chapter 11
Things continued like this for three days. A vampire would bring me something to eat, take a picture, and inflict a new bruise or bite somewhere visible. Repeat several times daily. Apparently, they were willing to prod Leah for a while before they called her bluff and just killed me.
I wondered what my family must be thinking right now. Who was I kidding? They probably wouldn’t notice I was missing for a month, let alone a few measly days. On the third day, Cashern paid me another visit. He breezed in with his two guards in tow, looking fresh and confident- and royally pissed off.
“What are you to Leah?” He stood in front of me, arms crossed and face calm. I wasn’t fooled. He was mad that he hadn’t figured out the answer to that question by now.
I shrugged. “I have no idea,” I said truthfully. He leaned forward and braced his hands on the back of the couch on either side of me, trapping me. His teeth elongated. I was careful to only look at his mouth, never his eyes. Not when he was in vampire mode.
His voice was barely a whisper, just a suggestion floating through the air, but I heard every word- full of compulsion and threat. I risked a glance at his eyes, intending just a quick flick to see the color to see if he was still there or completely vamped out. What I saw made me unable to wrench my gaze away. One eye was silver, but the other was a cloudy blood color. Something evil moved behind his eyes- something that hadn’t been there a moment before. “What are you to Leah?”
I swallowed hard, fear making my heart clench. “I don’t know.”
He leaned closer. “Will she bargain for you?”
“I don’t….” he cut me off, whipping my head to the side and sinking his teeth into my throat faster than thought. Pleasure raced through my body. I fought it, not wanting to let my captor make me feel good. It was a useless struggle. Vampire hormones flooded my system, making it hard to think clearly, turning every sensation to pleasure. Even the fact that he was killing me wasn’t as alarming as it should be.
Slowly, I began to feel him in my mind. It was a dark, oily sensation. He was using his aura, his power, to somehow pull memories from me with my blood. I groaned and struggled, but I couldn’t keep him out. He merely tightened his grip and plunged deeper into my skin, and my psyche.
Finally, when I thought I would black out from blood loss and the pleasure tingling over my skin, he lifted his head. He stood and looked down at me with a disappointed expression. “You really don’t know. You aren’t sure if there is something special about you. You don’t know if she’ll care that you’re here.” He canted his head from side to side. “There is nothing special about your blood. Maybe you are a favorite pet?” He shook his head, and I risked a glance at his eyes. They were both silver, and they began to fade back into his usual shade of brown as I watched. “Why would a coven leader care about a little cripple like you?”
I was regaining a tiny bit of my will. With it came anger. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth to keep from saying something dumb that would make things worse. Maybe Leah would save me purely for Peter’s sake. She seemed to really like him. He was a favorite, I was sure of it. But he had been defying her wishes by not turning a human. Would she help someone who was annoying her and causing strife in the coven?
I found out later that day. Creepy Jerk Number One was back. He brought a tall, brown-haired man with him. I almost cried for joy when I recognized Peter. Then I had an instant of terror when I was sure he had been captured too.
“Leah has sent a liaison.” Jerk seemed bored. I tried not to show emotion. Liaison?
Peter stepped forward and squatted down to my level. His face was calm as he examined my numerous bruises and bites. “Leah will not approve of the way this human has been treated, even if she is of no value to my master,” he said slowly. He shook his head disapprovingly. Sighing heavily, he stood. “I suggest you release her and allow me to wipe her memories and return her to her home.” I had never heard about that particular talent. I hoped it was just talk.
The vampire laughed. “You’re going to have to take that up with Master Cashern,” he said in that bored tone of voice. “Not f*cking likely though. What’s to say it isn’t all a set up?”
Peter shrugged. “I’m only here to observe and advise as I see fit. I can’t make you listen.” They left the room together without ever speaking a word to me. I stared at the door for a long time, expecting Peter to burst back in and rescue me. Nothing happened.
It was much later that night when Cashern and his guards came back. Jerk Number Two threw me over his shoulder like a caveman, again. “What the hell are you doing?” I tried to sound indignant. I think I just sounded scared and desperate. Shit, they were going to get rid of me.
Cashern didn’t answer. Instead, he addressed his two minions. “Take her just inside Leah’s border and toss her into the nearest ditch. I doubt anyone will find her before she starves.” He laughed. “She sure as hell won’t walk back home.”
I squirmed furiously. “You can’t do this,” I screeched. We were moving up the stairs now, and I caught glimpses of Cashern’s hawkish face through my hair.
“I can and I will,” he said coldly. “Leah says she doesn’t know you, and doesn’t personally care for your welfare. However, she has decided that killing you would be construed as poaching on her territory, the arrogant bitch. She’ll send in her vampires in retaliation. We don’t have the numbers to stand up to her in a direct conflict.” He shrugged. “So we send you back.” His voice took on an innocent tone. “If you happen to die of natural causes within her borders that’s not really our fault, now is it?” There was no trace of red in his eyes, and without it, he almost looked weak.
I kicked and slammed my fists into my captor’s back. It had all the effect of hitting a brick wall. Cashern pulled my hair aside and regarded me for a moment. “No hard feelings lamb, I just can’t let her get off making decrees like that. I have to make some impression or she’ll just keep walking all over me. I have to make her respect me. I’m sure you understand.”
“F*cker!” I screamed as loud as I could. Of course, there was no one around to hear me. No one that cared anyway.
I was thrown into a car. It was some big, boat-like number, good for hiding bodies. Luckily, they put me in the back seat, not the trunk. We drove for a couple of hours in silence as I furiously tried to figure out how the hell to get out of this. Nothing came to mind. Even if I threw myself out of the car, it wasn’t exactly as if I could just run away. I cursed my useless body for the millionth time.
Finally, we pulled off onto a country road somewhere. We bumped along over gravel for a few minutes before one of the creeps piped up. “This is good enough.”
The guy that was driving gave him a look, but he shrugged and pulled over. “If you say so.”
The vampires hauled me kicking and screaming out of the back of the car and tossed me into the ditch beside the road like I was a piece of trash. I was crying by then. Fall was coming, and the nights got cold- especially if you were sleeping in a ditch out in the middle of nowhere in a t-shirt and sandals.
As we drove, I had taken in the scenery by the fading light of the sun. There was nothing. Miles and miles of nothing. I couldn’t crawl to safety. I would struggle to crawl along the road as long as I could, hoping that someone just happened to drive by- and not run me over in the process- but it was a long shot.
The vampires were moving back to their car when they were ambushed. Darkness was falling and I couldn’t make out much of what was going on in the dusk. I could tell there was fighting though. Heavy duty fighting. It wasn’t the kind of crap you see on TV where guys are dancing around each other shouting insults and making threatening promises. This was pretty much silent. I heard the soft scuffling of feet, the sound of fists striking flesh, and the occasional soft curse or muffled moan. Then nothing.
I shrank down in my ditch, not knowing if I should call attention to myself, not knowing who was out there or who had won. I was biting my lip in indecision when a shadow materialized at my side. I shrieked and tried to crawl away, but large hands grabbed me and scooped me up. “You’re safe now.” Peter’s voice filled my head and I wrapped my arms around him in a death grip.
“I knew you’d come for me,” I said in a pathetic voice. I just kept saying it. I couldn’t seem to stop. Maybe it was shock. Or maybe I was just still convincing myself that he actually had come for me. I hadn’t been so sure there at the end, no matter what I was rambling now.
Peter wasn’t alone. He and a couple of vampires from the coven piled into the car Cashern’s vampires had recently vacated. I didn’t see any sign of the other vampires, but I didn’t look too hard. It was dark, and I didn’t really want to see. This way I could just pretend they had fled. I didn’t really think they had run away, but I could hope. “I’m sorry we left it so long,” Peter said into the darkness. “Leah was trying to figure out just what the hell they were up to.”
We drove back to the coven house to drop off the other vampires. Then Peter drove me home in silence. When we got to my apartment, he shut the car off and just sat there, staring out the window. I jumped when he spoke. “Melody, I’m so sorry for this. For getting you involved in my world. There has to be more to this whole mess. Cashern’s actions were just chaotic, every time we spoke with him, he kept swinging from one extreme to the next…” his voice trailed off and he made a visible effort to pull his thoughts back to the present. “I never should have gotten close to you.”
I sighed. “No, probably not. I shouldn’t trust strange men I meet on the subway either, but here we are.” I was tired and foggy, and not in the mood to deal with this right now.
Peter sighed. “We shouldn’t see each other anymore. I’m just a danger to you. And you are so vulnerable.”
I shook my head. “Idiot. Don’t say things like that,” I said softly. “If it wasn’t for you I would still be alone. I’d be sitting up there in that apartment right now still hating myself for all the things I can’t change.”
I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened my door, waiting patiently for him to come carry me upstairs. “It’s worth all the crap that just happened to be able to say I had an adventure.”
He scooped me up, giving a wry laugh. “Some adventure.”
I shrugged and snuggled into his arms. “Whatever.”
“I’ll get you a new wheelchair tomorrow. We need to get you cleaned up, then we have to decide what your story is going to be.”
I craned my head back to look at him. I was so damned tired. Tired, hungry, and sore. “What do you mean story?”
He shouldered open the door and took me straight to the shower. “I mean we need to explain where you’ve been for the past four days. You can’t exactly tell everyone you were kidnapped by vampires.”
I let out a massive sigh. “Oh…right.” Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
*****
I was sitting at the kitchen table staring at my cornflakes when Chelsea decided to drop by. Taz went to greet her for a few seconds, then returned to his post under the table, resting his big head on my knees. Poor guy was a little clingy since I’d left him alone for days on end. My family had left several messages on my cell during my disappearance. The first message was my Mom. She had been annoyed when she tried to stop in for a visit and found that I wasn’t home. The next was Chelsea telling me to call Mom because she was sick of hearing her complain about how thoughtless I was. The third message was mom again, a day later, concerned because I hadn’t shown up for our monthly dinner date. After that, the messages were less angry and increasingly worried. I would have felt guilty, if I’d had any say in my absence.
I had called them back first thing this morning. Peter wouldn’t let me call them last night because it would have aroused suspicion- not to mention given my Mom a heart attack- if I called at three a.m. after being out of touch for days. So, I had called this morning. I chickened out and called Chelsea instead of my parents. I didn’t have the energy to deal with Mom’s freak out right now. Being held captive by errant vampires was a bit draining. Hardy har-har.
Chelsea showed up at about ten, swooping into my apartment in a haze of expensive perfume and smartly clicking heels. She never looked less than perfect, even at ten a.m. on a Sunday. She draped her pink trench coat over the back of one of the dining room chairs and patted her purposefully messy, honey colored hair. I noticed she’d had it highlighted again, and the lighter strands were so pale they were almost platinum. She looked like sorority pin-up gone high class. I rolled my eyes and awkwardly tucked my feet under my wheelchair to hide the hole in the toe of my sock. Geez. After the last few days, the last thing I wanted as a welcoming party was Princess Chelsea. Still, it was better than Mom.
She plopped down at the table and gave me a petulant look. “So what the hell have you been doing for the last three days? Mom and Dad are about to stroke out.”
I shrugged. “Like I told you this morning, Peter and I went out of town for a couple of days. No big deal. Geez.”
She scowled. “And neither one of you thought- hey, maybe I should let someone know where I’m going?” She snorted. “You have a brain injury, what’s his excuse?”
I lifted my bowl and drank my milk before answering her. I nearly sloshed it everywhere, but it gave me time to formulate an answer. I might as well stick to my usual character. What would she expect from me? Oh, right...“F*ck you Chelsea. I’m not an idiot or a child. I can do whatever the hell I want to do. I don’t need to ask permission for anything.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re brain damaged, Mel. You need Mom and Dad to help you make decisions. You know that. How could you just leave town without telling them? And with some guy?”
I wheeled to the sink and tossed my bowl and spoon in with a thunk, too tired to care about rinsing them out. “Wow. Thanks for the vote of confidence. And he’s not some guy. It’s Peter. You all know him. I’ve been seeing him for months now.”
Chelsea shook her head and gave me a sad, pitying look. “Come on Mel, what’s with this guy anyway?”
I spun around to face her. “You mean why would he waste his time with me?”
She sat back and gave a half shrug, not denying my statement. “Look at him Mel. Jesus, he looks like a model and he sounds like an English professor. Why is he dating someone who can barely hold down a job at the library? What kind of a scam is he running?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was no use screaming at her. I’d been here before. Well, not exactly here. We typically weren’t arguing about my dating beautiful, intelligent men- but the script was similar. I just wished for once she would see me. I mean really see me. Nope. To Chelsea I wasn’t so much a person as an inconvenience.
“You’re just jealous that for once it’s not beautiful, perfect, wonderful princess Chelsea getting all the attention. God forbid I have one good thing in my life.”
She glared at me for a solid minute. I counted the seconds as the little kitty clock above the sink ticked away in the silence.
“You think I want this?” Her voice was cold and flat. “I never asked to carry all their hopes and expectations. I have to live up to everything they wanted you to be.” I started to speak, but she stopped me, slamming her hands flat on the table with a bang that made me jump. “I’ve never had a chance to live my own life. No, I have to live yours instead. Well, I don’t f*cking want your life Melody. So don’t you ever talk to me about jealousy.”
She pushed her chair back and stood, getting her things to go. “It’s always poor little Melody, isn’t it?” Her voice was almost a whisper now. “Poor little f*cked up Mel. Had her life taken away. But it wasn’t just your life that was f*cked up. Take a good look at everyone around you once in a while. We’re all suffering because of you.”
With that, she left, slamming the door behind her. I sighed. At least now she could tell Mom that I was fine; that I was just being my usual selfish self. My eyes watered as I let the bite of her words sink in. I made everyone around me unhappy. How dare she blame me for everything that had happened? How dare she complain about her perfect life when I was stuck. Stuck in this f*cking chair, stuck in this little apartment, stuck with a job that was nearly volunteer, never moving forward in anything because I was too damned slow. She could leave. Move on. Get a great job and move to another country if she wanted to. I’d always be right here having people think they needed to make all of my decisions for me. I wish I had been out of town with Peter. Maybe on some romantic getaway. Instead, I had been sitting around in someone’s basement hoping they weren’t going to find my body in the river come morning. Talk about not having the life you want.
It was only a matter of minutes before my doorbell rang again. I pushed myself into motion, in no mood to forgive my arrogant, selfish, spoiled, bitch of a sister. “What?” I jerked the door open, irate.
Haine blinked at me in surprise. “Ah…I’m sorry to bother you,” he said quickly. I bit back my anger and shooed him inside without thinking about the consequences. It would be just my luck for Chelsea to come back at that moment. Then I would have to explain Haine standing on my doorstep. I wasn’t in the f*cking mood.
He glanced at me, his bright blue eyes full of surprise, and then followed me inside. I went to get a glass of water in an attempt to calm down. Being such a mess of emotions was not healthy when you were in the presence of vampires. I hadn’t missed the fact that Haine’s eyes were a little lighter, a little more silvery, than they had been last time I saw him. “Can I get you something?”
He nodded and took a seat at the table, stretching out his long legs and looking like a model. “Water is fine.”
I brought him his water, then sat staring at the table. Finally, he leaned forward and took my hands, bringing me out of my daze. “Hey,” he said kindly. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and wiped at the stupid tears that started up in response to his concerned tone. “I’m fine,” I said firmly.
He gave my hands a little squeeze, still not letting go. “I heard what happened. I wanted to see you… to make sure you were well.” He sounded truly concerned, his voice carrying almost as much guilt as Peter’s had last night. “And to think, I said all that stuff to you about being strong. What was I thinking?”
I met his eyes and mustered a smile. “Really, I’m fine. I’m just tired and strung out.”
He seemed to relax a bit, though he still looked guilty. “If there is ever anything I can do for you, please tell me.” His beautiful voice was soft, but serious. For whatever reason, he seemed to feel responsible. I wasn’t feeling up to delving into that any further right now. One vampire in my business was enough for me, thanks.
Once he was sure I was still alive and kicking, I managed to get Haine to leave. I didn’t protest too loudly when he ruffled my hair before he left. It was nice to have someone show concern for my welfare who was neither family nor lover. Kind of like having a big brother.
I spent the rest of the day adrift. Physically I felt great. Peter had given me a little dose of his blood to erase all the bruises and scrapes from my captivity. I had protested and gagged, but this way I wouldn’t have to explain my injuries and I could stick to the out of town story. It had worked wonders on my body, but my mind was still exhausted. I recalled what Peter had said about turning me. This was just concrete proof that what he said was true. All of my physical ailments were healed, but I was mentally and emotionally drained. I lay on the couch with my eyes closed, trying to nap, but never quite falling asleep.