He pointed to a pair of plain white shoes that looked like they belonged on a grandma whose idea of exercise was walking around the Wal-Mart.
“Are they good for running?” I asked, my annoyance clear. “I run.”
He gave me a doubtful look, but led me over to the running shoes. I couldn’t blame him…except for the part of making me feel as old as his mother. Stupid kid. What does he know? He couldn’t have been more than five or six years younger than me.
“There you go,” he said a while later, handing me a bag full of shoes, socks, shorts and sports bras. “Good luck with your, uh, running.”
Maybe he was being polite. Maybe a genuine smile stretched across his face. I didn’t know. With my deranged frame of mind at the moment, the grin looked like a smug smirk to me and his tone dripped with sarcasm. The switch flipped again.
I leaned over the counter, my face only inches from his. “Who the fuck do you think you are, treating me like a worthless bag of shit? You don’t even know who I am!”
He stared at me, his eyes bugged and his mouth wide open. I stared back. Did I really just do that? A couple of customers who’d walked in the door just in time to hear me stopped and gawked. Yeah. I did. I opened my mouth again and then shut it. Thankfully, I wasn’t so far gone to make sure they knew exactly who I was as I went completely whacko on the kid. I grabbed my bag and stomped out of the store before I could make a bigger fool of myself.
I stood on the gas, taking my anger out on my car, which felt bulky and sluggish. I forced myself to back off the accelerator because I already soared way above the speed limit. I aimlessly roamed the surface streets, first on the main roads, and then through a park-like residential neighborhood, but the urge to go faster overwhelmed me.
As I sat at the red light blocking my turn to the highway, my phone beeped with a text message from Mom. She worried about my uncharacteristic absence.
“Where are you? Where did you go?”
I laughed out loud, a high-pitched sound that was just a little frightening, as I typed into my phone, “Crazy. Where else?”
I tossed the phone on the passenger seat, ignoring Mom’s replies. Once on the highway, I moved over to the far-left lane and floored the pedal. Speed. The faster, the better. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I needed. The speedometer held at ninety. It felt like a crawl. The loss of control at such high speeds usually scared the hell out of me, but I couldn’t go fast enough now. My Volvo sedan was designed and built for safety, not speed, which is why I had bought it. It was practical. Now I hated it. The car couldn’t give me the release I needed, so I headed home.
By then, a level of rationality had returned and I appreciated Rina for insisting I use a pen name. Although the Amadis council originally wanted me to publish under Alexis Ames, they finally decided to use the pseudonym A.K. Emerson. I didn’t know why that particular name and, honestly, didn’t care much. No one but a small handful of people knew my real name, protecting my privacy, especially against incidents like today’s. The clerk might recognize the name A.K. Emerson or Kat Emerson, which I’d used back when I’d made public appearances, but he wouldn’t be able to match it to the name on the credit card. Otherwise, I’d be in deep trouble with my publicist and I really didn’t have the mind to deal with her at the moment.
Chapter 3
Dorian, home from school by the time I pulled into the driveway, distracted me from my anxiety. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with him, Mom and Owen. We went to the park for a while and we all played with him on the equipment, like kids again. My eyes regularly scanned the area for the young stranger I’d seen earlier. I thought I saw him once, but he was gone too fast to know for sure.
“Tell me a story,” Dorian said later as he jumped onto his bed while I closed his window blinds.
“Hmm…about what?” I teased, already knowing.
“Dad, of course! How ’bout the boat trip?”
“Ah. Your favorite.” I sat on his bed, took a deep breath to settle my insides, and started the story with his dad’s thrill of fighting sharks.
At one time, telling these stories had been the hardest job of being Dorian’s mom, but it had become a little easier after a few years. They still tore at the pieces of my heart, but not as much as stirring up memories when I was alone. The stories provided a way to remember Tristan and the precious time we had together without completely breaking down. Perhaps this was my answer—hanging onto him by sharing memories with Dorian, while letting go in other ways.
Letting go…my breath hitched at the thought.
“I’m going to fight sharks one day, too,” Dorian promised me, not noticing the choking sound in my throat. I swallowed the lump as he wrestled his stuffed shark and put it into a headlock.
“Yes, I believe you will,” I said. “Now, do you want me to continue?”
“Yep!” He tossed the stuffed shark to the side and I told him about the leather-faced man who tried to rob us during our honeymoon in the Keys. Knowing the story by heart, Dorian moved his hands as if he fought the guy and shoved him off the boat.
“Okay, it’s time to settle down and say good night,” I said after finishing the story.
I picked up the framed picture on Dorian’s nightstand. It was the only picture I had—the one Owen had taken with his cell phone at our wedding. Camera-phones were cutting-edge then, but the technology seemed old by today’s standards, and the enlarged picture was grainy and unclear. But Mom’s cottage and the bookstore had been torched shortly after we left that fateful August and all we had were the few belongings we’d taken with us. The picture was mounted in an expensive silver frame. I had one just like it, lying in my nightstand drawer—if I left it out, on top of the nightstand, I could stay up all night staring at it and not get any sleep. I trailed my fingers over our beaming faces and then kissed the glass over Tristan’s. Dorian kissed it, too, then embraced the frame in a hug.
“Good night, Dad,” he said softly. “I love you.”
I inhaled a jagged breath, my lungs feeling heavy and thick, as if liquid grief filled them.
“He loves you, too, little man,” I whispered. “And so do I. Very much.”
I held him until he fell asleep. I knew I should let him fall asleep on his own at his age, but holding him like this was the closest thing I had to holding his father. I would probably keep doing this as long as he let me.
Exhausted from playing all afternoon, he fell asleep quickly. As I headed for the door, two small lights in the window caught my eye. At first, I thought I saw a reflection. No, they’re outside. Two little fires. The dream from the other night flashed in my mind—the vampire and his red eyes. A chill ran up my spine. Then my pendant suddenly heated against my skin. I picked it up between my thumb and forefinger and glanced at it, then back up. The lights were gone.
I stared at the window. I had closed the blinds earlier. I thought…. Had I done both windows? Surely, I had. So how was one open now? I rushed to the window, my heartbeat spiking. I peered outside. Nothing there, but Owen’s truck in the driveway. Not a creature stirred. No tree branches even waved in the air.
I let out the breath I’d been holding, checked the window’s lock and closed the blinds. I watched them for what felt like several minutes. They didn’t move, of course. You’re imagining things, is all. Of course, that was all. No big deal to be seeing things. That wasn’t weird at all. Not irrational or anything.
I shook my head to clear it. The lights were probably just a bizarre reflection of headlights ricocheting off Owen’s truck and other surfaces. The blinds…I probably just forgot to close them. I held onto those sane explanations, feeling Swirly trying to creep in.
“You shouldn’t tell him those things,” Mom said as I stepped into the hallway, making me jump.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“The stories about fighting. It only encourages him.”
“Oh,” I breathed as I shut Dorian’s door. “Well, he needs to know about his dad. It’s not like I have tons of stories to tell.”
