Fangs for the Memories (5 page)

“I'm just a little light-headed,” I said, sliding toward the foot of the bed while still on my back. “Can I have a glass of water?”

“Yes.” Sophie managed to sound solicitous and annoyed at the same time. She walked toward the bathroom and picked up a drinking glass that wasn't wrapped in protective plastic and had lip prints on the rim.

“Never mind,” I told her. “Never mind. I'm OK.”

Shivering, I scooted down the bed until I felt my feet hit the floor. I pushed up from the mattress with my eyes closed so I couldn't see the room spinning. It took a few tries, but I managed to unfold myself into a standing position. “See?” I said.

“Yes, you stood up, good for you,” Sophie said, handing me my purse.

I sank back down on the bed but raised my arm long enough to flash her a thumbs-up. Sophie hauled me up from the mattress by the elbows. “I'll drive you home. Darla, you will stay here. Do not leave this room for any reason. If you do, there will be consequences from which you will not recover.”

Oh, sure, pinning me down and snacking on me wasn't a punishable offense, but leave a gross motel room and Sophie would go all
Fugitive
on her. I tried not to let that hurt my feelings.

Darla nodded, still looking ashamed of herself. “Of course. I'm so sorry, Andrea.”

I waved my hand dismissively, as if the effort to move my arm wasn't Herculean. “Don't worry, Darla. I'll be fine. Don't let this scare you off live feeding, OK? Once you adjust to it, it won't be as dramatic.”

This was a difficult speech to deliver while Sophie was basically controlling me by my elbow like a puppet.

“Are you sure you're all right?” Sophie asked as she loaded me into her Mercedes. And by “loaded” I mean she had to open the door and then physically lift me into the seat. I managed to buckle my own seatbelt . . . after four tries. I noticed that Sophie shut the door before I could answer.

“I'm fine,” I assured her as she slid into the driver's seat and checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror. Being a high-maintenance blood surrogate meant that you got fewer assignments from the Council. Being involved in an incident that required one of the Council leaders to fill out copious amounts of paperwork was a certain way to become an unemployed blood surrogate. Also, the Hollow was a tiny, semirural job market where I rented a very expensive apartment. I liked my heavily padded savings account too much to endanger it, thank you very much.

“I just need to get hydrated and get some sleep. I'll be right as rain in the morning,” I told Sophie, even as her face doubled and swam before my eyes.

She smiled at me, although, much like the rest of her, there was no warmth in it. “That's the spirit.”

Teeth chattering from full-body shivers,
I drifted in and out of consciousness as Sophie drove me to my apartment. She waited for me to unlock my front door before she whipped her car back out of my driveway. I was wobbling as I stumbled into the house, lost in that strange floating sensation where I knew I was about to pass out but couldn't seem to communicate to the rest of my body to get to some soft location for landing.

I just needed to make it to the couch. If I could make it to the couch, the room would stop spinning and I could collect myself long enough to avoid throwing up on my nice, clean carpet. I should call Jane. She'd know what to do, and if she didn't, she'd Google it until I was on the road to recovery. Digging through my purse, I closed my cold, trembling fingers around my phone before I dropped the bag on the floor.

I flopped face-first onto my sofa, muttering an “ouch” when my forehead collided with a remote control. Vertigo had my head spinning again. Shivering, I pulled a chenille throw from the back of the sofa and dragged it over my body. I prayed for some warmth from the thin material to seep into my skin.

I held the phone in front of my face, struggling to remember how to open my contacts and dial Jane's number. My eyelids were so heavy it was difficult to focus on the lit screen in front of my face.

Suddenly, a loud
ping
sounded from the phone. I winced at the noise and squinted at the text scrolling across my screen from Dick.

Hey, Red, just checking in. Jane gave me your # for emergencies.

I frowned. I definitely wasn't going to tell Dick about my current predicament. He would only use it against me in the argument against my profession. Jane would do the same thing, but she'd be gracious enough not to be smug about it.

Everything is fine.
Or at least, that's what I thought I typed. I couldn't seem to move my thumbs to the right buttons.

I squinted at the screen. It appeared that I had typed
Ensrygtuhn so eufd
.

What?
Dick replied.
You drunk, Red?

Mp,
I typed.
Jisr q litwwe dixxo.

Where was autocorrect when I needed it? I tried to backspace, undo the message, and explain that I was just a little dizzy, but I ended up hitting send.

Great. Now Dick thought I was some sort of wino. I would have blamed this on autocorrect if I could have seen the stupid screen.

Seriously, you OK?

I wiped at my eyes and forced myself to focus on the phone. The texts were so blurry. The outer edges of the screen were blurry, too, and dark. Getting darker.

The last thing I remembered was my phone ringing—the sound barely rippling across the murky depths of my head. My whole body collapsed like a marionette cut loose from its strings. I felt my hand slap against the side of the couch and heard the clatter of my phone hitting the leg of my coffee table. I couldn't muster the strength to reach down and pick it up. My head was heavy, and I couldn't seem to get a deep enough breath. Was this death? After years with vampires, was I going to get taken down by some newborn in a pink cardigan?

A spike of fear flared through my chest. I couldn't fall asleep. If I fell asleep, I might not wake up . . . I might not . . .

5

You will resist being vulnerable again. You will avoid connecting with others, both human and vampire. This is not healthy. Everybody needs that one friend who will bail them out of jail, no questions asked.

—Surviving the Undead Breakup: A Human's Guide to Healing

I
was swimming through some immense darkness. My head ached with a dull throb that I felt in my teeth, my mouth was so dry that my throat made a clacking sound when I swallowed, and I was shaking so hard that I couldn't move my fingers.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed. The living room was dark, but I could see weak sunlight peeking around the edges of my window shades. I blinked my eyes and saw pale hands hovering over me and felt a sharp pinch in the back of my hand. Cool fingers stroked my forehead, and Dick's face appeared over me.

He was smiling, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. Those vibrant green orbs were practically glowing with anger and worry and despair. With one arm, he pulled me up on the arm of the couch and propped me against some pillows so I was in a sitting position. He held a glass of water to my lips.

“Come on, Red. Come on, sweetheart. We need to get some fluids in you any way we can.”

“Fluids?” I rasped. I forced my eyes open and saw an IV pole standing next to my couch. I followed the lines from the bag of saline and another of donor blood to the IV ports in the backs of both of my hands. An empty IV bag marked
Human Donor Blood
lay discarded on the floor.

Dick Cheney had put IV lines into both of my hands. I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

“'M fine,” I told him, batting my hands at the water he was trying to force into my mouth. When I turned my head away, I felt the pull of medical tape against my skin. A fresh new bandage the size of a postcard had been applied to the bite on my neck. A smaller bandage had been taped over the cut and the bites on my wrist.

“Yeah, you're a regular Chuck Norris. Come on, baby doll, please drink for me,” he pleaded.

I stared at Dick, doubtful expression in place. But maybe a glass of water would make the freeze-dried squirrel taste in my mouth go away. I nodded and let him lift the glass to my lips.

The water was positively ambrosial—clean, just the right temperature, and somehow a little minty. I gulped the whole thing in five seconds flat, prompting Dick to pick up a second glass and press it on me. While I was drinking, he rubbed soothing circles on my back. The tension lines in his face gave way with every mouthful of water I swallowed, but he still seemed pretty pissed off.

I noted that the donor bag was marked
AB negative
. I had no idea how Dick managed to get a pint of my rare blood type, much less several, but I would never criticize his shady connections again. God bless Dick's criminal underbelly. Sitting beside me, he carefully arranged my legs over his lap and pulled a thick fleece blanket up to my shoulders.

“You can't ever do that to me again, Andrea. Do you understand?” he demanded, his voice cracking a bit over my name. He never used my real name. This was very bad. “When I broke in here, you barely had a pulse. Your blood pressure was next to nothing, and your breathing was so shallow I had to double-check it against a mirror. Damn it, you could have died. You can't do that to me. I just lost Gilbert. I can't lose you, too.”

“Dick—”

“You scared the hell out of me,” he said. “Did you even realize that your shirt was soaked in your blood? I had to cut it off to clean you up.”

I glanced down. I appeared to be wearing nothing but my lacy white camisole, which was crusted in rusty red stains. And my couch, which was a lovely periwinkle color, was smeared with the same coppery smudges. This was not a good night for my stain-removal budget.

“Damn, I really liked that blouse.”

Dick did not look impressed with my glibness.

I grimaced. “I'm sorry. It was a new client. She didn't know the limits. And I don't know if Sophie realized how much she took.”

“Sophie was there?” He seethed, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “And what did she do when she saw that you were damn near drained?”

“She dropped me off at home.”

Dick's nostrils flared. “Really?”

I nodded, even though the motion made my head ache. “Thank you for taking care of me,” I said.

“Well, hell, what else was I going to do?” he scoffed. “I wasn't going to let you go gentle into that good night—not when you have plenty of insults stored up for me.”

“We don't ever have to tell Jane about this, OK?” I said, forgetting my drained brain's assurance that Jane was the one to call. “She's been dropping hints about how risky my job is. I've basically handed her this
I told you so
on a silver platter.”

“I won't tell her, Red, but I happen to agree with her. I don't think your job is safe. I know you like your clients, but if this is the risk, it's not safe. It's just not.”

I nodded. “I'll consider it.”

“Thank you.”

“Why didn't you just take me to the hospital?” I asked.

“No time,” he said. “I barely had time to call my contact at the blood bank and have him meet me here.”

“What? Why?” I asked, shaking my head. “Why did you even come over?”

“You weren't making any sense, and I knew you wouldn't drink on a night you were doing a feeding. I was afraid something like this had happened.”

“And you just happened to know a guy who had access to the rarest blood type in America?”

“I might've had some set aside at the blood bank for you, just in case.”

“You had a backup plan just in case a client drained me?”

Dick shrugged. “I have backup plans for the people and things that are important to me.”

I didn't know if it was the brush with exsanguination or the bashful, tender expression on Dick's handsome face, but for some reason, my eyes welled up just a little bit. Dick Cheney cared about me enough to have contingency plans in place to protect me from myself. I'd always assigned selfish motivations to Dick's schemes, but there could be nothing gained from arranging “backup blood” for me. Dick had done something utterly selfless—and most likely very expensive—for me.

I cleared my raw throat around the lump gathering there. “Why didn't you just turn me?”

Dick absently checked the port in my left hand, stroking down the medical tape there. “We never talked about it. I didn't want to make that decision for you. Everybody has the right to make that call for themselves, Red. I wouldn't take that from you.”

I pressed my lips together, tangling the fingers of my left hand together with his, even though it tweaked the port. “Thank you.”

“Here,” he said, twisting so he could reach the high, narrow table I'd set up behind my sofa. He retrieved two large coffee-house-sized mugs. One smelled sort of herbal and yeasty, while the other contained a dark brown meat-scented liquid.

“Beef consommé and barley tea. I know it sounds disgusting . . . because it is. But you need the iron. And the barley tea is supposed to help your hemoglobin levels.”

Sniffing the barley tea delicately, I sipped at it and shuddered, but he tipped the cup against my mouth, making me take a much longer drink.

“How do you know how to start an IV?” I asked him, wiping my mouth. I winced when the medical tape pulled at my skin.

“You know, over the years, I've developed a lot of life skills. It hurts me that people don't believe I have them.”

I drained the cup because I figured it wouldn't be so gross if I just took one long drink. I was wrong. It was still gross. “It's just that those skills are so random, we don't know what's real and what's hyperbole. You're like Half-Moon Hollow's Davy Crockett.”

I pulled a face as I handed him the empty mug. He nodded toward the consommé, and when I didn't immediately drink it, he lifted the broth to my lips himself. It was considerably tastier than the barley tea. He said, “I met Davy Crockett once. He was a tool. Wore that stupid cap long after the joke stopped being funny.”

“Davy Crockett died at the Alamo, before you were even born.”

Dick squinted at me. “He did, did he?”

“Don't do that. You can't just claim a random historical figure is a vampire just because you think it'll make your story plausible and somehow cooler.”

“I believe I can. For my future reference, have you ever thought about whether you'd be turned?” he asked, his tone intentionally light and teasing.

“I've waffled about this over the years, but I'm still undecided.”

Dick snorted, brushing my tangled hair back from my face. “That's very helpful.”

I grinned at him. “I don't want to die. I'm too young and beautiful and fabulous, obviously.”

“Oh, obviously,” he said, his face finally relaxing into a genuine smile.

“But I don't know if I want to upset the natural order of things. I have no problem with the way vampires live. Hell, I already keep your hours. I clearly have no problems with your feeding habits.” I ignored Dick's grumbling at that comment. “And I'm certainly not interested in having kids.”

“Really?” he asked. “I think you'd make a great mom.”

I laughed. “What about me screams ‘great mom'? I like my dry-clean-only clothes and my breakables too much for toddlers,” I told him. “I mean, I'm not antichild. I like the
idea
of children. But I spent a very long time trying to meet the needs and expectations of other people—people who couldn't be pleased, by the way. And now I'm sort of going through a selfish phase. Healing, but permanent.”

“I can respect that.”

“Anyway, despite all that, I'm just not sure I want to be a vampire. It seems like a long, lonely road to walk. I suppose I'll know the moment I'm faced with the decision to breathe my last or drink from my sire.”

“Well, I hope I'm there to see that,” he said softly. He paused for a long moment. “I'd like to rephrase that.”

I nodded, sighing as I sank against his side. “I'd be more comfortable if you did.”

“So, full disclosure, I went through your kitchen drawers looking for medical supplies.”

“OK.”

“And I saw the picture.”

I blinked up at him for a long time. “Oh . . . Oh.”

He'd seen the picture—the framed four-by-six photo of me wrapped in Mathias's long arms, cuddling in his lap while he pontificated on some point in arcane history. Whenever I felt lonely for Mathias, I put that photo out on my coffee table. I didn't use it to remind myself of happy times. I put it out so I could see the look on my face—the total, addlepated devotion, the eagerness to please. Meanwhile, Mathias's whole body was oriented away from me, focused entirely on the person he was talking to. I might as well have been a potted plant in his lap for all the attention he was paying me. So whenever I felt like I was forgetting my righteous rage, I would stare at it until my spleen felt like it was on fire.

I hadn't needed that sort of aversion therapy in a long time, because I hadn't felt longing for Mathias Northon in a long time. And I hadn't felt the need to bolster myself against vampire relationships. I hadn't even thought about the photo for months.

“It had his name on the back. I Googled him. Good-looking, professional guy. I could see how breaking up with him would really do a number on you.”

I lifted an eyebrow at the uncertain tone of his voice. Dick never sounded unsure of himself. He was always frighteningly smug when it came to his own merit. It was sort of funny that he was intimidated by Mathias, who was awesome on paper and yet secretly a scumbag, while Dick was so inadequate on paper but sincerely kind in person.

“It did do a number on me, but I got over it.”

“How?”

“I had a collection of friends who helped me find a new life. And when I was settled into that new life, some of those friends contacted the IT department at the college where he worked to alert them to some inappropriate material in his browser history. Colleges really frown on that sort of material showing up on their servers, even if the professor in question claims to have no knowledge of how it got there. They particularly frown on it if the material also shows up as part of a PowerPoint presentation he's giving at a trustees luncheon.”

Dick's jaw dropped.

“I have very talented friends,” I told him.

“So I guess that's why you've never mentioned him. There was no point. You destroyed him.”

“I don't know about that. I never followed up, but I'm not sure he works at that college anymore.”

“I need to make some calls,” he said, digging his phone out of his shirt pocket. “Because while you were unconscious, I may have made some requests of some of my friends in the Chicago area that feel like overkill now.”