by eden Hudson
“Tastes different,” I say. “Last time you made these they were good, but… This time they’re amazing. What’d you change?”
Tiff plops into the booth seat beside me. “Cinnamon in the cream.”
“Real cinnamon sticks, real bourbon vanilla extract.” I’ve heard that lecture a million times now. “You should make them this way every time.”
She gives me a wry smile. “You like anything with cinnamon.”
Not cinnamon schnapps. But I don’t say that out loud. Drinking isn’t something Tiff and I talk about. Food, yes. Coffee, yes. Whether Tough’s okay, how business is going, Mulder’s porn collection—all yes. Not drinking. Not training. Not planning out what I’m going to do with every single second that I’m not in the bakery and sticking to the plan because crazy people don’t follow schedules.
“You know,” Tiff says, looking at me sideways like she can tell I wandered off for a minute there. “Some people are allergic to cinnamon.”
“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
She smiles and scoots over to lean against me. “Start my damn programs.”
I tap her computer screen, bring up the player, and find the episode we’re on. It’s hard to believe we’re just halfway through Season 5. But lately we’ve been talking more and watching less.
Once it’s playing, I sit back and put my arm around Tiff so she’ll get some heat on her left side, too. She squirms around until she’s comfortable. I almost miss the tagline because I’m paying attention to her. The way she feels, the way she smells—like cigarettes and coffee and cinnamon and hot peppers. I love that smell. It turns me on and relaxes me all at the same time.
I get settled and look up at the screen. The tagline is just starting to fade. I lunge forward and hit pause.
“What are you doing?” Tiffani says.
“Resist or Serve,” I read, pointing at the screen.
“Yeah?”
It’s like my whole life condensed into three words. Even bigger. It’s like everything in history condensed into three words.
“Colt?”
Three words. Who ever thought I’d be okay with three words—thirteen letters—two of the worst numbers out there? But they keep running through my head—resist or serve resist or serve resist or serve—and it’s like my OCD can’t even compete with their efficiency. Even after I turn the episode back on and Tiff stops looking at me with that little crease between her eyebrows, they’re still there.
Resist or Serve.
*****
When I walk into the tattoo parlor later on that evening, Lonely drops the flash he’s working on and claps his hands.
“The other shoulder cap,” he says, pointing.
“Not today,” I say. “I’ve got something better.”
He grins his eerie crow grin and cocks his head at me. “There’s nothing better than a balanced spirit, white knight.”
But he’s wrong. When everything in the world makes sense in just a few words, when all the crazy shit and death and fighting and loss and sacrifice can be focused into one sentence, one phrase you can hang onto, that’s better than anything.
*****
The chest piece takes Lonely about forty-five minutes to outline and another two hours to shade. At one point, the tattoo iron shakes my ribcage so bad that I start to see black at the edges of my vision. Lonely calls for a break just before I pass out. He stretches the cramps out of his hand while I lean forward with my head between my knees and breathe. Then we start up again.
By the time he’s done, I know I won’t be able to wait all night to show Tiff. I pay Lonely, then head straight to the cemetery.
It’s misting out and kind of foggy, but I keep the Explorer floored. About halfway there it occurs to me that I haven’t had a drink since last night. But the tattoo-high, that invincible feeling, is buzzing in my head. The black noise has stayed tamped down all day. I’ve barely had to fight it. I haven’t seen anything I shouldn’t. I don’t feel crazy. I don’t feel anything but excited. All I want is to show Tiffani. I know she’ll get it. I know she’ll understand when she sees it. She can’t look at any of my other tattoos because they’re Bible verses and they hurt her, but this one she’ll get.
When I get to the cemetery, I park on the highway, then jump out.
Fog has collected around the headstones. I hear a feminine giggle somewhere off to the west side of the cemetery, but I know it’s not Tiffani. Tiffani never giggles. When she laughs, the sound comes from down in her chest. And it always sounds surprised, like she wasn’t expecting to hear anything funny.
Footsteps in the grass to my right.
“Colt?” Tiffani comes out of the mist. “What are you doing here?”
My heart skips a couple beats, then sprints to make up for it. I try to hold back the stupid grin, but I can’t.
“I wanted to show you my new ink.” I pull my shirt off over my head, then peel back the plastic with my free hand. The skin around the tattoo is still tender and hot, but the cool, wet fall air feels good on it.
Tiffani just stands there, staring. Long enough that the rational side of my brain finally catches up.
This is insane. Normal people don’t track each other down in cemeteries in the middle of the night. They go home and wait until morning to tell their only friends about their new tattoo. This is something a crazy, lonely person would do.
I can feel the blood flooding my face, turning my cheeks Whitney-red.
What the hell was I thinking?
I wasn’t. That’s the problem. I just did it. I didn’t have a plan or a backup, I didn’t consider any possible outcomes. Now I’m here and I can’t just throw my shirt back on and say, “Just kidding. See ya,” and run away. I’m so fucking stupid.
One hand has a death-grip on my shirt, the other is ticking off fingers. Except this time, instead of numbers, I’m counting syllables—resist or serve, resist or serve…
Without any warning, Tiffani closes the distance between us. Vamp speed. From twenty feet away to less than a foot in the time it takes me to flinch. Time, the world, everything stops. She reaches out. Her fingers are so cold that they burn as she traces the tender red skin around the ink. Goose bumps break out all over my chest.
My voice is hoarse when I ask her, “What do you think?”
“I’m not that into tattoos,” she says. “Sort of old-fashioned that way.”
But she doesn’t stop tracing the letters or even look up at me.
“You like it,” I say.
Tiff smiles.
That’s all it takes. I feel like I can breathe again. Like everything is okay. Better than okay—perfect. Everything is perfect.
I squeeze the shirt tighter in my fist. I never want this to end. I don’t want her to ever stop touching me. Please, God, never let me forget exactly how this feels. If I can remember this, if I can hang onto this feeling, then nothing bad will ever matter.
Tiffani
We were in the bakery. Colt’s arm around me. His coffee, his cinnamon roll, the cigarette in my hand. He said something, then took a drink. I couldn’t hear him, but I recognized the look on his face. He played it straight as a yardstick whenever he made a joke.
I watched, waited. His long eyelashes, the dark stubble coming in on his jaw, the motion of his throat as he swallowed. I wanted to run the backs of my fingers across his cheek. But if I just waited…
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
When he saw that I saw him looking, he ducked his head and tried to fight the smile.
I felt myself laugh, but no sound came with it.
A distant part of my mind registered that I wasn’t sitting in the bakery with Colt. It felt the hot, dry dirt under my cheek growing wet with blood. It knew I hadn’t bled in more than fifty years, that blood itself hadn’t smelled like this to me since I was human. This was what blood smelled like to Colt. Not glowing life, but waning death.
I pushed that part of my mind away. I w
anted to stay there with Colt, to have his arm around me even though I knew it wasn’t, to feel the way I felt when he looked at me to see if I thought his joke was funny.
Just one more minute. I just needed to stay there for one more minute. Then I would get back up and start picking my way across the minefield again.
Colt
I head down the pharmacy aisle, looking for the sutures and some rubbing alcohol. I’m not hurt, but the med kit is low on one and out of the other and you never know when you’re going to get shot or stabbed. Also, Tiff’s been out of town the last few days and I can’t stand to be in that fucking cabin staring at the walls by myself for another fucking second. So refilling the med kit it is.
Or trying to refill the med kit. I can’t find anything I’m looking for. Which is ridiculous since the Halo pharmacy only has four aisles. I’m pretty sure Beth Ann rearranges this place every couple of weeks so that people have to ask her where things are.
It’s easier to blame that nosy rip Beth Ann than to admit that I’m a little drunk and having some trouble focusing. If I cop to the drinking, then I have to remember why I’m drunk at two in the afternoon in town instead of back at the cabin, training.
There—rubbing alcohol. I grab a bottle. It takes me a couple more trips down the aisles before I find the sutures. For some reason they’re right next to the condoms.
Then I realize why. One of the brands the pharmacy carries is BawdyHeat. Vamp condoms.
I wonder if Tiffani uses these when she’s with vamp groupies. Have things ever gotten out of control enough that the groupie she was with needed stitches?
Thinking about Tiff’s fangs ripping into flesh makes me rock-hard. I know it’s messed up, but her biting me has been my go-to fantasy for the last four years. The idea of her doing it to someone else makes my throat hurt and my stomach clench.
I know she can’t help it. Primal things like sex and blood feed the crow magic that makes her a vamp. Tiff does what she needs to do to survive. Anyway, what did I think? That she would want to have sex with me? Who the fuck would want me?
Tiffani hasn’t even fed on me since that first time. We’re just friends…I think. I think she thinks of me as a friend. But maybe I’m just another annoyance she can’t get rid of. Too stupid to take the hint and leave her alone.
If she wanted things to go further, she would’ve made a move by now. Her super-smell is so powerful she can probably smell exactly what I imagined us doing the last time I beat off. Am I just supposed to believe that in four years she hasn’t once noticed how badly I want her? Even without her super-smeller, she can probably hear my heart race every time I see her. She knows. There’s no way she doesn’t.
Maybe it’s because I’m drunk. Maybe it’s because I’m delusional. Maybe it’s because I miss Tiffani and I wish like hell she was missing me, too.
Whatever the reason, I pick up a box of vamp condoms and take them up to the counter with everything else.
Beth Ann smirks down at my items. “Will this be all for you?”
It hadn’t occurred to me before this very second that rubbing alcohol, sutures, and vamp condoms all together make it look like I’m about to go party with somebody cold. My face turns Whitney-red, but I don’t squirm.
“That’s it,” I say.
Beth Ann’s eyes gleam as she rings everything up. I wait for her to say something about how coffin fever must run in the family, but Beth Ann just takes my cash and gives me my change.
“Would you like a bag or do you need these handy?” she asks, batting her eyelashes at me.
I give her a flat stare. “A bag is fine.”
Once I’m in the Explorer, I throw the bag into the passenger seat and turn the key.
I can hear Ryder’s high-pitched giggle in my head. After all his ragging on me about girls, about how it wasn’t normal not to even be interested in sex, and after all my preaching at him and Tough about not getting caught up by the shit of this world, Ryder would have loved to see this go down.
“Happy birthday, asshole,” I say, putting the Explorer in gear and backing out.
Tiffani
Gritty dirt stuck to my tongue. Blood pooled around me, soaking into the dry ground. I hurt everywhere, a deep throbbing ache.
Mines. Of all the damn things, mines. I couldn’t have picked someone with a little less familiarity with explosives?
What the fuck is wrong with you? Ryder said. His flickering image stood looking down at me, shaking his head. You think all this is just for funsies? I told you, he doesn’t want you here. Get. The fuck. Out.
My fingers curled, scratching little lines in the dirt. My body shook. Took me a minute to realize that the shaking was me crying.
It hurt. Worse than the pain from the explosion. Worse than the broken glass sea. Worse than the razor wire. I was the last person Colt wanted to remember? Well, he was the only person I wanted to remember. I wanted to feel how I felt when we were together, when I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I was old enough to be his great-grandmother, when I wasn’t wishing he would fall in love with someone good enough for him, when I wasn’t regretting the last vamp groupie I’d had sex with while imagining it was his body, his skin, his kiss.
Damn it, Colt. My voice sounded as if it had been ripped apart by the explosion. I pressed my face to the ground. For years, I’d told myself that all I wanted was to be left alone. I had lied to myself for so long that I started to believe it. But Colt had come along and slipped right past my walls, dug himself into my chest so deep that I was never getting him back out. I’m not leaving.
I pushed myself up onto my hands and one remaining knee and crawled.
Colt
Somehow I make it back to the arsenal and stow the rifle. My hands are shaking and slick with sweat. I wipe my palms on my jeans. I feel sick, like the black noise has solidified in my stomach and it’s pulling me down.
I killed a guy. Six hundred yards, no suppressor, no cover, no chance for him to defend himself or for Mikal to defend him. I straight-up murdered him. A human.
Part of me wants to cry like a baby, go curl up by Sissy and Ryder’s graves and never get up again. The rest of me knows I can’t.
“Stick to the plan,” I say.
Even though it hasn’t dropped below ninety since the beginning of June and I feel like I’m on fire, a shiver rolls down my back.
I lock the rifle case, set it up in its spot, and head outside. For a second, I just stand there staring at the cabin. There’s a bottle of SoCo on the dresser in the bedroom.
“Shit.” I scrub my hands across my face. I can’t drink. That’s why I put the bottle in the bedroom—so I’d be less likely to go after it. Alcohol holds back the black noise, but it also dulls the lines. I have to be able to see the lines to get the sword. If Mikal comes after me today— And why wouldn’t she? She has to know it was me. Who else would murder a guy just so—
My stomach pitches, but there’s nothing in it. I left what little I was able to eat back by that fence at the edge of Dark Mansion property after I took the shot.
I start walking. I don’t even think about taking the Explorer until I’m out of the trees and across the Hickses’ pasture. Just as well. They’ll be looking for my vehicle, anyway.
By the time I make it to the bakery, the bank clock is flashing a quarter to four. The door is locked and the place is dark. Tiff’s out hunting.
I know the code. I could go in. It’s safe in there. I can shut everything out when I’m in there, just be with her, surrounded by everything that makes her Tiffani.
But I don’t touch the keypad. I put my back to the wall, shove my hands down into my pockets. The heat from the bricks soaks into my skin and makes my shirt stick to my back, but I can’t stop shivering.
I shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t be dragging this to Tiffani’s door. It’s not her fight. But I miss her. Fuck, I miss her. I haven’t touched the bottle in a week, haven’t been by to see her in at least that long. I
can’t go through with this if I can’t see her one more time.
Just let me tell her goodbye. That’s all I want. Please, God, just let me tell her goodbye.
Then there she is, coming across the square. It’s like I prayed her into existence. And even though everything is awful, even though I’m a murderer, and this is probably one of my last few hours as a free man, I grin. Five years Tiff and I have been hanging out, and I still can’t help but smile. Seeing her is like being able to breathe again.
“I was starting to think you were done coming by,” she says. “You get stuck in a missile silo?”
The smile freezes in place. I have to look down at the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” I say, but I can’t make it sound like I’m joking, too.
Tiff stares at me for a second, then turns and punches in the code. The metallic chink of the deadbolt opening sounds exactly like the action on a Tac-Ops Tango 51 sniper rifle.
She holds the door for me. I flip the lights on and head straight for our booth.
“I’m going to go get a shower,” Tiff says. “Be right back down.”
I nod and slide into the seat. Sitting is such a relief. It feels like I’ve been on my feet for days.
My eyes slip shut. Tiff will be back in a second. She’ll lean against me for warmth, and I’ll feel her beside me. Everything will be all right for a little while.
Tiffani
It took six unlucky guesses before I got good enough at spotting the land mines to drag what was left of my body through the rest. By the end, there really wasn’t much left to drag. An arm, part of my chest, my head.
When I came to the edge of the minefield, my body regenerated again. I stood, then took a second to light up again. Looked around while I waited for the cigarette to sooth the shake from my hands.
Ryder was gone, but Mikal and the creature were still up ahead. Crossing the minefield had closed the distance between them and me. Now I could see a leash running from the creature’s neck to her hand. It wasn’t begging for mercy at her feet like I’d thought. It was clinging to her legs, licking her red spike-heeled boots.