16. Sixteen
Sixteen
Aaron
It was bad again. So incredibly bad. Two weeks and there had been no sign of The Legion. Two. Whole. Weeks. In those two weeks, my hold on my humanity loosened day by day.
My skin crawled with need, and I couldn’t think about anything other than Kimberly and her heartbeat. And blood. I needed blood. I needed it so bad my hands were trembling.
I tried to steady them as I cut an onion for Mom’s stew. Kimberly and Mom chatted happily while Mom told her one embarrassing story after another.
She was being so cute and helping my mom cook, and I had to hide the fact I was staring at the back of her bare legs and imagining what would happen if I set her free in the forest and watched her run.
I licked my lips and continued chopping. All the while, the image seared into my brain. I was the equivalent of a feral dog waiting outside her door begging for an ounce of her, and it was impossible to think of anything else.
As my knife sliced another onion, I lost myself at her pale legs disappearing out of sight and into the trees. Her bare feet darting through the snow. Her body dodging trees while I pursued close behind. She couldn’t run fast enough. There was nowhere she could hide that I wouldn’t find her. The sound of her heartbeat was like a siren calling to me.
I wanted her.
My heart raced thinking of the chase. What would happen when I finally tackled her to the ground, stripped off her clothes, and wrapped her legs around my waist. And that sound she makes when I—
God. Someone make me stop.
I was aware of how fucked up that fantasy was, considering our first meeting. It packed guilt on top of my already aching chest. My control over my thoughts was slipping. The bloodlust was too much.
Kimberly smiled at me, and my stomach sank. I scratched at the back of my hand, fighting the urge to pace the kitchen. Maybe I could get her alone for a minute . . .
No. Shit. Stop. You’re good. You got this.
My skin was crawling. I needed to move. I had to get out of the house. I needed blood and needed it now.
“Are you okay?” Kim whispered.
I backed away. Fearful of her breath on my neck and the fact it could set me off at any minute. I was seconds away from throwing her over my shoulder and taking her to our cabin.
I was certain there would be nothing left of that sweater.
I just needed some air. Away from thoughts of blood and lust and need.
She stared at me with those cool-blue eyes I usually wanted to disappear into. Now I didn’t know what I wanted. What would she think if she knew? If she knew how bad I truly was?
I didn’t want to lie. “I need some air.”
I stepped out into the snow. There amid the negative temperatures, I could finally think. It was time to feed again, but I wasn’t thinking of the pub. I wanted what I’d already had. Kimberly’s blood was everything, but I didn’t want to want her in that way. I wanted to be a normal freaking boyfriend. Why couldn’t I have normal issues?
She’ll get sick of you. She’ll hate you.
I know.
She didn’t mind the biting, but it was wrong. I’d almost killed her twice. Good boyfriends don’t almost kill their girlfriends. They don’t bite them or hurt them and drink their blood. Normal ones don’t, anyway. And she deserved normal.
I needed something to distract me. I didn’t take turns and walked straight into the trees. The snow was never ending, like the cold. Though the cold didn’t make me shiver or my teeth chatter, I still felt it everywhere. That kind of cold wasn’t natural, and even being bundled up, I was uncomfortable. It didn’t hurt, but it sank into my body, leaving me numb and chilled to the bone.
You’re so pathetic.
I snarled and walked faster. I wanted to disappear. Leave this place behind. Everyone might be better off without me. It was what I thought two weeks ago and had forgotten about. I was holding everyone back. Maybe I was the bad luck we had and that’s why The Legion hadn’t come for us yet. And this was my punishment. It all seemed to make sense.
I spun around in the clearing, looking for the best place to bolt.
Then I saw it.
A buck walking in the field in the distance.
It wouldn’t help. I knew it wouldn’t, but at that moment, I had to try. Drinking any blood at all might make the feeling go away.
I ran for it and tried to let the Thing in my head take over, but it didn’t. It wouldn’t.
I was too fast for the deer, and I made its death quick by snapping its neck.
But everything was too raw. Too vivid. I was too lucid as I brought my fangs out to bite it. I ignored the sirens going off in my brain, at least tried to, before the reality of what I was doing made me choke. All the gamey blood in my throat was tasteless. My body convulsed until the blood splattered over the white snow, my clothes, my hands, and even the dead animal lying at my feet.
It looked like a massacre.
Emptiness consumed me as I realized what I’d done.
I hated when Zach and Presley squashed ants on the sidewalk, and now I’d tried to drink a deer.
I took off as fast as my feet would take me. My feet were numb from the cold. Snow packed in the soles of my shoes and weighed me down as I ran, and I ran until something bright and blue sparkled in the distance. A pond sat cold, frozen, and lonely.
I collapsed at its bank and sank into the snow. My knees were icy when I pulled them to the warmth of my chest. With a shaky breath, I rubbed my chest right over the rapid beat.
Is this what my brothers felt like all the time? So miserable inside they wanted to scream? How were they able to keep it hidden? I couldn’t hide this anguish. All I wanted was Luke to come bounding toward me in the snow and put an arm around me and tell me things would be okay. I needed Zach beside me with his snarky smile and his sureness of safety, but that wouldn’t happen. All of my problems were mine now, and the only person who could fix them was me.
I stared out onto the water and spotted a broken dock not far from me. Memories of the lake in Blackheart swirled in my mind. Back in the heat of summer, when we’d jumped in the water a hundred times. I could imagine us all there when it was thawed and green. The pain of the memory was enough to bring that echo of discomfort to my chest and to the forefront of my mind.
They’d never get to see this place.
It was up to me to bring them back, and I was curled up on the ground, covered in blood, crying over a dead animal. The voice was right. I was pathetic.
The snow soaked through my clothes as I made no attempts to remain dry.
I let it bury me as I sat alone in the growing darkness. A clambering of footsteps sounded behind me, and Presley appeared wearing pajama pants and one of Mom’s faux fur coats. Any other day, I’d have laughed.
I tried to wipe my tears from my cheeks and smeared deer blood across my face.
“Uh-oh. Who’d you kill?”
“A buck.”
“Oh good, I didn’t want to have to find a shovel.”
I sighed and turned back toward the pond. What was worse was having my little brother watch me fail in every way my older brothers had succeeded. I could never fill their shoes. It was pointless to try.
“So, is that what we’re doing now? Freezing and crying in the snow? Because next time, I’m going to need an invite to this kinda thing.”
I scoffed. “Don’t try to make me laugh.”
“I’m not. I legit want an invite to this sob story where we cry and make snow angels after. I’m going to have to veto the animal killing, though.”
I buried my head into my knees, and he rubbed my back. Something tight in my chest loosened. I hadn’t even noticed it until it was gone.
“How’d you find me?”
“Some of it was your footprints, but the snow kinda covers it. I just had this feeling and followed it. I could tell the moment you left.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was doing my own thing and then I kinda felt like I was going to throw up all of sudden, and you were the first person that came to mind. When I went to look for you, Kimberly told me you’d been gone for a while. She wanted to come look for you herself, but I convinced her to stay.”
“You came for me,” I said, rubbing my chest. The ache was still there.
He shrugged. “I’d rather sit and be miserable with you than be miserable alone.”
I never thought I’d be thankful to be united by blood, but something about it was comforting. I wasn’t alone in my pain, and neither were my brothers, and it didn’t matter how much distance separated us, blood didn’t lie.
“I like to think they can feel us too, even if they don’t realize it,” Presley said, watching the sky like someone would part the clouds and fly down in a golden chariot.
“I’ve been thinking that.”
The snow fell silently on the dock in the distance. Who was I kidding? They had felt this way probably more times than they could count. My brothers had been tricked into turning. They’d seen Sarah killed in front of them, then dealt with the mental repercussions all in silence. They’d dealt with the agony of knowing they were going back to that place to be tortured all the more, and I’d never seen them curl into a ball.
Neither of them ran away and cried. If it had happened, I never knew about it and had to worry. As the weight of the cold hit me again, wave after wave, I knew I was being childish. Old habits die hard, I guess .
I had people who needed me. It was time to grow up.
“I’m sorry, Pres. I shouldn’t have run off.”
“I don’t mind it. But I know a girl who’s probably counting the minutes till our return. I told Mom you went to the store for milk and eggs and then she had a conniption because she buys it from this certain guy in town.”
Kimberly. I hadn’t forgotten about the bloodlust, but I felt lighter than before. More in control.
I wrapped Presley in a hug. “Thank you.”
“Does this mean we’re not making snow angels?”