by Sarah Tobias
Macy wasn’t lying when she said she had the strength of a linebacker. She shot me forward, using my unsteady gait—damn these heels—to almost propel me into his arms.
“Hello!” she said to him as I tried to regain my balance.
He angled his head in the same way he did when we were alone, predatory and lithe, but he wasn’t paying attention to Macy. He was specifically focused on me.
“Hi,” he said. His voice was warm, smooth and charming, like cream laced with torched brown sugar. A brûlée seduction.
Predictably, Macy followed up with, “And you are?”
I trained my attention above his head. My body was already starting its revolt, my skin breaking out into a cold sweat. I was afraid if I met his eyes, I’d get that creepy, addictive feeling again.
“Asher Benedict.” He held out his hand to me, but Macy took it, pumping his arm with exuberance.
“Macy Forrester,” she replied. “Not that you’re paying any attention to me. Pleasure to meet you.”
Asher, my mind whispered.
Asher kept his gaze on mine. I squirmed underneath his very direct, intelligent stare. He said, in that beguiling tone of his, “Nice to see you again, Emily.”
Don’t fall into his eyes. Don’t do it.
I did. Pure silver greeted me. The world tilted, and I stumbled again in my heels.
“You’ve met him before?” Macy hissed under her breath. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“We didn’t meet properly,” Asher explained.
The corners of my mouth pulled down. Did he say that for Macy’s benefit? Because there was no way he could’ve heard her whispered question with the music pulsing the way it was.
Asher lifted his open hand in a sort of truce. It hung in the air as I stared at it, the tattoos on his forearm and knuckles blurring in and out of focus. Swirls and curlicues patterned his palm, which ouch, must’ve hurt. Some sort of strange language was needled into his skin…
The heat of him drifted closer with his movements. My body hummed with unseen electricity.
“Ems?”
Macy’s voice had an edge. It probably meant, Unless you want to spend the rest of the night in vampy red lipstick, you’d better play nice.
I met Asher’s stare again, expecting the electric tingle, but I lifted my hand to meet his. It’d be rude otherwise, and while I was raised by unconventional methods, I wasn’t brought up to be a snot.
A sharp heat boiled up the second my fingers hovered near his. I jerked my hand away so fast, it smacked into a person walking by.
“Ouch! Spastic, much?” The girl I hit turned her head enough to punctuate her question with a glare before she disappeared into the crowd.
“S-sorry,” I said, and whether it was to the girl or Asher, I couldn’t be sure. My hand smarted like I’d burned it by grabbing the hot handle of a pot. I studied my fingers like I didn’t know if they belonged to me.
Asher stared at them, too.
“You know what, Mace?” I said, fisting my hand and plastering on a fake smile. “This beer has gotten too warm. I’m gonna grab something else.”
I didn’t want to dwell upon my real reasons for leaving the room. The dizziness was back, the fear…
“Are you sure?” But Macy face changed after asking, morphing into a determined one I was all too familiar with “Never mind. Go ahead! I’ll use this alone time to get to know Asher.”
She said his name like it was an exotic fruit, her mouth savoring every syllable. Asher’s lips tilted warily in response.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” I said. Or never.
I got out of that room as fast as my death-defying heels could carry me, trying not to draw attention to myself as I precariously waddled out. I pushed sweaty arms out of the way, my beer spilling over the edges of my cup and resulting in surprised gasps as the liquid landed on unsuspecting limbs.
As soon as I reached the kitchen, I sagged against the blissfully cold granite and breathed out a sigh of relief. What was that?
I’d never felt the urge to scramble out of a room just because a good-looking stranger happened to be standing in it.
No. No, I would not think that way. I wasn’t my mother, and I wasn’t going crazy. Just because I was paranoid for no specific reason didn’t mean I belonged in a mental institution, lying in a bed next to hers.
I repeated that sentence over and over as I pretended to scan the different liquor bottles on the countertop.
I sucked in another deep breath, slowing the heavy exhales suddenly coming out of my mouth.
“Need help choosing?”
I startled at the voice. Even though the music continued to pound, I heard the familiar tone, crystal clear.
“Hey, Rob,” I greeted Macy’s boyfriend as if nothing was wrong and my body wasn’t tense and vibrating like a thousand violin strings tangled up in knots. And my stomach … my stomach was clenching and retracting with painful spasms.
Rob brushed a hand through his sandy, unkempt hair, glancing through the open doorway where Macy stood with Asher. “So, Macy’s on the prowl for you again, huh?”
“Trying to deter her is like attempting to cage an angry ferret,” I responded. “She won’t stop until she’s succeeded in husbanding me up.” I rested an elbow against the stone surface, hoping to quell my shaking.
“All so her dreams of double dates can finally come true.” Rob smiled. “My girl hopes big. Can I make you a drink? Then we can grab some air. You look like you need it.”
I reply with huge relief, “That’d be great.”
“Nick’s got an amazing rooftop. You want to go up there for a bit?”
“Yes, please. Get me out of here.”
Get me away from Asher, my mind whispered, and I blinked hard. The words were mine, but they didn’t feel like they belonged to me. I pressed my fingers against my temples, rubbing hard.
“You sure you’re all right?” Rob asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I lowered my hands and clenched them against my sides instead.
Rob poured the drinks as I mentally hurried him along. All I wanted to do was escape. My knees were shaking, my legs wobbling. If I lifted my fingers, I know they’d be trembling.
As soon as he finished, I swept in behind him, following him through the crowd and ditching my heels as soon as we hit the stairs.
We weaved and hopped around splayed bodies as we walked up three flights, but it ended up being so incredibly worth it when we opened the door to the roof and the blessed coolness of the night. The rain had stopped, leaving only freshly saturated air, and I breathed deep, pressing a hand to my racing heart.
Anxiety attack? I thought, staring up into the night sky, the city lights obscuring the stars above.
I breathed easier as my heart rate slowed, resting gratefully against the cold stone barricade. I closed my eyes, relaxing as whatever had grabbed hold of me in front of Asher quietly abated.
“The roof’s closed for renovations, so you don’t have to worry about anyone else coming up,” Rob said. “The family’s building a roof deck or something.”
I hadn’t noticed the dark tarps drifting in the wind, or the metal beams splayed haphazardly across the stone floor. Nor did I register that we were alone. But this was Rob, Macy’s boyfriend of three years. I trusted him.
“Here.” Rob handed me a drink.
“Thanks.” I lifted the cup to my lips, allowing the cold liquid to slide down my parched throat. I smiled when I realized it was lemon-lime soda. “I needed this.”
Rob smiled in return.
“Macy’s lucky to have such a sweet, thoughtful guy,” I said. “One who goes out of his way to make sure her friend is feeling okay.”
“Ah, jeez.” Rob waved off my compliment, splotches of red creeping into his cheeks. “It’s only fair I save you when Macy goes DEFCON Cupid on you.”
I laughed softly.
“Guess you’re not liking the match-up too much,” he said, resting his forearm
s against the stone balustrade overlooking the rooftops.
I shifted with him, the overcast sky blanketing the rows of neighboring brownstones. A few lighted windows flicked into darkness as we watched. The quiet neighborhood of Fort Greene was slowly drifting off to sleep, and I was ready to follow suit.
“Not really,” I said. I didn’t get into the why of it all. How could I explain the way Asher both repelled and attracted me at the same time? “I’ve been feeling a little weird.”
“I can tell. You’re even quieter than usual,” Rob said, glancing over.
I wished I could reply with ease, but I was seriously uneasy, my confusion only adding to my strain. Rob seemed to catch onto my discomfort and rubbed the middle of my back.
“You can talk to me, you know.” Rob said it so quietly I could barely hear his words. He swallowed hard before continuing. “I mean—I, uh, I know you have other people to talk to and everything, but I’m here for you. Friend-wise. As in friends.” He stopped talking, his face reddening as he tried to make himself clear. He pulled his hand from my back. “I mean, I’m here as your friend.”
He grinned sheepishly, and I stared back in a confused sort of embarrassment. Is he seriously flirting with me?
Until I witnessed the unfathomable, and his eyes shifted to yellow.
Chapter 5
I slow blinked, unsure if I saw the monster my mind insisted was right in front of me.
Again. Just like Andrea’s fangs at the coffee shop.
I wanted to rub away the image, smack my forehead, take some deep, calming breaths, run from this place screaming—anything to shake off what I saw and get back to a normal college party. I didn’t want the pressure of thinking about the unnatural ghosts of my past. My present couldn’t handle it, and my future could not depend on it. Not if I wanted to be average and accepted and normal.
It was only for a millisecond, but I couldn’t dismiss what I saw, no matter how hard I wished it away. Rob’s eyes altered like a reptile’s. In one blink, his usual soft green eyes flashed yellow, his pupils shrinking into thin, black slits.
But as I sucked in a breath and stumbled back, his eyes returned to normal.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“I … really don’t know,” I answered. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.”
“You’re…” I didn’t want to utter what I’d witnessed into existence, so I went with the lesser of two uncomfortable situations. “You’re not hitting on me, are you?”
His very normal-looking eyes flared. “Oh—no. Right. No.”
My chin jerked back, appalled by everything that was happening.
“How about we go back downstairs?” he asked, running a hand through his hair and smiling tightly.
Rob’s steady stare was one of concern. I immediately felt stupid. This was Rob, for crying out loud. He walked around like a doe-eyed deer half the time and could barely kill a spider without his eyes welling up. Subconscious manifestation or not, imagining snake eyes on Rob was like imagining Macy dressing as a lumberjack to go to class.
I nodded. “Good idea. Macy must be looking for us by now.”
I stepped forward, but tripped on the cracked, uneven rooftop. Even in bare feet, I was a klutz in a dress.
“How did I even get over here without falling on my face?” I muttered, mostly to myself as I untangled my legs.
Rob came up beside me and cupped my elbow to assist, but as soon as his fingers hit my skin, a searing pain spiked through my arm. I gasped, the agony setting fire to my nerves in a way that convinced me he twisted and broke my limb in half.
“Rob—” I choked out, yanking my arm out of his grip.
A hiss hit the air, inhuman and guttural, and I clutched my sore—but intact—arm to my chest, glancing around wildly at the noise. “R-Rob? Why did you hurt me like that?”
Rob flew to the other side of the rooftop. He moved with such superhuman speed that I couldn’t track him all the way, his body curving against the stone barrier. At my question, he straightened his bowed form, peeled back his lips, and hissed again.
My mouth fell open. I stood in the middle of the rooftop, hunched over and frozen, nursing an arm that looked like nothing happened to it, unsure of what to do or how to move or if this was even real.
I’m not crazy. I’m not my mother. This isn’t in front of my face right now.
“You were supposed to be just a simple, stupid girl,” Rob spat, but his voice no longer sounded like himself. It was low, menacing.
His eyes blinked to yellow and there they stayed, black-rimmed and snake-like, glowing preternaturally in the bright moonlight. Loosened construction tarps billowed and snapped, opening like a macabre theater curtain to reveal this boy who wasn’t human anymore.
“Rob?” I asked. Stupidly.
I hobbled backward and pressed against the low wall, my nails trying to dig into the concrete as my mind worked furiously on escape routes. I couldn’t jump—it was too high, but Rob blocked the only safe exit into the house.
My eyes darted to the ground. There was a skylight between us. Did I have time to grab something, break the glass, and fall through? A crowbar? A construction tool? How many bones would I snap and how much of my skin would tear open from the jump?
Could it be worse than facing down your best friend’s boyfriend who has turned into a monster?
This creature—because even though he still resembled Rob, he could not possibly be Rob—opened its mouth to laugh. The sound was like long, curved knives running down my spine.
“Can this be true? You do not know what you are?” A black, forked tongue darted in and out between words.
He cocked his head and regarded me sideways through the rippling tarps, the sounds of them smacking into the metal poles only serving as a reminder that we were the only ones up here. No one could hear us. Still, I didn’t make any sudden moves. I flashed back to the one day at summer camp my aunt tried sending me to when I was ten, where we underwent multiple lectures about going into the woods and encountering a predator.
“Don’t run,” the camp counselor reminded us, over and over. “That will clue them in to chase you and pounce. Stand your ground. Stare them down.”
I took that lecture to heart. I didn’t move. I stared Rob down. I doubted my counselor expected that any of his charges would encounter a snake dressed up as a college kid.
My attention strayed to the skylight between us. But before I could run for my life or lift my pinky finger in defense, Rob flashed in front of me, his face dangerously close. His breath was foul, like decaying, rotten potatoes left in the pantry too long. My pumping adrenaline controlled the urge to gag.
“This is an unexpected treat,” he said. Then latched onto my waist.
I tried to scream. I opened my mouth to let out a mother of a wail, but he pulled me into his sick embrace and shot backwards. Everything blurred and bile curdled my mouth. We stopped, and he retracted his claws from the skin on my hips. I doubled over, heaving.
“Weakling.” He seethed. “You don’t deserve to be among our kind.”
I made a run for it. Launched toward a broken metal pole, grabbed it, and sprinted for the skylight. Smashing it would cause pandemonium on the floor below. Someone would come up to check what’s going on, and it might even be in time to find me alive—
My peripheral vision registered Not-Rob’s inhuman leap. I turned sideways to duck out of the way but I ended up catching him full-on, his body smacking into mine and both of us narrowly missing the skylight and crashing into the door to the rooftop. The pole dropped from my hand. Our bodies cracked against the brick frame and a shower of construction dust fell around us. The scaffolding balanced precariously above, loosened by our jarring impact. I used the moment of confusion to ram my hands against his shoulders, keeping this thing's mouth away from me, my muscles straining and screaming as I forced him back.
I was weaker than him. I barely had the strength to withstand his ramm
ing into me, and I was going dangerously numb. But I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t lose this fight.
Not-Rob’s jaw detached, turning his blackened mouth into a gaping maw ringed with sharp, yellow teeth. His mouth became almost as big as my head, his front fangs inches away from my face. I blinked, and my eyelashes fluttered across his sharp, pointed incisors.
I clamped down on the terror screaming bloody murder in my head, refusing to let my fear be the reason I died. And I was certain, just as I was now sure that this thing was very, very real, if I didn’t do something, I would bleed out here, alone, weak, and afraid.
Moving would risk his jaws coming closer, but with the tip of his fangs beginning to pierce my temples, it was the only choice I had. Quickly, I released a hand from his shoulder and clamped it under his chin, twisting his head away.
He roared, loud and deafening, and this time I could scream as what felt like a thousand volts of electricity jolted through my hand and straight into my heart. My vision wavered, but I pressed my fingers firmly into his skin, trying despite the searing agony to prevent his teeth from tearing into my cheek.
His roaring abruptly stopped. I had the instinctual feeling he was calculating his next move despite the pain just as much as I was.
This was it. I couldn’t do much else. Bruised and trembling, with Not-Rob’s foul, hot breath covering my entire body, the pain turned into electrocution the longer I kept my skin against his.
As much as I hated to do it and detested being that scared little girl, I gave in to the urge to squeeze my eyes shut, effectively blocking out everything that he could do next.
Darkness coated my vision, leaving my ears attuned to his movements. He breathed heavily, but he was enduring. Sucking sounds came from above my head, and I imagined that black tongue coming down, opaque and slippery as it slithered across my jaw.
Please let this be quick. Let this be over.
My teeth clenched, but I held my shaking, sweat-drenched arms against him, my body still fighting despite my mind retreating into the dark.