chapter 18
Vagabond
“Good to see you, Gav. You look like hell, ya know.”
“You too, man. Thanks.”
“And who’s this?”
“This is Camille. Camille, this is Josh. We go way back.”
“I’ve heard that one before.” I grinned, leaned forward to shake Josh’s hand. He led us into the cabin.
“I’ll give you guys a few minutes to get cleaned up,” he said, handing Gavin a glass of red slush. “Seriously, man. Drink up.” He made sure Gavin gulfed the fresh sustenance down before retreating to the kitchen.
“Much better,” Gavin said, then led me to a bedroom and shut the door. “I’m glad you got some sleep. You needed it.”
“Yeah, all twenty minutes of it.”
“You can sleep more soon, once we’re on the plane.”
“We’re getting on a plane?”
“I have a plan.”
“Oh, no.” I stretched out on the rustic, squeaky bed.
“We’re going to Paris, where we first met.”
I lifted up the comforter and wrapped myself in it, hoping I had some time to relax before we jumped on an airplane. “And what exactly are we going to do there? Shouldn’t we be hiding out for a while?”
“We’re going to. But we’re going to hide out around people. Lots and lots of people.” He tossed some clothes from the dresser drawers into a suitcase. “We’re going to see my sister, she can help us. We can crash there for a while and figure out our next move.”
“Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister.”
His movements slowed, but only for an instant. “Yeah, she was the one I was visiting the day I met you in Paris. She knows about the plan. You’ll see.”
“Why can’t we just go back to my place? You said the portal was closed for a while.”
“It is. But we’re not sure who, if anyone, came out after us. We still have to be careful until the next cycle.”
“Okay, whatever you say. I guess I’m in no huge rush to get back anyway. It’s not like I have a job waiting for me anymore, or fall classes I have to go to.…” I thought of Carol, how worried she must’ve been when I never returned from my break. She probably called the cops, reported me as a missing person. Though there were more troubling things to think about right now.
“This has gotten so out of hand.” He sat next to me, dropped his head in his hands.
I sat up and scooted next to him, wrapped my arms around his neck from behind. “It’s not the end of the world. I’ll deal with it after I stop worrying about an evil vampire queen hunting us down. Besides, right now I’d much rather focus on celebrating.”
“This is hardly a celebration.”
“Well, excuse me for being happy to be with you again.”
He swung me around to pull me close, wrung my still-wet hair with his hands. “You know I’m thrilled to be with you again, even if I look miserable and decrepit at the moment.” Pushing the hair away from my eyes, he leaned over and kissed my neck, then peered down at my clothes. “Here.” He stood up, and a moment later handed me a dry shirt and some sweatpants from the suitcase, then took clothes for himself.
“I just thought for sure you’d move on with your life,” he said. “Maybe wait for me, if I got lucky. I never thought it would come to this.”
“Neither one of us did.” I started changing, held back a smile as I watched him struggle to look away. “I had a say in this too, remember?”
“I should’ve stayed away. Period.”
“You’re so stubborn.”
“And you’re not?” He flashed a smile, stopped fighting the urge to look and reached out, pulled me closer to kiss me. My pulse thrummed in my chest. “You need a shower. You smell like swamp.” Smirking, he looked down at my arms, all splotchy from the mud and dirt.
“And you don’t? You smell like a sewer,” I nudged him, chuckling. He held up one of my arms and started kissing it, his laugh and warm breath tickling my skin. Making his way up to my collarbone, his mouth’s trail made me weak in the knees again. “Gavin …”
“Yes, Camille?” he muttered, shuffled me backward toward the side of the bed, that irresistible, sly smile still on his face, notorious for making me lose control. “Is there a problem?”
Giving in, I dropped the extra clothes on the floor, kissed him fervently, my face flushed. “Josh is in the next room, and we haven’t talked about this,” I whispered, sneaking words in between breaths. “So yeah, there’s a prob—”
“Don’t worry about him,” he laid me down as we hit the edge, where he hovered over me. I reached up, slipped his shirt off before I pulled him down to my level. He scooted my arms above my head and held them in place, went to work on my neck. His lips cool and breath hot, I entered my favorite paradise, the one most mortals knew nothing of. Sliding my hands down to his belt buckle, his hands met mine, but stopped them. “I’m sorry,” he said, out of breath. “Not yet.”
He slipped off of me and grabbed the dry shirt, put it on while I lay there, speechless.
“Right.” I shook my head, slowly sat up. “Our friends are in danger and a lot of pissed-off vampires are after us. I get it.” Shot down. “I’m sorry—”
“No, I’m sorry. There’s more to it,” he picked the clothes up from the floor, “I shouldn’t have started that. You just looked so amazing, and I’m so happy to have you back.…” He ran his hands through his hair, knelt next to me. “You look good enough to eat,” he whispered, kissed my neck once more before he stood. “Any chance we can we talk more about it later?”
“Sure … I guess.”
“Are we good?”
“Of course.” I sent him a smile of assurance, although I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied until I knew what had stopped him. “I’m holding you to that talk, though.”
“Okay, you got it. Guess I’ll head to the kitchen and catch up with Josh before we get going.” He smiled, stuffed his hands in his pockets and darted for the door.
Laughing to myself as he shut the door behind him, I looked around at the dresser and nightstands, searched for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, but had no luck. Thinking I might ask Josh, I cracked the bedroom door to peek out into the kitchen. Gavin and Josh were at the table, sharing drinks and laughs, apparently catching up. The conversation quickly turned solemn as they began discussing Joel’s death, and then I couldn’t listen anymore.
I shut the door and continued my search. Finally noticing a half-empty pack on the desk near the closet, I scooted out the room’s sliding door to light up on the porch and shake off the awkward rejection. Once back inside, I noticed my image in the dresser’s vanity mirror. I began plucking leaves and muck from my damp hair. I looked like a cadaver who’d been tossed in a swamp, left lying there for a few weeks. Longing for a hot shower, I leaned over to rub some hardened mud from the corner of my eye. A gray blur appeared behind me, sent chills down my arms before I even saw the fangs.
“You’ll be dead before you can scream, so don’t bother.”
“What do you want?” I stood still, stared at the woman behind me in the mirror.
“Quiet. Now do as I tell you and I won’t have to hurt you.”
My only chance was to delay her until I could figure out a way to call for Gavin and Josh without getting all of us killed or hurt. As loud as I thought I could risk, I said, “Who are you? You look familiar.”
“I said be quiet.” She spoke as she grabbed my arms and tied them behind my back. Opening a backpack, she pulled out a roll of duct tape and began wrapping it around my head.
She was going to tape my mouth shut. In a second, maybe two, I wouldn’t be able to call for help.
In my panic, I didn’t think of yelling out for Gavin, but decided to plead with her. “Please, don’t do this—” I whimpered, begged her with my eyes when she stood in front of me, placing the tape on my mouth. She was shorter than me and quite round. Almost harmless looking, like a kind, middle-aged kindergarten teacher.
If a kindergarten teacher had cold, hard eyes.
When she finished with the tape, she noticed and grabbed the locket around my neck and peered at it, then glared up at me.
“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself in to, do you?” Leaning in, she put her face to my ear and whispered. “She’ll be even more furious now. You just made this harder on everyone, including your precious friends. And sleeping with one of us? That’s suicide. Stupid girl.”
Shaking too hard to resist, I complied when she shoved me forward, hoisted me out the sliding door toward the woods.
Flying through the trees, she landed us in a remote area not far from the house, near a parked SUV. She opened the back door and slid me onto the backseat, shoving my head down and out of sight and growling, “Stay that way.” I looked around for a way out, plotted a way to untie my hands and reach for the door handle. Still, I knew any move I made wouldn’t be fast enough. I had to rely on Gavin, hope he’d notice my disappearance and be able to pick up my scent in time.
The woman began rambling as she started the SUV’s engine and sped away. “I hate her, you know. Curse the day I vowed to serve her. Sure, I’m a monster, but I don’t want to do her dirty work. I don’t enjoy chasing down mortals like you, you know. I can tell you’re a good one. You don’t mean any harm,” she jerked the wheel, flustered, “but you had to go and get nosey now, and look what I have to do. Stupid girl. Tsk, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. Don’t you dare tell her what I just told you.”
She looked at me frantically through the rearview mirror. I made eye contact but broke it off, trying to remain calm. Whoever this woman was, she was taking me to Samira like a lamb to be slaughtered, and there was nothing I could do about it.
We drove for miles until nothing looked familiar anymore, and we finally reached a tiny motel somewhere outside of New Orleans. “Stay put,” she instructed, hurried inside the office to get the key. I laid still, peered up and out the side window, searched for passersby. There were none. I rubbed my face on my shoulder to wipe the tears and hair out of my eyes, then tried to lift my head higher, to get someone’s attention. Kicking at the door with my feet, I tried working the toe of my shoe underneath the groove of the door handle to maneuver it.
Rocking gently back and forth, I played with the handle, jumped when I saw a man’s shadow at the back window, looking in at me through the tinted glass. I could barely see his face, but it seemed like he could see me. He tried opening the door, stopped trying and pounded his fist through the window, and unlocked it from the inside. Glass shattered all around me and warm sunlight flooded in, momentarily blinding me. My eyes bulged when I saw Josh leaning in to rip the tape from my mouth.
“You just don’t get a break, do you? Are you all right?”
“I am now. Hurry, she’s coming!”
A shrill scream rang from the direction of the motel office as he helped me out of the car, and I saw the woman run away from the frightened desk clerk and toward us. The coldness I’d seen in her eyes now had dark vengeance added.
Gavin appeared from the corner of the motel, rushed to our side to meet her head on.
“Don’t do this, Marie,” he warned as she approached us. She crept forward, testing her boundaries. “There are two of us and one of you, and we’re in a public place,” he said. “You’re not taking Camille, do you understand?”
“No, you don’t understand. I’ll do what I have to. You know this is the only way she’ll leave my son be. Now get out of my way and give me the girl.”
“That’s all that I’m trying to do too, Marie. Please, think of what Arianna means to Joel. That’s what Camille means to me, and I don’t want to hurt you but I will if I have to.”
How did Gavin know this woman’s name? And why was he bringing up Joel and Arianna? It must be a small world in the vampire realm, I decided. Everybody knew everybody, apparently. Had the circumstances not been so bizarre and dangerous, it would have been kind of cute.
“I’m sorry Gavin, but I have to think of my son,” she said. “His safety and happiness with Arianna means too much to me. I’ll tell you one last time. Give me the girl.”
Seeing that Marie wasn’t going to budge, Josh nodded at Gavin and lunged toward her while Gavin lassoed and rushed me into the SUV. She hissed at Josh as he came toward her, challenged him for a moment before forfeiting. As Gavin reversed to drive off, she fled to the woods nearby, Josh trailing after her.
“Are you hurt?” Gavin hit the gas.
“No, just a little shaky. What was that all about? How do you know her?”
“She’s Joel’s mother. She doesn’t know.…”
“Oh my God.” I shook my head in disbelief as we drove off, the guilt creeping up again.
“She’s one of Samira’s oldest servants,” he said, “she’s just trying to look out for Joel. She still thinks he’s with Arianna.”
“I thought Arianna was in Amaranth.”
“She was.”
“How can someone leave Amaranth? I thought once you’re in, you’re in.”
“It’s a long story. What matters right now is she’s out there, and she’ll keep coming back. We really need to get to Paris.” He checked the side and rearview mirrors. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you. Josh and I stepped out for a cigarette, and I didn’t sense anyone had been in the house until it was too late. He’s going to chase her down, it’s okay now.”
Sitting there quietly, I wondered if this was what our life was going to be like. I knew Gavin and I would have to run, but did I want to be a restless nomad, wandering from place to place, never having a place to call home? That was why I moved to Louisiana in the first place, after all. To settle down and start over.
As if he read my mind, Gavin pulled over and parked on the side of the road, and turned to look at me. One look was all I needed to be reminded of the uselessness of contemplating what-if scenarios. Everything I wanted was right here in this car.
“I need to know if this is what you really want Camille, because this is going to be our life for a while.”
“I know it is.”
“It might never be easy again—carefree and simple.”
I thought of my mother and father, of two abusive relationships, of my entire life before I met Gavin. “It never was.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to make this right, but it’s going to take time. So I need to know.”
“You’re asking me if I’m sure I want to run with you.”
“Yes.”
I took a breath, let it out slowly. “Well, I am getting a tad tired of being kidnapped and chased by monsters. It’s really starting to piss me off.”
It wasn’t a joke, and he knew it too. He looked away from me, stared at the homes nearby. I stared, too. Pondered their dependable simplicity.
“But I’ll run with you. Under one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Don’t ever leave me again. Ever.”
“Not unless you want me to.”
“And all of the circumstances aside, let’s start over. Let’s be together the way we would’ve before all this happened. I love you regardless of what you are, so promise me—even if you stay this way, you’ll never leave me.”
He smirked, turned the ignition off. “Technically, that’s more than one condition.”
“Promise.”
Earnest again, he tossed the loose duct tape in the back seat. “Do you really want to put yourself through this? Is loving me really enough to endure everything you have to just to be with me?”
Meeting his fiery gaze, I ran my fingers through his hair, kissed him gently before I attempted to set us both free. “It will always be enough.”
With the many uncertainties, of one thing I was sure. I could not escape love, the very thing that had kept me mobile since the day I realized I was capable of giving and receiving it.