the door but it wouldn’t give. The frame was too badly bent. I didn’t see any flames but the heated air hitting me in the face told me the engine was on fire.
“Alex!” I screamed again.
His head lolled to the side but his eyes found mine. He closed them slowly, painfully.
“We have to get you out of here,” I told him.
Since the door wouldn’t open, I shimmied myself through the broken passenger side window, cursing as the glass scraped against my skin. Alex seemed to grow more alert the closer I came.
“No, what are you doing?” he asked thickly. He struggled to keep his head up.
“How long has the car been on fire?” I asked in a panicky voice. The heat was so much worse inside. My skin could barely take it.
“I don’t know. I just woke up.” He seemed out of it.
I yanked on his seat belt but it wouldn’t budge. I started pulling harder. It was fruitless and I knew it but the heat was cooking me and Alex was stuck and not much help with the way he kept going limp and I was freaking out.
“It won’t unlatch!” I yelled furiously. Alex took a spaghetti arm and tried to push me away.
“You have to get out,” he said weakly.
“Shut up.”
But I did get out. I shimmied back out of the car and ran to my knapsack. Anthony Stone’s army knife. I rifled through the pack until I found it and I nearly kissed it. The fire popped behind me. The tree that the car was wrapped around was catching now. My dogs whined nervously behind me as if they knew I was going to head back into danger and were trying to talk me out of it. I dreaded going back in but Alex still hadn’t moved and while he could probably weather a lot of injuries, I had no idea what full body roasting did to a vamp.
I crawled back into the car. Blood streaked my shirt but I had no time to worry about that. I started sawing away at his seat belt.
I did this for a bit with a smooth-edged knife before my brain clicked with common sense and I tucked it away to pull out a serrated edge in its place. The teeth ate away at the seat belt much more quickly and with one last swipe, Alex came free.
Almost.
His leg didn’t budge. I yanked on it while he pulled, but his ankle seemed to be caught.
“Oh my fucking god, you have got to be kidding me!” I could hardly see now. The air shimmered in front of me with the waves of heat and sweat stinging my eyes. I reached down until my face was practically buried in his crotch and stretched to get my fingers to his shoe laces. I untied them and then told him to pull again.
He lost some skin and maybe some muscle in the process, but his leg finally came free with bloody scraps left covering his ankle. The fresh pain must have brought him around because his curses were louder and more colorful than mine and his death grip on my shoulder left marks.
“We have to go through the window!” I yelled as another loud pop made us both jump. “I can’t lift you, you have to help me!”
Figuring it would be easier to use my legs leveraged against the car seat to help push him out, I positioned him to go first and wedged myself underneath him. Through grunting and groaning and full body touching and none of it in the pleasant sense, he finally tipped out of the car and rolled onto his back, wincing from the impact. I followed as the flames made their appearance through the hood of the car.
I don’t know where the energy came from, but I grabbed Alex below his armpits and heaved us both backwards several paces until I felt we were far enough away from the car to avoid the worst of it if it finally did explode.
We were both scratched and bloodied and dirty and heaving. I lied on my back and focused on air in and out. That’s all I could do. In and out. Even with the deep lung-fulls I was taking in, it didn’t feel like enough.
We laid on the ground for what seems like an eternity before Alex reached over and grasped my fingers. Despite every piece of my body being plastered to him at some point or another during the car evacuation, the contact made me jump.
“Thank you,” he croaked.
I felt self conscious. I didn’t need thanks. I realized my reaction upon seeing the car crash was an automatic one. I didn’t think about what I was doing while I was doing it. I just knew I had to get him out of there. I couldn’t lose him.
I nodded in response to his gratitude. “Well, I broke your car. Fair’s fair, right?”
“Don’t downplay it. You could have died going in there after me.”
I fidgeted uncomfortably. “Would you have? Died? Being in that?”
“Eventually. It takes longer, but a vamp can’t burn like that for long and live.” He turned his head to the side so he could look at me. I did the same. “Is it possible, Tasha? Could we be friends?”
The look I gave him was a tired, snarky one. “Not if you were the last vampire on earth,” I answered.
Despite the pain on his face, he chuckled. “You’re such a terrible liar.”
“You got me.”
I could have lied there all night in non-moving bliss but the morning would still bring us back to being in the middle of nowhere with no car and painful injuries.
“We need transportation,” I said, struggling to stand. My muscles screamed at me in protest. He did as well, hopping on one foot. The look I gave him was incredulous. “You’re hurt. I’ll go and come back to get you.”
“You’re hurt, too.”
I lightly shoved him on the shoulder with one hand and he fell, crashing down hard on his good knee. The scowl he raised to me was beautiful. I wanted to paint it.
“Be angry,” I told him in a sweet voice. “But it’s my turn to take care of you. This is not because I owe you. This is because…” I paused. What was that word he used? Friend. It didn’t quite fit but it was close enough. “Because you’re my friend. The only one I have in the world.”
Chapter 24
Her
“Texas weather is so much better suited for gardening!” I exclaimed, pouring over Alex’s work in a corner of the hospital roof. After two full days inside alternating between sleeping and watching long strings of Star Trek episodes, I’d asked Alex where in Zeus’ butthole we could get some sun (actual words and the smile I received in return made my day). Neither of us wanted to venture back out into the city just yet. He offered to show me where he grew fresh produce and I eagerly agreed.
He had boxes of plots with strawberries, small watermelons, tomatoes, a grape vine, carrots, squash, and a couple corn stalks. He sat several feet away, leaning up against the life flight helicopter.
“I got sick of canned stuff,” he said and I shot him a look of understanding.
“I’m going to add to this.”
“Have at it. I hate doing it. I kill half my plants before I remembe
r to take care of them.”
“Only a guy who doesn’t need to eat this stuff to live can say something like that in times like these.”
I tilted my face towards the sun. Houston had a moisture-rich air I wasn’t used to yet. It beaded sweat on my skin and ran rivers down my neck. I looked sideways to see if Alex was perspiring as well. Did vamps sweat?
He caught me looking at him and grinned. “I’d pay a thousand dollars to know what went through your head just then,” he said.
“A worthless sentiment,” I scoffed. “We have millions at our disposal. The only thing they’re good for is to burn for warmth and Houston is definitely not lacking in that department.”
Alex spread his arms out wide. “I know. I love it. I adore heat.” He stepped up beside me and elbowed me. “So what were you thinking just now?”
I kept a coy expression on my face. “I’m not inclined to share.”
Alex tsked. “Still don’t trust me?”
“Not entirely,” I said flippantly, leaning forward on the railing and gliding my gaze over Houston’s medical center. When he didn’t come back with another jest, I turned my body to look up at him. His brow was furrowed thoughtfully and his mouth turned down.
“There’s a small group of cells in a vamp’s brain,” he said, scuffing his shoe into the concrete. “Behind the right ear. If you stab the area with a sharp object, or fire a shot there, or even place a really good, heavy blow, you will damage the regenerative area of the brain. That injury kills vamps or renders them as vulnerable as humans since they would no longer be able to regenerate cells at an accelerated speed.”
He looked up and his eyes locked onto mine. I slowly straightened and held his stare. He squinted at me slightly. “And I will still sleep peacefully at night with you, and this knowledge in your head, in the next room.” Before I could respond, his face lit up with a smile and he gestured to his plants. “Check out my tomatoes. Not bad for half-assing the gardener role, huh?”
I busied myself inspecting his vegetation but my mind was elsewhere. His revelation stunned me. I suppose if we were going to be friends, trust would have to flow between us. I didn’t have an equal tidbit to share. My body was his to break in a multitude of ways. Instead, he kept repairing it.
I felt the same twinge I’d felt all those weeks ago when we were still on a voice-only basis and my thoughts about him were colored in a scandalous hue. Could humans and vamps really fall for each other? Is that what happened with his parents?
“How did your parents come together?” I feigned interest in his tomato plant so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. I didn’t know how personal that question was. Were they married? Did his father seduce her into carrying his children?
“He fell in love with her,” Alex said wistfully. “He was working at the medical center on a vaccination project and she was a nurse there. They fell in love but couldn’t get married because he never registered under a human name. He was from Sweden. In the part of the country that already knew about vampires and tolerated their existence.”
“Why didn’t he register?”
I turned when Alex didn’t answer and seeing my face, he shrugged. “He lived in Sweden because he wanted to be who he was without having to conform to human ways.”
“Did your mom know he was a vampire?”
“Yeah. She did. She pursued him and when she did, he told her the truth. What he was. Which was taking a big risk. But she loved him anyway. He had a mate in Sweden but he left her and moved to Texas to be with my mom. He stayed with us until I was about eight. Then news about vampires broke and he had to leave back to Sweden. The United States was the hardest on hunting them down and he didn’t want to put us at risk. My mom wouldn’t let him take me, though he tried. It was hard on her when he left.”
“Why didn’t all of you go to Sweden?”
Alex’s eyes were unreadable. “He wouldn’t let us live in a den of vampires.”
“Oh,” I said, but in my head I thought, Duh! Idiot.
“Are you going to eat that tomato, or just keep killing it?” Alex asked, pointing to the tomato in my hand which had become a pulpy mass in my grip. I looked down at it. I hadn’t realized I’d been squeezing as he talked. I dropped it and shook off the juices.
“Want to go back inside?” I asked, standing.
“Yeah, let’s do that before we have anymore garden casualties.”
“Shut it,” I quipped, following him to the staircase.
Chapter 25
Her
“Edward, this is base, come over.”
I gripped the walkie talkie in my hand and brought it to my ear, biting my lower lip to keep my smile in submission. I tried again. “Edward, do you read? Come in.”
His voice crackled over the line. “Copy. Sooner or later, you will run out of stupid vampire aliases.”
I laughed and pressed the button. “You’re needed at base. We have a situation.”
“Understood,” his canned voice replied. “Over and out.”
The situation was that we needed to get out of this hospital. Now that we were two invalids on the mend, we spent all our time limping down the hallways, coming up with ways to entertain ourselves, and flipping back and forth between bickering and laughing.
This afternoon was a bickering one. After Alex came up from his lab, we dug through a closet he’d forgotten about where he stored stuff he found to use another day.
“Tequila?” I asked, pulling out a half empty bottle.
“I didn’t make it half empty,” he replied. “Found it that way. I don’t drink alone.”
“Then why take it?”
“It’s a really good bottle. Couldn’t leave it.”
I studied it thoughtfully. “Does it do anything to you?”
“I’d get drunk just like you. I just sober up twice as fast.”
We also found Scrabble in the same closet.
“Scrabble?” I asked in confusion.
He shrugged. “My sister and I loved to play this game.”
“So did my father and I.” I ran a hand over the box. “I could take you.”
Of course Alex couldn’t leave a comment like that hanging. So we were halfway in and having all out wars over word choices. Unfortunately, Alex’s escapades didn’t include a dictionary and neither of us felt like going to the other side of the hospital on the sixth floor to M.D. Anderson’s medical library to rustle up one.
“Juvenate is not a word,” I snapped. He reached into my bowl of fruit and absently ate a strawberry.
“It is. Rejuvenate is a word. So juventate is a word. Rejuvenate is to juvenate again.”
“Ugh. You’re grinning because you know it’s bullshit.”
We enacted a two pass rule since we couldn’t stop disagreeing on whether a play was a word or not. I’d burned mine up but I was suspicious on his accusations. He’d played it straight until now.
I sulked. “You just want to triple letter your J and stop eating my strawberries!” I batted at his hand as it reached for my bowl. His bowl of strawberries was long gone and my bowl of sliced berries and red grapes was getting light on the berry count. “You’re ruining my ratio. I need one slice to every grape.”
He crinkled his eyebrows. “Why?”
“The combination in my mouth is amazing.”
“Well, I’m snack-y.”
“Then balance it. Eat some grapes.”
“I hate grapes.”
“You grow them.”
“I know. Because I can. I planted them on a whim and they’re the only things that won’t die. Fate is cruel.”
“No, you’re cruel stop it!”
He laughed as he popped a couple more slices in his mouth.
“It’s not even doing anything for you! Just wasting away in your gut.”
“What can I say? I like to eat red stuff.”
“Now you’re officially a sicko.”
I flicked a couple letters off the board and he didn’t protest, just roll
ed onto his back and pulled his sock down to look at his ankle. It was still angry red but most of the skin had grown back and scabbed over. Six days. Impressive.
That’s when I decided we needed to get out of the hospital. He could walk. I could walk. I could even bend over without disturbing the few stitches Alex put in me to suture the worst of the cuts from the glass window.
Alex liked my venture-back-out idea and we climbed into the truck he’d used to bring me here. He headed towards downtown because he wanted to rummage for some parts for his Camaro so he could get a head start on her when he was able to tow her back. He knew of a shop on Jefferson that probably had what he was looking for. And apparently, if there was an apartment that had olive oil, he had a potato dish he could make that would knock my socks off. His words. “There are some really ritzy apartments in the area,” he’d said. “They have the really good shit. The expensive infused olive oils.”
We parked at a meter and climbed out of the truck.
“I don’t really go down that way,” he said pointing east down the street. “But there’s a YMCA, an art gallery, and a bus station that had some pretty cool graffiti a few blocks down if you want to explore.”
I did want to explore. Alex told me he’d only be a couple of minutes and he’d catch up. I walked in the direction he pointed, taking in the ugly brown-gray concrete buildings and sidewalks. Houston’s downtown had a functionality quality to it. It looked as if it’d been thrown together to get the job done as cheaply as possible with buildings mimicking each other’s designs. I walked past rows and rows of the same tall rectangle shape.
I took my time, peeking into the windows to see if treasure awaited inside these empty-looking packages but each time my eyes were met with steel bars and wires and dusty space. I sighed and continued on. This was making me miss Tucson.
The buildings seemed to stretch on forever and I was thinking about doing an about face and heading back to the truck when suddenly, nestled in between the forest of bricks, I spied a small church.
The stained glass windows were breathtaking. I paused to take in the sight and pictured what it would have looked like with churchgoers walking in and out of the large oak doors. They’d be stopping on the steps to greet their weekly friends and milling about the lawn on a warm Sunday afternoon, filled with the peace worship gave them that I could never find in it.