Moon River (10 page)

I remembered just how much I’d loved him.

Lord help me, I loved him still.

Chapter Eighteen

We were in bed together.

It had been a fun night. A sweet night. We had held hands and laughed and kissed. I needed this final, sweet memory, knowing what I was about to do, the heart that I was about to break.

I didn’t know much about anything, but I knew that I couldn’t live with myself knowing that another human being was supernaturally bound to me.

I don’t want another bound to me.

I want them to love me, for me.

Russell was on his side, his warm hand flat on my stomach. Being a bloodsucker had done wonders for my body, but I was still a little curvy, yet still had a small stomach. I liked my stomach. Washboards were overrated and not very fun. Russell had a washboard stomach. In fact, he might have just been the hardest human being I’d ever touched. Yes, hard looked good, but wasn’t very fun to snuggle next to.

Russell and I were still dressed. He had tried to undress me numerous times, and numerous times, I’d resisted. He didn’t complain. He didn’t get all whiny the way guys got when they didn’t get sex. Instead, he lay next to me contentedly. I sensed a smile on his handsome face.

Sadly, it wasn’t a natural smile.

It was a goofy smile that seemed oddly plastered on his face. It was a smile that reminded me of the body-hopping demon of a few months ago...but not evil. Russell’s smile was goofy. Like a man hopped up on love.

But maybe that was too much to ask for. Maybe I didn’t deserve love. Maybe it was selfish of me to love another, to bring them into my train-wreck of a life.

Yes,
came a distant thought.

A thought, I was certain, that wasn’t my own. It was her. Except it sounded so much like me. It could have easily originated in my own thoughts. It could have been my own. But it wasn’t. This single word had been faint, distant, and slightly random.

It wasn’t going to be easy to distinguish her thoughts from my own, but I had to. If I wanted to stay sane. If I wanted to keep myself from going crazy.

She was changing the rules.

Never before had she made a direct appearance into my thoughts. Yes, her influence could be seen outwardly, by changing the chemistry of my body, the natural and supernatural state of my body.

But internally, she had stayed away.

Until now.

She was getting bolder, more brazen, more challenging. She had said “yes” just when I figured that I shouldn’t love again. I didn’t have to wonder why for long. Of course, she wanted me to feel lonely, to feel unloved, to feel less than what I was. And I knew the reason why. Low self-esteem, low self-worth were key components to her master plan. Most key was the absence of love. All of which made it easier to move in, to take over, to push me aside, or, perhaps, to remove me completely.

Love,
I suspected, was the key.

However, I heard nothing further from her—thank God—and instead, turned my attention to Russell next to me, who was gazing at me even now with his big, round, puppy eyes. I could feel the love radiating from him.

No, not real love,
I reminded myself. A
semblance
of love. Infatuation, perhaps. It was, in fact, a spell of some sort.

Very clever,
I thought, directing my words to the thing that lived within me.
And shitty, too. Give me a feeling of love, a sense of love, a hint of love, and I confuse it for the real thing.

When, in fact, it wasn’t.

No, I was
controlling
Russell. I was
using
him for love. What he really felt for me, I didn’t know. But it wasn’t real love.

Controlling others fed her. A lack of
real
love fed her. Low self-esteem and depression fed her.

All of which, I knew, would help her to eventually take control of me.

I’d seen what such a demon can do. I had watched her brother control an entire family.

I couldn’t let that happen to me, ever.

Most important, I had to remove her.

Forever.

And it started with letting Russell go.

To sever his tie with me.

Except, of course, I hadn’t a clue how to do it, and the Librarian had been no help.

No, he had been helpful.

He had said that I needed to find my own way through it, that the connection between two people is deeply personal and intimate.

I thought about that as I turned to my side and reached for Russell’s hand. I opened my mouth to speak...and hadn’t a clue what I would say...

Chapter Nineteen

“Hi,” I said.

“
Hi, baby,” he said, and squeezed my hand lovingly and with so much emotion that his grip literally shook.

Lord, help me,
I thought.

“
Are you okay?” he asked, and the exaggerated look of concern in his eyes was almost comical.

That’s not him,
I thought. The Russell Baker I knew was strong, confident, controlled.

The expression on his face suggested that his whole life, his whole existence, all of his happiness, hinged on my happiness. In fact, on my answer.

Lord, help me,
I thought again.

“
I love you, Russell,” I started.

“
I love you, too, baby, more than you know.”

He tried to release his hand—except that I knew where that hand was going: to the first boob it could find.

Sex connected us beyond what was normal, what was healthy.

So, I held his hand firm and he relaxed it. He continued gazing at me with those big, beautiful, brown eyes. His muscles flexed and undulated just under his skin, like slumbering vipers. God, he was so sexy.

Not anymore,
I thought.

Release him.

I considered telling him the truth, and then erasing his mind later. Yes, I could do that, but that wasn’t fair to him, or his subconscious. I suspected that even if I did erase his mind that his subconscious would remember...and haunt him forever. Maybe not. Maybe he truly would forget. But I doubted it. His heart would remember. Somewhere, deep inside he would remember.

Was it fair to just break up with him, with no explanation?

No. He has to know,
I thought.

It was the only way.

No lying. No hiding. Unfortunately for Russell Baker, I had been unaware of my ability to control him. Now I knew, and as I thought those words, tears came to my eyes.

The tears were for my heart.

And for Russell’s heart.

Yes, I loved him. Yes, I thought there was a chance it was going somewhere.

But I will never control him, and would never allow myself to control him. Or anyone. The bitch within me had effectively cut me off from loving another human, another mortal.

I had tried to keep Russell from the truth of who I was, but now the truth, I knew, would set him free. I swallowed and looked away as the tears continued to come to my eyes, knowing what I was about to, what I had to do.

Lord, help me, I knew what I had to do.

Chapter Twenty

It was after.

I’d spent the last two hours pouring my heart out to Russell, telling him everything, from my attack seven years ago, to my hunger for blood, to my supernatural abilities, to the love spell he was under.

At first, he had laughed lightly, holding my hand and wanting to change the subject. He tried to even have sex again. Then he tried to change the subject again. Then he asked me to stop. Then he asked why I was telling him all of this. Then he asked if I was crazy. Then he grew angry. He stormed out of the bedroom, only to return, rubbing his temples and pacing randomly.

He wanted to know
why I was telling him all of this
, why I was doing this to him, why I was pushing him away with my crazy talk. We had something good, he kept saying. Something beautiful and pure and real.

I got up from the bed and took his hand and led him through my house and into the garage. I had planned ahead for the night. The kids were with Mary Lou, and Russell and I had the house to ourselves. He liked that idea. He thought that meant a night of sex.

He thought wrong. Sex was the problem. Sex was binding him to me against his will. I suspected sex had this effect on many people, although perhaps not as strongly.

Once in the garage, I showed him the old refrigerator in the far corner. Dusty and dirty and forgotten—and also padlocked.

“What’s this?” he had asked.

I said nothing, only fetched the key from under the old coffee can filled with random nuts and bolts, a can hidden behind a tool box on a shelf under the workbench Danny had made years ago. A workbench that never saw any work, since Danny had decided that chasing whores and neglecting his family was the best way to spend his free time.

I unlocked the refrigerator and pulled the door open. Inside was my latest shipment from the butcher in Norco. It was a simple cardboard box pre-filled with sealed packets of blood. The butchery had thought the blood was for laboratory experiments. At least, that’s what Danny and I told them way back when, back when Danny had tried to be there for me. That lasted only a few years.

Danny had thought it was a good idea for the butchery to think the blood was for scientific purposes. I agreed. We used his name, and added a “Dr.” in front of it. So now, all the packets and boxes are labeled: “Dr. Daniel Moon.” A name I got to see every time I had the displeasure of drinking from one of these filthy packets.

“What’s this?” Russell had asked.

“
Dinner,” I said. “Although these days, I have a human source.”

Russell had been bending down, holding one of the malleable packets, which oozed between his long fingers. He looked up at me, the light of the refrigerator highlighting his scarred but handsome features. “What do you mean, a
human source
?”

I was leaning a shoulder against the refrigerator, arms crossed. I figured that if I was going to tell him the truth, then there was no holding back. “Allison Lopez.”

“Your friend?”

“
Yes.”

“
The psychic?”

“
And, apparently, witch,” I said.

He looked at me, then looked at the packet of blood some more. “This is blood,” he said. “I should know. I see enough of it in my profession.”

I nodded, waited.

“
You really drink this stuff?”

“
I do.”

“
Prove it.”

I held out my hand and he slapped the packet down in it. I used my naturally pointed nail to deftly slice through the plastic, as I’d done hundreds of times before. I held the clear packet up to him, which swirled with fragments of bone and hair and meat, and said, “Bottoms up.”

I drained the packet quickly, fought the initial gag reflex I always felt when drinking the butchery-supplied blood, then showed him the empty packet.

“
Holy shit,” he said.

“
That’s about what it tastes like, too.”

“
But that doesn’t prove anything, does it? Just that you, you know, like to drink...”

“
Animal blood?” I said. “You think I enjoy this? That I have some twisted fetish?”

“
I...I don’t know.”

I gripped his tee shirt and slammed him against the garage wall. He didn’t have far to travel, maybe just a foot or two. Still, he hit the wall hard, which was fine. He could handle it. He was a big boy, a tough guy. Not to mention, the overgrown love bug needed some sense knocked into him.

Except he kept looking at me with that big, goofy, loving grin.

Granted, I
liked
the big, goofy, loving grin
. It wasn’t a bad thing to have a lover look at you this way. Except, in context, the look wasn’t appropriate. If anything, Russell should have been nervous, or even afraid.

I’d just shown him
a refrigerator of blood.

I’d told him my greatest secret.

He should have been running for the hills. Or curled up in a big, muscular fetal position.

Not looking at me lovingly.

I lifted him off his feet, his shirt now ruined. “Stop looking at me like that, goddammit!”

Except he didn’t stop looking at me like that. In fact, he looked down at me with even more love than ever. “I don’t care what you are, Sam. I don’t care if you’re the devil himself. I love you. I will always love you.”