(9) Present: 2024
While I slept I had a dream that a boa constrictor wrapped its body around my stomach, making me choke and cry out for air I shouldn’t have needed. Something was burning nearby me, but I couldn’t see it. I felt the heat bite at my flesh, and smelled the choking smoke, but I didn’t see the fire. That’s when I noticed a casket across the room, nestled in the corner. The snake had disappeared, and the fire had burned out long ago. I had made my way towards the dusty casket, my feet bleeding from the broken glass I walked across the room.
When I reached the casket, I knelt down to it and gripped the lid as tears dripped down my white, burnt up dress. Carefully, I had lifted the lid and held my breath. Inside the casket, with eyes wide open and lips parted as if to scream, was me.
The dream had taken a sudden shift and then I truly was in the casket, and the lid closed over me and I couldn’t breathe. I smelled dirt and ashes and blood. No matter how hard I screamed and clawed at the lid, no one heard me. I was being moved, descending into the ground. I cried out for Xavier the entire time. He’s always there to save me, after all. He wouldn’t let me die.
But I did die. That’s how I woke up.
Gasping, I clenched the sheets and sat up, my fangs extended from the emotions pulsing through me. I realized my chest was sticky from tears dripping down my chin. I placed my hands on either side of my head and let out a small groan as if I had a massive hangover.
If only.
Fingers brushed my spine, breaking my thoughts of the nightmare I had been having. I didn’t look behind me. I didn’t have to. Lips pressed into my shoulder as I quickly wiped the tears away to hide any evidence of the nightmare.
“Hello,” Liam murmured into my ear as he pulled me closer to him.
I turned and looked into those deep blue eyes of his. His dark hair was messy, sticking up in every direction. His lips, always full and red, were especially full and red right now from being slightly swollen. When he turned to look at the clock, I noticed the scratches down his back, deep and red.
“Sorry about your back,” I muttered, highly embarrassed.
He gave me one of his sloppy smiles. “No apologies needed. I had a lovely time.”
My stomach gave a twist as I looked away from him and at the hotel room. The place was pretty nice, with a large flat screen TV on the wall across from us. The flooring was a luxuriously soft carpet I got to feel up close last night. The bed was king sized and perfectly comfortable, with a thick red comforter that I could just get lost in. Beside the black leather couch to my right was a mini fridge Liam currently had a few blood bags stored in.
“This is rather wonderful,” Liam commented as he laid against his pillows and stroked my bare back roughly.
I nodded, not meeting his gaze. “I actually should probably head back to the apartment…Joanna, I’m sure, is freaking out that I’m not home yet.” I scooted towards the edge of the bed and grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around me.
“You told Joanna you were going on a date with me, right?”
When I spotted my dress draped against the cherry wood coffee table I practically tackled it. “Oh, yeah. I doubt she thought it’d be an overnight sort of thing…Or over day, I don’t know. Shoes?”
Liam got out of bed and pulled on some flannel pajama bottoms. “I think they’re by the door. You can stay for some tea, can’t you? Maybe coffee?”
I shook my head and pulled on my dress with my back turned to him. “I need to get home. I have to work a shift tonight anyway.” The last part was a lie.
“How about tomorrow night? We can have drinks again or maybe do something different? A movie? Go dancing?”
My fingers had issues zipping up the dress because I was shaking so badly. I had to get out of here now before I explode and burn everything around me. “We’ll have to see.”
Liam stepped forward and helped me with the zipper. “I will be heading to Seattle in two nights. Call me later tonight and let me know what you’d like to do tomorrow night.”
I forced a smile, but it felt twisted and painful. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”
His expression fell slightly as he took me in. “Did I do something…?”
Not here, Lucy. “No, of course not!” My voice broke. “I just need to get home and feed my dog and check on Joanna. She had a rough night.”
Hesitantly, he stepped aside and let me pass him. I immediately grabbed my coat and shoes, sliding them both on quickly. “I had a wonderful time last night, Lucy. I do hope it’s not our last.” Concern coated his tone as he watched me open the door.
“Me too.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. It was nice, for a few minutes. In those few minutes I was lost without a worry or memory to destroy me. But, as it always does for me, reality smacked me across the face.
Liam took my face in his hands and gave me a kiss. “Call me.”
“Will do.” I pulled away from him and went out the door.
I made it down the hall, down the elevator, and through the lobby before my emotionless mask shattered into a million pieces. When I was just a block from the building I couldn’t walk anymore. I slumped against the chipped brick wall and began sobbing so hard I thought my head was going to explode. It was an emotional breakdown like no other. My body couldn’t hold me up anymore and I just flopped to the ground, choking on my sobs.
I slept with Liam last night.
He was the second man I’ve ever slept with. Ever. And although that seems like it shouldn’t mean much, it did to me. Xavier was the only man I had ever been with in my entire existence before Liam. Why do I feel so dirty and cheap right now? Why am I so miserable? I was entirely surprised by my reaction to all of this. I was nearly as in bad of shape as I had been that night when he died.
Xavier, Xavier, Xavier.
His name was no longer buried. It emerged last night when I slept with Liam. It broke through the walls I built when Liam kissed my neck. His name has been echoing in my mind endlessly. I doubt it’ll ever be buried again.
After letting loose a few more sobs I forced myself to stand, wobbling slightly like a drunk. I stood there, my dress dirty from being on the ground, and stared out at the street. I shouldn’t feel guilty. Xavier is gone and I am doing the right thing by moving on. But the pain was there, burning my insides. It wouldn’t have been nearly as strong if Xavier wasn’t my first everything, well, except kiss. Xavier was my first boyfriend, though I had never considered him that because he basically held my prisoner for ninety years or so. I’ve gotten past everything terrible he’s done to me, and then he became my first and only love. Nearly a hundred years we were together. That’s not something you can just brush under the rug.
I decided to head back to the apartment. I could spill out my issues to Joanna, who will probably freak out a bit before telling me that I’m doing the right thing and the Liam is an okay-ish guy and I’m overthinking things. Believe it or not, that’s what I needed right now. I needed someone to approve what I was doing. I needed someone to tell me it was okay to try to move on with someone.
By the time I reached the apartment my tears had dried up and I was doing much better. I was tempted to stop for a bottle of whisky or something, but getting home and cuddling up with Leon seemed better. That’s what I thought before I opened the apartment door.
Skin. That’s what I was blinded by. I also heard a lot of grunting that was clearly by a man and moans I somehow recognized as Joanna because of the times she’s brought guys home. This time, to no shock whatsoever, the guy was none other than her own husband, Matthew Foster. And I just saw way more of him than I’ve ever wanted to.
I stepped outside and closed the door, still gaping over what I just saw going down in my very own living room. I sip coffee on that couch, for crying out loud! I’ll have to force Joanna to sanitize the entire place. No way I’m touching that living room. Nope.
Confused and still depressed, I shuffled back down the stairs and out into the chilly night of winter. Where do I go? What do I do? Part of me considered going up the fire escape and climbing into my bedroom, but I realized that might seem creepy if they walked down the hall and saw me curled up with a book and my dog at my feet. Also, I was getting pretty thirsty after my own activities last night.
Somehow I ended up in front of the few vampire bars in New York. It was entirely run by vampires and the customers were mostly vampires, besides the few thrill-seeking humans who wander in. I’ve been here only a couple of times, though I wasn’t a fan of the decorations.
Immediately I was met with flashing red lights when I entered the bar, momentarily blinding me. I hated how they tried to make this place look vampire-friendly. It was mostly dark inside, besides the red lights, and it smelled strong of booze, blood, and the various scents of other vampires. The room was long and narrow, which meant I had to pass several people sitting at the different tables in order to make it to the bar at the back. The decorations in this place were overdone, in my opinion. The walls were painted black, making this place darker and smaller. Pictures, old ones, hung all around. They mostly were pictures people donated from their human past. Posters hung on the large, cold metal columns in the middle of the room. The posters were what really cheapened the place, which were of Dracula from each film about him.
I caught sight of chains hanging from the ceiling and the scribbles all over the black wall. Most of the scribbles were done in red ink and said cheesy stuff like “I’m going to suck your blood” or “Join me for eternity.” It was all so tacky.
“What can I get for you?” asked the woman behind the counter as the screamo music died down some.
“Anything super strong and lots of it,” I replied as I rested my chin on the cold metal counter.
“Bad week?” She slid a glass of ice over and filled it with a golden liquid.
I eyed her outfit as I thought of an answer. Of course, she wore tight black leather with a corset-like top. I would have been offended by all of this if it weren’t for my own kind creating it. I think they do it to rub it into the human’s faces. Personally, I think it’s stupid to be so bold about it. The bartender had a small nametag on her shoulder saying Iris in red ink. “Bad decade.” I took a drink. “Can I also get a bloody Mary? I’m thirsty.”
The bloody Mary was just that, blood. It was eighty percent blood, twenty percent alcohol. She poked a straw in it and handed it over. “Want to talk about it? I am, after all, a bartender. It’s my duty to listen.” She smiled with her black painted lips.
She was oddly peppy to be a bartender here. Although her look said otherwise. She had long black hair, wild down one side of her face, covering her left eye. The other side of her head was shaved and dyed blonde, or maybe it was her original hair color? Her thin, arched brows had a few piercings in them, as well as her nose and lips. Even her ears were covered in rings and rings of piercings. Joanna would totally try to pull off this look, especially the tribal tattoos down Iris’ thin, pale arms.
“My creator died,” I blurted out, surprised I said that instead of just blowing her off.
She froze with her hand on one of the bottles. Her posture was stiff and her eyes wide. “I-I’m so sorry.”
Surprised, I stared at her, gaping. “Why?”
Her black eyes met mine, nearly the shade of my creator’s. “The pain of losing a creator is unbearable.”
“You lost your creator, too?” I questioned.
She nodded. “About fifty years back. I can still remember the agony I went through. It still burns my insides.” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
It was astonishing to find someone who, too, was going through something similar. “Does it get easier? Did you move on—“
“Move on?” She stepped closer. “What do you mean? You can’t just move on from a creator.”
“I meant your relationship,” I clarified.
“My relationship? Why would that matter? I barely knew her.”
Now I was really confused. “But you just said the pain was unbearable.”
Again, she nodded, harder this time. “It definitely was. You know what I mean. The whole fire on the insides and the agonizing feeling of your heart slowly being squeezed harder and harder. I passed out because of it. It wasn’t until someone called to inform me of her death was when I realized the pain was because she was kill.” She shivered once more. “I don’t meet many who have lost their creator. I don’t know why. Did yours die in the war? The ones I’ve been talking to lost theirs in the war.”
I was still trying to figure out what she just told me. “What do you mean? About the pain, that is. Why’d you pass out?”
She raised a thin brow at me. “You should know as well as I do. I thought I had been lit on fire from the inside. Although I hear it can be more intense for others, if they’re physically closer to their creator. Mine had been five states away. I can’t imagine how it would have felt if she were—“
“Is it different for everyone? Do other people feel it differently?”
“Not that I’m aware of. It’s the same for everyone. I thought you said—“
“Maybe I was too injured to feel it. I had burns on me that night…” I faded off as I forced myself back to that horrific night.
I remember smoke, and blood everywhere. My skin burned, and I do remember them burning. The pain was easy to shut off when I was focused on getting my creator out of there. But the pain wasn’t intense. It was mostly just in my arms. I didn’t feel it outside of the house when Liam had to pin me down to keep me from running inside. The pain was agonizing, but it wasn’t physical pain tearing my heart up; it was emotional. I was so distraught and grieving I didn’t feel my physical pain. Was it possible that I was so emotional that night that I didn’t even feel the loss of my creator?
“You said you passed out?” I pushed, remembering how I had been fully awake the entire time.
“Yup. Most do. I remember I was in the middle of a concert with some buddies of mine and then the pain struck me. I fell down and couldn’t control my body. The guys I was with were humans and thought I was having a seizure. I was better after a few minutes, when I woke up.”
Immediately my thoughts went back to the war nearly eight years ago. People were dying all around me. But what I remember being the strangest part of it was how a vampire named Maggie had been flopping around on the ground, even though I didn’t witness anyone else doing it. You’d think if the humans had some weapon that did that to vampires, more than one vampire would be doing that. But I also remember Maggie leaping up and crying out her creator’s name Tasha as she ran.
“Hey, are you okay?” Iris asked as I sat up straighter.
“I-I didn’t feel that,” I managed to say. “I didn’t feel any of that.”
She gave me a curious look. “Are you sure? It’s not something you ever forget.”
“I didn’t feel it.”
“Are you sure your creator even died?”
I stood up, slightly dizzy. It wasn’t the booze making me unable to keep my balance, it was the conversation. “But he had to of. The fire… He would have found me.” I was barely choking out these words.
“Hey, slow down, okay? Just rest for a few minutes.”
“I didn’t feel it, so that means something is wrong, right?”
She pursed her pierced lips together. “Are you sure he’s your creator?”
I thought back to 1920, when I first met Xavier. We were in a car and he didn’t drop me off at my house like he had promised me at the club. Instead he pulled me into his lap and forced his wrist into my mouth, and his blood into my throat. That’s when he killed me. “Positive,” I replied breathlessly.
“Well…” She paused for a few seconds. “There’s only one other reason why you didn’t feel it…”
I stood up, nearly knocking the stool over. “If he didn’t die.”
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Finally! Lucy is suspicious :)
What did you think about her sleeping with Liam? What about her walking in on Joanna and Matthew? What did you think of how Lucy realized she didn't feel physical pain when Xavier died?
Leave your thoughts below! The longer the better :)
-C
p.s. I am about to receive a physical copy of The Deal Maker! Hopefully it'll all come out okay and I'll get to show you guys wha it looks like :)