by A. M. Hudson
“Oh, okay.” I touched my collarbone.“Didn’t you go to the wake, at Betty’s?”
“Yeah, but Spencer’s mum’s a nurse. She got called in on night shift after.”
“So—can’t Spence babysit?”
Emily scoffed, obviously humoured. “He’s just not that kind of guy.”
“Oh.” I wandered over and leaned next to her on the brown picket fence.
“So—” she looked down at my running-shorts, then my sweat-covered forehead, “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you were—painting?”
We both laughed.
“Uh, yeah.” I looked down at my shoes. “I thought I better start getting fit.”
“Hm.” She folded her arms. “Fit. Is everything okay?”
“Um, of course it is,” my tone rose upward.
“Is it David?”
“A little.” I sighed and dropped my arms as I sat down on the curb.
“Let me guess,” she sat beside me, “he’s got you all confused?”
“It’s a talent of his, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah. So, what is it? What’s he done?”
He’s a vampire, and he kills people. “He said he loves me.”
Her mouth fell open a little, but nothing came out.
“Yeah.” I huffed. “I know, hey.”
“Hm, well, he’s never done that before, either—are you happy?”
I nodded and sort of shook my head, too. “Normally, when I have this kind of crisis, I ring Mike, but—”
“You miss Mike?”
I stared ahead for a second, my mind ticking. “I think I really do.”
“Did you guys spend a lot of time together?”
“Um, well, yeah. And we used to jog together all the time.” I held my jacket off my skin a little. “I think that’s why I’ve only found gloom and longing on this run.” Instead of resolution.
“Hm, so, what would he think to see you so unfit, then?” She motioned to my sweating and panting self.
“He’d laugh at me, but secretly, he’d love it. We we’re always challenging each other.” I looked up to the wispy white clouds and smiled. “Despite that, and despite that he was faster than me, he always ran beside me—you know, kept to my pace.”
“Well, he sounds considerate.”
“Yeah. He was—when it came to me.” I laughed then, at a memory. “We had this band of seagulls on the corner of my street. Whenever we’d run that course, the damn things’d barely scatter a few feet in the air to get out of the way. It was really annoying. I always promised myself I was gonna put my foot right up their butts if they didn’t move—” I rested my elbows on my knees, my chin on my palm. “Mike called them gullsters…instead of gangsters.”
“You didn’t, though? Did you? Kick them?” Emily looked horrified.
Leaning back quickly, I said, “No! No way. Mike would, though—” I stared ahead then, “he never had any problems kicking butt. I guess that’s why he’s so suited to The Force.”
“The police?”
“Yeah. He’s joining the…kind of like, SWAT unit.”
“Really?” Emily grinned. “That is super sexy.”
“I guess.” I breathed out slowly. “It’s dangerous, though.”
“You worry about him?” she asked.
Pressing my lips together, I slowly shrugged. I worry a lot. “I see him, you know?” I looked at Emily; she has no idea what I mean. “When I run, my mind kinda places him beside me, and I can actually see his cute, sort of cheeky smile and his sandy blonde hair. I miss him. I miss home.”
“Why’d you move here?”
Gulp. I shrugged. “Uh, to be with my dad.”
Emily nodded. “Do you like it here?”
With a deep breath, I looked down at the mildly busy street, then tilted my face into the warming sun as it melted the early-morning chill from my cheeks. “It’s not like home. It’s not hot and dry, and there’s no ocean in the distance, no black cockatoos on the lampposts, but—”
“But even though it’s different—it’s still good, right?”
For a second, I studied her face. “Um, yeah. Different, but I still love it.”
“Well, good—” she nudged me with her elbow, “because you’re starting to grow on us, Ara. Everyone was really disappointed you weren’t there last night—at Betty’s.”
“Yeah.” I smiled sheepishly and looked down at my untied shoelace, dangling, wet and muddy, from my sneaker. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
“I know. I saw the whole “Save me, David, save me,” thing—” she held her forearm to her brow and pretended to fall backward a little, then dropped her hand, smiling. “He was really worried about you, you know.” She looked down and shrugged. “We all were.”
My cheeks flushed with heat and the cold stinging in my ears subsided, almost melted. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just because I didn’t eat.”
“Yeah, Mr. Thompson told me.”
Emily looked up when a car pulled into Spencer’s driveway. “I gotta go. My mum’s here.”
I stood up and dusted the loose pebbles of bitumen from my shorts. “Okay, Em. I’ll see ya later.”
“Are you coming to school, today?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nah, Dad’ll give me the day off after what happened yesterday.”
“Okay, well, don’t be a stranger.” She walked backward toward the burgundy car.
I waved and turned toward home, then walked the rest of the street and landed, in a huffing mess, on the porch step near Vicki’s grey cat. He rubbed his back into the ground, sunning himself all over, with his little paws curled up under his chin. “I’m not petting you, Skitz.” I raised my brow at him when he meowed at me. “You should know me better, by now.”
He jumped to alert suddenly, flipping onto his belly with his paws flat and his eyes fixed on something at the end of the driveway. What is he doing? I sat up a little more and the creaky step dipped under my weight. Skittles’ tail lashed about as he waited patiently in the shadows of a rose bush. Everything went silent. The maple tree in front of Dad’s house rustled, and all the birds stopped singing. I looked up—feeling my heart skip. “David?” Oh, come on, Ara, don’t be silly, he’s not in the damn tree.
Shaking my head at myself, I looked back at Skittles. His back feet wiggled under his crouch for a second, then, he flew through the air and landed on the ground delicately. I didn’t even notice anything there before, but as he lifted his head to look around, I saw a grey body struggling between his paws. “Hey, way to go, Skitz.”
The cat scoured the scene—probably making sure it was safe to unveil his prey—then tossed the mouse into the air and caught it in his teeth, pausing to scrutinize me. “Gross.” Time to go inside.
I stood up quickly, but my heel shattered the step under my foot—dragging my shin through the jagged claws of wood before my knee smashed, with rock-on-rock force, into the edge of the top step as I fell onto my hands.
Without thinking, I rolled over and pulled my leg free from the tenuous cage of the step-remains, scraping the flesh back the other way, making it sting as a mix of blood and sweat smeared into the shredded skin.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” I hugged my knee, then dared to open my eyes and examine the damage. The minced skin along my shin pooled with tiny, pinprick spots of blood, and a purpling line appeared on the top of my knee where it cracked the upper step.
Not bothering to see if I was okay, Skittles bolted off with his catch of the day. “Traitor!” I yelled, blinking back the tears that coated my vision.
“Ara? Are you okay, dear?” I jumped a little as the front door swung open, disturbing the quiet. “What happened?”
“Had a fight with the porch step—” I took a breath through my teeth, rocking back and forth, “Step won.”
Vicki tilted her head and sighed. “I told Greg to fix that a few weeks ago. I’ll go get the medi-kit.” She ran inside, leaving the front door open, and quickly came back to sit
beside me on the remains of the once creaky bottom step. “What were you doing out here anyway, Ara? It’s very early.”
“I went jogging.” I winced as she put some sterile solution on the cut.
She stopped for a second. “I didn’t know you were jogging again. That’s really good to hear.” She sounded pleased—with herself.
Maybe I should tell her that it isn’t a sign of my recovery, but more of my isolation and desperate need to figure my head out.
“Did you see Skittles out here? I thought I heard his bell. He has a vet appointment this morning and I want to bath him before we go.” She grinned.
“Yeah, well, he’ll need one now,” I said.
“Why?” She covered the cut with some gauze and tape.
“He caught himself a nice, juicy mouse,” I probed, watching her face for disgust. There it is, without any further prompting. Sam will definitely be bathing Skittles now. Victory. I one-upped him, and he won’t even know it was me.
“Why would you let him do that, Ara? You know how I feel about that.”
“Why?” I scoffed. “It’s what he’s meant to do, Vicki, he’s a cat—they kill mice and—” I shrugged, then nearly choked on my own words—unable to finish the sentence. Frozen, I stared into the lawn—not even looking at the green of the grass. Catatonic is what Vicki would call it, but I call it sudden realisation.
Skittles is right. He’s a cat—he’s supposed to catch mice. It’s what they do. And I love that stupid cat—I’ve never thought he was evil. Annoying, maybe, but not evil. And I’ve never punished him for what he is.
Oh, God. I was so mean to David. I had no right to judge him. I marvel at the lion and laugh at the cat catching a rodent, but I shunned David for the element of his survival. He wouldn’t kill if it weren’t necessary. He’s a good, kind person, but he’s also a vampire. It’s not the same thing.
Vicki waved her hand in front of my face. “Ara, are you all right, dear?”
Blinking, I snapped out of my trance and looked at her. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“Well, come on, we’ll go inside and yell at Dad for not fixing that step.” She took my hand and helped me to stand.
“Actually, Vicki, I think I’ll just go sit on the swing for a bit.” I need to think. I just realised what a large proportion of this whole repulsion thing is really about.
“Okay.” She frowned, then smiled. “Well, I’ll be inside if you need to talk.”
“Oh, um—” I forced a smile, “thanks, Vicki.”
She nodded and walked back up the stairs. When the front door closed, my smile dropped. Poor David. I’ve known in my heart all along that I love him—no matter what he is. I never needed time to think about that. Eternity is a different matter. But I’ve been punishing him for what he is—in the only way I can—by denying him my heart.
It’s terrible that he’s a vampire, but he didn’t become one just to annoy me. I never even realised it, but I was toying with him by saying I’d think about the end of the summer—it always belonged to him. That was really mean of me.
I stumbled clumsily over the hedge at the side of the house and into the backyard. Then, as I righted myself and looked up—met with the eyes of a vampire. “David?”
Perfect as always, he leaned casually against the oak tree, with one hand in his pocket and a very sexy smile across his lips. “Hello Ara,” his tone seemed to sing the words.
“What’re you doing here?” My heart begged me to run to him—but my brain told me to stay away—because of my bleeding leg.
David looked down at his feet as he shuffled up, very human-like, from his lean against the trunk. I love it when he looks human. “May I?” He offered his hand.
With a short pause of hesitation, I looked at his long, outstretched fingers, then accepted. My shaky legs turned to jelly as David helped me to sit on the ground, and almost instantly, the morning dew soaked through the tips of the grass and made my shorts moist.
“Now, what happened here?” he muttered, more to himself than to me, and squatted down beside me, delicately resting his cool touch on either side of my tender knee. I tensed a little while he ran his fingertip down the long gauze-covered scrape. “You will never have to be afraid of me, Ara.” He shook his head and kissed my knee, then placed it gently back on the ground. “It would take a lot more than a line of blood across your skin to make me hurt you.”
“I know, and—”
“Shh.” He placed his finger over my lip and nodded toward something behind me.
I stiffened. “What is it?”
“Vicki—” he looked back at me. “She’s watching us from the laundry.”
“Well…what’s she doing in there—just watching us?” Creepy.
“No.” David’s intense stare softened to a smile. “She’s bathing a cat, I believe.”
“What?” I spun around to see her struggling with something in the sink—something smudgy and dark-grey—almost slimy, with claw-ending tendrils that thrashed out of the tub and snaked along her forearms every few seconds. “Why is she bathing the cat?”
“I assure you, I have no idea.”
I turned back, folding my arms, probably wearing a scowl, too. “It was a rhetorical question. Sam was supposed to be doing it—as payback for…well…never mind.” I don’t want to tell him that I muck around with my little brother like a seven-year-old. “Those deep scratches were meant to be for him.”
David laughed. “Revenge will not bring satisfaction, Ara.”
“Says you,” I scoffed, biting my teeth together.
“If you want to get back at Sam for hitting you with a tea towel—”
“How do you know about that?”
David only smiled, ignoring that question. “You might try setting him up to be punished with dishes for the next month.”
I grinned—a wicked grin. “You are evil, aren’t you?”
“When it comes to little brothers, yes, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“So, um…” I checked behind me, then whispered, “Can we go somewhere? Talk?”
“Would you like to change first?” David grinned, nodding toward my shorts and zip-up jacket, but stared just a little too long at the space right below my navel.
If only I knew what he was thinking then, when he looked at me that way.
“I’m sorry—” he straightened up, “but my thoughts are terribly inappropriate for a young lady to hear.”
One side of my brow folded and I blinked, supressing the festering sarcasm deep in my vocabulary. Inappropriate? I’m not five! I’ll to let that one pass, though; David is, after all, from a different time. If Mike said that, I’d have answered with something very cheeky—but it’d probably offend David.
“Okay, well, I’ll just go get changed, then.”
“I shall wait in the car.” David watched me walk away, and when I reached the back porch, I turned back to smile at…an empty yard.
Chapter Nineteen
“I thought I’d never see this place again.” I breathed the warm air of the fading summer and looked at the lake’s glassy reflection.
“Why would you think that?” David smiled, already laid out on the picnic rug.
“Well, because obviously this place has no hold for me without you in it.”
“So, you weren’t planning to see me again.” He nodded to himself, then paused, thoughtful. “Does it make you afraid? To be here alone with a vampire?”
“It’s no different to before, really.” I slumped on the rug, across from David, tucking my dress under my legs as I sat. “I’ve always been out here alone—with a vampire.”
“Yes, but…” sadness stole his smile, “now, I’m a killer.”
I twiddled my fingers in my lap. “I was wrong to react that way, David. I’m sorry, and I—” I stopped talking when I saw his beaming smile.
“I’m listening,” he said with a nod.
“What’s the point? You already know what I’m going to say.”
> “I’m sorry.” He sat up and took my hand. “I promise I won’t listen to your thoughts—for now.”
“You can do that?”
“Most of the time I’m actually not paying attention to your thoughts. It’s just when you’re very quiet that I…help myself.”
“Hm, that doesn’t make it okay, you know?” I shook my head. “Well, anyway, I’ve been thinking. You kill people, David. I love you—and you kill people.” David shuffled in his spot, and I added quickly, “But Skittles made me realise something.”
“Skittles? I didn’t know he could talk.”
“I guess everything has a voice, if you’re willing to listen.” I took a deep breath. “What I wanted to say is…I realised that what you eat doesn’t change who you are. I mean, if you were lost in the wild after a plane crash and had to eat the pilot to survive, no one would think anything of it. Humans are the element of your survival, and…I can accept that…at least until the end of the summer.”
One corner of his mouth turned up, ever so slightly. “But, not for forever?”
“Forever,” I laughed the word out. “That used to have such a different meaning to me.” I smiled and looked away. “I can’t even comprehend eternity. It’s too much for my puny human brain to take. I—” I pulled his clenched fist away from the grip of his hair and held it tight, “—I love you. I love David—the boy. Don’t you see? We’re looking at this all wrong. We could spend the rest of our lives together—well, my life, I suppose—as just David and Ara, as human as possible, and the rest doesn’t really have to involve me. I can accept you for what you are, well…” I reconsidered my words, “More who you are—it doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it.”
With his silence prompting me, I let my mouth wander. “I thought about it all last night. We could wait ‘til we get older, then we could get married and one day adopt if we wanted kids, and then, when the ageing starts to show—my ageing—I could get plastic surgery to look younger, and…” I paused, studying David’s shifting expression, “And we could be together. Be a family—the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Ara?” David snatched his hand back.
“No, David. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to lose you. I need to be with you—no matter what?”