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9

Phillip

SHE WAS JUST SUPPOSEDto be some immature teenage vampire hunter.

The plan was never to truly partner myself with her or get attached in any way. And for a lifetime, I’d done a good job of keeping people around me at an arm’s length. I used every person I met for a means to an end. Even Rose never worked her way into any place vulnerable.

Not the way V had in only two weeks.

I dreaded what months, years, maybe even decades would do to me if I stayed with her. Yet, the idea of parting ways with the spirited ginger-haired Hunter was agony inside my chest.

Worse still was when that agony resurfaced every time she stole a look at her phone, desperately waiting for that damn wolf to call her. For that useless dog to say anything that proved he hadn’t abandoned her.

“I won’t live like that. I won’t settle. Just watch me.”

In the two-hundred and fifty plus years I lived, only a handful of people challenged me the way she did. A few had come close and said things but inevitably wavered.

Something about V told me she’d do whatever it took to live the way she wanted. She’d do what she wanted when she wanted, and nothing I ever said could convince her not to. She’d plow through anyone in her way and have everything she ever desired, though at some cost.

Everything about the tiny Hunter intrigued me.

I found myself watching her, most times when she hadn’t any awareness of the people around her. She was still young and lacked the proper observation skills most Hunters honed with experience, and I exploited it whenever I could.

She didn’t dress the way other girls did. She wore simple outfits, kept her voice down in class, and never smiled. The only time I witnessed a smile from her at school was in the company of her weirdly loud and enthusiastic classmate, Kate, or with that damn wolf. Even while I observed her for a week or two before presenting as the Biology teacher.

In public, she was reserved and quiet. With me, her tongue whipped and her blades slashed. The gap from one person to the other was confuddling all on its own. But more than that, so many barely noticed her. She flew under the radar the way every Hunter should but didn’t manage as well as she did.

Most striking were her abilities without the blood activated.

I expected a fair bit from what Rose led me to believe but seeing it for myself was astounding. She matched my speed and movements like a second body, intuitively going where I thought to go next. Not only was she clever, but she was proactive and self-assured. Even semi-seasoned Hunters didn’t work as seamlessly with me the way she did.

With her blood activated, very few things would pose a problem for her. Together, we’d accomplish what I’d carefully planned for nearly a century and a half.

Despite all that, it was her gaze that had me spellbound. It was always directed straight ahead, strong and unwavering. Powerful and beautiful, it captivated me every time I caught sight of it.

Until that night.

When I warned her about the danger she’d bring to those around her, it rattled the self-confidence she packed in every glance. For some reason, the fact that I had any effect on her self-confidence bothered me. More than it should. More than anything ever had.

The sight of her wavering hazel-green eyes stayed with me. It haunted my nearly nonexistent conscience. I instantly regretted saying anything to her. I’d done it to warn her, to hopefully give her some necessary guidance with my years of knowledge and experience, but it sat on my chest like a feeling I knew all too well.

Guilt.

Knowing my well-intentioned speech had impacted her judgment plagued me all through my shower. It was a feeling I battled until she nearly ran into me with her eyes red from crying and a broken phone tossed angrily into the trash.

She looked defeated. I wanted to comfort her, or really say anything that might redeem my misdeed, but nothing I would’ve said in desperation could change how she felt.

So, instead, I distracted her with stories about her grandmother and the many mischievous goblins I’d fought. I permitted myself those moments to drown in her laughter and smiles. It was rare to have them aimed at me, and I definitely did whatever I could to be graced with more.

I gave myself over to the stories she told about herself and Rose, about a life dedicated to being a Hunter, and watched the way her head fell back and her lips lifted when I said something that amused her.

She relentlessly teased me about my open disgust for angsty teenage anything when I complained about her choice in movie. But when she rested her head first on my shoulder, then let it drop onto my lap, succumbing to the exhaustion of a life upturned and torn apart, an emotion crowded my chest. The desire to protect another person had never been so profound or powerful.

I was afraid to wake her, or to even move.

I tossed my jacket over her to keep her warm. I took in every detail of her face, which didn’t betray how tumultuous her recent days had been. I explained it all away as the duty of her self-proclaimed partner—as the only person who truly understood the loneliness of being one of few—but I spent hours mesmerized by her unguarded expression.