Chapter 4
Eric
Asnarl tore out of the depths of my chest as I watched Finn tear up the note I’d left for him. It’d been the second note of mine that he’d completely ignored.
I was trying to help him, for fuck’s sake.
I was trying to do the right thing.
And he was being difficult!
If he wanted to behave like an irresponsible, petulant child, I could treat him that way. Oh yeah, I was this close to marching over, throwing him over my shoulder, and carting him off to the nearest urgent care right at this moment.
I saw him. I could see the bags under his eyes that’d gotten even more prominent. I saw the way his skin looked paler and paler. Saw the way he was constantly clinging to a cup of coffee.
Hell, I could see the way he kept clutching his stomach whenever he ate or drank. It was a miracle he wasn’t popping Tums like candy.
Someone should take the coffee away from him because he certainly wasn’t doing himself any favors trying to use caffeine to battle the exhaustion that came with his iron deficiency, especially if the reason for the deficiency was gastritis. Which I was like eighty percent sure it was.
He shut the door behind himself, which left me staring at an empty hallway from my spot on the roof of the building next to his.
I sighed, getting up to switch spots again.
By now, I had this routine down to a T. Carefully slide down the drainpipe on the side of the building, land in the alley, walk out, cross the street, climb the fire escape, get on the roof, and voila!
The third and fourth windows to the right belonged to Finn’s small studio apartment.
And since he almost never closed the curtains before he actually got into bed, I’d be able to see everything, from his small kitchenette to the living slash sleeping area.
But alas, as I turned around, I found Bennie sitting next to the drainpipe, right where I wanted to climb down.
“You need to stop,” he said.
Balling my fists, I took a deep breath, suffocating the rage that lit up inside me.
“Stop what?”
“You need to stop stalking him,” Bennie said again, nodding to the now-empty hallway.
“I’m not stalking him,” I argued.
Bennie crossed his arms over his chest. “What would you call it, then?”
“I’m watching over him,” I exploded with a shout. “I’m trying to make sure he stays safe and healthy.”
Bennie sighed, running a hand through his blond hair.
He looked like a disappointed father, and I guess, in a way, he was.
Maybe more of a big brother than a father.
At fifty… whatever, he really wasn’t old for a vampire at all.
Hell, vampires weren’t considered fully developed and mature until they had their first century under their belt.
“Eric,” he began, his voice calm, almost placating, but the only thing it did was rile me the fuck up. “Yes, you are a vampire, but this isn’t Twilight. No matter how you put it, stalking someone or watching over them or watching them sleep without their consent is creepy as fuck.”
Against my will, I barked out a laugh. “You know Twilight?”
Bennie sniffed. “I’m not ancient. Of course I do. But that’s not important now. You’re stalking that human.” He patted the stone railing next to him, urging me to sit down.
I didn’t want to.
I really, really wanted to get on top of the other roof so I could see him again.
If I thought my need to watch over him had been bad before, it was a thousand times worse ever since that night a week ago.
Every waking moment was spent thinking about him.
I fucking ached for him. For him, his scent, his blood.
I closed my eyes, but it only made me see him, his warm brown eyes a mix of honey and chocolate, the way they’d turned unfocused when the drugs hit.
“I can’t,” I said as I sat down next to Bennie and let out a huge sigh. “I can’t stop watching over him.”
It was not stalking.
Bennie might not think it was an okay thing to do, but regardless, it was not stalking. I was no stalker. I was a protector. Finn’s protector.
“Why?” Bennie asked, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Why can’t you stop?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t know,” I admitted. Rationally, I knew there was no reason for my behavior.
We hadn’t ever been a thing, but even after my life had ended, I hadn’t been able to let go of him.
Quite the contrary. The whole “watching over him” part had been accelerated tenfold by the revelation that vampires—and other creatures—existed.
“When did this start?”
Now Bennie was asking the right question. Painful for me to answer, but probably something he should know.
“The watching over him part? After you turned me,” I mumbled.
I could feel the judgment; worse, I could feel his disappointment. I’d kept it a secret from him when fledglings weren’t supposed to have secrets. I’d snuck away to watch over Finn for three years.
“How have I never noticed?” Bennie said, wonder in his voice.
I shrugged again, my eyes involuntarily darting to the drainpipe.
Finn was probably making dinner right about now.
Afterward, he usually got on his laptop, pulled out a ton of different textbooks, and started working.
He overdid it, staying up late at night only to get up at dawn for a shift at the coffee shop where he worked.
“I didn’t want you to,” I said, cringing as I felt Bennie flinch next to me.
“I don’t mean it like that. It’s just… I wanted to keep him safe.
I fucking need to keep him safe, and that means far away from vampires, werewolves, and whatever the hell else is out there.
I can’t explain it, but I physically can’t stay away.
I can’t. The longest I’ve managed since my existence began was two weeks. ”
Bennie nodded slowly, and when I looked at him, he stared at me thoughtfully, like I was a riddle he needed to solve. “I guess the two weeks you’re referring to are the first two weeks of your existence?”
I nodded.
Bennie hadn’t let me out of his sight at all for those two weeks, the risk of me losing it and going feral had been too great.
“Yeah.” Blowing out a breath, I contemplated how much I should tell him.
“By the end of those two weeks, I was miserable. I don’t even know why, but as soon as I was able to go out by myself for even an hour, I found myself sitting there.
” I pointed at the building across the street.
“It was about eleven at night, and I just… watched Finn lying in bed, scrolling on his phone, and it calmed something in me. It was the weirdest thing. But seeing him snort at something he was seeing made the vampire part of me—the rage, the bloodlust, everything—so much easier to control. I began craving it, the peace he brought me, so… I came back. Occasionally at first, but as time went on, the need to see him got so much worse.”
“Eric…” Bennie sounded strained again.
“I wasn’t stalking him,” I reiterated. “It’s not like I followed him all the time.
” I couldn’t, even though I’d definitely wanted to.
“I haven’t placed a tracker on him or anything like that.
” Though if he wanted to return to CRAVE, the club he’d been to last week, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t resort to that.
“I just… watch over him for an hour or two, until he goes to bed, and then I leave him be. I’ve never talked to him before last weekend. ”
But now I wanted to do it again.
Bennie sighed.
“You sound like a lunatic.”
Maybe I was. Then again, I was a vampire, and most of our kind were kind of…
eccentric. Maybe it had something to do with our DNA and the way our bodies worked.
It’d be interesting to find out, but while I wanted to become a doctor, I was no biologist, and I definitely wasn’t the one to take on that task.
For now.
Who knew? Maybe I’d change my mind in a century.
But right this instance, my brain was fucking itching because I couldn’t see Finn.
The minute in the hallway hadn’t been nearly enough for me to get my fix for the day.
Besides, I needed to make sure he was eating.
He hadn’t been eating over the past few days, only nibbling on toast, pulling a face whenever he did.
Because his stomach was fucking hurting.
“I might sound even more like a lunatic, but can we uhm… switch roofs?” I asked, my legs already twitching with the need to move.
Bennie sighed. “You want to keep watching him?”
I nodded.
I needed to.
And I needed to figure out what I could do that’d make him see a doctor. The Post-it notes clearly weren’t doing their job.
I could probably start messaging him. I might’ve used his phone last weekend to let his friends know he was home safe, and while I was at it, I might’ve saved his number in my phone.
But if he wasn’t happy about my notes, I doubted he’d be happier to find out the note-leaving stranger had his phone number.
I didn’t want to freak him out. I just wanted him to get healthy.
“Eric…”
“Look, we can either stay here for our conversation, and I’ll be all twitchy and nervous, or we can head over there—” I gestured at the roof in question. “And finish this conversation in peace.”
Bennie bit his bottom lip. “You know, I shouldn’t give in.”
“But you will?”
He sighed. “Fine.”
We climbed down the building until we landed in a dirty alley, quickly crossed the street, and then stealthily climbed up the fire escape, my eyes constantly flickering to the top row of windows illuminating the night.
Finn’s lights were on, and I let out a little sigh of relief upon seeing him puttering about in his kitchenette. He was home safe and about to eat something—hopefully more than toast.
“That is seriously weird,” Bennie commented as we sat down on two abandoned camping chairs. I hadn’t brought them up here, though I had to admit I might have if I hadn’t found any amenities like this.