his belly. His breath caught as I swung my leg over his, sat on his lap facing him, and took his face between my hands. “Help me,” I whispered.
He clasped his hands around my back and pulled me so close it felt like we must be melding in some way. “I am here,” he murmured into my ear.
She stood at a door so tall it seemed to touch the mountains of my mind. At least a dozen locks secured it. She looked fearfully over her shoulder, but Brude had retreated, as he always did when Vayl touched me. Her small nod allowed me to lean back, to look Vayl in the eyes.
“You’ve read my file.” His chin inched downward, the most extreme nod I’d ever seen him pull off. I looked away, feeling the locks give, remembering the terror you only get the first time death stares you in the face—and laughs. I sucked air and forced out the words. “My first kill wasn’t the vulture of that vamp nest in Atlanta.”
His hands tightened, helping my spine straighten. “No?”
“I was seventeen. Evie was sixteen. She was dating a senior named Bret Ridden. We all liked him at first. He was smart. On the Math Team. He’d built his own computer. He was seeded first on the school’s tennis team. And he had plans, you know? College. A solid career in finance. I think Evie saw all that potential stability after a lifetime of shifting roots and… she fell. Plus, he wasn’t bad looking.” Vayl rubbed my back gently enough that he didn’t even start an itch. “I take it the romance fizzled.” I began playing with the buttons of his shirt. “He turned out to be a control freak. And when Evie didn’t dress or act like he wanted, he pushed her around. Literally.” I stopped, dug my hands into Vayl’s chest as Teen Me began her work. Chills hit my soul as I heard the locks crack. Fast. Way too fast. I didn’t feel ready. But I had to be.
Vayl’s hands fell away. When I looked down, I saw they’d clenched into fists. His voice was almost a growl when he asked, “When did you first discover the abuse?” I shrugged, like the memory might slide off my shoulders, make the burden somehow easier to bear.
“She came home with a black eye. She made some lame excuse that Mom bought. Albert might have questioned her closer, but he was out of the country.” I swallowed. “Dave and I knew better. We forced her to admit that he’d hit her because she’d stopped to talk to a guy from Chemistry class about the lab experiment they had to do that afternoon. Bret said she was flirting. And, hell, maybe she was. But, knowing Evie, probably not. Anyway, he got irate, they argued, and he punched her.”
“But she stayed with him.” Vayl sounded tired. How many versions of this story had he heard during the long course of his life? I stared into his eyes, wondering what lay behind those troubled indigo depths.
“Yeah. We begged her to dump him. But she said he’d cried afterward and promised never to hurt her again.”
“They always do.”
“It did take him a while.” I went on. “Maybe two months later she came into our room after a date.” I dropped my forehead onto Vayl’s shoulder. “She looked like hell,” I murmured. “They’d had another fight. She’d ordered something at the restaurant that she hadn’t ended up liking, so she didn’t eat much.
And he was pissed that she was wasting his hard-earned money by leaving a full plate. Then he was mad because she’d insisted on paying for her share. In the parking lot he brought up the Chem lab guy again and as soon as they got into his car he started hitting her. She cracked her head against the window before she could finally get out. A couple of her friends were in the same restaurant, so she ran in and got them to bring her home.”
“Did she break it off then?” The snap was back in his voice. Angry at him for dishing it out. At her for taking it. I’d felt exactly the same.
“Yeah. That was when the death threats started. We got the cops involved, but the state we were living in had crappy harassment laws at the time. And Evie was so scared. He’d stare at her from the other end of the hallway at school, and when nobody was looking he’d slide his hand across his throat. He left a dead squirrel in her gym locker. It just went on and on, until she was half crazy from fear.”
“What did your mother do?”
“She didn’t want to take any of it seriously, but Granny May kept nagging her, so she finally decided to move us in with Gran until Dad got transferred again. We tried to keep it quiet, but news gets around.
And Bret found out. The Friday before we were supposed to move, Stella had to work. She left Dave, Evie, and I at home to finish up with the packing. Then Dave got a call. One of his buddies had been in a bad car wreck and they were all gathering at the hospital to support him. So he left.”
“Was his friend really hurt?” As if he knew. I stared into those old eyes, saw the rage, and knew it wasn’t just for Evie.
“No. But by the time he figured it out, Bret had already broken into the house. I’d gone into Stella’s bedroom for more boxes when I heard a weird sound from our room. A thump, like somebody had fallen. I don’t know why I didn’t yell at Evie about it. Maybe just the fact that we’d been so freaked for so long. Or maybe because she’d suddenly stopped singing along with Christina Aguilera.” She still went white whenever “Genie in a Bottle” came on the radio.
His hands had moved back to my hips. They pushed at me, like he wanted to stop the replay, because he knew how much it hurt. But he also knew it had to be done. So he asked, “What did you do?”
“I put the boxes down. Looked around Stella’s room for a weapon. Which was when I saw Albert’s gun cabinet. I grabbed the key from where he kept it in his desk drawer and pulled out his Winchester.” I paused, licked my lips. “I was scared shitless, Vayl. My heart was pumping so fast I was afraid I’d pass out before I found out I’d just been imagining things. My hands shook as I loaded the rifle from the box he also kept in the cabinet. I was terrified the sounds I made echoed through the house like a bell. I was afraid my imaginary intruder was real, and that he’d walk in before I was ready. Mostly I feared I was too late. That Evie was lying in our room, bleeding to death while I tried to remember everything Albert had taught me about shooting.”
I began to shake and Vayl pulled me close. I breathed in his scent, trying to calm myself as Teen Me yanked the doors wide open with a shrill screech that made my head ache.
As Brude’s attention riveted on a vulnerability he might be able to exploit, Vayl said, “Stop. You should not —”
“No. I have to finish.” I licked my lips, unable to prevent myself from falling back into that time, looking out at the familiar scene through the fear-glazed eyes of the teenager who’d joined the crew inside my head.
