Heart's Reflection (8 page)

"That vision
stuff again?" Liam yelled.

"No," I
contradicted him. "I mean yes. I did have a vision that you'd die in this
game during a play where Keagan was on the defensive line. I did want to save
your life, Liam. Whether you believe it or not, I had a vision."

"So you went
out with him because you thought you were helping me?"

"Yes."

Liam's breath
began to calm and his features untwisted. As he stared at me his anger drained
away into wariness. He held out a hand to me and helped me up.

At his touch, the
vision of Liam dying at an old age in a hospital bed came to me. Happiness
filled me. I'd done it. I'd saved him. But my happiness must have invaded my
expression and encouraged Liam.

"I'll forget
about you and Keagan and we'll start over," he said.

"No." I
shook my head and pulled out of his hold. "We can't go back because I've
realized I love you like a brother. It's Keagan I'm
in love
with."

"Tara?"
Keagan leaped up off the ground. He turned me to him and searched my face with
his eyes. "Do you mean it?"

I gave a smile and
a shrug. "Yes. That's what I've been trying to tell you but couldn't say
with all this other stuff going on."

"So you lied
to me last night when you said you weren't into him," Liam said.

"Yes. But not
intentionally. I did it because I was lying to myself about my feelings.
Hurting you was the last thing I wanted. But I can't help loving Keagan."

A red fury
returned to Liam and crept up his neck and into his cheeks. Liam snatched his
helmet from the ground. "I'll never forgive you for this."

The way he looked
at me, as if I were the dirtiest piece of trash in the landfill, made me want
to hunch over with pain, but I forced myself to straighten. Better he live
hating me than die loving me.

"I'll never
forgive either of you." With that he turned and marched back across the
field.

"He'll be
fine," I said, trying to convince myself as well as Keagan. Liam would
live to an old age and I had to be satisfied with that.

"I need you
more than he does." Keagan's arms came around my midsection to embrace me
from the back.

As his arms wound
around me, I saw again his death in the park. The same scene as before played
itself out in my head, complete with the old man clutching his chest and the
woman's startled cry. But this time I realized something new: the woman was me.

I twisted in his
arms as he leaned down to brush his mouth against mine with a kiss. An electric
spark sizzled from my lips to my toes. I was out on a limb without a safety
net. But that was finally okay. Life wasn't meant to be safe.

"I need
you." Keagan nuzzled my neck.

"Yeah."
With deliberation I made my tone teasing. "And don't you forget it."

"Oh I
won't." He gave my neck a nip— something between a bite and a kiss.
"And I won't let you forget I love you."

As emotion filled
my heart and sensations coursed through my body, I choked out, "Love is
all I can ask."

# # #

The Love
Charm

The root doctor
said it would work. The love charm. I never believed in magic, or voodoo, or
whatever, but I was desperate.

“Don’t fret so,
Sarah,” Rayanne said to me as she twisted the steering wheel to avoid a
cavernous pothole in the dirt road.

Gripping the armrest
of my seat with one hand and the passenger door with the other, I prayed we
wouldn’t careen off into the adjacent swamp. There were gators in there and I
had a fear of being digested.

The headlights of
her 2001 Taurus had little effect in the moonless night. Twin beams lost in the
inky blackness of the low country South Carolina backwoods we traveled to reach
Mama Leti, Rayanne’s grandmother and powerful member of the Gullah community. I
wasn’t Gullah, but Rayanne knew me and Max and she thought...

“How does she make
this charm?” I asked. Okay. Maybe I should have asked sooner. “I warn you, I
get faint at the sight of blood. Well, not faint so much as unconscious.”

“There won’t be a
lot of blood,” she replied. “Mama Leti’ll just make a small cut on the tip of
your ring finger.”

Great.

“She’ll mix the
blood with a special powder then put it into something like a locket or a key
ring.”

My blood sacrifice
would be for Max. Lately, he seemed to be acting strangely, like he couldn’t
wait to find a wife. How could I expect him to stay single forever? He’d broken
up with the latest girl-toy— the twenty-two year old bimbette—a
month ago.

Max wouldn’t wait
until I mustered up the nerve to approach him and say something like: “I know
we’ve been best friends since we were five years old, but I’m in love with
you.”

Besides, if I said
such a thing he’d probably laugh himself hoarse. No, an honest declaration
would be craziness. Not like traveling at midnight to a shack in the middle of
a swamp for a love charm. That was oh so sane.

Rayanne floored
the break pedal and the car slid in the mud a few feet before coming to a halt.
The shack was barely visible. Then, I saw a light from inside as the door
opened.

I pulled on the
car door handle, swung it wide, and jumped out.

“Let’s get this
over,” I said walking down the dark path. Rayanne followed. No sound around us
except the cacophony of insects. Give me the city noises any day. This quiet
would drive me buggy.

A figure appeared
in the door of the shack.

My, my. Rayanne’s grandma was tall and had
the broad shoulders of a man in silhouette
, I thought.

When we reached
the cabin, the light from inside shown on the face of the figure. This wasn’t
Mama Leti.

“Max. What are you
doing here?”

Examining the
ground at his feet, he held out a key ring, then glanced up at me with brown
eyes I knew well. “This is for you,” he said.

#
 
#
 
#

Slightly
Impaired

Since the
accident, I wasn't quite right. Slightly impaired. Sometimes details dribbled out
of my memory and I couldn't quite... Like, why was I standing at the cash
register behind the counter of this old diner? Had I taken a job as a waitress?

Anything was
possible.

Judging from the
bills in my hand and the open cash drawer, I seemed to be making change. Was
the cash in my hand for the till or the customer?

The place was
almost empty. Just me, one customer at a booth, and the smell of stale fry
grease. Where was the cook? In the back? Could I be the cook? Somehow I
couldn't picture myself flipping burgers. Na, I must be the waitress.

The customer got
up, his long trench coat sweeping around him as he moved. The guy winked at me
before striding toward the back hall. He passed under the "restrooms"
sign over the arch of the doorway and disappeared.

With his dark eyes and chin length black
hair, he had been kind of cute,
I thought. Cute in a pale, bloodshot-eye
way.

Abruptly, my own
thoughts irritated me.
Forget cuteness.
Think about what you're doing,
I chastised myself. The cash register.
Why are you at the cash register?
Apparently, the cute customer wasn't looking for change so I thrust the money
into the drawer and slammed it shut.

I glanced around.
The inky night obscured the windows from the outside as if I was in a Formica
and linoleum cocoon. The fluorescent light cast a harsh glare over the worn
surfaces. They all needed a good scrubbing.

Well, if I was
working here then I was the one to do the scrubbing. Glancing down at my
clothes I wondered if what I wore was a uniform. Didn't seem very waitressy but
then since the accident...Anyway, I might not remember what a uniform was
supposed to look like.

I scratched my
head and searched my sieve-like brain for where the cleaning supplies might be.
Nothing came to mind. No memory. But under the counter seemed like a logical
start. Sure enough. A rag and spray bottle of cleaner was tucked there on the
first shelf. After removing them, I squirted three generous helpings of the
yellow liquid onto the counter and began wiping.

I barely had a
chance to enjoy the pleasantly chemical smell of the cleaner when the customer
emerged from the back.

"I got the
cook in the store room," he said.

Glancing up, I
stifled a scream when I saw the lower half of his face covered with blood. He
licked his lips and smiled. The white-hot light glinted off the tips of his
fangs.

"What are you
doing?" he asked, coming toward me.

Frozen in fear, I
couldn't force out an answer.

The customer took
the bottle and rags out of my hands and threw them down. Then, grabbing my arm,
he pulled me out from behind the counter. As we rounded the end, I tripped over
a body lying facedown. A small halo of blood framed the head...Now I remembered
what a waitress uniform looked like 'cause the body was wearing one.

"Aghhhhhhhhhhhh,"
I screamed.

"Jesus!"
the guy shouted. Stopping, he turned to look at me. "Don't yell in my ear
like that. What's the matter with you?"

"Sorry,"
I said. "I almost fell."

"Oh
yeah." He glanced down at the body. His gaze returned to mine and he
smirked. "You shoulda seen her face when you moved on her. Priceless. She
barely knew what was happening before you had your teeth in her neck."

"My
teeth?"

Reaching up as I
opened my mouth I explored the tips of the fang incisors with a tentative
touch. Oh yeah. I wasn't a waitress. I was a vampire. So many little facts
seemed to escape me lately.

"Enough chit
chat," he said. "We just stopped in for a snack. We can't stay long.
The Hunter is too close on our tails."

"Hunter?"

He shook his head.
Stephan. That was the guy's name...maybe.

"How much of
your brain did that wooden stake to the head take out, anyway?" Stephan
eyed me with an arched brow.

"I'm
okay," I said. "No problem. The Hunter. Got it."

"Did you
clean out the register?" he asked.

"Umm."

He gave a
disgusted huff as he looked down at me. "If you weren't so damned
beautiful—"

Beautiful? I
couldn't remember my looks, but I was glad Stephan liked them.

He considered me
for a moment before planting a hard, quick kiss on my lips. The metallic taste
of blood filled my mouth. Stephen pushed past me to return around to the back
of the counter. A punch at the keys and the old register opened with a typical
jangle.... at least I thought it was typical. He scooped out the cash and
crammed it in his pocket before returning to my side.

"Come
on," he said, tilting his head at me. "Let's get out of here."

Nodding, I
followed him out into the night.

Vampire
, I reminded myself.
I must try to remember I'm a vampire
.
But since the accident...

#
 
#
 
#

"There's only
one way I'm going to get him," I whispered to my friend Gracella as the
math teacher droned on. "A love potion."

The object of my
adoration, Ronny Tallsman, sat in his first row, corner seat, blissfully
unaware of my feelings or the plot. From my position in the second row, on the
opposite side of the classroom, I had a perfect view of his profile. A faint
wave curled his chin-length blond hair. His eyes—which I knew were a
shade of vivid azure—darted between the board and his note pad as he
scribbled with his pencil. He frowned and bit his full bottom lip before
scrubbing at the paper to erase a line of writing. Then he shook his head,
sending the curls swaying.

"You gotta
take me to see your great aunt, the voodoo priestess," I continued to
Gracella.

"Root doctor,
Tina." She shot the correction under her breath from the seat beside mine
without her head turning. If I didn't know better, I'd believe she was
concentrating on what Mrs. Blake was writing on the chalkboard.

"Root doctor.
Voodoo. Same thing."

"Not
really," she said.

"But she can
do a love potion, can't she?" I pleaded. "You told me she did one for
your cousin and now your cousin's married."

"Yes
but...Oh, I wish I'd never told you that."

"Constantina
Dimas," the math teacher called on me.

My attention
snapped forward.

"Here, Mrs.
Blake." I thrust my hand in the air.

"Can you
answer the equation?" She tapped the stick of chalk against the board
three times while glaring at me. She obviously knew I hadn't been listening to
a word she'd been saying.

I glanced at the
foot-long problem and threw out the answer. "u/c = 9.352."

"Correct,"
Mrs. Blake said between grinding teeth, her eyes narrowing to slits.
"Thank you, Constantina."

My being a math
prodigy came in handy to cover for my lack of attention in class. My parents
insisted that next year I enroll in Senior honors math. I had to take advantage
of this year to coast. Only trouble was, my attitude irritated Mrs. Blake and
she relentlessly tried to catch me out.

"There's
something unethical about this," Gracella whispered.

"Ronny's not
going out with anybody, so it's all right."

"Why do you
want to go out with him?" My friend Nathan asked from the chair behind
mine. "He's a stupid jock. He plays football."

"Yes but he
also plays lacrosse," I hissed back.

"So
what?" Nathan argued.

"That means
he's cultured," I said.

Nathan gave a
disgusted huff. "This is dumb. You can't make someone want you with a love
potion. I thought you were going to be a scientist. This is totally a contradiction
to anything scientific or logical."