Chapter 4 #2
Robbie sank into one of the chairs, questioning whether he’d taken her chair, anxiety rising fresh and terrible. But she hadn’t specified. Surely she would have if it mattered. Surely she would have—
“Robbie, it’s so nice to meet you,” she said, sinking into the chair opposite him. He relaxed a little. “Would you like to tell me a little bit about what brings you here?”
“Well, I just haven’t felt like myself lately,” he said.
The words were true even if they did nothing to describe the bone-rattling anxiety and panic that had been worsening over the past month. She sniffed a little, as if smelling the air, and then sniffed again.
“Can you talk about that?”
Could he? He didn’t know. But that was why he was here, wasn’t it? To talk about it?
“Uh, fuck, I dunno,” he said before realizing he probably shouldn’t curse in therapy. “Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t cuss in front of you.” His mama would have had a field day.
“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” she said with a small smile. “I love cussing.”
“Oh. Right on,” he said, hearing how thick his mountain accent sounded compared to her total lack of one. “Well, I’m anxious all the time, but I’m not worried about anything.”
He paused. She sniffed the air again. Instinctively, he brought his nose to the armpit of his T-shirt, smelling nothing but his deodorant. He found himself looking around the room for a thermostat. What did she have the temp set to in here? Ninety-four?
“Go on,” she said gently, taking a sip from the yellow cup.
“I’m hot all the time. All the time, no matter what. I’m shaky, my heart beats like a thousand times a minute.” He stopped. “I mean, not literally, but—”
“You’re having palpitations?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
She wrote something down in the notebook she held, and Robbie felt a droplet of sweat beading at his hairline. Shaving his head had made him cooler, but only by a small degree. He still felt like the furnace within him was getting hotter by the minute.
“Any chest pain?”
“What?” he replied, his attention pulled away from his thermostat hunt.
“Are you experiencing any chest pain?”
“Why?”
“Well, sometimes the symptoms of a heart attack mimic the symptoms of a panic attack. And I don’t like to take chances.”
“No chest pain,” he said, though wouldn’t that be his fucking luck.
“I think you should make an appointment with your doctor.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Oh,” she said. Her mouth forming a circle around the word. Oh.
“I’m new to the area,” he said as an explanation.
She nodded and sniffed again.
“I showered before I came,” he blurted out and felt his face heat immediately after.
“What?”
He was mortified. “You keep smelling. I worried it was me but I took a shower right before I came.”
“Oh,” she said, color rising in her own cheeks, her mouth rounding around that word again. She shook herself. “I’m so sorry. I just smelled… Never mind. I’d love to hear more about you. You said you’re new in town. What brought you to World’s End?”
The heat was a physical part of him now. He felt his vision slide sideways, the way it did once when he was growing up and played ball with his friends all afternoon with no water. He suddenly felt lightheaded.
He swallowed. “Oh, I moved out here with my roommate. Friend. Callum. He came out here to find someone.”
“Did he?”
Robbie nodded. “He found her. And then he found his wife.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet. He met his wife after moving here?”
“No, she’d left him a tho—a long time ago.”
“So what do you do for work?”
He felt his consciousness dip, just a ripple on the surface. “I’m an audio erotic entertainer,” he said, leaning his head back in the chair. “And I work at the vintage shop in town.”
He suddenly felt drunk. That was the only explanation for what came out of his mouth next.
“And before that, I was a vampire blood donor.”
He closed his eyes. Heard Nadja sniff. Three times, the third sniff extending into a prolonged inhale.
What had he just said? She was so pretty. And this chair was so comfortable, even if she kept the thermostat at a hundred degrees. And how was she wearing such a heavy sweater in this heat? What had they been talking about? Vampires? That seemed like an odd thing to discuss in therapy.
“Robbie, do you have any wolves in your family?”
He slurred when he answered, “No Wolffs.”
“Not Wolffs,” she said. “Wolves.”
She put such a funny emphasis on the v. He wished he’d had his eyes open to watch her slightly bite her bottom lip on the sound. He sank lower in the chair.
“Robbie,” she said, and he felt a hand pushing on his shoulder. That hand was freezing. Her hands were freezing. He groaned and grabbed them, pressing them to his cheeks, sighing in relief at how good they felt against his feverish skin.
“Robbie,” she repeated, gently moving his head back and forth.
“How long have you been a donor?”
“Off and on since I was seventeen. It’s good money,” he mumbled.
“When was the last time you donated blood to your vampire friend?”
“Six weeks ago,” he said, his voice sounding very far away.
“And when did you start noticing your symptoms?”
“A month ago.”
“Godsdamnit,” she said, the gentle tone gone from her voice. She yanked her hands away from his face and went to the windows, drawing the curtains tightly closed. Robbie opened his eyes a crack when he heard the snick of a lamp turning on.
“Godsdamnit,” she muttered again. He heard papers shuffling and closed his eyes again, sweat pouring down his face now.
She returned to his side and nudged him.
“Robbie, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I think you’re about to shift for the first time. And you can’t shift here. Do you understand? You can’t shift here.”
Shift? Shift what? His skin was too small. He wanted to take it off. He wanted to run. Not away from her, never from her, but to just… run.
“Oh, fuck. Stay with me, Robbie. Can you follow me? This way? Come on. That’s good. That’s good. Keep coming.”
She was talking to him like a dog. But he was the one who had risen with nothing but the gentle tug of her hands in his and was now following her out the front door.
“Stay,” she said, and he stood motionless beside her while she locked the door.
“Keys?” she asked. He fumbled with his pants pockets before pulling out the small fob with nothing else but the cabin key on the ring. But as he pulled out the key fob, something large came out of his pocket and fell to the ground with a crack.
“Shit, your phone,” Nadja hissed. He stepped toward the car to lean his forehead against the cold window of the door and stepped on something that crunched beneath his boot.
“No, no, no,” she said. “You stepped on it.” There was a long pause, rustling and more crunching. “The screen is completely shattered. Godsdamnit, today was supposed to be an easy day.”
He cracked his eyes open. Her face was red, her mouth set in a tight line. She looked really cute, almost like a cartoon character.
“You’re very pretty,” he said, his voice slurred.
“Get in,” she said, holding open the back door.
Robbie crawled in, unsure of everything.
Why were they leaving? Surely his time wasn’t up?
He’d only just arrived. Why was he lying down in the backseat?
Why was she so agitated? Where were they going?
And had climate change really gotten so bad that he was sweating in a T-shirt in February?
Or was that a fever? He remembered one of his sisters having a seizure when she got a fever of 105.
Was that what was happening? He needed help. He needed—
“Call Callum MacLeod,” he said, before she closed the door behind him.
“Who?” She asked, climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Call Callum MacLeod. He’s my—”
He stopped talking as he hissed in a breath against knifing agony. Suddenly, everything hurt.
“Your roommate? Your friend? What’s his number? Your phone is busted, remember?”
“I only have my mama’s number memorized,” he said.
“Is she local?”
Robbie couldn’t help but giggle. “She’s local to Kentucky.”
“Well, does she have any numbers for anyone out here?”
Robbie could hear Nadja getting frustrated.
He didn’t like it because he was certain that he was the cause.
In the midst of the haze, he felt embarrassed for not memorizing any other numbers.
It had been such a thing as kid growing up, knowing your friend’s numbers so you could call them.
But now, the phone made it so easy. He didn’t need to memorize them anymore.
He needed to help her, though, and he knew that there was only one person who might be able to.
“Call Magda. She’ll know—”
But he never got to finish that thought. A surge of pain racked his body, and his vision went black.