by eden Hudson
“Tough was her favorite,” I say. “You know he was.”
There’s a metallic snap and her hand comes away from the door with the broken key-head still in her fingers.
Son of a bitch. I can’t believe that worked.
I take a step closer. “Look, vamp, I get that you hated Dad and us kids, too, but if you loved Mom—if you ever even liked her—”
I don’t even see the vampire move, just feel the sting of the slap. My head jerks sideways.
Then she’s standing there glaring at me, a snarl on her lips, that disinterested exterior gone. She can pull that stoic bullshit all she wants, but that’s all it is—bullshit. Deep down, she cares.
I turn around and start the walk back to the cabin. On the way, I work out a new plan, one based around her.
Lonely was right. That secret was well worth the five bucks.
*****
It’s sleeting when I pull up outside the bakery, has been on and off since midnight. The shitty weather is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
I shut off the Explorer and sit there, watching for the vamp and bouncing my leg. My knee bumps the keys, so I have to keep doing it until I can get it to resolve right—an even number of bounces per key-swing, which part of me knows is a losing battle. But the rest of me is pretty sure everything this morning is riding on getting the bump-to-swing ratio right. I know that’s not how things work. I know God directs everything and whether some random thing like breaths or heartbeats or leg bumps to key swings divides out evenly has nothing to do with it.
But I can’t stop. I get like this when a plan is on the verge of coming together, more compulsive than usual. Especially when I haven’t had enough to drink. But I can’t go back to the cabin. I have to be here when the vamp gets here.
Every morning for the past two months I’ve been bugging her about Tough, trying to get her to make a deal with me. Also tracking her a little bit, overnight. When Brady, the guy she’s protecting, is out of town working, the vamp goes to the cemetery, finds a groupie and an empty mausoleum. Tonight, though, only a couple of hardcore groupies were out. Finn, that kid from Tough’s class who got made right after high school, and Logan, that older vamp with the Scottish accent, had gotten there first and taken all the available bleeders.
There’s a streak of motion to my right. She’s back. She stops in front of the bakery and shakes some of the icy rain off before digging into her coat pocket for the key.
I get out of the Explorer and jog up under the awning.
Without even looking my way, the vamp sighs. “Take a hint already, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re older than you look.” She unlocks the bakery and heads inside.
I stick my foot in the door before she can slam it.
“What, kid, what do you want?” she snaps. “The answer is no. It’s no today, it was no yesterday, it’s going to be no tomorrow.”
“Hungry?”
A little crease appears between her eyebrows. “What?”
“Are you hungry?” I push back my coat sleeve and hold out my wrist.
She’s staring, not at my wrist, but at the rest of my body. I try not to squirm, but this look is really intense, like she can see through my clothes.
“Let me guess,” she says. “You’ll let me drink if I spy on your brother for you?”
“Tell me one time if you know Tough’s in trouble. You can even pick the situation. It doesn’t even have to be mortal danger.”
She tilts her head.
“I’ve got blood in the fridge,” she says, but it sounds like she’s trying to remind herself.
“Will it warm you up?” I ask.
She doesn’t say anything, but I know the answer. Lonely told me that only blood from a living sacrifice can heat the undead.
I move closer to her. “One drink, one warning.”
“From your wrist?” she says.
I nod. That seemed like the smartest place when I was coming up with this plan. If I let her drink from the jugular or brachial, I’ll lose positional advantages I might need if this turns into a fight. Giving an NP easy access to my balls isn’t going to happen, so the femoral was out. My off-wrist would give me the best position and protect anything vital.
Finally, the vamp steps back and opens the door wider.
I go inside, trying to keep one eye on her and scope out the bakery for potential threats at the same time. Staircase, blind corner up there coming down the hallway, counter—the display case is see-through, so no cover there—another blind corner at the hall to the bathrooms… How did I not notice what a death trap this place was when I was a kid?
“Give me your wrist,” the vamp says.
I turn and face her. “Agree to the deal first.”
I know there’s no way to hold someone to a deal like this. That’s the fundamental flaw in this plan. I should turn around and walk back out the door right now, but I can’t.
At my side, my thumb starts ticking off fingers. The numbers rattle off in the back of my brain—one, two, three, four, three, two, one, two—but they’re doing the opposite of calming me down. The longer the silence drags out, the more I wish I could pace or move around, burn off some of this anxiety.
“Fine,” she says. “If you let me drink off you today, I’ll tell you one time when Tough’s in trouble.”
I hold my arm out to her, take my opposite hand out of my pocket just in case.
The vamp grabs my elbow and forearm. She lifts my wrist to her mouth and bites.
My hand spasms into a fist. It hurts like a bitch, like cold steel pins jammed in between my tendons. But her lips are so soft.
Then she starts sucking. I can feel every taste bud on her tongue sliding over my skin, massaging my veins to keep the blood flowing. Not that she’ll have a problem, the way my heart is pounding.
I can barely breathe anymore. Every part of me feels like it needs to move—run, jump, scream, something. Staying still is driving me crazy, but I know if I move, she’ll use bite sedative and I won’t be able to feel this anymore.
Because suddenly that’s all that matters—the way it hurts and feels so… It’s like when I get tattooed, except more intense. It’s sharp and soft and I want more of it.
She tears away from my wrist.
“Get out,” she says. Her eyes are shut tight, her hands white-knuckling the counter.
I swallow. It’s as loud as a gunshot.
The vamp spins around and shoves me toward the door. “Get out!”
I stumble back to the Explorer. Get in and just sit there, staring at the dashboard. My heart’s still racing and I can’t get my breathing under control.
“Shit.” I grab the steering wheel with shaky hands and rest my forehead against the top. A drop of blood falls from my wrist onto the knee of my jeans.
Everything feels different. The cold feels colder. I can feel the inside of my coat sleeves rubbing against my arm hair, the blood and saliva drying on my wrist. I curl my toes in my shoes, feel my socks sliding against the bottom of my feet and have to stop.
Every inch of my skin feels alive, electric. Like all my nerves were dead, but that bite jumpstarted them. It’s too much. Over-stimulation. I lean my head back against the headrest, take a deep breath, and blow it back out.
What the hell just happened?
Her tongue—cold and wet—and the way she was sucking…
I want to hit something. I want to get into a fight. I want to yell and smash stuff and bleed.
My stomach growls. Apparently I’m hungry, too.
No, not just hungry. Starving. I can’t remember if I ate yesterday or not, but I don’t want just whatever’s at the cabin. I want something good. I’d kill for some taco pizza right now.
Just thinking about it is making my mouth water. I haven’t had pizza since Ryder was alive. Whenever he wanted to order one from the gas station, I bitched about how much it cost and about having to drive into town to get
it and how we had food right there in the fridge if he was hungry.
“It’s not just about being hungry, Sunshine,” he would say. “Anyway, assholes don’t get to vote. Come on, Tough, let’s go get us some fucking pizza.”
My stomach growls again.
For once I don’t really feel like over-thinking this. If I do, I’ll just decide I can’t have it. I’ll make up excuses about how someone’ll probably slash my tires again while I’m waiting for them to cook it and how people will think I’m a stoner for ordering a pizza at one-thirty in the morning and how I should’ve been less of an asshole when Ryder was alive and Tough was still at home.
I turn the key and put the Explorer in gear. I’m going to go get me some fucking pizza.
Tiffani
I don’t know how long I dragged my half-body across that sea of hot broken glass. I had to stop and rest so many times that I lost count. At some point along the way, I started crying. Back in the real world, I could’ve healed a hundred times over already, even re-grown the bottom half of my body. In Colt’s mind I was some sort of human thing, not alive enough to die and not undead enough to heal. For some reason, he was too determined for me to change that.
I didn’t even know where I was going. No idea what I was looking for or what I would eventually do once I found it. This was pointless.
I could leave. Give up and go back to my own mind.
The second I began to consider leaving, I could feel my body returning to full strength, unharmed and intact.
I’m not doing that, damn it. Immediately, I dropped back onto the glass, a solid smack that made a sound like a fallen chandelier. Shards of pain embedded themselves in my face, chest, and palms.
So, that’s how this is going to be? I asked Colt.
No answer.
Fine. I reached out and tried half-swimming, half-pulling myself through the glass.
Pain is a strange motivator. It kept me moving, but at the same time it forced me to find a way to escape what I was doing.
I wanted to remember the first time I saw Colt, but I couldn’t. It would’ve been in the bakery, probably as an infant. Shannon came by nearly every day after we worked things out, and I went to a lot of trouble never to see her anywhere else. If I could’ve banned her from coming by the bakery, I would have. If I could have made myself move far away from Halo, I would’ve. But I’d never had any willpower where Shannon was concerned.
Maybe that was the real reason I had kept from making a move on Colt all these years, even knowing how he felt about me. Maybe it had been a belated attempt to exercise some control. Or maybe it had been punishment for all those times I’d given in to Shannon.
Thinking back, I did have one memory of a day that she had come by with the boys. Sissy was in kindergarten, Shannon was eight months along with Tough, and Ryder was driving her crazy. He spent the whole time they were there touching things he wasn’t supposed to, yelling, banging the salt and pepper shakers on the table, and making messes. After the third time Ryder stood up and started bouncing on the booth seat, Shannon grabbed him by the arm and swatted him on the backside.
“Stop,” she said. “Just sit down and eat your turnover.”
When she came back to the counter, she was rubbing her eyes.
“I don’t know what to do with that kid, Tiff. Spanking doesn’t work. Yelling doesn’t work. Timeouts, making him clean his room, begging him, bribing him—nothing works.”
As if to prove her point, Ryder got up and started bouncing in his seat again.
“Ryder Gauge Whitney!” It wasn’t quite a shout, but echoed off the walls. Mom-voice, Shannon used to call it.
Ryder dropped back onto his butt, a grin on his chubby little face.
Shannon sighed and let her head drop onto the counter. I could smell the tears welling up in her eyes.
“It’s fine, hon.” I rubbed her shoulder. “He’s not hurting anything.”
“All those times Dad said he hoped I would end up with a little brat just like me,” she said, her voice bouncing off the countertop, “I was really praying he wouldn’t get his wish.”
It’d been almost forty years since I found out I could never have children, a little over seven since Danny had taken Shannon from me and given her everything I’d always wanted. I loved her, but sometimes I felt so jealous that it made me sick. Even if motherhood was as exhausting and frustrating as it seemed, I would have given anything to have what she had.
She lifted her head and looked over her shoulder at Ryder, who was shoving his fingers into the middle of his turnover, then licking the blueberry filling off of them.
On the other side of the booth, Colt was sitting quietly, kicking his legs while he ate. When he saw Shannon looking at him, he waved. She gave him a thumbs-up. He went back to eating.
“Hey, at least I made one good kid.” Shannon laughed. “Maybe he’s Danny’s. Or maybe I’m working my way up.” She rubbed her round belly. “Maybe this next little guy’ll be an angel.”
In the middle of the scorching broken glass sea, I laughed. Tough an angel. I’d forgotten that Shannon said that. The idea of any of the Whitney boys as angels was downright hilarious. Even Colt. He might have been Shannon’s good little boy in that memory, but he damn sure didn’t stay that way.
For a second, my heart hurt as if a piece of the broken glass had gotten lodged inside. Black hair, blue-green Whitney eyes, long eyelashes, cheeks still round with baby fat. There was so much coming in the next twenty years of that little boy’s life that he wouldn’t be able to escape. Wouldn’t want to escape.
In the broken glass sea, my hand hit the flat heat of solid dirt. The shore.
Colt
The lights in the bakery are on when I pull up. I shut the Explorer off and hop out. The door’s locked, so I knock on the glass.
A few minutes pass. Maybe she’s in the shower. Maybe this is one of those rare, rare times when she sleeps. I’m about to go when movement inside catches my eye.
Tiffani’s in the kitchen. I can see her through the order window, taking a pan out of the oven and looking around for a place to set it.
That’s when I realize she’s got full sheet pans on all of the cooling racks and every flat surface. Cookies, cinnamon rolls, some weird layered pastries with cream coming out the front, donuts, three giant pans of tiramisu, bread knots, scones, croissants, some square yellow cakes sitting next to one of those icing bags.
There’s nowhere left for her to put the pan she’s holding. She tosses it at the corner where her big trashcan is.
The bakery could be catering a party or something. That would explain all the different desserts. But not why she trashed that last pan. This is something different. Something that looks a whole hell of a lot like me cleaning the cabin or reorganizing the arsenal.
I should go. Tiffani won’t want me here. I wouldn’t want anybody to see me like this, especially not some loser I barely knew.
Tiffani pats her pockets for her cigarettes, digs them out, and turns toward the door.
She sees me and stops.
I lift one hand in an awkward wave. I should leave. She probably wants to be alone.
I start to head back to the Explorer.
The bakery door opens at the same time as I grab the driver’s side handle.
“Here to see about Tough?” she asks.
“I can come back tomorrow,” I say.
She shrugs. “The cinnamon rolls will be cold by then. Coffee’ll just be a minute. Unless you have somewhere to be.”
My stomach growls, loud. With the vamp hearing, there’s no way she could’ve missed it.
Tiffani pulls the door open wider and nods at me to come in.
*****
I never used to care much for sweet stuff—for any food, really, other than to fill the hole in my stomach when I couldn’t ignore it anymore—but Tiffani’s cinnamon rolls are so good. And with the way I’ve been these past few months since she bit me… It’s like I can finally appr
eciate how good food can be. I used to just eat so I wouldn’t be hungry anymore, but lately I’ve been savoring the way stuff tastes.
But even Tiffani’s awesome-as-hell cinnamon rolls aren’t enough to make this less awkward. I swallow a bite and look her way. She’s at the counter, The X-Files playing on her computer. Except she’s not watching it, she’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
I feel my face get hot, so I clear my throat and say, “That used to be Mom’s favorite show. She had the box set when we were kids.”
“She’s the one who got me into it,” Tiffani says.
I can hear Scully’s dog yipping while Mulder tries to tell her about the case he’s working.
“This is a good one,” I say.
Tiffani nods.
I look down at my coffee. Adjust the handle so it’s parallel with the edge of the table.
The noise from the show stops. Tiffani gets up and brings her computer over to my booth.
“Scoot over,” she says.
I move closer to the window, and get my coffee and plate out of her way.
She puts the computer down, adjusts the screen, then sits next to me and hits play.
I wasn’t lying when I said this episode was a good one. The ones where Scully’s trying to have a life outside work but Mulder just keeps bothering her are some of my favorites, but this morning I can’t pay attention to the show. I haven’t sat this close to someone in a really long time. I don’t think I’ve ever sat this close to a girl who wasn’t my mom or sister.
My leg starts bouncing under the table, and I have to keep adjusting the handle of my coffee cup, making sure it’s perfectly parallel to the edge.
Tiffani glances over at me, but doesn’t say anything.
After a while, she shivers. Digs into her pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and an old metal lighter. She shakes one out of the pack and puts it to her lips.
“You smoke in here?” I say.
She shrugs. “It’s my bakery.”
“Yeah, but that shit reeks.”
“I’m the only one who ever smells it.” She taps her nose. “Super-smeller. I air the place out, humans have no idea.”