Until I Die

SIX



BEFORE MEETING VINCENT, MY DAYS ALL SEEMED to speed by like one of those passage-of-time visual metaphors in movies that show pages falling off a calendar. But lately, every day seemed significant: The first time Vincent met my grandparents. The first movie date (Holy Grail, where Vincent earned major points by quoting the best bits in English right along with me). Our first New Year’s together.

Today was my last day of freedom before school resumed post-holidays, marking exactly one year and one semester to go before my high school education was officially over. Which made it another significant day. So of course I planned on spending it doing the thing I loved most.

I flitted down our building’s creaky wooden staircase with a feeling of elation buoying my footsteps. The whole day stretched out in front of me like a new country to explore. With my favorite person.

I caught sight of him as soon as I stepped out the door. Shaking my head in disbelief, I jogged to the park across the street and pushed through the metal gate.

“What are you doing? I thought we were going out for breakfast,” I laughed, pointing at the picnic blanket he was lying on, with wicker basket and thermos by his side.

“You can’t get much more ‘out’ than this,” Vincent responded, his eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses.

His languid smile did its regular job on me: It was as if an invisible hand took my insides and squeezed. Hard. It happened every time. And it made me wish that I could freeze-frame the moment and stand there feeling that delicious, squeezy feeling for the rest of my life.

Inhale and then exhale, I reminded myself. I tore my gaze away from his face and noticed that he was cocooned in a warm coat, wool scarf, and knitted cap, with his dark hair waving out from underneath. He lay back on his elbows, propped on the blanket that was spread across the frozen grass.

“Let me get this right. We’re having a picnic in January in the freezing cold?” My breath came out in a warm puff of mist as I stood above him, hands on my hips.

He pulled off his glasses, and the amusement in his eyes warmed me more efficiently than a bonfire. “I thought we could have a day of doing things we’ve never done before. I’ve never had a picnic in January. Have you?”

I shook my head and, bemused, sank down onto the blanket next to him.

“Perfect,” he concluded. “Since it has to be something that neither of us has ever done, this totally counts.”

I glanced up at the people walking by: mainly businesspeople carrying briefcases and backpack-wearing tourists out for an early start. They all stared at us as if the park was a circus and we were its freak-show headliners, and a few laughed out loud. Vincent said, “I hope you don’t mind spectators,” and then leaned forward and took my face in his hands, kissing me.

“I think I can deal.” I grinned, and then shivered as he let me go.

“We’ll make it a speed-picnic,” he promised, unwinding his scarf and double-wrapping it above my own.

We munched on croissants that were baked exactly how I love them: crunchy on the outside, light as air inside, with an inner core of doughiness. The café au lait was hot enough to warm my insides, and I sipped the supersweet freshly squeezed orange juice while Vincent caught me up on the news of how Charles and Charlotte were settling in the south. “We were talking about a road trip to take them more boxes, but JB claims he needs me here,” Vincent complained, popping the end of his croissant into his mouth.

“Sucks being JB’s second.”

“Oh, so you know about that?” he asked, amused. “Have my kindred been talking about me behind my back?”

“Yeah, Jules said something about it the other day. Right before he told me you were some sort of champion. Which I’ve actually been dying to ask you about.” I eagerly leaned forward on my elbows, watching as Vincent’s expression turned to one of dismay.

He covered his eyes with his hand. “Here we go again,” he moaned.

“What’s that mean?” I asked, intrigued by his reaction.

He leaned back until he was lying down on the blanket and addressed the winter gray sky above us. “There’s this ancient prophecy written by a revenant back in the Roman era. It said that one of us would arise to lead our kind against the numa and conquer them.”

“And what does that have to do with you?” I asked.

Vincent stared at the sky for another second, and then rolled onto his side to face me. “Jean-Baptiste has gotten it into his head that I’m the Champion.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? Probably because I was able to hold out for so long without dying. In that way, I apparently am stronger than others my ‘age.’ But it’s all so vague. Although everyone’s heard of the prophecy, no one knows exactly what it means.”

“You sound pretty sure it’s not you,” I said, feeling a twinge of relief. Dating a revenant was a big enough step without having to wonder if he was the supreme commander of the revenants.

“I think that it’s all a load of crap, and that it doesn’t matter anyway. What’s going to happen will happen, whether or not anyone knows about it ahead of time. What bugs me is that Jean-Baptiste has actually told people his opinion. And there’s nothing more intimidating than everyone watching you like a hawk, waiting for the moment you transform into the undead Messiah.”

I laughed, and Vincent reached for me, wearing that slow smile I couldn’t refuse. I kissed him—a long, warm meeting of our cold lips—and then, leaning back, I asked with as much seriousness as I could muster, “So if you’re the revenants’ Champion, and I saved you from Lucien, does that make me the Champion’s Champion?”

Vincent shook his head in despair.

“No, really,” I continued, unable to suppress a teasing grin, “I want a cool name too. Maybe you could start calling me the Vanquisher. Although I think I’d need a luchador mask to go with it.”

Vincent let out an exasperated growl and pushed me down on the blanket, pinning my shoulders to the ground and forcing me to give him another kiss. He placed a warm hand against my cold cheek, and the corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Well, at the moment calling you the Ice Queen would be more accurate.” He rose and, taking me by the hand, pulled me to my feet.

I rubbed my gloved hands up and down my arms to get my circulation going. “Okay! Picnic in January … check!” I said with chattering teeth.

Vincent stuffed the thermos and blanket inside the basket. “And how’s it feel to do something you’ve never done before?”

“It feels like I’m freezing my butt off!” I said, squealing as he dropped the basket and picked me up in his arms.

“Okay, that’s a little warmer,” I conceded as he held me off the ground in a bear hug.

“Let’s drop this basket off at my place, and then we’ll be on our way to destination number two,” he said, setting me back down and swooping the picnic basket up on one arm.

“Which is?” I asked, wrapping my hands around his free arm and drawing him closer as we left the park and headed toward La Maison.

“Well, that depends. Have you been to the war museum at Les Invalides?”

I scrunched my nose in distaste. “I know where it is. But since it doesn’t have many paintings, I never bothered. Are we talking tanks and guns and, um, war stuff?”

Vincent glanced down at me and laughed. “Yeah, they have tanks and guns and a fascinating World War Two collection, but to tell you the truth, it’s a bit of a downer. Especially for those of us who lived through it. No, I was planning on skipping those parts and taking you directly to the ancient weaponry section. The pieces in that room are as much art as a painting by John Singer Sargent.”

“Hmm. I have a feeling that’s going to be a matter of opinion.”

“Seriously, there’s this thirteenth-century dagger worked with silver and enamel inlay that deserves a room to itself at the Louvre.”

“Do they have crossbows?”

“Do they have crossbows! Only a whole roomful. Including Catherine de Médicis’s gold-encrusted one. Why?”

“I love crossbows. They’re so … I don’t know … badass.”

Vincent’s surprised laugh was between a sputter and a cough. “Note to self: Add crossbow lessons to Kate’s regularly scheduled training sessions!” He pushed his front gate open, placed the basket on top of the mailbox, and pulled the gate shut behind us. “Do you think you could arrange for that, Gaspard?” he added.

“Oh, hi, Gaspard!” I said to the air.

“Gaspard asked me to reassure you that he’s not crashing our date,” Vincent said.

“I don’t mind if you want to come along,” I said. “Knowing you, I doubt it’ll be your first time at the war museum.”

Vincent offered me his arm and began leading me back in the direction we had come from. “Gaspard actually contributed the research done on the oldest pieces in their collection. He knows the place better than most of the museum’s curators.” He was silent for a few seconds, listening. “He says he’ll pass on the museum, but will accompany us for a few blocks since we’re going in the same direction he was heading.”

We started toward the museum, a good twenty-minute walk away, carrying on our bizarre three-way chat for a couple of blocks before Vincent stopped abruptly. “What is it?” I asked, watching his face as he listened to words I couldn’t hear.

“Gaspard sees something. We just have a couple of minutes. Come on,” Vincent said, and, taking my hand, began running down a small street toward one of the larger avenues.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we ran, but Vincent was too busy listening to Gaspard and shooting questions like, “How many people?” and “Where’s the driver?” My alarm mounted when we reached the boulevard Raspail and Vincent said, “Kate, stay back, and watch out—there’s a truck …”

And then we saw it cresting the top of the hill: a large white delivery truck careening down the middle of the four lanes. It weaved dangerously as it straddled the center line, obviously out of control. I gasped when I realized that there was no driver behind the wheel.

Turning to the crosswalk, I spotted several pedestrians crossing the intersection, completely unaware of the danger heading toward them. Although it was still two blocks away, the truck wasn’t slowing. And at the speed it was coming, the people in the middle of the crosswalk had no chance of escaping its trajectory. “Oh my God. Do something!” I urged Vincent, horror coursing like ice water through my veins.

Vincent was already looking from the pedestrians to the truck and back as he gauged the situation. He hesitated for a split second and glanced quickly my way, furrowing his eyebrows as if weighing something. Something that had to do with me.

“What?” I asked, my voice panicky.

Something clicked in his eyes. His decision made, he shuffled off his coat, dropped it to the ground, and took off toward the oncoming truck.

My heart pounding, I screamed in French in the direction of the pedestrians, “Attention!” A middle-aged woman glanced back at me, and then followed my gesture up the boulevard.

“Oh, mon Dieu!” she shrieked, and turning, she threw her arms out wide to push the man and child flanking her back toward the safety of the sidewalk. They would never make it in time. Nor would the college-age girl wearing headphones who hadn’t even heard me yell.

Running faster than seemed humanly possible, Vincent reached the truck, leapt, and landed on the running board. The impact threw him backward, threatening to jettison him off into the road. He scrabbled to hang on to the door handle, steadying himself, and then wrenched it open, grabbing the steering wheel and jerking it to the right. In a screech of skidding tires, the truck jumped off the road and flipped onto its passenger side. It careened a few feet across the sidewalk before smashing with a sickening crunch into a stone wall, only a couple of yards short of the crosswalk.

A split second of shocked silence followed, before a cacophony of shouts and cries began. The couple and their child were on the ground, just short of the sidewalk, having attempted to throw themselves off the road. Passersby rushed over and helped them to their feet. Someone else ran up to the girl with the headphones, who stood in shock in the middle of the road, mouth open and bags spilled on the ground around her feet.

A police siren split the air, as a couple of cop cars pulled off the boulevard Saint Germain into the middle of the intersection, blocking vehicles from both directions. One policeman leapt out to divert traffic, while the others rushed for the accident site.

Vincent pushed himself off the driver’s door, which was now on the top of the flipped truck, and dropped to the ground. Lying on his back on the sidewalk, he folded an arm cautiously across his rib cage, dropping the keys he had pulled from the ignition.

As I reached him, he squeezed his eyes closed in pain, and a small stream of blood oozed from a cut on his forehead. I crouched down beside him, feeling like I was the one who had been thrown to the pavement, the breath knocked out of me. “Vincent, are you okay?” I asked, blindly sticking my arm into my bag and coming back with some Kleenex. I dabbed at the blood before it could run into his eye.

“Hurt rib, but I’m fine,” he said, gasping for breath. “But the driver’s in the truck.”

I cupped his face in my hand and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God, Vincent.” I turned to the approaching policemen. “The driver’s still in there,” I yelled, coughing and blinking as I inhaled the acrid smell of burned rubber.

One climbed up onto the truck and, after taking a look inside, pulled out a walkie-talkie and called for emergency assistance. Another knelt down next to us and began asking Vincent questions. Was he okay? Could he move his fingers? His toes? Was he having trouble breathing? Only after Vincent sat up (against the policeman’s advice) and reassured him that he had only had his breath knocked out and cut his head in the impact did the policeman turn to ask me what had happened.

By then a crowd had gathered around us, and an elderly man spoke up before I could respond. “I saw the whole thing, officer. That truck was out of control, with no driver behind the wheel, rolling steadily down the boulevard. And that boy there,” he said, pointing to Vincent, “commandeered it, steering it off the road. If he hadn’t, it would have plowed right into the people crossing the road.” He pointed to the headphones girl, who had been led to the sidewalk and was sitting with her head between her knees as someone rubbed her back.

The bystanders began buzzing excitedly with the news—the word “hero” being voiced more than once—and cell phones were pulled out as people began typing messages and making calls. Vincent closed his eyes tiredly and then, as someone tried to take a picture, pulled his sweater’s hood up over his head and asked me to help him up, wincing as he stood.

“Are you going to need me, Officer?” he asked the policeman who was mapping the truck’s path with another witness.

He saw Vincent and said, “You really shouldn’t move, sir, until the paramedics arrive.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” Vincent insisted politely. The way he held his arm carefully across his torso suggested that he was anything but.

The policeman looked conflicted. “We’ll need your testimony,” he said finally.

“Then can we wait in your car?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the man responded, and flagged his partner to come get us. We were led away from the excited crowd and toward the privacy of the squad car. On the way I retrieved Vincent’s coat and draped it around him.

We scooted into the backseat of the squad car, and the cop shut the door behind us. We were finally alone, and I turned to Vincent, who was holding my tissue to his head. “Are you really okay?” I asked him, reaching up to gingerly pull his hand away from the wound. “You might need stitches.”

“Do you have a mirror?”

I handed him a compact from my bag, and he held it up to the light, inspecting his wound. “A butterfly bandage will hold it fine.”

“And besides that?”

“I might have a bruised rib. JB will send for a doctor once we’re home. I’ve got a couple weeks until I’m dormant, and then my body will heal itself. I can wait. I promise, Kate. I’m fine.”

He leaned back on the headrest and closed his eyes.

I sat with my head on his shoulder and my arm around his chest and wondered what might have happened had things gone differently.

What if Vincent hadn’t been fast enough and one of those people had been killed? What if in attempting to reach the truck, Vincent had been the one mowed down? Instead of sitting in the back of a squad car, I could be kneeling over his mangled body. He had been just inches away. It had been so close.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on what was instead of what might have been.