6. - – Paul
CHAPTER SIX
-
PAUL
“All this time. All this time you were a fucking vampire, and you let her suffer?” I scream at Lucian as he shoves his bleeding wrist against Red’s agape mouth.
I should be mortified or terrified at the sight that’s before me, but I'm not. The only emotion I'm feeling right now is rage. Rage at the fact that Misha has been dying of cancer when Lucian had the ability to end it and to allow her to live forever.
I know how this works, or at least how it's written in the books. A vampire bites you and drinks your blood, and then they share theirs with you, and voila, you're now an undead creature of the night. If it was that fucking easy, why didn't he convert Misha a long time ago?
Her hand feels tiny and frail in mine, and I need to let her go for the fear of hurting her in my anger towards the man who could have saved her before she got this sick.
“Easy, Paul.” Cary says, stepping up in front of me, blocking Lucian and what he’s doing to Red from my view. “It’s not that simple.”
“You knew? Did you know this whole time?” I shout at Cary, standing up from my seat, getting in his face.
He takes a deep breath in, almost like he's centering himself.
In the moment, with how he swallows and leans in towards me, it almost feels like he's mocking me.
At least if he isn't, I know that the oni tattooed on his throat is.
His dirty blonde brows furrow in towards his nose, and the corner of his mouth raises ever so slightly into that wicked sneer that I've seen on his face way too many times over the years.
“Did I know? Of course I know. We're all vampires. All eight of us. Us and the women.” He says to me, leaning forward so that the tip of his nose touches mine.
He's not laughing, though, and not acting like this is a game, like I would have assumed he would have.
Instead, he is dead serious, his amber eyes peering into my blue ones with a look of frustration and solemnness.
“But you have to know, Paul, that it's not a cut-and-dry, easy thing.”
“Easier than dying.”
“In fact, no. You have to die in order to become undead, and it's a violent, painful death. Not one that I ever want to see anybody that I care about go through again.”
“But you come back, and you never die again.”
“Actually, you can die, just as Red back here has tonight. And every time that you're brought back from it, it's more and more painful. You see, this life after death isn't a gift. It's a curse.”
“I don't believe that.” I growl at him, pushing him to the side so I can look around him and watch as Lucian resurrects Red from the dead.
I know now that Cary is a vampire as well, and that me, as a mere mortal, would not be strong enough to move him unless he allowed me to. He steps aside the rest of the way and turns his gaze to follow mine. Standing before me, he watches with me as Red starts to stir.
The whole room falls silent. Misha's little sniffles of sadness have stopped, and she holds her breath in anticipation of what is going to happen from the sight before us.
The other guys stand around Lucian, their hands clasped in front of them and their heads bowed in respect while they wait for him to finish feeding the now rousing female vampire on the floor.
She's covered head to chest in Lucian’s and her own blood, and a stream of it runs out of the corner of her mouth as she finally blinks her eyes and turns her head, her still vacant gaze landing directly on me. It's like a scene from a horror movie, but still, I’m not afraid.
“You should be afraid.” Red says, her lips barely moving with her speech. “We’re monsters. Don't wish that upon her.”
“Paul.” Misha says from her seat on the sofa, as she reaches out from my hand once again and takes it in hers. “They're probably right. Let it go. I'm fine just the way I am.”
“No, you're dying.”
“And we all knew this. We all made peace with it already.”
“But if you don't have to...”
“I do.”
“You do not.” I shout at her, immediately regretting raising my voice at the woman I’m madly in love with. Calming myself down with a deep breath, I sit back next to her, cupping her hands in mine, kissing her knuckles, “You don’t have to. You could live forever.”
“Who wants that? To live forever?”
“Obviously, all of them.” I say to her, motioning towards the band members standing in the center of the room, watching us, and watching Red as she regains enough strength to sit up and wipe her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Not me.” Derrick says, looking at me with his amber eyes all muddy and pale. “I didn’t want to be here. I killed myself, but was brought back against my will. And it sucked.”
“I didn't ask for it either; it was given to me against my will.” Lucian says, rising to his feet and extending his hand to his woman, helping her off the floor as well.
It's amazing watching someone who was dead just minutes ago, or at least I thought she was dead, stand up and brush herself off as if nothing had happened. The wound on her chest from Lucian’s teeth is already sealed shut, and the only sign of the injury is the torn clothing over the area and the bloodstains on the cotton top.
“What about you, Marcus?” I ask the drummer, who quietly paces back and forth in the rear of the room, seeming to be avoiding the conversation amongst us.
“I didn't ask for it either. Lucian and Red brought me over after my stupidity killed me.
Last thing I knew, I was laughing at a pimp in a dark alley, then I was waking up screaming in pain.
Now I'm stuck here forever.” He answers me, stopping his back-and-forth walk to look at me with an expression of resignation.
“Not much I can do about it now, except embrace it.”
“So none of you here actually wanted this?” I ask them all, looking back and forth between each and every one of them. “You all just luckily fell into it. Seems a little weird.”
With a small chuckle, Cary looks back down at me and shakes his head side to side. “Haven't you realized that everything with us is weird? You've been with us long enough; you can't tell me you didn't have some kind of inkling about it.”
“I knew you guys were odd, but… this? Fuck no, I had no idea.”
“I knew.” Misha whispers almost to herself, but I hear her, and it makes my heart stop in my chest in surprise. Holding her hands tighter, I look at her in disbelief and see the small tears welling up in the corners of her pale blue eyes that match mine. “At least I knew it was something.”
“Why didn’t you…?”
“Because I see what they do. I see the violence and know the messes that I’ve had to cover up for them. I wouldn’t want to live like that.”
“But…” I say, but she cuts me off with a shake of her bald head.
“No buts.”
With a resignation that I don’t appreciate, I shut my mouth and sit quietly, just holding her hands and soaking in everything that’s transpired in the past few hours. It’s too much shit, too much confusion, and too much hurt.
“Yes, kitten.”