Chapter Twenty-Two
It was time to start owning my fate, my life, and my decisions.
If we were going to find a way out of this mess, it had to be a human solution. Not a “human adjacent” or “repurposed people” solution. Not a greedy and powerful solution.
If this world stood a chance against vampires who wanted to suck us dry, we had to be in charge.
And by “we,” I meant all of the sane, rational, everyday humans who didn’t subscribe to anything other than leaving the world a better place than we found it.
To a future where families could live without fear of vampire violence.
A future where our children could learn, explore, and live without becoming a walking fat solid for a curated tasting menu. A crop.
Also, to hell with the dirty humans who intended to profit from step one of human subjugation: the Repurposed People Act.
After all, for them to agree to this bill meant they’d sold us out for whatever enticements they’d been offered by vampires. Land, power, money. Spa treatments. Whatever.
We were nothing more than a crop to them, too.
Working people, a crop. Students, a crop.
Homeless, a crop. Drug addicts, crime and criminals, illness, the elderly, immigrants, depression, obesity, hope, fear, loneliness, social media, war, hate, love, sex…
All a crop. Our humanity didn’t matter to those people or to vampires.
Only our potential for exploitation did.
The irony was that vampires were pulling a page from their book. Now, the corrupt and powerful, who’d reduced us to revenue streams, were about to be robbed of their freedom, too. If Roman got into power, same for the vampires.
It was why the antidote had to come from me.
From everyone like me.
No, not sassy or Southern. Not goofy or sometimes filled with regrets and doubt, but from a real person. Real. Loving. Filled with hope for a better world and with an appreciation of everything good we still had.
“There she is! The legendary Anna.” Roman zipped over and took my hand, placing a sloppy, ice-cold kiss on it.
Why were his lips freezing when Stark’s always felt so warm?
“It is an honor to meet you in person,” Roman said. He was a short man compared to Stark, but Roman had a very beefy physique, almost like a roid-pumped bodybuilder.
Stark glared at me from behind Roman.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” I replied sweetly, retracting my hand and wiping off the slobber behind my back. My poor T-shirt.
Stark chimed in, “Roman and I were just discussing a way to evade war.”
“I heard,” I growled subtly. “Every word. And, Roman, you were right. You are…” I looked him up and down, “so good looking. You were once a supermodel, right?”
“One of the first.” He ran his hand over his perfectly combed strawberry-blond hair. “Male model of the year. 1880 to 1920.”
I didn’t react to his ridiculousness. “You are a man of true beauty. And I hear you are quite the fighter.”
“I am the best. At everything.” He winked. “I also have a black belt in tai chi.”
Okay. So Stark was afraid to fight him because it might be too relaxing?
Roman added, “But I am most famous for my strangulation technique. Some call me ‘the Python.’” He formed claws with his hands and hissed.
I call you an idiot.
“Excellent,” I said, throwing in some Southern sugar. “Then I say you and Stark fight. Hand-to-hand or fang-to-fang. Whatever. The one who wins will be my husband.”
“Masie!” Stark barked.
“Anna,” I corrected with a sharp look. The way I saw it, I wasn’t getting out of here alive.
Not human, anyway. Not if I left my fate in their hands.
At least Roman was dumb, and I could probably talk him into just about anything.
Stark was cunning. Experienced. Ruthless.
Also, he couldn’t stand losing. His ego was his Achilles’ heel.
Like Charlie’d said before he’d died, “…if you want us to win, then you need to use his feelings, his weaknesses, against him…”
If Stark won the fight, he’d be blinded and infuriated by my newly discovered spine. He’d understand that neither I nor Anna would bend to his will, and if we were going to team up, I had a say. A say I intended to use.
If Roman won, well, I wasn’t sure, but my money was on my bigger brain.
In short, I was doing as Stark had taught me: ensuring I came out on top no matter the outcome. The difference was, I didn’t want power or wealth for myself. I wanted to be in the best position possible to stop this nightmare.
“Mas—Anna,” Stark said, “may I speak to you privately?”
“As long as it’s all right with the Python here.” I giggled.
“Of course,” said Roman, “his words are no weapon against our destiny.” He blew me a kiss, and I pretended to catch it.
“Hee hee,” I fake laughed. “You are truly a gentleman. Unlike some.” I turned and left the room, heading upstairs toward the master.
Stark was right behind me, slamming the door shut. “What the hell are you doing? He is everything you loathe—no respect for you, this town, or your family,” Stark growled.
“Look who’s talking. At least if he wins, I’ll be free of you.”
Like a deflated balloon, Stark’s body shrank from his chest to his spine. “You want to be free…of me?”
“I heard every word, Stark. You weren’t fighting for me. You were bartering for your island. Using my life!” I hissed.
“Yes. Because we need that island. Otherwise, where will vampires go when you order them to retreat from public life?”
“What about me? Were you really just going to let him turn me?” I seethed.
“Did you not hear the part where you get to choose whom to be with?” Stark asked.
Ohmygod. He hadn’t listened to one word. Not one little bit about wanting to stay human if at all possible. He hadn’t even tried. In his mind, this was the best plan. The only plan.
“From the minute you entered my life,” I said, “I’ve been terrorized, tortured, imprisoned, and heartbroken. What you’ve put me through is worse than when Daddy died, when I could hardly breathe let alone keep myself from drinking a bottle of rat poison for breakfast.”
Stark’s eyes turned black—a shade I’d never seen before. “You said you were…fine. You had your family.” Stark sounded winded.
“I lied, okay!” I threw down my fists. “You were right. I did want to die after we lost Daddy. I couldn’t stand wakin’ up every morning, looking at Mamma and Maybell crying, knowing nothing would ever be right again.
” The tears pooled in my eyes. “He left us poor, lost, and with a mother who couldn’t get out of bed.
Jimmie helped us out with money, but Maybell and I fended for ourselves for years because Mamma couldn’t cope. ”
“Why are you crying?” Stark said unsympathetically. “Everything worked out. You are together again because I saved him.”
Worked out? Couldn’t he see where we were? “You saved him. You saved yourself,” I said quietly, recalling Stark’s real reason for saving Daddy. “You didn’t save me. Just like you’re not doing now.”
He nodded solemnly. “I see.”
“Do you? Because I wish we never met. I wish you hadn’t walked into the Rooster that night and saved my life.
At least then, I wouldn’t be racking my brain, feeling the weight of saving everything I love and not knowing if I can do it.
Not without giving up my life and becoming everything I hate.
You. You, Stark. You are nothin’ but a selfish monster. I want you out of my life.”
“You really mean it? You wish I would have allowed you to die?”
“Anything would be better than a life with you in it.” I nodded. “So what are you gonna do now? A magic trick? Turn back time?”
“I cannot do that. Nor can I change what is going to happen. To you, to me, to any of us. But I can give you this…” Stark grabbed me by the arms and stared into my eyes.
STARK
I took Masie into my arms, dread washing over me.
Was it happening again?
Was this the end?
It seemed that no matter what I did, history was bound to repeat like a cold winter storm that drained one’s soul of warmth and light.
I would find her, my Anna, the woman I fell in love with five hundred years ago in a house of horrors, only to lose her again. First, to Charles’s thirst.
Anna had been carrying a baby when he took her in, and I, as his human slave, warned her again and again to leave that place. However, she had been rejected by her family, thrown out into the streets. Pregnant. Branded a whore.
Anna refused to run from the only home she had, and part of me did not wish her to go. I loved her. From the very first moment I saw her. Those wide eyes. The feistiness. The light inside her. It was why I hoped Charles might let her live, as he had done with me for years.
But I’d been wrong. So very wrong.
Charles drank her as soon as she gave birth. Perhaps to punish me for having a heart to love her with—something he did not possess.
At least little Leonardo survived, though given away as a gift to another vampire. Future slave. Future food?
Several years later, after I became a vampire myself, I bought Leonardo and made sure he would have a comfortable life. A free life.
Fifty years went by, and I traveled back to London to see what had become of him, only to find a beautiful woman living in his home who looked exactly like my Anna. Leonardo’s daughter. The oldest of six children.
After a few days of interactions, I realized that the similarities were more than skin deep. She recalled me. She knew me. It was her, reborn in a new form.
And then she died like the other times to come. To war, violence, or by another man’s hands.
One time, she would die despite becoming immortal, as was the case when she became a queen who struggled with the weight of her crown, her dreams, and her heart.
“A life apart from my child,” she’d said, “is no life at all.” But it had been far too dangerous for Persimmon, her daughter, to be anywhere near Anna. The queen’s enemies were everywhere.