Chapter 8 Allie #2
The thing that made me strong enough to seal hellgates and powerful enough to fight things that should have killed me ten times over. The thing that made me special and dangerous and possibly something other than entirely human.
“Would turning even work?” Mindy asked. “With what you are?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. There’s no precedent for.
..” I waved a hand vaguely at myself. “Whatever I am. It might work fine. It might kill me. It might turn me into something worse than either vampire or demon.” I swallowed hard.
“Jared won’t even talk about it. Every time I bring it up, he shuts down. ”
“Maybe he’s scared too.”
“Maybe.” Probably. Definitely. “He told me once that he’d rather have fifty years with me than eternity with anyone else.”
Mindy made a sound that was half sigh, half groan. “Oh. Oh, that’s like...romance novel good.”
“I know.”
“I hate him a little bit for being that perfect.”
“Same, honestly.”
She laughed, and I laughed with her, and for a moment the heaviness lifted. But not all the way. Some things are too heavy to lift completely.
“Allie?” Timmy’s voice broke into our laughter. He was tugging at my sleeve, a drawing clutched in his other hand. “How do you spell for Mommy?”
“F-O-R,” I said, grabbing a scrap of paper from my desk and writing it out for him in big, clear letters. “M-O-M-M-Y.”
He studied it carefully, then carried both papers back to his spot on the floor. I watched him copy the letters in the corner of his drawing, his tongue poking out again, brow furrowed in concentration. His handwriting was wobbly but legible. FOR MOMY, it said. Close enough.
“It’s a present,” he announced proudly, holding it up for inspection. A red door with a gold doorknob, carefully colored inside the lines. “For when she’s sad.”
“That’s really sweet, buddy. She’s going to love it.”
He beamed at me—that pure, uncomplicated joy that only little kids could pull off—then went back to his crayons, already starting another door.
“Okay,” Mindy said, and her voice had that forced-cheerful tone that meant she was deliberately changing the subject. “This got way too serious. We were supposed to be ranking boys by hotness and making fun of each other’s life choices, not contemplating mortality and vampire relationships.”
“You asked.”
“I know, and I have learned my lesson about asking real questions.” She swung her legs off the bed and stood, stretching. “New topic. Ice cream. I think there’s still some of that chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer. The good kind that my mom hides behind the frozen vegetables.”
“Aunt Laura hides ice cream?”
“She hides everything good. I swear I should make a map.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “Come on. Sugar therapy. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I own a First Aid kit. Close enough.”
She was already heading for the door. “Timmy, you want to come? There might be popsicles.”
“Popsicles!” He scrambled up, scattering crayons everywhere, and grabbed Mindy’s hand.
I gathered up his drawings and stacked them on my desk. The one marked FOR MOMY in his careful handwriting went on top.
“Allie, come on!” Mindy called from the hallway. “That popsicle isn’t going to eat itself!”
Later that night, after ice cream and dinner and the chaos of trying to get everyone to agree on a movie, Jared walked me back to my room.
He hesitated at the door, which he never did. “Maybe I should just say goodnight.”
“Don’t you dare.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. “My mom walking in on us doesn’t change anything. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“I know. But she looked—”
“Traumatized? Yeah. Welcome to my world.” I shut the door behind us and leaned against it. “She’ll get over it. And I’m not sleeping without you just because she got an eyeful.”
His mouth twitched. “An eyeful?”
“Shut up.” I crossed to the bed and climbed in, then patted the space beside me. “Mindy’s got a crush on Zane,” I said. “Did you notice?”
He laughed. “I did. Probably the rest of the class did, too.”
I sighed. “Maybe it’ll work out. I feel bad, you and me having each other. She needs someone, too.”
“She’ll find someone. Not sure Zane would be my choice.”
I twisted to get a better look at him. “You don’t like him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know him. I just wonder how much they’ll mesh after she gets tired of looking at him.”
I laughed. “Are you afraid I’ll get tired of looking at you?”
“You better not.”
I snuggled up to him. “Won’t ever happen.”
He kissed the nape of my neck as he stretched out next to me, one arm draped over my waist. Familiar. Safe.
But even with him there—even with his presence wrapped around me—I couldn’t quiet my brain.
Mindy’s question kept circling back— Are you scared?
The honest answer was yes. But not just about Jared, or the future, or the impossibility of forever.
The truth was, I never used to think about dying.
It just wasn’t something that crossed my mind.
Sure, I knew it would happen eventually—everyone died—but it was abstract.
Distant. A problem for Future Allie, the one who was old and gray and had lived a full life.
The old Allie didn’t waste time worrying about it.
Now I thought about it all the time.
Every training session, every demon we faced, I wondered if this was it. If today was the day my luck ran out. If all the power in my blood, all the training, all the fighting, would add up to nothing in the end.
Jared’s arm tightened around me, as if he could sense my thoughts spiraling. Maybe he could. He always seemed to know.
Tomorrow there would be training. Classes. More investigation into Antonio’s murder. Tomorrow I’d have to be strong and capable and whatever else people needed me to be.
But tonight, in the dark, with Jared’s arms around me, I let myself be scared. Just for a little while.