Chapter 15 Elijah
Elijah
Friday night was a close call.
If I learned anything from kissing Molly it’s that, no matter how much I may wish to do it again, being near her is not safe. Not for me, not for her. Which I knew.
I knew I shouldn’t have gone to that party; I should have kept avoiding her, compelled my way into a different department on a different floor–or, better yet, at a different company.
I needed to keep my distance; it was foolish to go to the party to begin with, and fatally unwise to follow her onto Devi’s balcony.
But most of all, I shouldn’t have kissed her, because it makes keeping my distance now feel like a torture.
It would be easier if I could simply crave her from afar, if I had never found out what she tastes like, what the little sounds at the back of her throat sound like.
I’ve been possessed by the memory of her mouth on mine, a horny ghost haunting me down to my very molecules.
I am old enough to know better than to do what I did.
I’ve seen what happens when I let myself get too close to a beautiful human–they get hurt, I get heartbroken.
I pile the guilt on my overflowing dossier of sins and am forced to stare at them in my ghostly reflection each evening and confront them at night when I do not sleep.
Molly is a light in this world. At the party, she shimmered and sparkled, her skin, her hair, her dress reflecting the orange and purple lights; she puts on a cool exterior for someone so radiant and wonderful. I’m foolish to hang around her any more than I have already.
I won’t endanger Molly further. I should quit, I know, but if I do that, then I can’t even be near her, can’t watch her stalk across the office or bob her head to music from her headphones.
I won’t be able to glimpse a sliver of stomach when she stretches her arms above her head, won’t be able to protect her from anything. What if she meets another vampire?
With a renewed clarity about my situation, I determine that the best plan of action is to keep my job but ignore Molly for all I’m worth until she forgets we ever kissed on a cold evening in October.
To that end, I’ve studiously avoided her–professionally, even–all day.
Thus far I’ve managed to spend a whole four hours locked in Ryan’s office by compelling him to believe he’d scheduled me to shadow him this morning.
I’ve learned lots about Ryan in these hours, and very little about Drummond and his responsibilities here.
I compelled him to walk me through a normal Ryan morning and determined that he does a small fraction of the work Molly completes in a day.
He loves baseball and spends the better part of an hour regaling me with details of the World Series, which does not interest me in the slightest when he talks about it.
If Molly was interested, it would interest me.
Kenneth, even; I like listening to Kenneth, he is the least old soul I’ve ever met. It endears him to me intensely.
Come lunchtime, Ryan has grated on my nerves enough that I leave him be for my own sake.
I thank him for his time before exiting as discreetly as I’m able.
To stay out of Molly’s path for the rest of the day, I’ll tour the building’s closets with a clipboard.
The clipboard and badge will make it look like I’m on official business instead of hiding from an often-frowning blonde woman.
Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll take my first sick day.
When I look both directions in the hall I don’t see Molly, who has otherwise been hovering about like a hawk waiting to kill, so I set a brisk pace towards the office exit.
As I do, though, an arm snakes out from the door marked Storage Closet and snags me by the shoulder, pulling me back. I let out an undignified squeak as I’m tugged into the cramped and dark space.
‘Hey!’ I say as the door clicks shut behind me.
I’m met immediately with the fresh summer scent of Molly, who wears a blood-red jumper with a high collar.
She’s got on the tight black skirt that stretches so prettily over her hips, but now is not the time to be distracted by her looks–not when her eyes are wide and her lips turned down into a tight frown.
She’s raging mad. If I had to guess, it’s because I quite literally abandoned her on Friday night mid-kiss when I’d been making it very apparent that I liked what we were doing. If there’s something that doesn’t change, it’s people’s distaste for mixed signals.
‘Molly—’
‘No, what the fuck?’ she whisper shouts, loud enough to let me know she’s furious, quiet enough that passing ears won’t hear her.
‘I can explain.’
She closes her mouth and waits for the explanation I didn’t actually think she’d let me give. Shit.
‘Right, well. You see, being with you…’ I lower my voice, ‘kissing you, it reminded me that I am really in no place to be involved with anyone, and especially not my brilliant and beautiful colleague who—’
‘Pause.’ Molly holds a palm in front of her and screws up her face in distaste.
I do pause, shutting my mouth with a startled sound because in the middle of my it’s not you it’s me speech she’s pressed stop as if I’m a DVD player.
‘I’m not here to talk about the kiss. Or maybe I am. It’s not the primary thing. I’m here because you’ve been shifty as hell since your very first day here. You’ve been keeping a massive secret, and now I know what it is,’ she hisses.
I give her one slow blink, then stand straighter to stall and put some inches between her face and mine. It doesn’t work. She’s all around me, filling up this supply closet and any free space in my brain and lungs. She looks so grumpy, her eyebrows turned down towards her nose in a V.
I want to kiss her.
No. Focus, dammit.
‘What’s that, then?’ I ask.
‘You know, at first, I just thought you were weird, or wilfully obtuse. I thought you were trying to make me miserable. But no, it’s weirder than that because you’re not. Even. Human.’ She whispers the last word and I still.
I remind myself to inhale–people tend to notice when you stop breathing, probably especially when they’ve just accused you of being inhuman.
I remember an invaluable piece of advice my mother gave me and my siblings after changing us: When all else fails, deny, deny, deny.
‘Are you feeling quite all right? You’re looking a bit pale,’ I say, though I feel slimy doing it.
Her eyes narrow immediately. ‘Don’t even start with me.
’ Molly pushes a pointer finger into my chest. She uses her other hand to tug down the red cable knit collar, revealing the silky expanse of her neck.
Only, the smooth skin is marred by two parallel lines, thin red cuts, scabbed and healing but visible still.
The exact distance of my upper fangs.
Oh no.
‘That—’
She interrupts me again, which is all for the best since I didn’t have an intelligible response anyway. ‘I know what you are, Elijah. If that’s even your real name.’
‘It is,’ I snipe back, my own frustration and anxiety impossible to hide. ‘And what is that, then? If you know, then say it.’
Molly’s bottom lip pulls between her teeth, the first letter forming in her mouth, when the closet door swings open to reveal a very smug-looking Kenneth, his rattling water bottle in hand, mixing one of his drinks.
He stops shaking it and looks significantly at the spare distance between our bodies, smirking.
‘Dude, I so knew it,’ he says to us both. ‘Like ten different people are about to owe me money.’
‘Kenneth,’ Molly says, like she couldn’t be more exhausted by him.
‘Please, don’t stop on my account. Looks like it was just about to get juicy.’
With a long, loud sigh, Molly looks to the ceiling like it might save her from this, then shoulders past Kenneth and retreats down the hall.
I don’t waste a second before following her lead, leaving a still-smiling Kenneth in our wake.
Molly’s search history from Sunday 1 November:
Cold skin sharp teeth never eats
Can a person have very sharp teeth
Can teeth slice skin with no pressure?
Can you sharpen your teeth
Man with unnaturally sharp canine teeth
Vampires real?
Real vampires reddit
Real vampires forum
How to know if going crazy real
Vampires in new york city