It wasn’t. Long after the fog had lifted, Michael still couldn’t find the strength to move. He lay shivering on the ground, bothered by the cold but grateful that the sun had set because, even with the sunglasses, his eyes were still irritated by its light. He wished he had never come to this place. The pain of Two W and his home life were nothing compared to what he was going through now. He was physically and emotionally exhausted. And he couldn’t believe that it was all because of Ronan, the person he thought was going to be his savior.
When he opened his eyes, he realized that his hand was moving; he was lazily drawing in the dirt. Round and round and round his finger went, creating a circle in the earth. He knew it was a well, that thing Ronan talked about, that thing that was so vital to his existence, that thing he wished he had never heard about. No, no, no! He rubbed at the dirt furiously, making the circle disappear, and begged God to do the same thing to him. Just open up the ground and swallow him whole. Because if he couldn’t go on living in His image, then he didn’t want to go on living at all. But the ground didn’t open and he wasn’t swallowed up by the dirt, maybe because even unnatural things were created in God’s image.
A hybrid vampire! The idea was absurd. It couldn’t possibly be true, and yet he believed it, he believed that Ronan was telling him the truth and he was no longer human. When he thought of the implications, the real consequences, he clutched the dirt and screamed in fear, but there was no sound. He opened his mouth, but the sob, the terror, strangled his throat. His body shook uncontrollably.
And when he felt the hand on his shoulder, he actually jumped.
“Don’t be afraid,” Nakano said. “I’m here to help you.”
chapter 21
Somewhere down there was The Well.
Thirty thousand feet below, beneath the Atlantic Ocean, was this well that Ronan had spoken about. This mysterious place that was supposed to grant him eternal life, untold power, and the chance to be an equal to his immortal partner. Michael had no idea if it really existed; he didn’t know anything any longer. His life, once again, was a mystery just when it was starting to be under his control. Just when his life was starting to mirror his dreams. Just when his life was about to begin, it ended.
He looked out the window of the plane and it was like looking into a crystal ball to see his future—he saw nothing but darkness. He couldn’t believe he was flying back to Weeping Water and he couldn’t believe he was sitting next to Nakano. Nothing was right, nothing was the way he wanted it to be. And it was all Ronan’s fault.
“Michael! Thank God you’re all right.” There was relief in Ronan’s voice that was unmistakable, but it wasn’t enough to make Michael want to look at him. “Please don’t leave. There’s so much more I need to explain to you, so much more we need to do.” Pleading wouldn’t make him look up either.
Snapping his suitcase shut, Michael looked out the window. He thought he heard a meadowlark singing, he thought he heard the familiar song he loved so much. But no, there was no lilting sound, nothing, only silence. “My grandmother died,” he said quietly. “I’m going back home for the funeral.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Ronan said, moving in front of the door so Michael had no choice but to pause and let Ronan take one last look at him. His heart ached knowing that he caused the pain on Michael’s face, he was the reason his skin looked so ashen, his eyes so bleak. “I’ll go with you,” Ronan said. “I’d love to see where you grew up.”
“He already has a traveling companion.”
Startled, Ronan didn’t even know there was someone in the bathroom. This is only because Michael is scared. He’s angry with me right now and he needs some space away from me, but that will change. In time, he’ll know I acted out of love and I did what I did so our love could only grow and never die. “Michael.” He didn’t respond, but he did finally look at Ronan. “You won’t be away very long, will you?”
Will I ever be able to look at you again without anger and resentment and confusion? Michael wondered. “Only a day or two.”
“Good,” Ronan replied. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
If Michael had anything more to say, Ronan wasn’t going to hear it because Nakano ushered him out the door. “C’mon, mate, we’ve got a plane to catch. And it’s not every day I get to fly first class, thank you very much, Father Howard.”
Just before Nakano left the room, Ronan grabbed his arm, his fingers pressing deeply into his thin bicep, and he used every ounce of restraint he had not to cry in front of his rival. “You take good care of him, Kano, you protect him.”
Nakano pried Ronan’s fingers off of his arm and smiled, unmoved by the quiver in Ronan’s voice. “Don’t worry, Ro, I’ll do a much better job than you did.”
That had been this afternoon. Now flying through the night toward his past, Michael had no idea if he had made the right decision to leave Ronan behind. There were so many unanswered questions, so many words swirling inside his head, banging against his brain. He wanted to strangle Ronan, punch him, grab his neck and pull him closer so he could kiss him. No! Not that. No more kisses. How could he even think of wanting to do that?
Michael looked over to the boy sitting next to him, stretched out and reclining in his seat, a blanket tucked under his chin, wearing silver satin eyeshades like some experienced world traveler. Well, he’s a lot more experienced than I am. And he’s a vampire too. Not the same kind as Ronan, or so he said, just your regular run- of-the-mill vampire, which was not exactly how he described himself after he took Michael out of The Forest and brought him to an abandoned house with a cold cement floor. The place felt familiar, but Michael couldn’t remember ever being there before.
“ Ronan is different, part of a minority among our people, and not a particularly celebrated group, if you really want to know the truth,” Nakano explained. “For right now, you’re just like him.”
“What do you mean for right now?” Michael asked, suddenly aware that he was ravenously hungry.
“Well, we can get into all of that later,” Nakano cautiously replied, “but just know you have a choice how you’d like to spend your eternity.”
“A choice,” Michael spat. “All my choices have been taken away!”
That’s right, Nakano had silently urged, keep getting angry; get ticked off at what Ronan did to you. However, when he spoke, it was in a much more empathetic voice. “That’s not entirely true. You can choose to live among a band of half-breed renegades or alongside the people who really control all the power.”
So not only were there vampires, but there were different types of vampires? Michael was wrong. The earth had opened up and he was swallowed whole and had fallen into some alternate reality. He couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t so much the gibberish coming out of Nakano’s mouth, it was his own body. It was throbbing. He had never been so hungry in all his life.
Nakano recognized the signs. “But all that can wait. I have the feeling that right now you’re hungry.”
It was at that moment that Michael realized what his fangs were for. They were for feeding, taking blood from another human being, and the thought of it made him nauseous. He rolled over onto his side clutching himself; he felt the steel bars that supported the thin mattress of the cot he was lying on press into his shoulder and he remembered being in the closet with Ronan, feeling the shelf press into his back as Ronan held his face and kissed him. The faint taste of raspberry still clung to his lips. But now he craved another taste, and the thought of it was making him sick.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nakano roll up his sleeve to expose a pale, thin forearm accented with dark blue veins. Michael could feel his head throb and his mouth tingle. He could feel his fangs descend against his will and rest against his lips. The smell of blood consumed him. Two days ago he wouldn’t have known what blood smelled like, but today he recognized the aroma, the thick scent. A mix of ripe berries and cold metal flooded his senses. He was disgusted and aroused at the same time. All he wanted to do was plunge his fangs into Nakano’s arm to see if the blood tasted as magnificent as it smelled.
“Aim for a vein,” Nakano instructed. “That’ll make it easier for you to drink.”
Nakano helped Michael sit up on the cot and he sat behind him, straddling his legs around him the way Ronan had once done. He placed his bare arm underneath Michael’s nose, and Michael thought he would faint. “Go ahead,” Nakano said. “I taste pretty good, if I do say so myself.”
