25. Scotty
Scotty
TAKING ROOT
Juliette’s eyes soften and go glassy with unshed tears, and she reaches up to caress my cheek the moment I finish my tale.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. A single bloody tear slips from my eye, and I brush it away with the back of my hand. “Harriett didn’t deserve that fate.”
I nod silently, then look down at her. This is too much.
All this talking … all this remembering.
It hurts more than I thought it would. But I can’t imagine it not hurting regardless of how much time passes.
Remembering my little sister in two hundred, three hundred years.
Will I still be filled with so much regret?
Or will my damned soul finally move on and stop bleating like a fuckin’ sheep?
It’s hard to imagine not giving a shit about Harriet at some point.
She was—is still—so important to me. Don’t even have a gravesite to visit and maintain, which makes the wound worse.
“None of us do, Jules,” I finally murmur, then take her hand into mine and brush my lips across her knuckles.
“None of us do,” she agrees.
A week passes, and the Helsing raids continue.
They redouble their efforts in eradicating all vampire nests in the city.
Juliette and I lie low in her alcove, mostly snacking on rats.
We don’t go to the surface to hunt. It’s too dangerous now that the Helsings have rallied.
We entertain ourselves with music. Sometimes Juliette paints or crochets.
Mostly, we just chat, make love, and nap while we wait for the storm on the surface to pass.
But it doesn’t. Another week goes by, then another … until I lose track of time entirely.
Juliette watches me nervously, like she’s worried I’m going to go off like a bomb.
Maybe I will. I’m not used to sitting around so much.
I miss my freedom. Miss the clubs. Miss the drinking.
Mostly, I miss my apartment and my own bed.
Juliette lets me sleep in her cot with her, but …
I just want to be able to take my girl back home with me.
Have her sleep in a real bed without the annoying dripping sounds.
One night, after eating a few anemic-looking rats, I pace the alcove restlessly.
“I think we should go topside for a bit,” I say. “Get some fresh air.”
Juliette looks up from her canvas. She’s been painting a field of lilacs from memory.
It’s amazing what she can do with a blank canvas.
Makes me wish I still had my guitar so I could play for her.
Juliette sets her paintbrush down and smiles sadly at me, then shakes her head.
“We don’t even breathe,” she says. “What use do we have for fresh air?”
Yeah, all right. She’s got me there. I move to her side and look down at her painting. “It’s coming along nicely. But you need a break, too, right? Let me take you out for dinner for once.”
Juliette chews on her bottom lip, and I suddenly have the urge to nibble on her bottom lip, too.
Maybe it’s the isolation that’s making me hornier than usual.
It’s not like I was getting laid with any regularity on the surface, of course, but I was never this pent up.
We don’t have sex that often, Jules and I.
I don’t want to bother her, and she hasn’t initiated in four …
maybe five days? I’m totally fine with her setting the pace.
Rushing things in the past has gotten me into trouble.
“Juli. Being down here with you is nice, but it’s not healthy,” I say, and take her hands into mine, tracing the backs of her knuckles with my thumbs.
She looks down at her hands as her lips part, and I can see the gears in her head turning. “Not healthy?” Juli looks up at me with wide, doe-like eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say quickly, and lean down to give her a peck on the forehead. “I only meant that being cooped up for this long isn’t healthy for anyone. Not even you. You deserve to be free.”
Juliette frowns and looks away. “I’m Nosferatu. I can never be free.”
That couldn’t be true. Sure, she looks unconventional.
More monster than human, but surely there’s a place in vampire society for someone like her.
There has to be. Besides … we managed to catch a movie at the drive-in just fine.
We could do that every weekend, probably, once the Helsings calm the fuck down.
“C’mon, let me take you out of the city for a bit, at least,” I say, extending my hand to her.
Her eyes lick up and down my hand and arm like a snake ready to bite before she places her palm in mine. “Fine,” she sighs. “But it has to be a short trip. My curfew is at dawn, after all.”
I wink at her. “That’s my good girl. Knew you had it in you. And don’t worry, princess. We’ll get you back in plenty of time before you turn into the world’s cutest pumpkin.”
Juliette says nothing in response to my light ribbing, which is totally weird.
What, no snark? No, “Shut up Scotty, I don’t even know what that is?
” She usually has something to say about my teasing.
But no need to overthink it. We walk to the nearest ladder and climb out of the sewer hole to the city above.
It takes us forty minutes of creeping around like teenagers out past curfew before we reach the old junkyard past the city limits. When I was alive, this place smelled of garbage, burned rubber, and marijuana. Now it smells mostly the same, sans the marijuana.
We climb over the fence and hop down to the other side.
No guard dogs, either. Not that we couldn’t handle them.
It’s easy to enthrall dogs. Easy to enthrall humans, too, like the girl working the drive-in.
But sometimes you run afoul of someone with a steel trap mind and you can’t break in—not really a problem with animals.
“This is … nice,” Juliette says as she wipes her hands off on her mended skirts.
I roll my eyes. “You don’t have to lie to me, Juli. I know this isn’t exactly the Rhine. But look,” I say, and hurry off toward one of the tire mountains. “This way!”
Juli catches up to me as I make a sharp turn around the tires, and I grin when I hear her gasp.
From here, you have a clear view of the river.
And across the river? Pinecrest Hills. So close, yet so far.
The neighboring city is covered in verdant trees as far as the eye can see, and rumor has it, it’s home to gangs of werewolves and shifters.
Not my kind of people, but we’re considered cousins, I guess. Sorta.
Juli steps up beside me and asks, “What is that place? With all the lights?”
“Pinecrest Hills,” I answer her, and close the gap between us so that our arms are touching. “It’s a spooky place, full of monsters and scary ghosts.” I wiggle my fingers at her as I put emphasis on the word spooky.
Juli looks up at me, and her eyes widen. “Is that true? Or are you teasing me again?”
I let out a bark of laughter. “I’m teasing, of course. But there are stories. Loads of ’em. Never been there myself, though.”
“Why not?” she asks. It’s an innocent question, but she stares up at me with those big, round eyes of hers again. It’s enough to make a grown man forget to breathe. If one still did that, of course. Damn, she’s pretty. She must have been a vision in her human life, too.
“Because I don’t travel much anymore. I’m happy here,” I say, and clasp my hands behind my neck. “Warts and all.”
Juli tilts her head. I love it when she does that. It makes her look like a curious puppy. “Are you, though?”
I frown. “What?”
“Happy?”
A moment passes, and a cool breeze blows between us.
Sure, we could get into it, about how I used to love wandering around with no goal or destination in mind.
Headed up Scotland and bummed around for a bit.
Then Ireland. Now here, on the island of Mystella.
Wouldn’t have bothered coming here if it wasn’t for the mayor killing everyone I loved.
But now I wish I’d come sooner, with Harriett and Eli.
Marcus and Ava were probably doomed and past the point of saving.
Those two were on a path of self-destruction.
But Harriett would have loved it here. An island full of monsters, witches, vampires, you name it.
All living adjacently to the humans who barely knew of their existence. Well, until recently, that is.
“Sugardove City was actually peaceful when I first arrived,” I say.
Juliette watches me curiously, and I lace my fingers through hers.
“No Helsings to speak of. No one even knew about our kind until they got the internet here in 2015 and opened their borders to the outside world. I had to sneak in back in 2000. And believe me, that shit was not easy.”
“I’ve been in the sewers for so long I didn’t even notice they were so cut off from everything,” Juliette murmurs.
“Yeah. Kind of shocking how they were the last bastion against modern times. I mean, they still have drive-ins here,” I say with an eyeroll.
“Do they not have those elsewhere?”
“They do, but they aren’t common. They’re gimmicky, I guess.”
“I see.” Juliette squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back. “But you didn’t answer my question, Scotty. Are you happy here?”
I kick a few pebbles off the toe of my boot and sigh. “Yeah, I guess so. Although, if I had the means, maybe I’d travel the world. Also, if I had someone to travel with. Don’t want to go alone, you know?” I look down at Juli, and she meets my gaze.
She smiles, and I notice the tips of her gleaming white fangs sparkling in the moonlight. “Maybe I could go with you when the time comes.”
“Oh, you’d better. You’re mine, remember?” I tease with a grin, and she looks down at her feet, smiling. My girl’s so cute when she blushes. Even if there’s no pink in her cheeks, I know. She can’t hide it from me.
This feels … right. It feels good, standing here with her like this, holding her hand. And I know that when she smiles at me like that, she feels the same.
“But uh, can you even travel? I know you’re kind of confined to the sewer because of some Nosferatu thing, right?” I ask, rubbing the back of my neck. The thought of her immolating in a burst of orange flames makes my chest hurt like someone’s just poured cement down my throat.
She nods. “I can move freely, so long as I perform a new Blood Rite before dawn.”
I have no idea what that means, but I give her a thumbs up anyway. She’s older and wiser, after all, and knows how her body works. In fact, if anything, Juliette’s been moving through the decades with an overabundance of caution, and I can’t see that changing any time soon.
“We should get back before we roast,” I say.
Juliette and I return to the salon before the sun rises, our steps lighter than usual. A future together. I can finally see it in my mind’s eye. And then a plan begins to take root.