Chapter 5 #2
I was in the middle of nowhere with no clue where I was, only that it seemed like a spot where this sort of thing happened, like I hadn’t been the first undead body dumped here, so I tucked the tarps under the weight of a sealed bag of soil for the next sorry bastard.
It didn’t take long for me to find the business card that had been tucked in my coat pocket.
At the time, I figured it must have belonged to the guy who did this to me, so I sure as Hell didn’t want to give him a call.
I was pissed, though I couldn’t figure out exactly why.
So I slipped the card into the inside pocket of my coat and started walking.
The sun would be up sometime, and I had to find some shelter before then.
Knew that much, luckily. I set out to find my way back to Cibola, which didn’t end up being too hard.
I found Oso wandering around the alleys and arroyos near Roadrunner, and he was so happy to see me again, and I was so happy to see him, too, but the pieces of my brain weren’t put back together right, and so I betrayed him, and I bit into his furry neck and drained his blood, drank his blood, and I killed my best friend, and he didn’t understand it.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, the memory was slicing me, and I already told her anyway, but there was worse.
Things I’d never tell, because even Fallon couldn’t make me that good.
I didn’t want to kill any humans. I didn’t want to kill any humans.
That was a truth I could tell Fallon. I’d just proven to myself that I could eat animals, though.
My dad, manly as he always claimed to be, hadn’t been the hunting type, so I didn’t know shit about capturing wild animals.
Dogs and cats, eating people’s pets, or even strays, I just couldn’t do it.
And the bad part of me must have thought up the solution, because in my head, it sounded good.
I knew where to find plenty of animals, all full of more blood than I could have dreamed of, enough to get my head on straight and figure out a real plan. Hope Ranch. Derrick’s home.
And for about a week, it worked. Never enough for me to really get ahead, but enough to tread water.
Spend a night draining a cow as much as I could without wasting too much blood.
Hide from the sun during the day, in the abandoned shack I’d found as a kid while wandering the desert, far away from humans.
Grab the pieces of my mind that spun away and try to keep them all together, enough to remain stable.
Those dark pieces with their hungry whispers never seemed to go anywhere, though.
They’d always been there, convincing me to punch and steal and rob and fuck and get high.
Now, I only craved blood, until I was full to the point of discomfort off a cow, and then I craved sex.
Fallon’s beautiful body in my arms, so hot and responsive and full of blood, and she’d cry out like a goddess in ecstasy when my fangs got into her luminous skin…
I’d never been able to resist my human cravings, not even for Fallon, but I was stronger now with blood that wasn’t Fenton blood, and I stayed away from temptation. A vampire monk. Silent and devoid of pleasure.
Then Derrick Hope had to go and fuck it all up for me.
I wasn’t ready. Not to be so pissed off, not to come face to face with a human in the night again, not to see Derrick Hope, the best man I knew, but also the worst, because he’d stolen the best woman I knew, and I’d let him, made him, but he knew.
He knew I loved her. He saw through me. But I’d gone and disappeared, and he’d taken Fallon and loved her like I couldn’t. I hated him.
I’d only gotten my first stomachful of cow’s blood when he was shouting at me, waving a shotgun around as if he’d ever hurt anyone.
He hadn’t counted on it being me. His face had fallen, crushed under heartbroken pity, and I hated him.
Hated him since the moment he spoke to me, hated every moment I’d ever spent with him, hated that he’d known the warmth of Fallon’s love, hated that I actually remembered it was his birthday despite the torment I was going through — 21 and he’d probably had his first taste of alcohol, the good boy, but I was 12 for my first taste, and I hated him for that, too, somehow, because he always got the love, always…
I wasn’t sure if the camera of my memories shut off while it was happening, or if something in me had deleted the footage after the fact, but all I could remember was Derrick dead and cold on the ground in front of where I sat with my legs tucked under me.
Even his blood tasted like goodness, like the answer to why he was worthy of love and I wasn’t, and I understood it too late like everything else, always too late, always after the fact.
Being a fuck-up was fun, but being a fuck-up with enough self-awareness to observe it but not enough to change it was torture.
I hadn’t charged my phone since I was alive, but I hadn’t used it either, so it had just enough juice for me to make one desperate call.
I didn’t recognize the voice, but I begged the man for help.
How do I bring Derrick back, the same way that was done to me?
It wasn’t working, whatever I was trying.
I needed help. Hope Ranch, north of town, take the dirt road off Desert Springs, just get here and bring Derrick back.
Save my best friend. Please! Please, please, please…
Lazaro Reyes’ first impression of me was blubbering and begging on my knees, and his attempts at calming me down failed, especially after delivering the news that Derrick was gone forever.
He hadn’t really tried that hard before his patience snapped, and his two buddies, Alexander and Gustavo, grabbed me by the arms, tied me up so I couldn’t even squirm, slapped duct tape over my mouth, and tossed me in the trunk of his car.
I’d killed Derrick. I’d taken away a truly good person in this world, and it was way too much to even think about how Fallon and that deep ocean of her love would fare, and if I’d known there was no saving Derrick, I’d have just sat there next to him in that field and waited for the sun to take me.
Wouldn’t even out the scales, but it’d be a start.
Instead, I landed myself underground, in some jail cell modeled after a medieval torture chamber.
And even knowing I deserved to be in there, I cried and screamed and begged for freedom.
Not that it mattered. I’d be let out when Santos was certain I’d be able to control my hunger.
And good boy that I was, it only took four horrible, maddening years.
Four years dreaming of one face, one voice, one body, one soul, and she was so vivid in my thoughts that it was like she was there with me sometimes.
Would that be nice to tell her? But no, I couldn’t tell her about the vampire jail.
Then she’d know. Didn’t want to think about that awful place, anyway.
I wished I could have told her that the moment I was set free, I went straight to her.
Just to look. I didn’t deserve anything more than that after what I’d done.
I just watched her whenever I could. And really, it was her fault that I had to come out of the shadows, what with trying to get killed that night when her worthless lump of a vampire ditched her in a dark alley.
The taste of saving her was better than blood.
And once I’d crossed that line, there was no going back.
And if all I had to do to be here with her, to bask in her glow, hear her voice, her laughter, to steal touches of her skin, sometimes more, to talk to her and listen to her, breathe her air, look at her, all of that, if all I had to do was swallow one secret that would kill her to know, then I’d do it.
And really, I’d already apologized to Derrick, spent hours doing it, pliant in front of his grave.
How did it happen, Peter?
It had taken years. It had been all at once.
I should have been dead, but then so should she, and there was some kind of magic in that, some kind of divinity that I was afraid to ever address, like if I did it might have been taken away.
There had been costs, big ones, but I’d sell out the whole world for Fallon to look at me, her hand tucked under her chin, and ask me who I was.