“They just left?”
“They’re not after me, remember?”
“Ambrosia,” the word whispers out of my mouth.
“No, they’re looking for you to get to Ambrosia. They can’t find her.”
“Of course they can’t; she’s—”
His arm jets across the table and presses a finger over my lips. Shaking his head solemnly, “Don’t even say it.”
Not fond of being shushed and having had it with this crazy, violent game they’re playing that somehow involves me—all the frustration and stress, of the sleepless last night and the violent morning after, well up and flood me, words bursting out like shrapnel from a cannon barrel.
“How the hell do you fight like that and not get hurt? That part of the roof is two stories high! How did you not break your neck?”
He starts to speak, but my verbal barrage continues to bombard him.
“Why did Roderick stick his arm through the flames at us? What kind of psychopath burns himself like that? What are you guys—a bunch of psychiotic wanna-be ninjas?”
“It’s…it’s because…” he pauses and exhales loudly.
I take a sip of my mocha latte.
As soon as I move the oversized mug from my mouth, I see he has leaned across the table with his lips nearly touching my ear.
“It’s because I’m a vampire.”
Coffee gushes out my mouth, shooting across the table and dripping through its wrought iron holes down to the concrete ground that I suddenly can’t look away from.
His words were serious, which prevents me from looking at him. Never look at him the same again.
My heart cracks. He’s gorgeous, he’s into me, and he’s completely nuts. Taking a last look before I leave him forever, I glance over the rigidity of his cheekbone, sliding my gaze down its perfectly carved slope.
“Oh, my God! Your marks are gone! The scratches on your face are gone!”
Before I realize how loud I was just shouting, his extended fingertip pushes against my lips again.
“Shhhh. That’s what I was just trying to tell you.”
He looks around at the many people staring at us. He stares them down one by one—none of them hold their eyes on him for more than a few seconds under his intense watch.
Looking back to me and slowly sitting down in the chair across from me, he says in the strongest of whispers, “Didn’t you notice Roderick’s arm was almost completely healed this morning? He burned the flesh pretty bad last night.”
“Didn’t notice—was kinda focused on trying to not be killed actually,” my voice shaking.
A dessert plate falls off a nearby table and crashes to the concrete patio floor. At the sound, Simon jumps to his feet, knocking his chair over backward and flinging his fingers out like the serrated paw of a startled tiger.
Turning back to me, he leans over the table, ignoring the bewildered stares that are upon him once again. His glorious azure eyes line up with my own—his tender lips mere inches away from where I’d still love them to be.
“We need to leave—now,” his voice powerful and certain.
“Where?” squeaks from my mouth, my mind still struggling to take in the unreal situation that surrounds me.
Shaking his head, “Don’t have time for this. We walk out together right now, or I throw you over my shoulder and leave that way.”
He sees my repulsed expression.
“Sorry, but I’d rather have you hate me alive than like me dead.”
“Who says I like you?”
“Your lips did.”
“When?”
“Last night. Assumed you’re not the type to touch your lips to just anyone.”
“Care to read what they’re saying now?”
Chapter VI
Dark Leg of the Triangle
They say every story has three sides. Two are the sides of the people fighting or loving each other, and the third side is the truth. The third voice is the one people hate more than anything because it shows the lies in the first two sides, and most people have already picked their favorite of the first two—the one they want to believe, and they hate hearing that they were wrong—they despise hearing anything different than what they want to be true.
The third point of view puts an end to the discussion—the fight they’ve been enjoying over and over again— whether the hero will live, whether the good guy gets the girl, or what suitor the fickle heroine will choose. The third voice ends it all—no more imagining how things will turn out, no more arguing with other fans about how it should all end, no more teams rooting for their chosen character to be the winner.
The third p.o.v. declares a clear victor, making all their cleverly-worded phrases and insults at the other side worthless and outdated. Even the wittiest snarky comment attacking the winner is worthless because, if it held any truth, the winner would not have won. If someone says something will happen and it doesn’t, that someone is wrong. Period. No amount of nasty criticisms will ever change that. All of their claims at coolness and all of their weapons against their opposition are made obsolete.
My name is Edgar. I am the outside point of view, and there’s no shortage of people I’ve made hate me.
Pulled into this by Roderick. His angry voice waking me this morning from the deep sleep at the end of a rowdy night. My bloodshot eyes were angry as they opened to see his furious face peering down on me, but I knew I had to obey.
Was impossible to look past him to the yellow, smoke-stained, sagging motel ceiling. Hard to look past him at anything else. His form demands attention.
Roderick’s presence is a magnetic darkness. No matter where he goes, eyes follow, imaginations race to keep up, and courage flees the viewer’s chest.
If I summoned the sun amazingly close to the earth, right at the edge of the horizon—a giant fireball singeing and melting all that we hold dear, and if I placed Roderick in front of it, his shadow would be all you’d notice. Were he standing between the jaws of a monstrous shark the size of a shopping center—tearing through the water toward you at terrifying speed, you’d look past the raw pink gums, razor-like triangular teeth, and emotionless black eyes to the man standing in the ghastly mouth staring into you as if he knows all of your secrets and all the good things you wish you could do while he smirks at how little he cares about any of it or about what he is going to do to you.
I hate Roderick like the addict hates his dealer. Just as dependent on the decadence he brings me. My body aches, waiting for the terrible hit to fill the hole inside of me, feeling as though I’ll die the worst, sweaty, shaky death ever experienced—until I see his unholy form with my relief.
He’ll supply the hit I need. For a moment I’ll feel euphoric, but at the peak of the relief I’ll turn sour, knowing the next urge will be all the stronger, knowing with every fix that I’m sliding deeper from the light of freedom, feeding the withdrawal that grows wider as it devours me more every day. Every time I quench the need, it only makes the next need stronger—demanding more juice to fill it.
I hate the narrowing light of hope for reminding me that I could climb out, I hate Roderick for giving me the poison that I begged him for, and I hate myself for not thinking I’m worth the fight to quit.
I’ve done terrible things to fill a terrible need. Time and again.
I don’t know what Simon’s done to bring on the wrath of Roderick, but I’ll bring Roderick what he wants, even if it means I’ll do terrible things to Simon.
