Alone (12 page)

Serenity threw herself into his arms,
clinging to him in desperation.

“
What have I done?” she cried.
“Oh, God, what have I done?”

“
Shush,” he soothed her. “It’ll
be all right.”

“
He wouldn’t let me leave. He
wouldn’t let me go.”

Sebastian
gathered her up in his arms and
she clung to his neck like a child being carried to bed. She buried
her face against his skin, hiding from the horror spread out on the
floor beneath them.

Serenity
shook violently, her eyes glassy with
shock.

“
What have I done?” she asked
again. “Oh, God. What have I done?”

As though she were no
heavier than a doll,
he carried her up to the bathroom. Reaching into the tub, he turned
on the showerhead and waited for the water to run hot. Shifting her
from one arm to the other, he removed her bloodied sweater and
jeans.

Sebastian
shrugged off his own overcoat
and boots, pulling them off with his free hand. He stepped into the
shower, fully clothed, with Serenity in his arms.

Hot water rushed over them, taking with it
the blood and tears, the guilt and shame.

She clung to him like a
child.

When the water ran clear, he stepped out
of the shower and wrapped her in a large cream towel. Her dark hair
was plastered to her face, her skin ashen white.

As he
carried her into the bedroom,
Serenity lay limp and unresponsive in his arms. Carefully, he laid
her down on the double bed and she curled up in the fetal position,
crying silently. Tears poured down her face, soaking the pillow
beneath her head.

From the midst of the shock, the sensible
part of her somehow broke through. “I need to call the police,” she
said. “I need to tell them what I did.”

“
Okay,” he whispered, but turmoil
halted his actions. It would be her word against the law, a battle
rarely won.

The silent tears suddenly turned to loud,
wretched sobs, and she turned away, burying her face into the
pillow.

“
I don’t want to go to
prison,” she managed, her voice muffled. “Not for him. Not for that
son-of-a-bitch.”

“
You won’t,” he said, unsure if
he believed his own words. “The police will see what he was doing
to you. A half-decent lawyer will easily mount a
defense.”

“
What proof would they have?” she
asked through her tears.

“
There must be hospital or
doctor’s records?”

S
he laughed, an empty sound. “He was too
clever for that. He never did enough to get me admitted. He hit me
just enough to cause pain without me needing to get medical
attention.”

Sebastian
reached over and held her hand,
grounding her. He opened his mouth to speak, and then paused. He’d
always been careful not to get involved in human lives.

He couldn’t stop himself, “What if I can
make it look like this never happened?”

She stared up at him, eyes bloodshot, as
if she barely dared to believe what he offered.

“
You don’t have to involve the
police,” he said. “I can get rid of the body.”

“
I don’t want to go to jail, but
I killed him. I should be punished for what I’ve done.”

“
You’ve been punished enough.
Would anyone miss him?” he asked. “Would anyone be asking after
him?”

Serenity pushed herself to sitting and
wiped her face.

“
I don’t know. He doesn’t have
any friends. He spends his life on that damn computer.” Guiltily,
she corrected herself. “Spent his life.”

“
So what if I can make it all go
away?” he said. “Put your stuff back in the closet and pack his
instead. I can make sure his credit cards are used in another
state, a long way off. It will look like he left you.”

Her face glimmered with
hope for the first
time. “But how do you know how to do this stuff? What are you,
mafia or something?”

“
Let’s just say, I’ve had to make
a lot of people disappear.”

As soon as Serenity
drifted
into
sleep
,
Sebastian turned his attention to the job at hand. He’d
come to the house to say goodbye to Serenity, to tell her he needed
to leave now that Madeline had found him again. The last thing he
expected was to find a murder scene.

Back in the kitchen, Jackson’s face had
taken on the strange waxy complexion of the dead, his eyes blank
and staring. The blood surrounding him had begun to congeal,
turning from bright red to a thick, black tar. From experience,
Sebastian knew when he started to clean the blood would smear as
red as before.

Sebastian held himself partly
responsible for the man’s death. Though he felt no sorrow at the
passing of someone who didn’t deserve to be alive, his distress
stayed with Serenity. He never wanted her to be in this position
and now, with a single act, she would be a different woman. He
wished he’d stepped in sooner, had done
something to help her instead of
lecturing the whole time. Who the hell did he think he was, trying
to tell her how to live her life? He told her to leave her husband
and when she tried, she’d been forced to kill him.

Guilt and torment radiated through the
vampire.

He had done this, he was responsible. He
should have walked away when he was given the chance. His presence
in her life would only bring Serenity pain and yet he pursued
her.

Sebastian
vowed to somehow make things
right with her again. By removing every trace of Jackson’s murder
from her home, she would be free of her violent spouse with no
repercussions.

Then he, Sebastian, would walk away
and let her get on with her life.

His heart dropped at the thought and he
clenched his teeth in an effort to suppress the emotions roaring
deep within him. He had to walk away. He owed her that
much.

The sight of blood or death did not deter
him. After so many years, death caused him none of the revulsion it
did for humans. At least he needn’t worry about this one coming
back; none of the normal protocol would have to be followed. Even
so, he would dispose of this body and the chances of it ever being
found were minute.

H
e would clean the blood up the old
fashioned way—with a good bit of elbow grease. Of course,
possessing the speed and strength of a hundred commercial cleaners
and knowing all the tricks to remove blood stains helped. Anything
proving difficult to clean would be disposed of.

The third and final piece of the puzzle
would be making it look like Jackson had up and left. Sebastian
knew of another like himself living in a small town in Utah. The
vampire owed him a favor and, taking Jackson’s things with him,
Sebastian would travel there once he had completed the cleanup. He
would ask the other vampire to use Jackson’s credit cards around
the area, making it appear as if Jackson had fled to this part of
the country. Utah and the surrounding area was harsh and
unforgiving country; part mountain, part desert. A place where
someone could easily get lost and a body never be found.

Sebastian
would then say goodbye to
Serenity and condemn himself to living the rest of eternity in love
and alone.

Chapter Ten

Serenity woke, slowly emerging
from
a deep,
dreamless sleep. Curled up on her side, her cheek pressed against
the soft pillow. Though warm and comfortable, something pulled her
from oblivion.

Daylight from the bedroom window glared in
her face and she raised a hand to shield her eyes. Why hadn’t she
closed the drapes last night?

She started to pull herself up to sitting
and glanced over at Jackson’s side to check he was still asleep.
The horror of last night fell upon her.

Serenity clamped a hand to her mouth, a
thin keening sound forcing its way between her lips. Nausea washed
over her and she leaned over the side of the bed to heave up a
small amount of bile, before dry retching until her ribs
hurt.

Her hands trembled as she wiped her mouth.
She wanted the memory to be a lie, tried to convince herself the
whole thing had been nothing more than a nightmare. Perhaps Jackson
went out early or hadn’t come home last night. The lie failed and
the truth danced before her eyes in all its multicolored
horror.

She had killed her husband; murdered
Jackson.

Serenity hid her face in her
hands.

“
Oh no, please no, no, no,”
she said over and over again, shaking her head from side to side.
It wasn’t true, couldn’t be true. She whimpered into her hands,
taking each breath in hitching, panicky sobs.

This
was all too big, too much to take.
How could she live, knowing everyday what she’d done, what she’d
become.

Serenity struggled to catch her breath.
Panic overwhelmed her and she clutched at her chest, tore at her
throat.

She didn’t know what to do or think.
Serenity wanted to hurt herself, punish herself for her actions.
She was worse than Jackson had ever been; an evil, horrible,
terrible person. Her hands repulsed her. She wanted to scrape off
her skin, cut off her fingers so she would never have to look at
the things that held the knife. Physical pain would be better than
the gut wrenching anguish clutching at her soul.

Serenity stood in the middle of the room,
turned her face to the ceiling and screamed. She shrieked until she
thought her lungs would burst and the cries would ring in her ears
for hours to come. The noise blocked out everything she felt,
everything she had done.

Her throat cracked and the pause provided
the break she needed for the tears to spill.

Throwing
herself face down on the bed, she
gulped great, shuddering sobs, tears pouring down her face. She
cried until her chest hurt and her throat burned. Her nose and
sinuses were blocked, her ears muffled. Serenity wept for what
she’d done, for the death of her husband, for the death of the
person she’d thought she was. She cried out of fear for herself and
what she had become.

You only did to him what
he would eventually have done to you.

T
he truth, but it didn’t make her feel any
better.

He’ll never hit you again.
Never make you feel small and worthless. Your life is your own
again.

Serenity
shied away from the spark of hope
burgeoning through the terror and anguish. She didn’t deserve to
feel anything other than the pain she was in right now and she
pushed away the positive thought. Now wasn’t the time to try
justifying what she’d done; nothing made murder right.

S
he couldn’t mourn Jackson, however.
Murdering him went beyond wrong, but she wasn’t upset over her
husband’s death, just the way it had happened. How was she supposed
to miss the person who’d made her life hell for the past ten
years?

Serenity hated the potential for violence
inside of her; she didn’t recognize herself anymore and the
knowledge scared her.

Would she go to prison? Even the
risk of incarceration was
better than spending the rest of her life under
the same roof as
him
.
Perhaps, in hindsight, she should have murdered Jackson a long time
ago. He never would have let her go. Whatever happened, however
carefully she planned, Jackson would always have been one step
ahead of her. Even if she’d gotten away from him, Serenity would
have looked over her shoulder for the rest of her life, seeing his
face in every man she met, wondering when he would eventually catch
up with her.

At least now, even with the
possibility of prison, she was free.

G
uilt swept over her in a sickening rush.
How could she think like that? As if she was pleased with herself
for killing him.

No, she hated her hand in Jackson’s
murder, but she was pleased about his death.

Serenity sniffed and wiped her face, puffy
from crying. She rolled back onto her side, tucking her knees up to
her stomach. Emotional exhaustion clouded her head, weighing down
her limbs. Her hand strayed to Jackson’s side of the bed. She
snatched it back and shuddered. Would she ever be able to sleep
there again without thinking of what she’d done? Would she be able
to go a single minute of a single day without thinking about last
night?

Suddenly, she remembered Sebastian and sat
up.

He’d been here last night!

She found her hand clamped against her
mouth again. Flashbacks of memory came back to her: blood, anger,
death. It was like she’d spent the previous night hideously drunk
and pieces were flooding to her in flashes.

Sebastian! How
did I forget about
Sebastian?