Chapter Nine
Louise was skinny, but light she most certainly was not.
The parking lot was thankfully still empty so nobody really had the opportunity to see me trying to drag her heavy self around to the passenger seat, and although I got her settled in safely enough, the sight of her face made me feel a myriad of emotions that I couldn't name.
The fact that she'd accepted me and even offered to donate blood had moved me more than words could ever really describe, but there was a darker part of my psyche that wondered if it was because the shock factor hadn't really worn off.
She'd come running to my rescue after seeing what had been done to me, sure, and I fully admired her courage for doing so... but her reaction after watching me actually drink blood concerned me, because for a second, it had looked almost as if the reality of me had hit her.
Like the "BAM, right in the nose!" kind of hitting.
You know, the kind that could make someone with a certified degree in helping people work through their fucking mental disorders faint from shock. I shuddered at the idea of my issues making my own therapist faint as I fastened her seat belt and shut the door behind her.
"This sucks," I muttered to myself, crawling up into the driver's side. "I mean, damn, I get that its disgusting but she literally gets paid to talk to creepy, crazy, and overall messed up people on a regular basis. I mean, sure, I guess drinking blood might have been a new one... and yeah, I am pretty weird, but aren't I kind enough and cute enough to make up for it, at least?"
I thought about it for a second, but was dismayed to realize that I didn't really know. I was an old, OLD vampire man who looked like a pretty young girl. I cringed at the internal realization, shuddering, nose wrinkling a little before I reluctantly nodded.
I can see it, I reluctantly admitted, slamming the car door shut and adjusting myself. The chair was much too far back, so I had to pull it almost all the way forward, making sure I could reach the brake and gas pedal, and then the mirrors were all wrong so I had to finagle them, too.
Eventually, however, I put everything to rights.
I didn't know where, specifically, we were going... but I knew which direction we needed to go in order to get to Detroit. I hadn't driven a car since the day I turned seventeen, but motor memory was an amazing thing since it came to me like clockwork, and that's why after taking a deep breath I put Lou's vehicle in gear, backed out of the parking lot with the tires squealing, and in a fit of very unabashed frenzy, drove the two of us back onto the highway.
I saw no other cars driving along the same path, which was odd, but the flashing sky and boiling clouds above made me wonder if it was because of the coming storm. There was lightning literally every seven to ten seconds, but still no rain, and it was windy as hell.
I kept my eyes on the passing asphalt, watching the headlights light up the moving snake trail beneath the car. In a fit of whimsy, I rolled down the window and sighed as the night breezed into my face, smelling of car exhaust and pine.
"I forgot how nice being in a car can be," I murmured. "This is great."
At least, until I saw a sign displaying the distance ratio between driving vehicles and realized that I was in a bit of a pickle. I'd forgotten that the roads in America had different traffic laws than when I'd been a kid, and I, with my supernatural speed, had never bothered learning them.
However, since the highway was three entire lanes wide and there were quite literally zero drivers on the road besides myself, I encountered no problems.
Just need to watch out for traffic cops, I muttered to myself. If I can do that until Louise wakes up, we'll be fine.
After a good thirty minutes had passed, I glanced at the passenger seat to see that she'd leaned her forehead onto the window, serene and expressionless as she dreamed. Her curly hair looked wild in the dark, framing her high cheekbones and falling across her pale skin in a chaotic manner. I didn't know why she'd gone out of her way to help me, but I was grateful to her.
She was the only person to know what I really was and not call me a monster.
I faced forward and settled in, getting comfortable since I figured it was going to be a long drive.
I'll admit that I was enjoying it despite the silence. If it had been thirty years ago I would have turned on the radio but music these days was bland, as if it were only still around because it had always been a thing, so, like I always did when the silence became too much, I made my own music.
"The endless of darkness is hovering, the sound of the silence is deafening, ten billion decibels shattering," I hummed, softly, sweetly, as I drove us through the dark. "Forces of gravity taking me, taking me... weightlessness is forsaking me. Ooh, this pull is astronomical...."
A chill ran through me as I sang, arm on the window, wind rushing through my hair, blasting it out of my face and cooling my cheeks off.
"Oh, this pull is astronomical... I'm drawn to the unknown, where shadows hide, a slave to the powers that magnetize. There's something inside of me, I can't fight. Forces of gravity taking me, taking me, weightlessness is forsaking me... oooh, this pull is astronomical...."
I trailed off about halfway through the song, humming occasionally, but for the most part quiet.
Now that I was in my zone, I no longer needed to sing to keep the music going in my head since I had perfect auditory memory. It had been a skill of mine from a very young age to be able to hear a song only once or twice and forever have the choruses and melodies in my mind.
It wasn't until I heard shuffling from my left that my focus was broken and I stopped.
"Pretty song," she groggily mumbled, opening her eyes with a yawn; she blinked at the road, then glanced at me, brows coming together. "What happened? Why are you driving my car?"
"You blacked out after I drank your blood," I said simply. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired," she said.
"Sleep, then. I'll let you know when we're getting closer to Detroit."
I heard her shifting below the sound of the tires on the pavement. "Not happening. You're not a very good driver."
"I haven't driven a car since I was seventeen," I explained, and she snorted.
"And how long ago was that?"
"About sixty years ago."
She eyed me strangely, looking my small form up and down, brown-eyed gaze lingering particularly on my bleached blonde hair and smooth white skin.
Her lips twisted wryly.
"You sure don't look your age," she dryly noted. "You looked pretty young over the calls, but in person you're even smaller than I imagined."
That got a laugh out of me.
"True enough," I admitted, rolling my eyes. "Then again, if I were capable of looking my actual age, I'd probably look like an extremely old man with saggy jowls and wrinkles everywhere."
Silence reigned free for a little while after that, a silence that didn't go unnoticed by me.
"You know," Louise said softly, "I feel like seeing this side of you brought down a huge wall."
Her voice sounded pained, casual, and apologetic all at once. I didn't reply, focusing on the road ahead of me and the way the white lines flew into the dark behind us. My mind, however, honed in on what she'd just said because it was the complete and honest truth.
There had been a wall between us that I'd known she'd noticed, but it was a wall that I had never planned on bringing down.
"It's hard to be yourself in a world that makes horror movies about what you are," I said softly, staring at the road with unfocused eyes. "The world tells people that vampires and other scary monsters that go after you in the dark don't exist, and there's never any proof that they do."
"You exist," she pointed out, giving me a look. "Doesn't that count?"
"I don't know," I said, shaking my head. "I've had more than half a century to question my own existence, but I never found anything on the internet about vampires being real. I might have gotten somewhere if it hadn't been wiped during the cyber attacks of the thirties, but I couldn't find the real truth with all my available research data destroyed."
"What about going to a library or doing physical research?"
"I can't go outside during the day, and most libraries in Michigan are only open until four or five in the afternoon, with one or two staying open until six," I muttered, shaking my head. "Going to a library was impossible for me to pull off. Believe me, I tried everything in the beginning."
She furrowed her brow and faced forward again.
"Then, what do you think?" she asked. "What are your thoughts on your existence?"
My hands instinctively tightened on the wheel.
"I... don't know," I said honestly. "I try not to think about it because it scares me. I'm truly afraid of what I am, of why I am the way I am, and there's a huge part of me that doesn't want to know. I'd be happy if I could simply live every single day without having to worry all the time."
"It takes courage to admit something like that," she said softly. "You're braver than you think."
"No I'm not." The words came out harsh. "I'm just... avoiding the real issue."
"And what is the real issue?"
I hesitated, then said, "that my life, regardless of what I do, feels like it will never become anything more than an old myth, and it makes me wonder what the point of me living is."
She shifted again, and my fingers tightened around the leather steering wheel.
"You're not a myth," Louise said, "and while it's true you might be a monster, you're a really sweet and honest person on the inside. Everyone on this world is here for a reason. I firmly believe that, and I don't think you're any different, Aerin."
I smirked despite myself.
"Is that you or the therapist talking?"
"A bit of both, actually."
I chuckled, but we didn't say anything, then, just drove along in the dark.
The white lines streaked past.
And that's when my eyes started playing tricks on me.
"Whoa," I said, blinking rapidly; I looked for a clock but failed to find one on her dashboard, so I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. "How long have I been driving?"
"It's around two in the morning," Louise said, and I saw the thing again, a silvery blur on the side of the road, hovering about an inch above the grassy divider between the sides of the highway. It flickered past, a ghost of an illusion I could barely see, and then it happened again, only this time it was closer, looming only ten feet away from the car.
A shifting black cloud floated under the strange silvery shape.
The vision, if that's what it really was, was surreal yet almost too disturbing to be fake. Only, I knew that the hyper-real vision could only be a dream because it vanished and reappeared so quickly, hovering at the edges of my sight dozens of times over a half-mile stretch of road.
Nothing real could do that.
"I need to give the wheel up," I said, rubbing my eyes with a hand, and I started to pull the car over.
"What's wrong?" Louise asked.
"Seeing things," I said, but then I heard her gasp and felt a hand clamp down on my arm. I looked up, startled, into her completely awake face. She was sitting in the seat next to me with a bolt-straight back, staring out the car window, almond eyes literally bugging out of her skull.
"Oh, my god," she whispered, squeezing my wrist so hard it hurt. "Oh, my GOD!"
"What?" I asked, peering around her. "What is it?"
"Go faster. Now." she said in a surprisingly collected voice, turning back to face me; her eyes, however, were frenzied, completely mismatching her tone. "I think we have company."
I felt another chill run down my spine, a chill that I somehow recognized as being tied to Sebastian's presence, and just like that I needed no further prompting. To say I floored it would have been an understatement: I pressed on the gas so hard that her car shuddered like crazy and she slammed back against the seat from the force of the acceleration.
"I thought I was just seeing shit!" I cried, feeling panic rise in my chest, but then I remembered my vow to be brave and did my best to breathe.
"Apparently not," Louise said calmly, but that calmness dissolved and she let out a screech of actual terror when Sebastian himself appeared at the side of the highway again, bent so low that his upper torso was literally parallel to the ground, arms in the air behind him, feet a blur.
I couldn't see his face, but I saw his eyes, which shone like hellfire in the darkness.
I realized with a fit of horror that the silvery blob I'd been seeing was his white tank-top. He made no move to stop us, though, despite being able to keep pace with a car doing a hundred and ten down the highway. Louise squeezed my wrist so hard that it hurt and I jumped.
"What do we do?" she whispered. "I never thought he could do something like what I'm seeing! This is on a whole different level! What the fuck is he?! Aerin!"
"I have no idea!" I whispered right back, shaking my head and trying to keep calm despite my maddeningly thudding heart. "Let's just try to outrun him."
"Seriously?" Louise squawked, clutching her hair; she gestured out the window. "He's keeping up with a speeding car going down a fucking highway! On FOOT!"
"He might tire out," I proffered, shaking my head so fast that my hair flew around my face. "Whatever we do, though, we can't stop... for any reason, no matter what."
Louise, however, was having none of it.
She let go of my arm, and for a second I thought she was going to relax, but instead she started rolling down the fucking window. I looked at her, horrified, wondering if she was insane.
"LEAVE US ALONE, YOU FREAKISH ASSHOLE!" she screamed, shaking her fist. "I SAW WHAT YOU DID TO AERIN! HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE THAT, EVEN IF HE IS A VAMPIRE! STOP FOLLOWING US AND GET LOST!"
I cast a fearful glance at the sprinting figure keeping pace with the car, and thought I saw Sebastian's eyes turn neon yellow, but I didn't bother trying to see if I was right.
"I think you should roll up the window now," I said in a shrill, manic voice. "Let's not provoke the insane psychopath who can run faster than a car and wants to kill me, please?"
As I spoke, I frantically rolled up my own window and clung to the steering wheel for dear life.
Louise must have noticed how scared I was because she put a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't worry," she said in a reassuring voice. "I won't let him get to you, Aerin."
I wanted to believe her, oh man, did I want to, but real life doesn't work like that. You see, almost as if God himself were trying to send us a message, our windshield exploded only a second after she said it. I threw myself backwards in shock as a jagged circular hole about two feet in diameter opened up in front of me, sending square glass flying into my face.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, barely hearing the deafening screech that came from my right, and instinctively jerked the car onto the shoulder of the highway.
I quickly lost control of it; my side of the vehicle connected with the cement safety wall and screeched along it for a good fifty feet, shedding the side mirror and bursting out the window as it went. Before my eyes were two glowing yellow irises that shone brighter than any moon.
Wild chocolate hair flew around a black-bearded face twisted with murderous venom, and as I screamed a hand tipped with black claws dove through the shattered glass and twined into my hair. I heard the screeching of tires and Louise shrieking as the car finally shuddered to a halt.
I fought, terrified, as Sebastian tried to drag me through the hole in the windshield, but I braced my hands against the web of clinging shards just as I felt two thin hands clutch at my skin and hair.
"AERIN!" she screeched as the glass dug into my palms and the hand pulled tighter into my hair. "LET HIM GO!!"
I screamed again, louder as I was pulled from all directions, and I tried to look back at my therapist for support, but the night had pressed in close and all I could see were shadows and eyes glinting in it like enraged stars, and I thrashed from side to side, trying to get away.
Strands of torn hair tickled my neck as the pain in my head grew to unheard of heights, and I was lifted out of my seat as a voice like a god said, "you're mine!"
Suddenly, cold yellow light pierced the darkness at my back.
"Aerin! DUCK!!"
I tried to do as Louise said and dragged myself down, shrilling in pain.
To my alarm, with a series of deafening pops and flashes from behind me, Sebastian snarled like a wounded animal and abruptly let me go, dragging his hand out of the hole and taking the rest of the windshield with him in a Milky Way of glass. He tumbled over the hood like a rag in a wind, and collided with the asphalt with an audible crack and thump. He lay still, then, bathed in the glow of our flickering headlights, but despite the pain in my scalp and neck I turned to Louise.
She was crushed against her seat, hands shaking, a smoking pistol clutched in her hands.
Her pupils were dilated and she looked like she'd gone into shock.
"Did I... kill him?" she asked in the unexpected silence, and part of his massive body twitched.
I admit it.
The twitch made me lose my fucking mind.
Without thinking about it, I went hysterical and slammed my foot onto the gas pedal. The car surged forward, sending Louise tumbling back into her seat, and Sebastian managed to raise his head right before he disappeared beneath the bumper. He looked rather surprised, but I chose to ignore that fact since there were two horrible lumps in the pavement that made the vehicle rock and sway. I bit my tongue on the second one, but I didn't look back.
"Now he might be," I said through chattering teeth, hands shaking. "C-cross your fingers."
"M-my car," Louise whimpered. "My car is ruined..."
"Better than our lives, right?" I muttered, eyeing the rear view mirror.
"I just shot someone!" she cried, shakily throwing the gun into the glove compartment. "What if I killed him?!"
"Do you really want to stop to find out?!" I demanded, stomping on the brakes; her head snapped forward, but I simply gave her a hard look, clenching my fists on the wheel. "You shot him out of pure necessity. It was self defense, but if you really want to go back there, I'll turn around and we can go gallivanting right into that fucker's real life horror film."
"Uh... well, when you put it that way... let's not," she mumbled, closing her eyes. "Keep going."
I would have done what I was told and floored it again, but the pain unexpectedly caught up to me without any warning and the shock of it was so alien that I actually had to lean toward the missing window and vomit out of it. Hair tumbled past my cheeks, blonde and long and ragged.
Louise stared at me in shock, eyes bugging out of her head when I turned.
"Can you," I panted, feeling weaker than I had ever felt in my entire life, "please drive now?"
"Sure," she whispered. "Get out and let's switch places."
I opened the door, clutching my aching head, and stumbled onto the side of the highway; I looked around, still finding it bizarre that there were no other cars aside from us, but at the same time we were literally out in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn't particularly surprising.
Louise surveyed the damage done to the hood and windshield while I took care of my nausea.
"How can one living, breathing man do this much damage?" she muttered, scratching her head with a puzzled, somewhat detached frown. "Its scientifically impossible with sheer muscle mass alone. He ripped through the metal of the hood, crushed the bumper, and punched through the safety glass like it was nothing! I've never even seen something like that in a movie!"
"They had a scene like that once in a movie from back in the nineties," I grumpily muttered, rubbing the sweat from my forehead; I leaned against the concrete safety railing, looking up at the occasionally flashing sky which illuminated the black silhouettes of the trees each time.
A violent chill ran down my spine and I shivered, rubbing my arms.
It was going to start raining at any second.
"The nineteen nineties?" she asked, startled. "What was it called?"
"The Terminator," I muttered, rubbing my aching head. "It was about a futuristic robot that was sent back in time to kill people who were important to the fate of humanity. It was a good movie for its era, and it had two fairly iconic sequels. It's hard to believe nobody remembers Arnold."
"Well, I mean, nobody really watches the classics anymore," she said, shrugging. "Can't blame them. Old films are boring. You just sit there and stare at a screen for a few hours. Why bother doing that when you can use a holorift headset that can put you in the story?"
"You'd be surprised to find out how much you'd actually enjoy it," I baldly told her. "Some of the films I watched growing up were hilarious, and others were more than incredible."
"Really now?" she asked, sliding into the car; she waved me on. "Well, you'll have to show me sometime, then. For now, get in. We need to get going before it starts pouring on us."
"I'm afraid that's not gonna happen."
My heart stopped.
For a second, I saw everything clearly, but it was if time had slowed to a fraction of a millisecond. My hair drifted slowly in front of my eyes, I saw Louise, heard the wind, the rumble of thunder, and I felt all of the hair stand up on the back of my neck the moment that guttural baritone filled the air directly behind me.
"AERIN!" Louise screeched, and then an arm was around my throat. I flailed, beating against his wrist as he dragged me backwards and crushed me against his stone-like abdomen, ruthlessly pulling me towards the woods, coughing against his grip.
How the fuck is he still moving?! I wailed to myself, struggling to get free. He took several bullets and I even ran him the fuck over! IS HE MADE OF STEEL OR SOMETHING?!
"You thought you could escape?" he hissed into my ear. "You're going to regret this."
"LET HIM GO!" Louise roared, and I suddenly saw her standing there, gun held in both of her shaking hands, legs spread with her heels apart. The barrel of it was pointed right at him, but her eyes were frantic and fearful and it didn't help that the dark curls framing her face were flying in every direction thanks to the heavy winds. "LET HIM GO OR I'LL SHOOT!"
Sebastian's grip tightened, but he then did something that chilled my blood.
I felt his chest move, repeatedly, and a deep, amused chuckle filled my ears.
"That toy of yours won't do you any good," he said, giving her a snort. "Be on your way. This isn't a problem that a normal woman like you can get involved with. My business is with the leech."
"Let, him, go," Louise said in a far calmer voice, raising the weapon higher. "If you don't, I will."
I felt his arm slacken a bit.
"You don't know what you're getting yourself into, woman," he said, all traces of nonchalance gone from his tone; he sounded frightening and mean. "Walk away. If you get any more involved than you already are, I'll be forced to kill you."
My fear skyrocketed, but more than that, my anger did as well.
I was finished.
"Don't threaten her," I hissed. "What the fuck do you want from me?"
His head snapped down and I suddenly felt his mouth against my neck, felt his teeth, a warning.
"Obedience," he viciously hissed against my skin. "Until I find the answer I'm looking for, I want obedience, bitch."
I shivered in horror as his teeth scraped along my throat, eyes bugging, knees knocking.
"Stop," I spit, struggling only to have him tighten his grip on me. "Get the fuck off me!"
"Shut up," he growled, and to my shock he bit me; only, his mouth wasn't the way a human mouth should have been, it was far larger, almost elongated in a way, and I felt rows of serrated teeth scraping along my flesh in a manner that gave me the willies.
I shivered, hands jerking, as his mouth came to rest right on my jugular. I felt sharp pricks dig in and lock down, followed by a deep, gravelly growl that sounded more animal than human to my ears. I felt the vibration of it throughout my whole body, and a wash of dread swept through me.
"Oh, my God," Louise suddenly said, drawing my tunneling gaze. "He's... biting you! Like a dog!"
"What?" I wheezed, trying. "Louise! Now is not the time to--"
"Oh, my God!" she interrupted, loudly. "I-I think I know what he is!"
"Huh?!" I squawked. "What the fuck are you--"
"A vampire's worst enemy," she said blankly, as if she couldn't believe it. "It all makes sense... it finally makes sense. His strange eyes, his violent and domineering behavior, the way his teeth get sharp, even the way he's holding you and biting you right now! I figured it out!"
The teeth digging into my throat stopped.
Confusion swept through me when his mouth suddenly came off my neck long enough for him to raise his head.
"What am I, then, woman?" he growled, lowly, dangerously. "Let's hear it."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," she said slowly, shifting her spread-eagle stance, "but if vampires are actually real, that must mean a lot of other things are real, too, right?"
His arm suddenly squeezed me and I choked, gagging.
"Louise, stop... provoking... him!" I somehow managed to wheeze, kicking my legs in pain.
"I can't, Aerin," she said, and for some reason she refused to lower her eyes, staring boldly into my captor's. "I can't. Not now."
"WHY?!" I wailed. "He's gonna kill me!"
"No, he won't," she said, finally lowering the gun, "because if I'm right, Sebastian is a werewolf, and normal wolves that live in the wild only dominate other wolves if they're considered part of a pack. It's a way of showing those lower in the food chain who's in charge."
I felt a jolt of shock sear through me and I abruptly stopped struggling.
"A... a werewolf?" I asked, unable to believe my ears. "Wait... that can't be right. It's not possible, even being a vampire is a stretch and I am one!"
Her brown eyes were strangely unfettered.
"If you could see his face right now," she said, "you'd find it easy to believe. He looks like an actual monster, like the bones in his face have rearranged themselves."
"That doesn't mean he's a werewolf!"
The hand around my throat tightened a little.
"Aerin," she said softly, calmly, "what he's doing to you right now... it's physical domination."
"H-hah?!" I squawked. "No way!"
But even as I said it, I had to admit, a part of me started wondering since the position he had me in was an awkward and extremely uncomfortable one; he was standing with his legs spread and his back hunched, one huge hand clutching my left wrist to keep it pinned behind my back while he used the other to bar any movement. His head was being held at a very awkward angle just to reach my neck with his teeth.
Worse, I could feel his groin being pressed against my back.
Hard.
As if he were trying to straddle me without actually straddling me.
"My little brother is obsessed with wild animals, particularly wolves and owls," Louise said calmly, shaking her head. "I've seen documentaries about them since I was in early high school thanks to his interests, and I have a pretty good view of this guy right now. He's dominating you."
"Shut up," Sebastian finally hissed. "I grow tired of hearing you speak."
"Louise," I choked, ignoring the warning, "this can't be right! If he's really a werewolf, then..."
I trailed off because it was only then that it all hit me, right at once. The ground dropped out from underneath me as I recalled all the little clues, from his shifting appearance, to his size, to his animal-like aggression, and even his words when I'd pulled my pocket knife on him.
"Thought you'd pull a silver blade on me, huh? Fucking snake. I knew what you were holding the moment I walked through that door, I could smell it, feel it, but you still came right at me. You really do have a death wish."
A vampire's worst enemy was supposedly someone who could take a bullet like it was nothing but went borderline insane if anything silver came even close to being used on him.
Everything finally clicked into place.
Werewolf.
Sebastian, the man who'd ruined my life, was a fucking werewolf.
"Oh, my God," I whimpered, trembling in horror. "Werewolves exist? They're real?"
"I said, shut up," he hissed, leaning down and biting my throat again; I flinched, since this time it was harder, enough to hurt like hell.
"Get your filthy mouth off of him," Louise ordered, glaring. "If you're actually a werewolf it has to mean you're part man! Stop acting like an animal already and be civil, for fuck's sake!"
Sebastian instantly pulled his mouth off me, thank fucking God, but instead he turned his eyes on her. I struggled against his massive, meaty arms, but they were like titanium bars, they wouldn't budge no matter how hard I fought to make him release me.
"If you're smart, you'll get in that car and drive away," he coldly warned. "Now."
"No," Louise said, raising the gun again; even so, my heart kept pounding since she was still glaring at him at full throttle. "I'm staying with Aerin, regardless of what you say."
"Ah," Sebastian sighed, and his arm instantly loosened up on me. "I wish you hadn't said that."
And then, he was walking away from me, towards her, drawing his hand back, and confused panic was filling my body. I tried to figure out what was going on, but it was a mess, I couldn't process it because it was happening too fast.
I heard gunshots, then the sound of the gun dropping and her heels clicking as she backed away, and then my brain turned back on and I was running before I could stop myself. I flew past the angry psychopath and tackled her around the middle.
We landed hard on the asphalt, but I covered her with my body, wrapping my arms around her head and holding her face against my chest. I vowed to myself then and there that I wouldn't budge. No matter what he did to me, to us, I wouldn't budge for a second.
Louise and I flinched in sync when his voice filled the air, malevolent and mean.
"Move, leech."
I didn't respond.
I kept my eyes squeezed shut and held her, fingers in her hair, and I felt her hands clutching the front of my shirt. She was larger than me, her legs were exposed, so if he harmed her there I couldn't protect her, but if he tried to go for any vital spots he'd have to take me along with her. I refused, after everything he'd done, to let him get his way again.
Not when a person's life was involved.
"I said move," he snarled. "NOW!"
"Never," I whispered, keeping my eyes closed.
A heavy silence filled the air for a few seconds, but then...
"Why?"
"Why not?!" I outrageously spat. "I'm not strong enough to beat the shit out of you, so this is the only way I can stop you! If you do anything to her you'll have to go right through me because I'm not moving a God damn muscle!"
Another long pause came from behind me. Louise squeezed my shirt a bit tighter.
"You are unlike any vampire I've come across," Sebastian finally growled, this time speaking in a tone that seemed more puzzled than pissed. "You're weak, pathetic, have odd feeding habits, and now you're even trying to use your own body as a shield for a single stupid human."
I didn't loosen my hold, but the abrupt change in his tone had me on edge.
I felt Louise shifting underneath me, but paid her no mind.
"I don't care who it is," I countered, hating how feeble my retort sounded. "Even if it was a stranger, it wouldn't matter, I'd still be right here protecting them from you."
"Feh. Enough of this," he growled, running a hand through his hair. "Get up. Both of you."
"Not happening asshole."
"I said get up, leech. We're going back."
Confusion filled me and I finally turned, looking at him over my shoulder.
"Back?" I hesitantly asked. "What do you mean?"
His orange eyes landed on me, pissed and angry-looking, but his face was oddly stoic.
"I'm loathe to admit it, but it might be less of a hassle to do things your way," he reluctantly ground out, "through negotiation. If you want civility, fine, from here on out I'll make sure you have it, but this... compromise changes absolutely nothing. You are not to step out of line."
"Is there really no way to make you leave me the hell alone?" I tiredly asked.
"Not on your life," he instantly grunted. "Get used to the idea of me being around."
"No!" I groaned, shaking my head. "No matter what you say, that still makes me a prisoner in my own home! I don't believe you for a second about being civil, either!"
"You doubt my integrity?"
"Integrity?!" I scoffed, glaring at him over my shoulder. "Where the fuck was it when you were beating the shit out of me?! Better yet, where was it when you stole the rights to my home from me using a death threat and destroyed a historical landmark with your renovation process?"
His left eyebrow, to my muted surprise, actually raised a little.
It seemed that my claim had caught him a little off guard.
"Historical landmark?" he said slowly. "What do you mean, historical landmark?"
"I mean, my whole block is a historical landmark," I callously informed him, shaking my head in disgust. "Everything inside my home, from the cabinets to the flooring, were from the original building all the way back in the eighteen hundreds! That's not the point though! The point is, I don't fucking trust you!"
"Then it seems my actions from here will have to do," he grunted. narrowing his hellish eyes; he pointed at Louise and jerked his thumb at her car. "Get up, now. We'll bring the woman back with us as well since she can, at the very least, provide you with blood for the time being."
"W-what?" Louise squawked. "Wait, what?!"
"Would you rather die for knowing too much?" Sebastian deadpanned, and she snapped her mouth shut, going a little pale in the face. "That's your only other option, woman. If you want to stay alive, be smart about this."
I swallowed hard, then carefully scooted off of her chest, making sure to keep myself between them; I pushed my hair out of my face as I met his gaze.
"I'll go with you on the conditions," I said as firmly as I could, "that you don't ever touch me again, and you let Louise go back home to resume her normal life, completely unharmed."
His eyes narrowed, regaining a trace of the evil resting just beneath the surface, but his expression smoothed out not long after it appeared.
"As long as you do not step out of line, it will... be done," he reluctantly muttered. "The former rules I laid out still apply. No leaving the building without me, or blood hunting, and no talking to anyone unless I am present to monitor what is being said. The same goes for her. If she breathes a word of our existence to anyone else, I'll be hunting for her head instead of yours."
"No way! If I go back, I want the freedom to resume my daily lifestyle with no interferences from you, including my ability to play video games and talk with her," I rebelliously countered, glaring at him; a vein bulged in his forehead and his eyes flared to a bright yellow, which made Louise cringe away, but I ignored her. "I also want you to replace my television, which you smashed."
"Not happening," he growled.
"Then we don't have a deal."
"Would you rather die?"
"You've made it quite clear that you want me alive bad enough that you literally go out of your way to avoid killing me," I pointed out with a dead fish stare. "You could have had this done and over with in seconds, but you didn't, so I'm sure you'll see things my way."
His face darkened again, but after a few tense seconds he actually nodded, jaw clenched.
"Deal," he bitterly hissed. "Now, let's return."
"One last thing," I said, and he glared, eyes turning almost neon, "I want you to pay for all of the damages you did to Louise's car when you attacked us. You can't just run around destroying people's shit just because you're strong enough to get away with it. It's fucked up."
He suddenly looked mad enough to kill, but again, he nodded.
"Deal. Is that all?"
I thought about it, then nodded as well, giving my assent.
I rose, then, and held out my hand to Louise, who seemed to be almost catatonic from shock. Her hair was disheveled and she looked confused and, overall, completely terrified. She looked at my hand for the longest time, but it wasn't until I wiggled my fingers that she got the hint and took it, allowing me to pull her upright.
"Are you crazy?" she whispered, staring at me. "What the hell are you thinking?"
"I'm going back into the lion's den," I told her grimly. "I'm not thinking. I don't have a choice."
She eyed Sebastian and I saw the way he eyed her; it was like watching a lion observing a gazelle in the wild. She clutched my throbbing wrist and stopped me, her perfume clouding my thoughts, making me dizzy.
"Don't do this," she said. "You can't just go back with him after what he did to you."
"I don't have a choice," I repeated, and I meant it because I knew that it was true. "I'd like to rehire you as a therapist if you're all right with it. He promised not to put his hands on me and to be civil, and to let me do what I want. That's a weird, small step forward, I think."
"If I'm right, that man is a werewolf, Aerin," she whispered harshly, eyes frantic. "You don't even know what he's capable of doing! How could you trust him to keep his end of the deal?! What if he kills you once you leave, or comes after me without you knowing it?! How do you know?!"
I admit, she had a good point, because I didn't... but he was stronger than me. If he'd wanted to, he could have killed both of us many times over, and I had to remind myself of that to keep my resolve up. Sebastian was a scary individual, but he didn't strike me as the sort to be a liar.
If anything, he was brutally honest... so honest that he normally used the truth like a blade.
"I won't let him," I promised. "Just go home, get some rest, and let things go back to normal for the time being. I'll keep you updated with what's happening during our sessions, I promise."
"Are you sure?" she asked, searching my face in concern.
"Yeah."
I turned, then, and walked towards Sebastian, who was still glaring evil little daggers at me.
"What the hell did I get myself into?"
I heard her question even though it was spoken so softly that a normal human wouldn't have been able to, but to be honest, even if she'd been asking me, I wouldn't have had any idea how to answer that. I was still trying to piece together the answer to that very same question.
And so far, I was getting nowhere.
"So," I said, looking up at him with a frown. "How are we getting back?"
"Running," he grunted, jerking a thumb down the empty highway. "Obviously."
"I can't keep up with you," I informed him, shaking my head as I turned; I glanced at Louise to see her sitting in the car and staring at us through the busted window. "You go on ahead. You're faster than me, and even though it'll take me longer, I'll still do my best to follow."
"Not happening," Sebastian sneered, and before I could blink, he snatched me around the middle and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Keep your head down."
"W-what?!" I squawked, looking up through a curtain of disheveled hair even as he crouched low; I kicked my captive legs, beating against his back. "Hey! Let go of me! Let go! No touching, remember?! That was the deal! To keep your hands off of me and not--"
"I agreed to be civil," he quietly rasped. "That's exactly what I'm doing. Now, shut up and keep your head down, lee... vampire."
Vampire? I momentarily wondered, confused. Why did he--
Any and all thought disappeared from my brain the moment he leapt forward.
It was like being hit by a truck: I couldn't even scream because the force of his step off from the ground left a sizable dent in the asphalt highway and caused his shoulder to practically impale me. My arms and head flew up against my will, hair blasting into the air and obscuring the sight of the world turning into a blur that spun in an almost vortex-like manner.
I would have screamed, but I couldn't even breathe because the air had been knocked out of me and the incredible wind pulling on my body was preventing it from coming back. Eventually, I managed to drag my flying arms back and snatched his shirt, pulling my upper torso close to his massive back and squeezing my eyes shut against the howling gale.
I was being jostled by his run to a degree that alarmed me. His upper body was almost completely parallel to the ground again, and he was now holding my legs flat against his heaving chest rather than focusing on keeping my middle pinned to his shoulder.
The wind alone was strong enough to keep me against him.
I couldn't process the angle, how fast he must have been going to run like this. I wanted to be home more than anything in the world, but what I dreaded was what would happen once we got there. The guy was a werewolf, and I was a vampire, two creatures that never seemed to mix.
On the plus, it gave me something to work with.
Then again, there were far too many negatives to balance it out.
One thing's for certain, I silently told myself. I'm completely screwed.