13. Scotty
Scotty
THE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS WON
“Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. He made you eat your mother’s still beating heart, drink his blood, shoved you in a box, saved your fucking hair for some creepy reason, and then staked you?!”
I can barely contain my disgust right now. Juliette stares at me blankly, like my reaction isn’t normal or something. But how can anyone hear all of that and not have some sort of reaction? She just shakes her head slowly.
“Juli, that’s fucked up.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I am aware. Thank you for pointing that out, Scotty.”
“I’m just sayin’. You didn’t deserve that,” I say. “You do know that, right? I mean, you’ve got to know that.”
When she doesn’t say anything, I start to get concerned. I take her by the shoulders and give her a light shake. “You didn’t deserve any of that. And you didn’t deserve a mother who left her only child behind to die a horrific death, either.”
Not like I’m going to say this to her face, but I’m definitely not sad about her mother’s fate.
If anyone in this shitty story deserved that, it’s her, for abandoning her daughter and husband.
For mistreating Juliette her entire life and making her feel so worthless.
Shit. And I thought my parents were bad.
I’m pretty sure my mom wouldn’t abandon me to become vampire food, though, no matter how awful she was.
Juliette waves a hand, dismissing me. “Your concern is noted but unnecessary. We should probably take a break and get you something to eat, though.”
I quirk a brow at her. “Just me? What about you?”
“Nosferatu don’t need to feed often,” she says. “A couple of times a month is more than enough.”
Oh, fucking hell. And here I was, eating three square meals a day. If I could go about my unlife for almost an entire month without needing to suck down some blood, that would be a game changer.
“Hey, quick question,” I say, and Jules lets out a soft grumble.
Annoyed with me again, of course, but something’s been gnawing at me since she mentioned Akasha in her story.
She nods silently, so I continue before I use up the rest of her patience.
“Where do other vampires come from? Y’know, like me and my coven. ”
Juliette’s brows pinch together. “That is a good question. Nosferatu were created hundreds of years ago, but your species has existed since the beginning of time, non?”
I nod. “Yeah. I’m thinking about my old as shit coven leader. Good ol’ Elias. I miss him. He was ancient.”
Juliette shrugs. “No. I do not know. Perhaps it was another God, or perhaps you are as natural as the birds and bats in the sky.”
She stands up and offers me her hand. I take it, and she helps me to my feet.
I wobble back and forth, too dizzy from fatigue and hunger.
Shit, and we just ate last night, too. And it wasn’t a small meal.
Why am I like this? In any case, I don’t bother probing her for more info because it’s clear she doesn’t want to chat anymore and I don’t want to activate grumpy Jules.
“Come, we’ll hunt again. And perhaps you would like to tell me more about yourself, as well?
” Juliette tilts her head at me in question, and I blink.
She wants me to talk about myself? Ugh. No, thank you.
When she continues to stare me down, I swallow the lump that’s formed in my throat.
“I told you my deepest, most nightmarish secrets.”
I scrub a hand through my greasy hair and let out a long sigh. Here comes the guilt tripping, I guess. “Ugh. Fiiiiiine. Let’s hunt down some of these dorks for dinner and I’ll tell you something about myself. What do you want to know?”
As we head out of the salon and back into the piss-and-shit water of the sewers, I rack my brain for anything that could be considered even remotely interesting about my life. But there isn’t anything. I’m just … me. A fuck up. Always was a fuck up. Will probably continue to be a fuck up.
We climb the ladder up to the street, with me going first this time. Surprisingly, she doesn’t put up a fight about it.
“I had a dog named Cha Cha,” I say. “When I was eight.”
I remove the manhole cover and slip out into the crisp night air. It’s balmy this evening, and there’s a weird fog lingering. The streetlights are hazy and kind of pretty, but it’s difficult to see anything. Juliette steps beside me and dusts off the sleeves of her cloak.
“Cha Cha…” she murmurs. “What kind of stupid name is that?”
I flinch. “Um, excuse me? Cha Cha is a perfectly fine name for a dog. Damn, woman. That was kind of rude, even for you.”
Juliette grumbles and wanders off without saying anything else.
Uh, okay? What the fuck just happened? I go after her, but I’m careful to stay several steps behind because I don’t want to piss her off even more than she already is.
Which begs the question … why is she pissed off?
It can’t be my dog’s name. My dog had the coolest name.
Coolest name for the coolest fucking dog. End of story.
“Hey, what’s up? What happened back there?” I quicken my pace once I realize she’s practically gliding off the surface of the street. Another Nosferatu trick, I’m sure, but it’s making it really bloody difficult to keep up with her. “Slow down, Juli. Just talk to me!”
Juliette stops at the corner in front of a closed-up convenience store. Her hands flex in tiny fists at her sides. Oh. Oh, shit. Meltdown imminent, I think?
This might be a terrible idea, but I press my chin into the crook of her neck and wrap my arms around her stomach. It’s not much, but offering her something to ground herself with is all I got right now. I look down and notice her hands have at least stopped clenching at her sides.
A memory I’ve been trying to keep locked away in the closet with the rest of my skeletons resurfaces.
Harriet weeping in my bed. Blood running down her cheeks as she buries her face into the clean sheets.
Eli reprimanding her from the doorway. The hunt had ended badly and nearly gotten everyone killed because of her, but I couldn’t blame her.
I could never blame her. She was only a kid, after all.
It was my job to make sure she didn’t get into any trouble.
This was my fault. All me. And now she was in my bed, bleeding her heart out because of my fuck up…
“It’s okay,” I murmur into her ear. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Jules.”
She grunts in reply. I tighten my arms around her. Hugging her like this feels right. Can’t unpack the why behind that feeling right now, because Juliette needs me. Needs me to be her anchor right now.
My voice rumbles in her ear. “That was a lot. This entire day is a lot for you, I think. But listen, I can smell humans not far from here, and I’m willing to bet there’s at least one of them begging to be drained.
And I’ll need a badass Nosferatu to help me with it, because I’m a shitty hunter, remember? ”
Juliette whirls around, wrenching herself away from me. Trails of blood stain her cheeks. She’s been crying again. “Oh, Juli…” I start, but she shakes her head.
“Stay there.” She holds up her hand as the rest of her body hangs limply. “Please. Just give me a minute, and then … then, yeah, we’ll hunt,” she says, but she doesn’t meet my eyes. Instead, she’s looking down at the street, which is still glistening from a recent storm.
I shove my hands into my leather jacket pockets and linger behind. Close enough that I can protect her if need be, but not so close that I’m suffocating. “Take your time,” I say.
A few minutes pass where I try to look everywhere but at her, even though I desperately want to.
I may no longer have a soul, but there’s something inside me that wants to reach out to her.
Hold her again. Offer her refuge against the war waging within her mind.
What she went through was bad, yeah. You don’t become a vampire without a shit ton of trauma.
Every single one of us has baggage. But hers might actually be the worst I’ve heard, and she’s had to raw dog existence in isolation for gods know how long.
Juliette turns around to face me and nods. I nod back. “Good to go?”
“I am ready, yes.” Her voice cracks a little, but I pretend not to notice. “Thank you.”
I wave a hand in the air. “Don’t mention it.
We all got our shit.” And then I get an idea.
A stupid one, probably, but an idea. I move to her side and smile down at her.
Gods, she’s tiny. Definitely not what I imagined a Nosferatu to look like, that’s for sure.
“Hey, I have a better idea than hunting.”
Juliette stares up at me and blinks.
“Let’s go get doner and chips.”
She continues to stare … then narrows her pretty eyes. “We do not need to eat food, Scotty.”
I shrug. “No, we don’t need to eat food … but nothing hits quite like a doner kebab and some chips after a shitty night.”
“We can’t digest anything, Scotty,” she says flatly. “How do you expect to enjoy this … what did you call it?”
I press my fingertip to her nose and grin. “Boop. Doner kebab. Like, yeah, sure, mostly you’d eat it when you’re drunk and then barf it back up, but—”
Juliette bares her fangs and puffs out her cheeks. Okay, does she realize how fucking adorable she is when she’s angry? Because she is. “Scotty, I am not eating food for drunkards to only vomit it back up again simply to satisfy an impulse of yours. No.”
“Okay. You don’t have to eat it,” I say, then watch as the light at the nearby crosswalk turns green. “C’mon, let’s go. You can watch me eat it.”
Juliette doesn’t follow me right away, but once she sees me crossing the street without her, she chases after me at a trot. “W-Wait! Merde, you are stupid! You want to eat human food that you cannot digest. For what reason?”
We turn a corner onto another brightly lit street, this one with dozens of late-night eateries.
Juliette freezes. “I cannot go down there, Scotty. I—”
I turn back around and flip her hood up. “There. Now you can. Don’t worry about it. I don’t think most people here care about the state of your hair—or, in your case, lack of it. They’re too busy eating and being drunk.”
And I’m right, because there are a few dozen people hanging around on the street eating burgers, chips, and doner.
They’re also all incredibly drunk and stumbling around and laughing together, so there’s no way they’re going to even pay attention to Juliette and me.
I stride up to the counter of Lucky’s Doner and Gyros, my favorite place when I’ve got a craving, and order a large platter and a soda.
It doesn’t take long before my order is ready, and I take my cardboard box of goodies off to sit on the curb. Juliette sits down next to me and peers down at the meat.
“This is … what, again?” She points at my food and looks up at me as I salivate. Gods, is there anything better than a plate of kebab on a rainy night in the city? Okay, a bottle of O would be great, too, but I don’t see any Helsing fucks around, so that’s out. For the moment, anyway.
“Doner,” I say, and stab a piece with my plastic fork. I hold it up for her, just in case she’s changed her mind. She grimaces at the meat in front of her face and pulls back. Yeah. Didn’t think so. “Suit yourself. It’s really good, though. You’re missing out.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” she mumbles.
I cram the doner into my mouth and chew. Relief floods my veins like an IV drip of happy chemicals. Fuck, yes. This is the stuff right here. I exaggerate a moan, and Juliette cringes.
“Why do you not just … chew and spit it back out?” she asks.
Wait, what? I stare down at her, and she blinks at me. My mouth is still full of doner, but that doesn’t stop me from saying, “Whaf? Whaf do you mean, donf swawwo?”
Juliette shakes her head. “Do not speak with your mouth full. It’s rude and disgusting. Spit it out back into the container so you do not need to purge your stomach contents later.”
Truth be told, I hadn’t thought of that, but she’s got a good point.
Once all the flavor is gone, I spit the meat back out onto the plate like I’m a mama bird about to feed her young.
Juliette shuffles away from me on the curb a few centimeters.
I watch as she plants her chin in her palm and stares up at the night sky.
She’s avoiding looking at me. Yeah, this is awful and not very fun for her, but I hope I at least got her mind off of other things.
“Good call,” I say, and nudge her lightly in the ribs. She rolls her eyes but continues staring up at the sky.
I shove more doner into my mouth, chew, and discard it into the box. This is not a pretty sight by any means, but thankfully everyone else around us really is too drunk to notice, otherwise this would be an awkward outing. And then Juliette looks back at me with a question lingering in her eyes.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“I would like to tell you the rest of the story now, if you would humor me,” she says.
My brows knit together. I set my fork down in the mush of half-eaten doner. “Uh, yeah. Sure. But … I mean. Do you really want to?”
She nods. “I do. It’s … cathartic.”
I don’t want to ruin the moment, but I have to know. “Is this the first year you’re spending your death day with someone?”
Juliette nibbles on her bottom lip before nodding. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
“When were you turned again, exactly?”
She pauses for a moment, looks up at the sky, and holds up her hand to silently count. “I believe it was in 1793.”
“So, like. Two-hundred-something years ago,” I say, and rub the back of my neck. Oh, yikes. That’s got to be bloody rough. “Well, egg on, then. Speak your mind.”
Juliette frowns, and there’s those cute little dimples in the corners of her mouth again.
Ah, hells. Why’s she got to go and have dimples?
I need to pinch ’em. And then the damned intrusive thoughts win, because I set my platter of doner down and grab her white cheeks and squish ’em between my fingers. Juli lets out a garbled protest.
“Yep. Knew it,” I mutter. “You’re secretly a cutie.”
Juliette swats my hands away and bares her pearly white fangs at me again, but I swear I see the twinkle of amusement in her eyes. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. “And you are not-so-secretly a fucking idiot.”
“Yeah,” I say, and drop my hands back to my side. “You’re right about that. Now, I’m going to continue eating, and you’re going to continue your story.” I boop her on the nose again with the other end of my fork. “But if you start spiraling again, I’m going to squish your face.”
Juliette lets out a resigned sigh. “Fine. Just try not to interrupt me so much this time.”
I nod. “Deal.”