Chapter 23
With hours of daylight to kill before my Tuesday-night shift at Pete’s, I figure I’ll go running. As usual, I do my stretches on the path first. Leaning into a lunge, I stare out over the familiar beach, what I’ve come to think of as our beach—Nick’s and mine—although it looks different when it’s not veiled in darkness.
Now, in the stark light of day, I think about everything that’s passed between Nick and me over the last few nights. The talks, that first kiss, even the disagreements. It all felt so true to me. Is it possible that the curtain of night helped conceal Nick’s deception? Is it possible that he was just acting all along? Is it possible that he’s a better freaking actor than I am?
I try to shake off these doubts as I shake out my limbs to start my run. Then I take a deep breath and—
“I was hoping I’d run into you again,” says someone coming up behind me.
As I recognize the voice, my body tenses and my shoulders hunch all the way up to my ears. So much for my warm-up.
Jenn. Or as Heather has dubbed her, the serial slayer.
I want to run away. Except I know she can run just as fast as I can. Probably faster. Besides, this isn’t something that I can run away from. I need to deal with her.
I try to keep my voice nonchalant as I turn to face her. “Jenn,” I say. “Hi.”
“How’s it going?” she asks.
“Uh, pretty good,” I say. “I might have a new job. I had a meeting this morning that went really well, so—”
“What about your slayer job?” she asks, interrupting my admittedly weak attempt at casual conversation. “How’s that going?”
Crap.
I shift my weight from one running shoe to the other, trying to form a reply.
“You know, my offer still stands,” she says, saving me the trouble of responding.
“What offer?” I ask.
“I can be your trainer,” she says. “I can train you to kill your vampire.”
Double crap.
“I can help you hone your skills and build your confidence,” she continues, like she’s selling herself as a life coach. “And then if you’re still unsure, I can be your wingwoman. We can join forces and kill the bloodsucker together.”
Okay, so not exactly a life coach. More of a death coach.
Triple crap.
No matter how things shake out between Nick and me, he certainly doesn’t deserve a death sentence. I need to protect him from Jenn, and the only way I can see to do that is to protect Jenn from herself—or rather from her slayer self.
“Maybe I can help you get control over your impulses instead,” I tell her. “Then nobody has to get hurt.”
Jenn fixes me with her icy blue gaze, scrutinizing me. I brace for her to counter with another pitch for this one-on-one slayer boot camp of hers, where we become some kind of a deadly dynamic duo, like the Batman and Robin of vampire killing.
But then her hard stare softens, becoming more pensive.
“He broke your heart,” she says quietly. “Didn’t he?”
“Wh-what?” The question is so unexpected—and so unexpected from her especially—that I barely get the syllable out.
“Your vampire,” she says. “Did he break your heart?”
“No, he didn’t break my heart,” I say a little defensively. I hold out my arms, displaying my spandex-clad body in full. “I mean, obviously not. I’ve still got my muscles, don’t I? I’ve still got my power. It’s not like he tricked me into falling in love with him just to take my slayer away.”
Jenn shakes her head. “I don’t mean now,” she says. “I mean before .”
Before?
I just stare at her in confusion.
She nods, mistaking my silence for confirmation. “I thought so,” she says. “I thought we might be alike.”
She takes a seat on the concrete bench at the edge of the path, and something happens. Jenn somehow appears smaller. It’s not that her powerful physique changes. She’s still just as ripped as ever. Only, I don’t know… It’s as if some of the boldness and bluster has drained out of her.
She motions for me to sit next to her. After a brief hesitation, I do.
“You asked me about my life before all this,” she says. There’s a look in her eyes—the same one I glimpsed the other day—but this time, it sticks around long enough for me to read it properly. It’s regret, for sure. Sadness too, and…yes, heartbreak. These aren’t sentiments I would normally wish on anyone. But in this case, since the alternative is murderous rage, I’ll take it.
I nod, encouraging her to go on.
“Tom was my boyfriend,” she says. “My human boyfriend. We were together for almost five years. We even talked about marriage and kids. I loved him, and I thought he loved me. But then he met her ,” she continues, anger building. “Fiona. One of them .” Contempt creeps back into her tone, and rage starts to eclipse the more conflicted look in her eyes.
“Fiona was a vampire?”
“And Tom left me for her,” says Jenn. “He left me for that blood-drinking bitch, and I seriously wanted to die.”
My mind circles back to where this conversation started, and I make the connection. “He broke your heart.”
“And I hated him for it,” she tells me. “I hated him for hurting me so badly.”
Oh. Ohhh.
All at once, I can see exactly where this story is going. “Fiona changed Tom?” I ask, although it’s not really a question. “She made him a vampire.”
Jenn nods. “And because I hated him so much, I became his slayer.”
I feel a wave of empathy for the woman. I mean, I get where she’s coming from. Like me, she was at odds with someone, and we were both unwittingly impacted by a choice that they—and they alone—made.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, and I am. “But, Jenn, people get dumped. It sucks, but it happens. So you eat too much chocolate and drink too many margaritas. You binge a bunch of sappy rom-coms on the Hallmark Channel and have a good cry. You go on a shopping spree. You have rebound sex. And then you move on.” I look at her. “You don’t have to let Tom’s betrayal dictate what you do with the rest of your life.”
“After Tom’s betrayal, I didn’t have a life,” she says. “I didn’t have anything. At least being a slayer gives me a purpose.”
Okay, maybe she’s not just some motiveless villain. Or at least she didn’t start out like that. As an actor, if I had to play her, I could certainly figure out how to connect with the role. I could find a way to justify her point of view, her actions. Still, that doesn’t make them justifiable. She embraced her slayer, but I will never stop fighting mine.
Now, if I can just get her to start fighting hers.
“What purpose?” I demand. “Slaying innocent vampires?”
“ Innocent ?” Jenn sits up taller and stares back at me, and goddammit, everything about her is back to pure slayer. “You have no idea what they’re really like, do you?”
“I know they’re not all bad,” I say, not giving up.
She narrows her gaze. “Is that your opinion?” she asks. “Or theirs ?”
“What?”
“Did you know they can get into people’s minds and influence their emotions?”
“ What ?”
“I’m pretty sure Fiona bewitched Tom,” says Jenn. “That’s why he left me.”
Once again, I’m completely blindsided by this slayer.
“That’s why they all need to be stopped,” she adds.
I should argue that point. I know I should. But, at least for now, my campaign to turn her away from the dark side is derailed. I need to sit with this new information and think it through.
I already know something about vampire powers. Nick told me about his amped-up sense of smell and hearing and such. And I’ve seen his supernatural speed for myself, or I should say he moved so lightning-fast that my eyes couldn’t keep up. But does he have other abilities? Other supernatural talents that he hasn’t shared with me?
And if he does have the power to unnaturally influence emotions…
Has he been trying to influence mine?
No, that can’t be right. Surely I know my own freaking feelings.
Don’t I?
Suddenly, I picture Nick flirting with the customers, and I think about how he’s always been able to charm everyone. Everyone except me.
But since he’s become a vampire, it’s like I’ve fallen under his spell too.
Oh my God! Am I literally under a spell? I wonder. A spell to make me fall in love and lose my power?
I mean, is vampire mind manipulation an actual thing? Has Nick been exerting some kind of magical influence over me, affecting how I feel about him? Is that why, in such a short span of time, he’s gone from a guy I pretty much hated to a vampire I kind of—
Nope. I can’t go there right now. I’m way too confused.
Jenn is watching me, clearly reading my thought process. Her mouth curves up in a small smile of satisfaction. “If I were you,” she says, “instead of trying to control your urge to slay, I’d make sure your vampire isn’t trying to control you.”
***
“So vampires are like Jedi knights?” asks Liv, her voice streaming out of my Bluetooth speaker as I drive my Prius along Melrose. She called to see how my audition went, but we quickly started discussing other things. “They know how to use mind control tricks?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and as I say it, I’m supremely frustrated. “I don’t know” seems to be my answer to way too many questions these days, and I’m getting pretty damn sick of it. “That’s what Jenn said anyway.”
“Jenn the serial slayer?” asks Liv.
I let out a sigh. “She’s extreme, for sure,” I say. “But the story about her ex seemed real. And she clearly believes the mind control stuff. I don’t think she’s an actual liar.”
“What about Nick?” asks Liv. “Is he a liar?”
I don’t think so. But then again…
“I don’t know,” I say.
Uggghhh!
“Well, in Bar Wars ,” says Liv, “the slayer character would definitely give the vampire character the benefit of the doubt and not just believe everything Darth Slayer says. So maybe cut Nick a little slack when you see him, huh?”
I’m coming up on Pete’s, so I start to look for a parking space. “I’ll try,” I tell her.
“Do. Or do not,” says Liv in a froggy-sounding voice. “There is no try.”
I smile. “Thanks, Yoda,” I say. “I’ll let you know what happens.”