Fiery Nights (11 page)

How do I get out of my own head?

I looked for my
Essential Nina Simone
record and put
it on the record player. My grandmother gave it to me when she went into a
nursing home and restoring it to good working condition was what I became
fixated on after she died. It helped me stay connected to her. My grandparents
always had a record playing and I inherited several albums that had survived
over the years—anything from Elvis to classical to old comedy albums.

I pictured them playing records when they were younger,
feeling love, happiness, sadness—all sorts of emotions to fit the mood. Maybe
listening to comedy albums together. They were married for over fifty-five
years. What was wrong with me then? A relationship I thought was the real thing
didn’t even last fifty-five days.

I put the record on and settled onto the sofa, staring at
the ceiling as she sang about wanting sugar in her bowl. By the time she got to
Since I Fell for You
,I felt the pull. I wanted to call him back.
But no! How could he do that to me?

In the Dark
didn’t help matters. I remembered the
sexy dances, the hot nights in the lab, the time in the gardens.

Don’t think about him! It’s over.

When the record ended I closed the record player cover and
plugged in my iPod. I needed something else. I looked through my music
collection and stopped on Hole’s
Live Through This
album. Perfect.
During heavier songs, I flung my body dancing and sing-screaming around my
apartment as if trying to rid myself of demons.

He doesn’t care about how I feel. How could he if he
broke my heart?

And when Courtney Love sang slower songs, I sang along,
lamenting my loss.

How could I numb myself from this pain?

Hey, it was better this way. I didn’t want to be in a
relationship anyway, did I? I just thought he was hot. I got what I wanted and
could now go on living my life independently.

What do people do to calm themselves in times of distress?
Oh yeah, they drank a cup of soothing tea. I could do that. Despite my
preference for coffee.

I boiled some water and did exactly what you’re not supposed
to do—I watched the kettle, waiting for the sound of a screaming banshee
indicating that the water was ready. When the kettle finally screamed several
long minutes later, I grabbed a tea bag and threw it into a mug and poured hot
water on it. Too bad I didn’t have those fancy teacups like Tristan’s parents
had. A cute china teapot.

Stop! The tea is supposed to help you
not
think of
Tristan. You’re not supposed to be reminded of the time you had tea with his
family.

Fuck, fuck, fuck—get out of my head!

I gave up on my tea soon enough. It wouldn’t live up to the
Stone family standards, I realized with chagrin.

As the day went on, my anger dissipated. I remembered the
times we spent together. Happy times. The words we shared. The way I thought
we’d connected.

Why did he have to be such a jerk?

I found my Amy Winehouse playlist and put it on shuffle as I
stared at the ceiling. When she sang
Back to Black
,I let myself
wallow in the black despair of a broken heart. When
Our Day Will Come
came on
,
I felt the pull. I wanted to call him back. But no! How could
he do that to me?

I lit a candle and watched the flame. Fuck, would I ever
look at a candle the same way again? Damn you, Tristan Stone! I wish I’d never
met you!

I remembered the sexy dances, the hot nights in the lab, the
time in the gardens.

Don’t think about him! It’s over.

Then I listed to
Love is a Losing Game
. And I
listened to it twice more.

I let the guilt wash over me as I moved to the couch.
You
Know I’m No Good
, the ultimate confessional of a woman cheating.Yeah,
I probably shouldn’t have slept with Jed. What good did it do?

But I didn’t cheat on Tristan. He broke up with me. We were
over.

I wished I had someone around to talk to about this. Damn
you, Nike. Where the hell are you?

I sat down at my laptop to write her another e-mail she
probably wouldn’t read or respond to. But what else could I do with this excess
energy and all these emotions that I didn’t know what to do with? I couldn’t
just sit around and pine all night listening to music.

The email I wrote to Nike could probably be considered a
short story. In it, I told her the whole shebang about how things had developed
with Tristan. I even revealed my connection to fire, which I never told her
about during the years we worked together at the firehouse. Being able to share
with my best friend was something I’d wanted to do for ages. Whenever she
called me her lucky charm when we went out on fire calls together, I had wanted
to tell her why.

It felt good to get everything out of my confused head and
written down. Finally, after feeling as if I’d been to confession, I fell
asleep.

If I stayed in my apartment, I’d just sit around sulking
while listening to music. So instead I worked whatever extra shifts I could at
the firehouse. It was easy enough to get shifts since everyone else wanted to
spend time with family with the holiday coming. I knew I looked like hell and
my movements were lethargic. I was just going through the motions, numb after
all that exposure to raw pain.

One again, my emotions were clearly displayed on my face to
everyone who knew me. Why couldn’t I master the art of the poker face?

Bob was the first one to approach me.

“You’re sulking again,” he said. “Boy troubles?”

“Isn’t it always?” I snorted. I doodled on a notepad lying
on a table in our lunch area.

“I’ll give you the same advice I give my daughters. Find a
way to distract yourself. Don’t spend all your time thinking about some guy. It
may or it may not work out. But your life goes on. So live your life, Maya.”

I stopped doodling and looked up at him. “That’s actually
pretty good advice. I’d do anything to get out of my own head right now.”

“Then do something you enjoy. Or take on something new.”

Later that day, Rick used his characteristic charm. “You
look like ass, butt crunch. What’s up with you lately?

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I tried to hold my lips in
so I wasn’t pouting.

“Fine, we won’t talk about it,” he said and leaned back in
his chair. “But you need to do something to snap yourself out of it. Take a
long bath, go to a spa, get a manicure or whatever girls to do make themselves
feel good and look pretty. Maybe it will help get you out of your funk.”

I crawled out of my hole of despair a bit to rise to his
bait. “You know, you guys look like shit ninety percent of the time, so I don’t
want to hear it. You think you come in here all clean-shaven, smelling good and
looking like a
GQ
model? Well, I hate to break it to you, but you don’t.
And just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I have to wear makeup and have my
hair done every day and all that. If I feel like shit, maybe I don’t care if I
look like shit. And maybe you should cut me some friggin’ slack and not give a
damn either!”

Rick’s eyes reflected his surprise before he recovered to
clap a few times and smile. “Hot damn, it’s about time we saw some of that fire
back in you. You’ve been floating around here like a ghost. Maybe you’ll be mad
at me for stoking the flames, but I’m glad to see a flash of your old fiery
self again.”

I was breathing hard and not sure what to say. Whatever he
had wanted to do worked. Am I so easily manipulated?

I was also grateful that Rick was one of the few people I
could unload my emotions on without him taking it personally.

“Shut up, butt crust.”

Tristan called several times. Whenever he called, I’d stare
at the ringing phone. Part of me wanted to pick up the phone and talk to him,
ask him why he broke my heart, see if he’d come to his senses yet and beg me to
come back to him. But if he didn’t and was just explaining, I couldn’t bear to
listen to more reasons why we were wrong for each other. I couldn’t take any
more pain.

The other part of me wanted to pick up the phone, tell him
to go fuck himself and hang up the phone on his stupid pretty face!

When I wasn’t working, I realized I needed to listen to
Bob’s advice and find a new hobby. Obviously, dancing at Vamps was not in my
near future. Neither was checking out a live show there.

Maybe I should work out. Look for a gym. What’s this Zumba
class everyone was talking about? Nike used to go rock climbing. Maybe I should
train to run a marathon or something. That might keep my mind focused for
months as I worked through the pain of training.

Yeah, maybe not.

Who was I kidding? I was not joining a gym and I was most
definitely never running a marathon.

I pulled on my favorite Type O Negative shirt over some
comfy yoga pants and poured a glass of wine. As I tried to brainstorm ideas
that would distract me from my breakup with Tristan, the doorbell rang.

I looked through the peephole. Was it Tristan begging for
forgiveness?

No. But it was a welcome, joyous surprise.

“Nike!” I screamed and threw open the door.

Tristan

Why wasn’t she answering my calls?

This was getting ridiculous. Did it have to be like that? We
couldn’t even just talk about things?

Didn’t she realize I did it for her own good? Because I
cared about her?

Women. I didn’t have much experience with them
relationship-wise and it showed.

What should I do now? I thought of calling Mother to get her
advice, but she was the one who got us into this mess to begin with. All that
talk about light and darkness and working together. What did she know?

Or Dad. He’d lived with an eccentric woman for many years
and he managed to stay sane.

Or maybe I could have Byron help smooth things over between
Maya and me.

No, Byron worked for me. It would be unprofessional to ask
him to help me with a personal problem.

Forget it. I tried to explain, but Maya won’t listen. Fine,
let her go on with her life and I’ll go on with mine. It will be as if we never
knew each other.

But we did.

Everywhere I looked carried a memory of her. The lab. Vamps.
My loft. I remembered the laughter, the passion.

Why did I ever let her into my life? That was stupid. It
just made it all the harder to forget her.

I had to get out of the lab. Go walk along the ocean and
clear my head. The salty scent of the Atlantic was always a balm to the chaos
of life.

Down there I remembered how we walked hand in hand along the
shore. Then there was the cemetery. Where it all began. The things I revealed.
The things we did in there.

Oh God. How could I get her out of my head? Was there a
potion I could brew to make me forget her?

I picked up the phone. “Dad, do you have a minute?” I then
gave him a condensed version, removing all the sexy parts a parent did not want
to hear. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“First off, you need to figure out what you want, Tristan.
You sound confused. Do you want to be with her? Or do you want her to forgive
you to alleviate your guilt and find some closure?”

“I don’t know.”

“Two very different options. Once you know what you want,
you just have to put yourself out there. What happens might fit in with what
you want, or you could get burned. But life and love are full of risks. And you
know what they say about the bigger one is, the bigger the other is as well.
But at least you know you’ve tried your best.”

“Even if I want to be with her and for some unlikely reason
she still wants to be with me, how do we make it work? She’s so—impulsive. And
I’m so—well, you know what I’m like. Why would someone so passionate and
beautiful and crazy as she is want to be with someone like me? She could have
anyone.”

“Maya is right about one thing. She is a grown woman and
capable of making her own decisions. We may not understand why women love us
crazy fools, but they do.”

“How do people so different make it work? I don’t know what
I’m saying. Wait, I do. Look at you and Mother. Your personalities aren’t alike
at all. But yet, you work.”

“Relationships are tough, Tristan. Your mother and I faced
bumps like everyone does as we figured out how we could live together. The only
thing I can say is let her be her and you still need to be you.”

I thought about that for a minute. Dad was a man of few
words and often spoke in abstracts rather than giving detailed responses. But I
think I got the gist.

Before we ended the call, Dad quoted Shakespeare. “To thine
own self be true.”

Maya

I gave Nike the biggest hug I could and said, “Come in, come
in.”

“Maya, it’s so good to see you. I’m so sorry it’s been so
long.”

“Since the fire,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “That was a crazy night. The start of
some crazy changes.”

“You look—different,” I said. “What is it?” I looked her up
and down to try to place it. “You still look like you, still have that hot
dark-red hair and kickass body, but something is—not like you.”

Nike took a deep breath. “I know.”

When she didn’t elaborate, I prompted her, “Well?”

“There’s a reason I haven’t been back. It’s not because I
haven’t wanted to. It’s because I didn’t think I should.”

“Why not?”

“Things happened after the fire. Things that may have
changed me forever.”

“Was it Michel?” I said, puffing up. “What did he do to you?
I’ll kill the bastard! Fuckin’ men! We’re so much better without those
assholes!”

“It’s not Michel,” Nike said, placing her hands on my
shoulders to subdue me. “He’s been nothing but wonderful to me, taking care of
me.”

“Then what is it? Are you sick? Tell me, Nike. My brain is
already racing, thinking the worst.”

“It’s related to Michel. Or what he is.” She took my hand
and said, “You may want to sit down for this.”

Nike told me some crazy story of what happened to her that
night, including the attack at the club.

“Is that how the fire started? The investigation determined
where it started, but they weren’t one hundred percent sure how.”

She nodded. “That was Ricard. He’d been hunting Michel down
for years, ever since they were turned.”

“Turned? Into what?”

“You have to swear to keep this between us.”

What the heck was she about to tell me? Who is this Ricard
dude and what’s with the turning?

“Ricard and Michel were attacked centuries ago. Bitten by a
woman and turned into—you’re going to think I’m nuts and I would too if I were
you. But considering how you’ve opened up to me about what you can do with
fire, I’m hoping you can be more open to a bigger world out there. Bigger than
I’d ever imagined.”

Thinking of Tristan’s way of seeing people and his mother’s
ability to communicate with the dead, I said, “I’m learning all kinds of things
about people lately. So don’t worry about me being narrow-minded.”

“They were attacked and turned into vampires.” Nike stopped
talking and waited for my reaction. The questioning look on her face led me to
believe she expected me to laugh or call her insane.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Fuck me,” was all I could say.

She laughed somewhat with relief. “Want me to go on?”

I made an exaggerated gesture as if bracing myself and then
said, “Go on. I have to hear the rest of this story.”

Then she continued by telling me how she and Michel were
hunted and how Ricard attacked her.

Then she said, “Since Ricard bit me, I haven’t been the
same. I don’t really know what’s going on with me. Neither does Michel. I’m not
like him, but I’m not like how I was either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sort of different. I sense things differently. I feel
things differently than I used to. I react much quicker to things—in different
ways. Not only are my reflexes quicker, but I fly off the handle at little
provocation. I have to control my temper from getting the best of me.”

“So what have you been doing all this time?”

“We’ve been trying to understand what exactly is happening
to me. So far, we haven’t found anyone with the answers. I’ve been trying to
adjust, basically. Michel has been helping me, watching me to see if I become
like him, and if I do, he’ll help me over. But we both know it would too
difficult to go back to my old life right now. I can’t work at the firehouse. I
mean, look at me. It’s obvious something is up.”

“It’s been awhile since people have seen you and it’s not as
obvious as you might think. They might not notice. I mean I didn’t look at you
and think, ‘Holy shit! She’s turned into some sort of vampire!’”

Nike burst out laughing. “I almost forgot how you could make
me laugh. But seriously, thanks for saying that. I don’t know what I’m going to
do just yet.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” I asked, trying to keep the
hurt out of my voice and pretty sure I failed.

“I called you after the fire. But I didn’t think I could see
you in person. How would you react? I didn’t know how to explain it. I still
don’t. But mostly, Michel warned me that if I was changing, I’d be a danger to
you. And it was too difficult to stay away. So we left. If I was physically an
ocean away from everyone, it would be easier to avoid them. I couldn’t bear to
hurt the people I cared about.”

“Do you feel an urge to hurt me?”

“No, I don’t. Thank God. But I’m not the way I was. I can
feel the difference.”

“Are you a vampire?”

“No. I don’t think so.” She shrugged. “We think Ricard’s
bite acted more like an infection rather than a transformation. Whether the
effect will exacerbate or fade, we don’t know.”

“What about drinking blood?”

She looked at me closely as if gauging what to tell me. “I
haven’t
attacked
a human to drink blood.”

“What are you not telling me?”

“Well, I’ve had blood. And I liked it.”

I tried to keep the horror off my face. “Human?”

She ignored the question. “And I can’t stay up during the
day if my life depended on it. I conk out wherever I am.”

“Can you go out in the sun?”

“Yes. It hurts my eyes, but I just wear a hat and
sunglasses. But, it’s hardly ever happened because I sleep during the day, wake
up at night. Courtesy of living with Michel.”

“Do you guys sleep in—coffins?”

“No. We sleep in beds. Michel knows the ins and outs of
which hotels to go to.”

“Of course he does,” I said, trying to bite back the
sarcasm.

Nike caught it. “He’s been good to me.”

“Technically, he’s the reason your life has changed. Why
you’ve had to stay away from everyone.”

“I made my choices that night, Maya. I chose to go with him.
I chose to go outside that night. And he’s the reason I didn’t end up dead on a
beach last year.”

Changing the subject, I said, “So now you’re back?”

“When I read your e-mails, I could sense what you weren’t
telling me. You were confused and in pain. You’re obviously going through
something with this guy Tristan. Something big enough that you reached out to
me. And no matter what, you’re still my closest friend. I had to come see you.
Oh, by the way, your whole fire thing is wild. Remember how I always said you
were my lucky charm?”

I nodded.

“Whenever I went out on a call, I hoped you’d be with me.
Anyway, we felt safe enough that I wouldn’t be any danger to you. And since
you’d been hiding your own little secret for years, I figured you probably
wouldn’t freak out too much when you heard mine. I’d been beside myself trying
to book a plane back to talk to you in person. So I told you about me. Now tell
me all about you and what’s going on.”

“Okay. Your timing couldn’t be better. I really need a
friend right now. I’m so confused,” I said. “But I think I need to open a
bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau before I start. You can still drink wine, can’t
you?”

Nike smiled like the Cheshire cat. “It tastes better now
than ever.”

Nike and I hung out for hours, drinking wine and catching up
on the last several months, leading up to my wild affair with Tristan. The best
part now was this new openness we had between us. I’d never told her about my
gift with fire and now with her condition, well—there were only so many people
you could confide your deepest darkest secrets to.

And now with our guy issues. It had been ages since either
of us were in a relationship, which is why the two of us had spent many of our
Saturday nights off together at Vamps. Now we weren’t just smitten, but smitten
with guys with their own little supernatural quirks. Well, I had been smitten,
but now I was mostly brokenhearted and confused.

“Why would he do that to me, Nike? We were so good together.
We had the best time. Someone who you could work with and spend your free time
with and not want to kill is rare.”

“Like us,” she said.

“Yeah, but it’s different with Tristan. We screwed each
other every chance we could.”

“Yup, a bit different.” She laughed.

“I don’t know, Maya. Guys are a friggin’ mystery. They act
one way one time you see them and different the next. It sounds as if he really
cares about you, though. Maybe what he was saying is the truth?”

I didn’t know how to respond so I kept my mouth shut for
once.

“Have you spoken to him since?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t answer the phone when he calls. Why should I? He
broke up with me. I don’t want to hear his excuses so he can make
himself
feel
what he did is justified, so he can feel better about it. I’m
not
going
to tell him it’s okay. It’s not friggin’ okay. Look at me. I’m a hideous mess.
See these bags under my eyes? I haven’t slept a decent few hours since I don’t
know when.”

“Oh, Maya. My temperamental friend. Just talk to the guy,
will ya? When your temper goes down, have a normal conversation.”

“Maybe.”

“Make sure you don’t bring any sharp objects.”

“But—“

“Uh-oh. But what?”

“There’s a new little issue that complicates things.”

“What?” she asked warily.

“I kind of slept with someone else.”

“You what? Why?”

“I don’t know!” I protested, “It seemed like a good idea at
the time. A way to forget him and move on. But it sucked. I mean this guy was
hot and all, but lacking in any sort of sexual prowess.”

“Good. You deserve it, you little slut,” she said with a
laugh. “No, seriously. Okay, that was kind of screwed up, but what can you do?
You can’t undo it. So just move on.”

“Do I tell Tristan? I mean, if I ever talk to him again?”

“Depends on how you want your relationship to go if you have
one with him in the future. Would you want him to tell you?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t want him keeping
things from me.”

“Then there you go.”