Valek frowned then knelt beside them again with a wary look toward the Witch. He placed a cool hand on his Charlotte’s shoulder.
Charlotte’s head immediately shot up, her eyes drenched. That was the first time she had ever looked at him like this. Like a monster. He hushed her, running his long fingers down her cheek.
“I am so sorry, Lottie,” he said sadly. This time he really had done permanent damage. “Don’t cry.” He caught a tear that lingered on her face.
Charlotte’s knees shook like they might cave. She saw the heap of burlap and stuffing on the road. Edwin, the once enchanted rag doll, lay dead in the mix of fur and dirt. She looked to Evangeline again, a plea in her eyes this time.
“I can fix him.” A tear rolled down the Witch’s bloodless face. “I promise. It will be…easy.”
Charlotte nodded, finally starting to feel a little less numb as the onset of sadness began to swell at the bottom of her throat. She didn’t say anything. Instead, she got up and gazed down at the tow of them. The glamorous Witch’s hair was caked to her face with dirt and sweat, though she was still just as beautiful as she ever was. Charlotte glanced at Valek one last time.
Valek, Charlotte’s only confidant in the world, was now beyond recognizable to her — their differences painfully apparent. She would never be close to what he was. She was the prey, a link in his food chain. She’d never felt so far removed from him. Not when he argued with her about sneaking into his bedroom. Not even when she’d found him with Evangeline the night before — her worst fear realized.
She ran back down the dirt road. Back to her home, to where it always used to be safe. Back to where things were familiar. She ran as the wind dried the tears on her face. She ran until all she could think about was the path in front of her. She ran, leaving Valek, Evangeline, and a crumpled little Edwin behind.
Chapter Eight
Reservations
Valek surprised Charlotte when she breathlessly stumbled through the front door. Of course he had beaten her home. The air was blazing in her tattered lungs. There was nowhere else for her to run to now.
“Why did you run?”
Valek’s lips peeled over his fangs when she didn’t answer him immediately. He stormed up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Why did you run away?” he demanded again, shaking her. “It’s me, Charlotte.”
It was all too much for her. She collapsed to her knees. Meredith Price had been right. Valek was a monster.
Valek, keeping his hold on her, also lowered to the floor, transforming his grasp into an embrace instead. She pressed her face into the hollow of his collarbone, wishing it had been a comfortable feeling, like it always used to be.
“It’s just me, Lottie.”
Now he cried, his tears washing his eyes red. Charlotte looked down as they splashed in ruby beads on the floor beside her. “You are safe with me. I promise you that. I don’t know what happened to me out there,” he whispered.
She looked up at him, attempting desperately to steady her breathing, but it continued to break in involuntary gulps, like small children did when they could not control their crying fits. Charlotte closed her eyes against the sight of him, but still felt his weight all around her. She pulled away and quietly got to her feet. After one silent moment looking down at him, she traipsed up the stairs to her bedroom, feeling his gaze on her back the whole way up. She carefully guarded her thoughts until she was away.
She moved over to her vanity mirror and gaped at the streaks of brown caked on her face and clothes. She forced her breaths to come out even and used the side of her desk as a crutch. The soft breeze outside her open window cooled her hot face as she tried to shift one of her shoulders, still drenched with the drying blood. She flinched. The wound stung where the cotton clung to it.
She leaned in a little closer to the mirror, tenderly pulling away her sweater to examine the lacerations further, when Valek’s dark reflection in the mirror made her jump. She spun around to see him looming there sadly against her doorsill.
Charlotte responded by averting her gaze to the floor.
He approached her and lifted his hands without a word to her to examine her.
When she didn’t offer, he said, “I need to mend this, Charlotte, before the wounds become infected. Your body temperature is already a bit high.”
Charlotte gingerly shifted her arm to him, wincing as it moved.
He looked closely at the gash, trying to pull the fabric away to see the damage more clearly.
“I cannot assess how serious this is.” His voice was stoic and empty. If it were possible, which she didn’t think it was, Charlotte’s heart sank a little further. “You’re going to have to take that off.” He rolled up his sleeves.
She froze for a minute, remembering she had nothing on underneath, other than her bra. Blood pooled to her face, and she bit down on her lip. She looked up at Valek who was staring back numbly, but expectantly. Slowly, she turned and began peeling off the sweater, in spite of the voice in her head that had suddenly begun protesting very loudly. He had known her since she was in diapers after all. This wasn’t so bad.
The article of clothing dropped in a heap on the floor by her feet. When she faced him, she heard Valek clear his throat, as if her actions made him nervous as well. Perhaps she should have listened to the voice.
He squinted at the deep gashes in her shoulders, taking one frail arm in his frigid talons. Her heart pounded so frantically, she bet he could see it leaping through her skin. A cool sweat began to form on her brow.
“This is very deep,” he diagnosed with a sigh. “Come downstairs, please, so I can clean it and close it up.” He kept his tone even as he led the way out of the room.
Charlotte meekly followed, making the wood creak beneath her. Her mind flickered back to Meredith Price again as she glanced down at the blood drying on her body. The dull stench of rust and iron circled her. It was probably much more prevalent to Valek, she suspected. The inevitable words resounded in her head once more.
‘Vampire.’
‘You can never be too careful.’
Valek opened the door to his stark office The walls and cabinets were white, sterile almost to the point of being eerie. They did not match the rest of their home at all. This room seemed lifeless, which was appropriate. Being here instantly made her uncomfortable as she began to go through all of the deaths that she knew had happened here. A chill suddenly kissed the tops of her shoulders and she hugged herself.
“Have a seat,” Valek instructed forbearingly, gesturing to the large, leather office chair behind his massive, slate desk. The lack of tone in his voice was unnerving. It sounded hollow and metallic. His eyes seemed to be made of slate.
He went into the cabinet under the sink in the corner and pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, suture thread, and white gauze to wrap the wounds in. She watched him carefully, wanting so badly to articulate what she was thinking. She wanted to ask him questions, to solve the problems, but her tongue stayed swollen in her mouth. She just sat there quietly, her eyes fixed on his face, searching for any sign of emotion at all as he walked back over to her.
He leaned casually on the corner of his desk and started to dab the blood away with the alcohol. Charlotte flinched. The smell of it invaded the entire room; Charlotte could tell he still wasn’t breathing.
“Look away, please.” His voice was low, almost a whisper.
He started to sew up the gashes in her left shoulder. Wincing every time the needle poked through her skin, she clawed at the chair arms. Her teeth ground together as she chose something to focus on, deciding to fix her gaze on a drawing of hers that hung on the wall in a black-wire frame. It was a colored-pencil version of both of them, in front of a box meant to resemble their house. Something she had given him when she was ten. The simplicity of the colored markings made her smile. Only he would have found it beautiful enough to put in a stupid frame.