Page 23

I sat in furious silence. Tom had stormed into the kitchen, but I didn’t follow. I knew he wouldn’t leave – he distrusted the vamps too much to risk being alone. Breathing heavily, I tried to calm myself down, but I was struggling. What had started as mildly upsetting had led to anger, and I needed to get out – if only for some fresh air and to rid myself of the headache.

I had my boots on and was out of the door before Tom could stop me. Running through the streets in the leftover slush of the recent snow, it began to rain. I kept going, no longer caring how wet and cold I was. I just needed to expel the energy inside of me.

By the time I slowed to a jog miles from the house, my lungs were burning and my heart was racing. I leaned forward, hands on my knees to catch my breath. The rain was still coming down, but I wasn’t cold anymore.

Looking around, I found myself back at the park with the old lodge, though I hadn’t planned to come here. I straightened and stretched, turning my face to the sky. I felt better – and there was no harm in doing a quick sweep while I was here. It wasn’t even midnight yet. And it might keep me from thinking of Tom’s words – because some of them were just a bit too close to the bone. There was no way I was ready to think about all that.

Vaulting the high gate with ease, I smirked as I landed lithely. Finally, I was feeling physically like myself again. Hopefully, there’d be someone here to make my night worthwhile.

Pushing a hand through my soaked, heavy hair, I set off along the main path, peering into the shadows of the gigantic oaks spaced out across the lawns. As I passed the playground, movement flickered under the climbing frame. Seconds later, a limping tabby appeared, meowing at me mournfully before shooting away into the night. I glowered, disappointed.

Rain trickled down my neck and under my coat. As goosebumps prickled my flesh, I froze. Slowly, trying to appear as casual as possible, I took another look at the playground. There was someone there. I was sure of it.

I opened the small gate almost silently, edging around the back of the slide that created a small, enclosed hideaway. Under the rope bridge connecting the two sections of the frame, they huddled in the darkness. I shuddered, my entire body on edge. It hadn’t been just the cold.

An older man, his face haggard and ruined by prolonged exposure to the elements, lay lifeless across the lap of a young girl with dirty blonde hair. She was familiar, though I could barely see her features as she nuzzled her teeth into his throat, practically purring with contentment. Blood stained the man’s filthy jacket, but even from here it was clear his heart was no longer pumping.

Crossing the tarmac in four long strides, I grabbed the girl by the hair and yanked her up from the ground, smashing her head into the underside of the slide. A metallic gong sounded through the night. For a moment, she clawed at my hand with her fingernails, trying to loosen my hold. I wound my hand more tightly into her greasy locks, pulling her neck backwards at a painful angle. She snarled, exposing her bloodstained teeth, but her arms dropped to her sides limply.

The clouds shifted above. Moonlight lit up the park and I fully saw her face for the first time. My grip loosened, and I threw her to the ground. In seconds, she’d pushed herself up on her elbows and was scowling at me, malice in her eyes.

My stomach lurched. It was the teenager I’d first seen at Solace’s – April and Will’s blood bag. No longer covered in scars, teeth marks or bruises; her skin glowed with the luminescence of eternal youth.

I stood there, staring at her in disbelief. She glared back, though she seemed dazed.

“No…” I murmured, the word catching over the hard lump that had formed in my throat. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen.

A slow, sly smile spread across her face. “I know you, don’t I? You smell… different.”

I said nothing. I didn’t know whether to feel anger or despair – after everything, I hadn’t even saved her. It was exactly what I didn’t need to see tonight – evidence to back up everything Tom had said.

With a shaking sigh, I dropped to one knee and quickly unsheathed the Damascus knife buckled to my leg. Her eyes flicked to the blade as the moonlight glinted off it brightly, and back to my face. She scrambled backwards, hiding under the climbing frame.

I dived after her, catching her by the ankle. This was my mistake to fix. She tried to pull away and heaved the homeless man’s corpse at me with alarming strength. My grip broke. The body thudded against my chest, and I shoved him off me.

The climbing frame still trapped her on three sides – she had no choice but to fight. There was no escaping without getting past me. As I closed in, she lashed out with her bare heel and caught my left eye, snapping my neck sideways. Spots danced in my vision, but I kept going.

Backed into the corner, she kicked out. Her foot slammed into my abdomen, then my collarbone as I failed to block the blows. I twisted around her flying legs and caught her ankle again, my other hand still occupied with the knife.

Without thinking, I pulled her toward me and thrust my weapon up into her stomach in one quick jab. Blood flooded from the wound, soaking through her dress and drenching my hand and wrist. She coughed, red spurting from her lips and spattering my face. By now, she’d stopped struggling enough for me to pull her closer, and once again I wrapped my hand in her hair, bending her neck back to expose her throat.

Eyes half-lidded, pupils mere dots in the blue, she gaped at me. I turned my face away as I dragged the sticky blade across her throat, her blood pouring forth in a crimson waterfall I couldn’t bear to watch. She jerked once, and was still.

Time lost meaning as I sat there with the lifeless girl in my lap, hands trembling and teeth chattering. The rain fell harder, a curtain between us and the world, but I couldn’t move.

I was filthy. Mud and grime covered my skin and clothes. My hair was sodden and trailing in ropes in the girl’s blood. I gazed at the homeless man’s body, thinking about who might miss him, whoever he’d been. Looking down at the girl in my arms, her mouth smeared with someone else’s life, I couldn’t shake the feeling this was my fault – that I should have done more to save her.

Staring blindly into the rain, I didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until two boots appeared by the slide. Bending to see under the climbing frame, Nicholas took in the scene – me, still holding the dead girl and wearing her blood, the old man’s torn throat and my knife on the ground. Heedless of the rain that soaked through his jeans, he knelt, eased her from my lap and pulled me gently toward him.

He wrapped his arms around me as I wept into his already soaked shirt, my body shaking from the cold and the ache in my chest I didn’t know how to fix. I closed my eyes against the image of the girl burned in my mind, taking comfort in the earth and pine smell that was Nicholas, until my hiccupping sobs quietened and I could breathe normally again.

“What happened?” he asked finally, leaning back to look into my face, his green eyes dark with worry.

I had to look away. “I don’t know,” I hesitated. “I – I knew her.”

Nicholas assessed the dead girl, rainwater dripping from the waves of his hair. “She was a friend?”

I sighed, the sound lost in the hammering rain above us. “No. She… I thought I’d saved her weeks ago. I thought she’d be okay, but she wasn’t.”

“She changed anyway,” he nodded, holding me closer again.

“How can this be happening?” I mumbled into his chest. “If I can’t help her, what’s the point? It’s really the way you said, isn’t it? Anyone can turn.”

“Aye, I’m afraid so. But it’s no so common as you’d think. We cannae give up because we dinnae always win, Erin,” he murmured, his accent deepening. The way he said my name sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold. “Come on. You’re soaked to the bone, and it’s dreich enough even I’m feeling it.” His mouth quirked up into a half-smile.

I took the hand he offered as he stood, pulling me upright.

“I have to check she’s—” I began.

“No need.” Nicholas took off his heavy woollen coat and draped it over my shoulders. It was almost as wet as I was, but I was grateful regardless. “Her spine’s damaged. I can see that much from here. It must have been quite the killin’ blow.”

“It wasn’t much of a fight.” I shook my head. “I could barely look at her.”

“You had to,” he said, cleaning my knife on the girl’s thin summer dress, smearing the floral pattern.

“That doesn’t make it any easier.”

“You winnae be the person you are if your job were easy,” he smiled sadly, straightening.

I didn’t answer, but pushed my hair back, turning my stinging face into the downpour. As I did so, Nicholas slid his hand into mine, gently squeezing it to draw my attention back down to earth. His skin almost felt warm on my freezing fingers.

“Are ye hurt?”

“No.” I swallowed. “Yes, but… I’ll let you know in the morning. I can’t really feel anything right now.”

“I’ll be sleepin’ then,” he apologised. “But I’d rest better if you’d let me send Adam to check on you?”

I nodded. Sometimes, it was dangerously easy to forget how different we were – the fundamental rhythms that would always keep us apart.

“It’ll be alright, love.” He squeezed my hand again. At his touch, the newly familiar heat pulsed through me, my nerve endings blazing as always when I was with him – but this was gentler than before. His thumb traced small circles against my palm: a question I wasn’t ready to answer.

I’d never thought of Nicholas as a comforting presence before, but he was. Endless paths of possibility opened up before me, teasing at what Nicholas and I could be. Had I been less exhausted, the idea would have been overwhelming, but with his hand enveloping mine, I tried to enjoy the feeling.

Nicholas walked me home, the rain easing off to reveal the silver moon. Outside the house, he paused, then swept me up into his arms. My breath caught in my throat.

“I’ve found,” he murmured against my hair, his lips so close I could feel their phantom pressure, “that there are moments when being a vampire has its advantages. Carrying beautiful, dangerous women across thresholds without breaking a sweat bein’ chief among them.” His eyes glinted with amusement as he carried me through the door, past Tom on the sofa, and up the stairs.

Placing me on the bed, he removed his damp coat from around my shoulders, his hands lingering a moment longer than necessary. His fingertips traced the curve of my collarbone, featherlight, stopping just short of where my pulse hammered at the base of my throat. I pulled the duvet up around me, and despite the dim light, I caught how his eyes traced my face with a quiet reverence that made my heart ache. He stepped back with visible effort, his fingers curling into fists at his sides as he paused and leaned in the doorway.

“Goodnight, my midnight wanderer.” His smile lingered in the darkness.

“Goodnight, Nicholas,” I whispered, but he was already gone. Through tired eyes, I stared at the empty space where he’d been, wondering if he felt the same hollow emptiness spreading through his chest that I did whenever we parted.