My knees gave out and he caught me, but I didn’t care. Adrian could leave me here and eventually I would either get up or I wouldn’t. But he didn’t leave me. Instead, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He was warm.
“Everyone dies, except for me,” I murmured. “I thought I’d come out here and cry about it for a little while.”
We stood like that for a long moment: me leaning against Adrian, Adrian keeping me from falling over.
“Caitlin,” he said slowly. “I need to tell you something. I think you need to know now. But you’re not going to believe me.”
I should have been more interested, but to be completely honest, I was falling asleep. “All right,” I murmured into his collarbone.
Keeping one arm around my waist, he leaned back to look me in the eyes, searching my face, waiting until he had my attention.
“I won’t die,” he said slowly. “Ever.”
I laughed tiredly. “Cool.”
He frowned. “It’s true.”
I shook my head. “That’s not true.”
“I promise, it is.”
“You can’t promise something like that.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I can.”
He turned my chin with his thumb so I was looking directly into his eyes. They were gray, but more than gray. They were— Silver?
They were glowing.
He murmured something, and with a snap, it all came flooding back, sharp and sudden, like some switch had been flipped in my brain retrieving repressed memories. The storm—the fall.
He searched my face. “You remember?”
“Oh my God.” I stared at him, that whole night flashing before my eyes. “Oh my God. How did I forget that? How did I forget you?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I sort of suppressed your memories.”
He was serious. He was completely serious. If it wasn’t for his swirling vortex eyes staring me straight in the face, I would have thought he was trying to pull some really unfunny joke. That, and the fact that I suddenly remembered the night of the storm with full clarity. I’d fallen, he’d caught me, he’d done something to me, and then we were running, running away, and Adrian’s eyes were burning silver.
“You hurt me,” I said, remembering the blistering pain in my head, the burning behind my eyes.
He shook his head, visibly upset. “I didn’t have a choice. I can’t explain that now, but I swear to God, I did it to keep you safe.”
“But—what are you?” I asked, staring unashamedly at his face.
He breathed in slowly, and let it out. “Caitlin,” he began, shifting his weight a bit and resettling me in his arms. “There are a lot of things you should know.” He caught himself. “There are a lot of things you shouldn’t know. So I’m only going to tell you a few essentials, the first of which is that we have a—creation story, if you will. A myth.”
“We?”
What the hell was he talking about? The conversation had very suddenly switched gears and I was not following.
“We,” he confirmed. “My family and I. And our story says that we aren’t really”—he grimaced again, looking almost embarrassed—“human.”
I stared at him. “You’re not human.”
He shook his head.
I scowled. “You look very human to me.”
He closed his eyes. “I’ll just say it. I’m gonna have to say it sometime. All right. So, there are a variety of terms for what we are, there always have been and I imagine there always will be, but I’m what you might commonly refer to as a…” He paused and muttered, “Shit, I really have to say this.” He took a deep breath and looked down at me. “I’m a vampire.”
He looked apologetic as he waited for my reaction.
I narrowed my eyes, staring at him hard. “Did I hit my head?”
He frowned. “Not that I am aware of.” Just to be sure, he grabbed my face and turned it, inspecting for lumps. “No cranial injuries.”
“Okay,” I said reasonably. “So I’m dead?”
He looked startled. “What?”
I stared at him. And then I smiled, and then I laughed. I laughed a lot. I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes on his sweater. I think I actually snorted at one point.
“I’m totally dead!” I exclaimed. I hugged him, and added an extra squeeze for good measure. “Oh, Adrian, you’re so sweet. Thank you for all those rides to school.”
He frowned. “You must be colder than I thought.” He looked at the boulder. “Your clothes are soaked through,” he said, indicating my snow-drenched sweater on the rock. “Can you stand by yourself?”
I smiled dreamily. I was dead! This was great! I could go say hi to my mom. Probably find my dad around here somewhere, too. Adrian wanted me to stand? Sure thing, my friend. I could probably fly, if I wanted to. I was about to hop around and flap my arms experimentally when he tugged his sweater off and handed it to me. To humor him, I put it on. It was toasty warm, and fell off my shoulder. Almost as toasty as Adrian standing in the snow without a shirt on. The boy was ripped.
He grabbed his jacket off the ground and slipped it on. I grinned at him.
“So you’re a vampire, eh?”
“‘Eh’?” he asked.
“I’ve decided to turn Canadian.”
“I thought you were dead.”