“Personal things! Things most girls like to pretend they never do.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. You jerk. Sure know how to embarrass a girl.” She looks so wounded. So humiliated. I feel miserable.
“I—I didn’t know.”
“What’d you think? We’ve been gone for twelve hours or more, and you haven’t let me outta your sight? What’d you expect?”
“Fine,” I say a lot more harshly than intended, “Head a few trees into the woods, and I’ll turn around.”
“No way, buddy. I need my space—maybe 100 feet or so.”
“Can’t do it. Not safe.”
“Look, this is happening whether you like it or not, and you need to get a grip.” Lowering her voice softly, “God knows I wish it weren’t happening.”
I look down at my boots, shake my head, and sigh.
Squatting down in a dark forest, I try to think of all the words to “Voices Carry.” I like the song and all—loved hearing it last night, but it’s not so much a subject that enthralls me as it’s something to keep my mind from imagining bugs crawling up my legs or a snake nipping at my bare butt.
Why is it that every other girl living some kind of a romantic fantasy gets to be “La Bella Principessa,” the perfect and adored swan among gangly geese, and I’m out here crouching in the bushes just forty feet from my dream guy desperately hoping I’m far enough away from him, and the only Bella I feel like is a Béla Lugosi monster? What could be more feminine and dainty than poppin’ a squat in the middle of the woods on the first date?
I guess this would be a first date—can’t count when you meet. First date is the first time together after that. Guess he should be at least talking to me to consider this a da—
Bushes sway and rustle to my left. Something’s moving. Fast.
Tearing through the rough in a blur is Simon rushing toward the thing coming at me. I can see the eyes of the thing glowing as I fall down yanking my jeans over my hips. Its hands reach out in front of it. So fast. Nasty fingernails like claws waiting to tear into me. Just a few feet away. A foot. Inches. Simon crashes into it in a loud collision, plowing into it, continuing to drive the attacker further away from me into the wild.
Obscured in the darkness and the brush, I can see arms and legs flying. So quick, hard to make out what is coming from where and whom is getting struck by who.
The clouds shift allowing more moonlight, and I see Simon’s gray shirt stretched at the sleeves in the clutches of the pale, redheaded man standing over him.
On his knees, Simon just looks up at the other vampire, staring at him—challenging the eyes past the thin, red-bearded face. A screech cuts through the night air, emanating from the mouth of the attacker.
Simon flings his hands out of the attacker’s stomach, blood running from his fingernails. Simon pulls the man to the ground, and I can no longer see either of them.
Two of the longest minutes of my life pass—my body threatening cardiac arrest at every second of it.
Simon stands, shirtless. He flings the body of the attacker on his shoulders, back first—his stomach wound visible to me now. I see the beast breathing. In a blur, Simon runs through the trees in the direction of the road where we hid my car beneath branches and piles of pine needles.
I stare between the trees, hoping I’ll see him coming back to me. My mind plays frantic games, convincing myself I see him coming in the distance—the wind blowing a branch far off must be him returning safely—the moonlight on a tree branch must be his body peeking out the rough as it sprints back to me. Each false sighting increases my fear. The greater the fear, the more I imagine. Thoughts and fears spiral—feeding each other.
I hear the snap of twigs behind me. I can hear someone breathing heavily before I can turn around.
Shirtless, glistening in a thin layer of sweat, his heart races—pumping his veins rapidly through his muscular torso. Even the muscle lines in his stomach pulse. Girl, look up. Look at his face.
He has a small fingernail wound on his left shoulder that already has stopped bleeding and is beginning to heal.
He is drenched from head to toe—his long hair soaked and dripping. Far too wet for sweat. Did he go swimming?
Finally my words come, “Are you alright? Where did you go? You almost killed me—didn’t know if you were alright or—”
“Dead? No, not tonight.”
“Why are you wet?”
“I—uh, had to rinse off. There’s a stream not far behind us.”
Thinking back to him nabbing the attacking vampire just inches away from where I was squatting, blood rushes to my face. My stomach feels flooded with humiliation, and my chest feels like the wind has been knocked out of me.
“Are you alright?” he asks. Touching my shoulders, “I was sure I got to him before he reached you. Are you okay?”
The intensity of his voice touches me. I swore just a few hours ago to shut this jerk out of these parts of me—now he’s back in there, awakening my emotions again, making me feel so alive—so special—so aware of how badly I’ll feel if he turns on me again.
Suddenly feeling appalled, “If you weren’t supposed to be looking at me, how’d you know he was coming? Were you watching me? Did you come closer after I told you to stay put?”
“No, I stayed where you told me, but I had to watch the area around you. If I had spotted him a second later, Edgar would’ve been on you before I could stop him.”
“Edgar? You know his name? Was he a friend of yours?” I ask in a shout.
“No, no. Edgar’s no one’s friend. He’s a miserable blood junkie. More than the rest of us. Can’t be trusted with anything.”
“Then why’d you let him get away? Why’d you bring him back to the road?”
“Because I need to get some information from him tomorrow night.”
“You just said you couldn’t trust him—that he’s nobody’s friend. What makes you think he’s not going to bring all of them here right now?”
“I promised him something. He won’t say a word until he has it.”
“What did you promise him?”
“Just something that he can’t live without,” he looks into my eyes, “Trust me. You won’t see him back here tonight.”
Feeling scared. How can Simon be so sure? Something about what he said bothers me. Oh, see him back here tonight. It’s the seeing that’s bothering me.
“You shouldn’t have seen me out there tonight,” pointing back to the place where I was squatting. “I know you were trying to protect me, and thank God that you were watching because that’s when that monster came at me, but it’s just…you know…it’s… horrible…”
The crying starts. Don’t know how much more I can take. People trying to kill me. My love rejecting me coldly. The humiliation. Too much. Has to come out. Tears flow.
His voice has a soothing tone that I haven’t heard from him in hours, “Look, look, listen to me.”
He shakes my shoulders gently to try to get me to look up at him. He leans down and puts his forehead against the top of my head. Can’t bring myself to look at him. My eyes are on his defined stomach, but my thoughts are hanging on his words.
“Not to make you feel self-conscious, Ruby,” the sound of him saying my name comforts, “but I do have heightened senses—hearing and scent way beyond what you know.”
All comfort slips away from me. Humiliation is about enough to knock me down.
He continues, “You’d’ve had to walk twice as far as you did to really be away from me, and then I couldn’t have protected you.”
I feel like a seventh grader who has laughed so hard she peed her pants in front of the whole class.
He says, “Look, it’s not as bad as dying, right? If you’d have gone further away, you wouldn’t be here at all now.”
I shake my head slowly in agreement, the top of my head against his forehead, my chin against his chest.