Juliet Immortal (3 page)

Romeo growls and knocks my hand away, then snatches my other wrist and jerks it behind me as well. “I’m going to rip your arms off and eat them. While you watch!” He hauls at my limbs until my muscles and joints scream and things needed to hold my body together threaten to snap.

He’s going to do it, actually
rip
my arms from my body with his bare hands.

“Is that a taste you acquired in hell?” I ask, my voice high and thin as I fight to focus through the pain, praying that my words will distract him long enough for me to catch a breath, to think of some way
out
.

“I’ve never been to hell. You know that, love.” His grip eases the slightest bit. “I’ve found eternity enjoyable thus far. Why don’t we go find a soul for you to steal, and you can learn about life as a Mercenary for yourself?” He leans closer, his cheek pressing tight to mine. “I know you’ve been dying to be together again, though it makes you feel naughty that I get under that lovely skin.”

“You’re mad.”

“Am I?” The torture in my arms is suddenly gone, replaced by the greater torment of Romeo’s lips at my neck, his hands smoothing over my hips. The part of me that recalls how his touch used to make me feel—beautiful and beloved—hums, the hint of bliss making my sick stomach even sicker.

“Get off me!”

“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright,” he whispers, helping cool the faint shimmer of need.

That
horrible
play. That contemptible,
lying
play he helped Shakespeare pen all those hundreds of years ago when he first twisted our story to fit his agenda. It worked far too well. Shakespeare’s enduring tragedy did its part to further the goals of the Mercenaries—glamorizing death, making dying for love seem the most noble act of all, though nothing could be further from the truth. Taking an innocent life—in a misguided attempt to prove love or for any other reason—is a useless waste.

But what about a not-so-innocent life? Why can’t I
kill
this abomination? Why is my
easily
justified vengeance forbidden by the Ambassadors? Killing me was bad enough; that Romeo made certain the world has remembered a false version of our tragedy for
hundreds
of years adds heinous insult to unforgivable injury.

But he knows that. The monster.

Time to make use of my free arms.

“It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a—”

Romeo’s words end in a groan as I shift my legs, leveraging my feet against the seat and shoving us both backward. His spine collides with the dash with a satisfying thud. I’m getting stronger, perhaps strong enough to bypass figuring out how to work the roof’s latch altogether.

I reach back, grab handfuls of Romeo’s sweater as I bend double and shift my feet again, pushing against the center console, driving his skull into the rectangle of glass above our heads. The roof fractures with a crack that’s muffled by the crunch of bone.

My heart lurches as I drop Romeo, leaving him sprawled across the driver’s seat, and turn my attention to the broken glass. I haven’t killed him—he’s still conscious and moaning—but I’ve hurt him more than I intended. The smell of fresh blood spilling onto the upholstery makes bile rise in my throat as I punch through the roof, scattering blunt pieces of glass before pulling myself through the hole I’ve made. By the time I make it out onto the hood and down to the ground below, I’m trembling.

But I don’t pause to look at Romeo’s new face through the driver’s window before turning and scrambling up the side of the ravine. Romeo can heal even greater damage than I can; it’s one of the Mercenaries’ greatest gifts. He brings dead tissue back to life, for god’s sake. The only hope I’d have of killing him—were I allowed to do so—would be to rip his heart from his chest, and then he might
still
be able to escape to another dead body. Head trauma is nothing. By the time I reach the road above, he’ll be whole, free of the car, and hot on my heels.

My already short nails break and my palms tear as I claw
my way up the side of the ravine, grabbing onto whatever my hands happen upon in the dark. The moon slips behind a cloud, and I’m climbing blind, the blackness thick and close, the heavy smell of an impending storm filling the air, making the great outdoors seem not much better than the wreck I’ve just escaped.

The smothering night threatens to steal what remains of my composure. I never did enjoy small, tight places. I like them even less after waking in a crypt and lying surrounded by stone for over a day before Romeo and his knife came to fetch me.

I suck in a deep breath. The sickeningly sweet smell of milkweed rushes into my lungs. It makes me cough, but the chill air is a mercy. I’m not trapped. I’m free and putting Romeo behind me with every upward lurch.

A car rushes past on the road above, close enough to vibrate in my ears. I’m nearly there! I’ll wave someone down and ask for a ride back to Ariel’s house. Hitchhiking has always held its dangers, but that hasn’t broken me of the habit. Despite the awful things I’ve seen, I believe there are decent people in the world. Or people better than the boy cursing me as he crawls from the wreck below. At least most of those driving by won’t want to cut off my arms and eat them. While I watch.

I push the image of Romeo’s grinning mouth—flesh in his teeth, blood dripping down his chin—from my mind. No matter what body I inhabit, my vivid imagination always comes back to haunt me.

“I see you, love … all that silver hair.” The words are soft grunts, but I can hear them. He’s closing in, sending rocks skittering down the ravine in his wake.

A rusted taste floods into my mouth, and I force my thin arms and legs to move faster. Ariel could use some meat on her bones. And muscle. And food in her belly. Why didn’t she eat more before she left the house? My stomach cramps and my arms shake with effort. Healing the worst of Ariel’s wounds from the crash and fighting Romeo are taking their toll.

“Slow down, sweetness. Let me get my hands around your ankle and we’ll see if you can fly.” He laughs, but the sound is strained. He’s having trouble now that he’s reached the portion of the ravine that rises straight up without a slant.

I’m going to make it to the road first. Now I just have to find someone willing to stop and help. I’m a harmless-looking young girl with one side of her head covered in blood. Chances are good that I’ll—

“Wait!” I scream, dragging myself up and over onto the edge of the road just as a truck zooms past. I jump to my feet and vault over the damaged guardrail, waving my arms, but the pickup doesn’t slow.

Taillights fade into the distance, leaving laughter floating on the cold wind rushing through the canyon. Most likely kids from school heading to the beach party where Dylan planned to take Ariel. I could run after them, hope they come to a stop sign sooner or later or—

Something large crashes down into the ravine, but it isn’t Romeo. A rock, maybe? An animal? Definitely not him. I can hear his breath coming in swift pants as he continues to labor up the side, intent on reaching me before I find help.

I spin in the opposite direction from where the truck disappeared and run. Romeo’s new body is big, strong, and has longer legs than mine. I can’t afford to head to the beach. According to Ariel’s memories, the road in that direction is
deserted. I’ll be better off running toward civilization and a chance of finding someone out at ten o’clock on a school night. It’s mid-March, not prime wine-tasting or tourist season, and the nearest town, the village of Los Olivos, is quiet this time of year. But surely a restaurant or something will be open.

“The world is a vampire, sent to drain …,” Romeo is singing, bits of a song that was popular the last time we were on earth. It’s a disturbing song about vampires and rats, and the way Romeo sings it makes it even more terrifying, a choirboy confessing a murder. He always has a lovely voice, no matter what body he inhabits. Just as I always have sweet breath. Evidently.

I run faster, feet pounding along the broken asphalt, breath crystalline in the air. Romeo is out of the ravine and on the move. He continues to sing as he runs, filling the night with his haunting voice, making me feel as if he’s already caught me with every note that pricks at my ears.

But he hasn’t. He won’t.

I see the lights of the town ahead. I’m going to make it. It’s a mile, at most. I’ll head for the first open business and throw myself into a crowd. Romeo won’t attack me in front of witnesses. Despite his strength, bars
can
hold him, and the western lawmen of recent centuries haven’t hesitated to punish men for abusing their women. Not like in the earlier days, when it was legal for a man to beat his wife, legal for him to throw her into the streets to starve, legal for him to—

“O dear mistress mine, mistress mine, your eyes like stars, your lips like wine,” he sings, switching to a song from our childhood, in English instead of Italian.

We always speak in the language of the new bodies, assimilating speech as fully as memories, but I can recall the way
the words sounded in our native tongue. Back when he sang beneath my window, when the sound of his voice filled me with joy and expectation.

Now there is nothing but terror.

He’s going to catch me. He’s too fast. I’m tired, weak, not—

The headlights spin onto the road from a dozen feet ahead, hope in the darkness.

I race forward, screaming for help, waving my arms, willing the person inside the vehicle to hear me, see me, and
stop
before it’s too late. One second passes … then two … three; the car is pulling away and taking hope with it when suddenly, the brake lights burn red.

With a sob of relief, I sprint the remaining distance to the car, throw open the passenger door, and fling myself inside without bothering to see who’s behind the wheel. The identity of the driver is immaterial.

The devil himself would be preferable company.

“W
hat the he—”

“Hurry! Drive!” I slam the door shut behind me, cutting off the driver, a boy not much older than Ariel, from what I can see in the darkness. I quickly take in tanned skin, wavy hair to his shoulders, a thick necklace, and a faded T-shirt hugging arms too thin to belong to a grown man.

Good. Better to get help from someone younger, less likely to ask questions.

“Please drive. Anywhere. Just go!” I fumble for the locks, smash down the button on the passenger’s door, then reach over to hit the boy’s lock, my shoulder brushing his as I fall back into my seat. “Please!”

We have to go. Locks won’t deter Romeo for long. Neither will one witness, not if he thinks he can get away with murder. I’ve seen him kill before—men, women, children, anyone who gets in his way. He has no moral objections, no compassion or pity.

“Where did you come from?” the boy asks, eyes narrowing as he leans closer. “Is that blood? Are you ok—”

“Please drive! Please!” I risk a glance over my shoulder, barely swallowing a scream when I see Romeo sprinting toward the car, eating up the road with powerful strides of his long legs, mad anticipation spreading across his face. He’s going to kill this boy, just for fun, and it will be my fault.

And then it will be my turn to die. Unless we move. Now.

I dive for the driver’s seat, straight into the boy’s lap, tangling my legs with his as I seek the gas pedal with frantic feet. His arms close around me in surprise, seconds before his foot knocks mine away from the floorboard.

“You can’t—”

“Drive! Hurry, we—”

My words turn to a sound of triumph as my foot finds the accelerator. The car leaps forward a few feet, only to screech to a stop when the boy pounds the brake, summoning an angry groan from the engine.

“We can’t drive like this,
chica
!” His hands span my waist as he tries to shift me into the passenger’s seat while pulling my foot away from the gas.

I would usually be strong enough to overpower an average person even at this early point in the shift, but not after the struggle with Romeo and the climb up the ravine. I need time to refuel. Time I won’t have if this boy doesn’t stop fighting me.

“You’re going to kill us!” he yells.

“No,
my date’s
going to kill us!” I yell just as Romeo’s hands slam down on the trunk. The thump makes us jump in our shared seat, twin shouts of surprise bursting from our lips.

My eyes flick to the rearview mirror in time to catch Romeo’s grin in the reflection. And then he’s gone, reappearing seconds later at the driver’s window, his face hovering inches from the glass. My heart surges into my throat as I slide lower in the boy’s lap, pounding the floor with my feet, searching for the gas. Romeo jerks on the door hard enough to make the metal groan before he realizes it’s locked. He pulls his fist back—preparing to strike—and the boy finally joins me in the search for the accelerator.

He finds it just in time.

“¡Ay mierda!”
he shouts as the car zips forward and Romeo’s fist collides with the rear window instead of the front. Glass shatters, sending fragments tinkling into the backseat and a cold wind whipping through the car as we gain speed down the empty road.

My hair flies into my face. I trap it with one hand, hoping the boy can see well enough to steer, my entire body buzzing from the narrowness of our escape.

“Jesus!” He sucks in a deep breath, his left hand tightening on the wheel. “What the hell was that?”

“Sorry. I’m so sorry, I—”

“You could’ve told me your boyfriend was
insane.
” He glares into the side mirror, where Romeo is becoming a speck in the darkness. The boy looks older with anger tightening his face, darker, almost … dangerous. But the arm around my waist is still gentle, careful, as if he’s very aware me.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” I’m suddenly very aware of him,
as well, of his front warming my back, his thighs shifting beneath mine. I clear my throat, blushing for the first time in so long the strangeness of hot cheeks makes me blink.

And cough. And clear my throat again.

“You okay?” His fingers curl, digging into my waist. The warmth spreads, thickens, and something sparks inside me, a hint of longing even stranger than the blush.