Damon

by Vanessa Hawkes

  We drove in utter silence for at least half an hour before Damon decided to forgive me. He glanced at me, then reached over to hold my hand, and entwining his fingers with mine, he held me with a firm grip.

  “I didn’t mean anything bad,” I told him, and the whole world, because I couldn’t shake the burning feelings of resentment after having been so grossly misunderstood.

  But I’d received all the forgiveness I was going to get. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that Mama was still staring at me with hard eyes, intent on holding a grudge. Damon wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  So I freed my hand, crossed my arms, and stared out my window.

  And our happy little group drove the last two hours to Knoxville in silence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Once we hit the city, everyone’s mood brightened. The scattered distractions made the last three hours blissfully disappear. Damon looked at me and smiled, then put both hands on the wheel when an eighteen-wheeler crowded us. I looked back at Mama and she was staring up at the truck in awe.

  Excitement began to bubble low in my belly. “What are we gonna do here?” I asked Damon.

  “Have fun, see if we can find that building in the picture,” he said lightly. “Pay a little visit to a place up here.”

  “What place?”

  “Tell ya later,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror at my mother.

  If he meant what I thought he meant, I wanted to know immediately. For me the word ‘place’ had only ever meant one thing: psychiatric hospital.

  Mama had almost died in the last ‘place’ and I had vowed not to send her away again until I absolutely had to. Her health was very fragile, and I firmly believed that I was the only one who could keep her alive.

  “You don’t mean a ‘place’ place, do you?” I asked. Surely, he meant something else. He barely knew us and certainly had no authority to have Mama committed.

  Damon turned the music back on and sent me a seductive glance. “We’ll pick her up on Saturday.”

  This man truly did amaze me. It seemed like he had a hundred things in the works at all times. He was a man of action, all right, but I didn’t like him interfering in Mama’s medical affairs. I liked Dr. Sanderson and trusted him. He’d been able to put a stop to Mama’s rampages, and she seemed to be doing fine. We were both still alive under his care.

  “I don’t know. I don’t trust people. Her present medication is the result of years of trial and error.”

  “It’s a different kind of place,” he said.

  “Stop conspiring against me,” Mama said. “I have a contract.”

  “Sorry, Mama.”

  She was right, she did have a signed agreement. It was part of Dr. Sanderson’s therapy to help Mama feel more secure at home. The agreement was simple: Mama thought up all the things she hated and I had to agree not to do them. I couldn’t whisper about her, lock her in her room, or block the doorways when she felt panicky. I couldn’t talk on the telephone in a hushed voice, threaten her with hospitalization, or criticize her behavior. I couldn’t use the C-word. I couldn’t conspire to have her murdered and dumped in the river, or send subliminal messages into her mind through radio waves or a hidden tape player under her bed. I could not sell her to the devil.

  “We’ll talk later,” I told Damon. “After we find a motel.”

  But he was a hard man to stop. He used a handwritten map and pulled up at a two-story brick building before we’d even found a motel. He wanted Mama out of the way for our vacation. Selfishly, so did I. But only if I could pick her up on Saturday.

  Yet, I was confused when I noticed that the building wasn’t a hospital. It appeared to be an apartment house.

  And not in the best neighborhood.

  Houses no better than mine filled the rest of the neighborhood. “I don’t understand.”

  Damon pointed to the lower part of the red brick house. “She lives there, at the door on the right.”

  “Who does?”

  “Sonya’s sister.”

  I caught his arm before he opened his door. “Wait. Aunt Cynthia got married and moved to South Dakota. This isn’t right.”

  “She moved here last year, after her divorce,” he told me. “I called her Friday night. She wants to keep Sonya for the week. To try and make-up for all that went wrong in the past.”

  “Conspiring,” Mama moaned from the back seat. “Help me. Take me home. I’m not ready to die.”

  “No we’re not, Mama,” I told her quickly. Then I turned back to Damon. “You didn’t meet me until Thursday. What’s going on?”

  He looked at me innocently. “I found a letter from Cynthia, saying she wanted to come visit. When I saw she was from Knoxville, I knew it was fate. We had to come here.”

  “I never saw a letter like that.”

  “It was behind Sonya’s dresser.”

  I could only stare at him and blink. I was surprised, angry, and a little excited.

  “She feels bad about abandoning her sister,” he said as if I were uncaring. “She wants to give it another try now that the doctor changed Sonya’s meds.”

  “Is Cyndi here?” Mama asked. “You’re talking about her. I can hear your whispers.”

  I turned to involve her in the conversation. She sounded interested in seeing her sister again. “Mama, Damon says Aunt Cynthia lives here. She wants to see you.”

  Mama patted her short, dull-gray hair. “Do I look all right? Am I ugly?”

  She looked haggard and anorexic, as usual. “You look good. Real pretty, Mama. Do you want to see her?”

  She had to think about it.

  Aunt Cynthia had lived with us until after Gram died, and Mama had had her worst episode. I’d never blamed her for leaving – she’d barely escaped with her life. But I did blame her for never calling or writing. I hadn’t even known she’d moved to Knoxville. I’d never met her husband and now she was divorced.

  “I think so,” Mama finally decided. “Cyndi’s my big sister. We played as girls.”

  I looked at Damon and wondered if he might be a messenger of goodwill, in disguise. He smiled at me, but the smile was fake, and wicked. He had a fiendish look in his eyes that could have floored a professional wrestler.

  I frowned at him and opened my door. “Stay here, both of you, until I can check this out.”

  Damon’s behavior sometimes, I pondered as I walked up to the door, could be too like Mama’s. He was secretive and deceptive for no reason, he held grudges, he had no regard for boundaries, and he tried to intimidate with threatening stares and strange behavior. And, I was beginning to wonder if he had a conscience.

  Aunt Cynthia opened the door before I’d knocked and smiled nervously. “Maggie, look at you,” she said cheerfully. “You’re all grown up and so pretty. How was your trip?”

  She surprised me by how much she looked like Mama. I’d forgotten. She was three or four years older but looked ten years younger because of her mental stability. Her nut-brown hair had some gray but was still long and shiny. “Hi, Aunt Cynthia. Surprise.”

  She gave me a tentative hug then looked over my shoulder at the car. She smelled like vanilla soap and cigarette smoke, reminding me, with a painful gut-clench, of Gram. “Is she doing better?”

  I backed away and fought against the urge to look at the car. If Mama saw me do that, she would immediately become suspicious. “She hasn’t had an episode in over a year now.” Not a serious episode, anyway. “She wants to see you.”

  “Oh, good,” Aunt Cynthia said, seeming to relax. Her hazel brown eyes turned watery and aimed themselves at me like arrows. “I don’t really know what to say, Maggie… I just… I couldn’t breathe. Do you know? I wanted to… but…. I needed some time for myself. I feel so bad. I left you all alone with her, and you were so young. It was a rotten thing to do.”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s all right.” I couldn’t make myself meet her eyes and examined the building instead.

  “Well, let’s go say hi.” Her vo
ice had hardened. “And get that over with.”

  I whirled my body around. “Okay,” I said cheerfully and led the way, jogging the first few steps.

  Aunt Cynthia seemed more familiar with Damon than her own family members, which bothered me, and they did most of the chatting while Mama and I stood on the lawn listening and feeling awkward.

  “Let’s go inside,” Aunt Cynthia finally said. She put her arm around Mama’s shoulders and spoke to her as if Mama were a child, or completely stupid. “We’re gonna go inside now, sweetheart. So we can sit down and visit. You’ll be staying with me this week. How does that sound, honey?”

  Mama hated to be touched and pushed her sister’s arm away. “Just like old times,” she said, staring hard at Cynthia. “Maggie wants to sell me to the devil. She sends me letters.”

  “I’m sure she’s just teasing,” Aunt Cynthia played along, winking at me over her shoulder.

  “So you say,” was Mama’s grave response. “So you all say.”

  ***

  After two hours of visiting, Damon and I left Aunt Cynthia’s house to find a motel. Cynthia only had one bed and a sleeper sofa, and besides, the point was to get away from Mama. I wasn’t quite so annoyed with him anymore. Mama seemed happy to be back with her sister, and Aunt Cynthia seemed prepared to handle the responsibility. She’d done it for years, so the instructions were familiar to her. She hadn’t even really listened as I went over them.

  Damon had actually managed to give me a vacation, after all.

  I only wished he had talked to me about it instead of being so presumptuous, pushy, and sneaky. And I wanted him to stop going though our private things looking for the information he wanted. He had apparently seen every last thing I owned, even the private things. He’d probably read my diary.

  “What do you do for a living?” I asked him.

  He was focused on heavy traffic, but didn’t hesitate in answering. “I’m an astronaut.”

  I tried to laugh, just to play along and be on vacation. “No, really.”

  “I’m a scientist. A physicist. An astrophysicist.”

  “Really?”

  He rolled the car to a nice stop at a red light. “No. I’m a race car driver.”

  “Damon,” I complained.

  He gave me a sly, serious glance, never breaking a smile. “I’m a vampire.”

  Now I was annoyed. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “I have money from Granddad. Before that I was in the military.”

  Oh, really…. “Really?” I challenged.

  “Army. Special Forces. Nimbus Unit 8675309.”

  “That’s from an old song.”

  “Numbers stick in my mind and never leave. I’m a math genius.”

  I sat back hard. “Fine, don’t tell me. But I’m not gonna believe anything you say from now on. Bank on it.”

  He jerked the car off into a parking lot and came to an abrupt stop. When he turned to me, his eyes were both indignant and hurt. “I’m an explorer,” he said. “I go where no one else is brave enough to go. I travel worlds.” He lowered his voice to a low whisper. “I’m an alien. A shapeshifter. I travel the universe exploring civilizations. I take their form and study them. I cross dimensions.” He pressed a finger against my lips. “But don’t tell them I’m a vampire. They don’t know.”

  I pulled his hand away from my face. “Babe,” I said, trying to stay calm, “I don’t care what you do. I just want you to tell me the truth.”

  “Maggie,” he whispered like a long sigh. He trailed a light finger over my temple and down my cheek. “Don’t make me lie.”

  “I’m not. Just be honest.”

  “I joined the army when I was eighteen,” he said, his voice hardening. “I was discharged before boot camp ended. I’d already started having problems. Granddad supported me. I can’t hold a job, baby. I tried. I tried and tried. I don’t work well with others. I lose track of time. I say things that make people turn on me. I’m just barely hanging on right now. Please don’t ask hard questions.”

  I looked at the people coming out of a restaurant, certain they could hear our unpleasant conversation. It terrified me that Damon knew he was going crazy. I’d figured he didn’t really know, or that crazy people were too crazy to know they were crazy. By the time I was old enough to know something was wrong with my mother she was already a permanent passenger on the crazy train.

  I really didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Okay. It’s fine. I understand. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  He stroked my hair and whispered, “I’m sorry,” close to my ear, but I didn’t want to look at him. I was afraid he would be grotesquely ugly again.

  He tried to turn my head but I wouldn’t give in. He wasn’t deterred and pressed warm lips and a tantalizing tongue to my neck, slowing kissing his way downward. His hand reached under my shirt and touched my bare stomach.

  “Don’t,” I said. And I meant it. I pushed him away and gave him a dirty look. “I’ve decided to hold a grudge for a change.”

  “Hmm,” he murmured, examining me through veiled lids. “I know what Maggie needs.”

  We were off again, and this time Damon drove aggressively, weaving through traffic and running yellow lights. The speed fit my mood and I searched the radio stations for something good, something with some drive and beat.

  I found a rock station and sat back to enjoy the rush of adrenaline. For the first time in years, I truly felt young again. I was free and on my very first vacation.

  Damon turned the air conditioner on high, I guess to simulate wind. I stood it for about five minutes, then had to switch it off because my eyes hurt and I was shivering.

  I rolled down my window for some warmer air.

  “How do you like this?” he said.

  He swerved the car into the parking lot of a large hotel and I stared up at the grand structure in awe.

  I’d never stayed in a real hotel before. Damon’s family might have had some money, but my family had always been third class all the way. This place was plush.

  “We’re staying here?”

  “I made reservations. It’s perfect.”

  I wanted to stay in this beautiful hotel but I only had my two hundred dollars emergency cash in my bag. And I was a little intimidated. I didn’t have the clothes to fit in here.

  But I wanted to stay here, so I started mentally finagling my finances and decided I could probably squeeze another hundred out of my checking account with my ATM card. If I put off a few bills and tried to make up the difference cleaning houses once we got back home. Provided I still had a job when I got back. “It looks expensive.”

  “I dragged you here so it’s on me,” he said and leaned in close to see if I would give him a kiss. “Don’t be mad, okay. I have a few years left before I completely lose my mind. I’ll find the answer, I promise. Before it’s too late. You can trust me.”

  Maybe I was gullible, or maybe I just wanted some peace in my life, but I decided to believe him. And I decided to get into the mood of a vacation while I had the chance.

  ***

  Our room wasn’t as large as I would have imagined, but it was luxurious and very clean. We had a mini-bar, a big TV in a wood cabinet, and a nice view of the river. We also had a king-size bed.

  Damon walked across the big bed then stepped down to look out the window.

  It felt odd being in this strange room with him. Always before, I’d had the comfort of home to soften his presence.

  Just to see if it helped, I walked across the bed, too, and stepped up to the window beside him. I only felt marginally more relaxed.

  To my surprise, Damon scooped me up in his arms and tossed me on the bed. Before I’d stopped bouncing, he dove at me, landing on top of me without actually touching me. He looked down at me with a villainous grin and eyes to match, and roughly forced my legs apart with his knees.

  He kissed me slowly, easing his weight down over me. Then he gently rubbed my temples until I felt ve
ry soft and warm.

  “What happened with Teddy?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “What went wrong? I need to know.”

  I stiffened from head to toe and looked into his eyes. “You did read my diary!”

  He gazed at me with a worried expression. “You said you loved him so much you thought about carving his name in your arm. Then you never wrote about him again. What’d he do?”

  “I don’t know. That was forever ago.”

  “Only two years ago. You still remember.”

  “Somebody’s going to shoot you someday,” I told him. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Did he cheat on you? Hit you? Was he bad in bed?”

  “No,” I sighed. “He met Mama and…. She wouldn’t always take her medication back then and really put on a show for him. She was a bad horror movie that night, a real one-woman show. He had to be taken to the hospital for stitches and Mama was arrested. She thought he was an assassin sent by the devil to kill her and dump her body in the river. She upended the dinner table, and the wonderful meal I’d cooked. Then she broke off a leg of the table and attacked him with it. What I remember most was that I couldn’t stop screaming. They had to give me a sedative. I’d just had enough, all I could take. Something in my mind snapped. I’ve never been quite the same since.”

  A violent shudder passed through me at the memories. Dark moving shadows, loud crashing noises, and the faraway screams in my ears. “Anyway, I learned not to make that mistake again. I never brought anyone else home. You got in only because you barged in.”

  He rested on his side, still half covering me, and lifted my hand. He traced the scar on my wrist with his tongue. “Is that what caused this?”

  I tried to pull my hand away, but he wouldn’t let go. “Don’t.”

  “Tell me. I showed you all my scars.”

  After growling, I decided to be fair. He had told me about his dozens of scars, including the time his father had locked him in a closet for days and Damon had been forced to drink his own blood to survive.

  “I didn’t do it that night, I did it the next night, after Teddy told me I was even crazier than Mama and I’d better stay the hell away from him or he’d make me pay. He was so mean, right in front of our friends. He started telling them all about what Mama had done and they just stared at me. They just kept staring and staring, like they were horrified. I thought I wanted to die. I didn’t really. It was just the worse night of my life, worse than the dinner with Mama, and I happened to have Grammy’s fingernail scissors handy. Dr. Sanderson said it was the result of stress and that it happens sometimes to children of schizophrenics. It doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”