Sun Damage (The Sunshine Series) (26 page)

I look up at him briefly and he looks uncomfortable with my words. Like I
’ve thrown boiling water on him and he’s trying to hold in a scream.

Good.

“You stalk me to where I live now, try telling me you ‘uncovered’ something in that mental hospital or whatever, and then,” I lower my voice so no one else hears. “Then you say that you know about Myles. For what? To torment me even more?”

Jack’s voice
 takes on a defensive tone now. “I know all about your boyfriend, Sophie.”

My name coming out of his mouth is almost too much.
Too much for human Sophie. It can’t be too much for vampire Sophie, can it? I’m stronger now.

“
But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. You obviously know about him.”

I wait. He inches away a little more.

“I wanted to tell you about Michael.”

My dysfunctional heart pounds so loudly that I think ever
yone on the beach has heard it but a quick glance around tells me that they haven’t. They’re walking around, laughing and having normal, human lives.

“
What?” I practically hiss.

He shifts, thinking about something that doesn
’t look pleasant, by the expression on his face.

“
What I did to you...” he says. “What
he
did.”

I hold up a hand. I turn away from him, bile rising in my mouth. I can’t believe he’s trying to
apologize for what he did. Again.

“
No,” he says. “You need to hear this.”

“
No, I really don’t.” I find myself standing. “You’re not going to say what you’re about to say.”

“
Sophie.” He doesn’t bother to get up, just absently reaches out like I would ever grab his hand. “It wasn’t me.”

I spin on my heel with enough force to spray sand into his face. He
shields himself for a second, then opens his mouth again.

“
You’re not going to do this,” I say. “You can’t even own up to what you did, can you?”

“
Sophie, please,” he says. “You don’t know what they’re capable of. They can make you forget anything. Remember anything. Believe anything.”

So this is what it’s about. He finds out all the information he can on vampires and then tries to cover up what he did by blaming them for it?
“You’re lying,” I say, but it’s a weak sound.

He looks up at me, not hiding anything.
“No, I’m not.”

This time, I believe him.

Whenever Jack lied to me in the past, his mouth would twitch like he was amused at getting away with it. His expression now is made of stone.

I lower my voice yet again
but I don’t bother sitting back down. “What would Michael have to gain by making you rape me?” The words fly out of my mouth, and I don’t think I’ve ever said anything quite like them.

“
He told me,” Jack says. “Last time he took over my body.”

I cross my arms.
“Bullshit.”

“
Just listen,” he says, his tone almost pleading. “If you don’t believe me, you don’t believe me. But you need to know.”

W
e stare at each other for a long time then. “You’ve got three minutes. Talk.”

He takes in a breath and holds it, not bothering to exhale until he
’s started talking again. “He told me that he was going to use me for a little while,” he says. “That was the first time.”

“
When was this?”

“
My birthday. When he drugged you.”

I blink a few times.

“I think he wanted to do it then, but I fought him and he left me.” He glances at me for a millisecond before going on. “I’m not saying I was innocent. I was a complete dick. I wanted to sleep with you no matter what, I tormented you on purpose so many times...but I would have never...”

“
Just get back to how Michael made you do everything so I can leave.”

Jack nods to himself.
“The dance,” he says. “I was feeling weird all day. Then there was this missing chunk of time. I remember finding you in the bathroom but I didn’t know why I wanted to find you in the first place. Then...there was nothing until I woke up in my car later that night. The dance was over and I had claw marks on my arms and blood on me. I knew I had done something horrible but I couldn’t remember what it was.”

I shake my head.

“And there are other times I don’t remember too— short spans of time that I think he took over me but I’m still working on piecing it together.”

I sniff, ref
using to cry. “You expect me to believe this?”

“
No,” he admits. “But.”
He’s
crying now. Fucking fabulous. “I can’t just keep it from you. I know I treated you badly. I treated Barbie–a lot of other people–like crap too. But you had to know that it wasn’t me that did some of it. Okay?”

“
No.”

He blinks a few times, like I
’m a bright light blinding him.

“
It’s not okay.” I realize now that my fists are clenched so hard that my knuckles are going numb and my fingers are beginning to ache.

“
I’m so sick of people saying that word when they can’t use it.”

He says nothing, so I turn to leave.

“Sophie,” he calls after me, but it’s not in a tone that tells me he wants me to stay. He probably knows that I’m not going to. “Be careful. I’m sorry.”

***

I run.

I run as fast as I can, looking at as little as possible. For a moment, I believe that I’m actually flying, with how blurred everything is. After a few minutes, I close my eyes completely,
deciding that I don’t need to see anyway. I can’t really keep track of how fast or long I’ve been going. All I know is that it feels good. The wind in my hair, the sweat on my back, even the pounding of my heart and the heaving of my lungs as air tries to get in as my feet thud, sometimes against sand, then grass, then concrete.

Stop running.
The voice is familiar, but I can’t place it. Even if I could, I wouldn’t listen. This is too simple. Too easy to give up. One foot in front of the other. One breath in, another out. I don’t have to think about how Jade is, what he’s thinking. Where Michael is or if he’s looked up our tour dates just as easily as Jack did to find me. And I don’t have to think about Jack or how all of this is connected in some sick, screwed up way.

I don’t stop until my lung
s absolutely can’t take anymore and even then, I don’t open my eyes. My head is spinning, each thought blurring into the next. I take in air like I’ve been underwater for hours, drowning.

Something warm touches my hand. It isn’t enough to startle me or make me open my eyes, but it’s something to concentrate on besides my
own body. My hands are so cold but whatever my hand is against makes it so my knuckles finally relax, my wrists stop aching. The color trickles in and I don’t exactly hate it. It’s a warm, yellow ball of light that I lean down to meet. It sits in my lap when I sit on the ground and I wrap myself around it, absorbing everything I can from the color in my hands. I bury my face in it, unafraid of getting burned. Unafraid of everything in this moment. Flowers pop up behind my eyelids. Pink, purple, and orange. Fields upon fields of them and I float along their edges, gathering each color in my mouth.

And it’s all torn away instantly. The light dulls and fades away, the fields dry up, fall apart, then combust. My mouth, throat, and stomach are filled with splinters.
Dirt.
The world comes rushing back and the first thing I see is blood, bright red against the palms of my hands and on my jeans. But it’s dark out now. The sun is gone. The only light I can see is one streetlight over me, spotlighting everything I’ve done. My eyes adjust as I look around, taking in brick and the smell of garbage. I’m in some alleyway, the ground damp beneath me.

The warmness is against my leg, brushing against my knee. I’m terrified to look at what it is, b
ut I can’t stop myself either. Something small and brown leans against my leg, its throat bleeding from a large scrape at the back of its neck.

A do
g is bleeding next to me and I have its blood on my hands. I reach up to my mouth and find more of the warm liquid there, sticking to my fingers, metallic in my mouth.

“
No,” I whisper as my shaking, dirty hands reach over to the animal. If it wasn’t for the blood, it would look like it was just sleeping. If I’m lucky, maybe it is.

I kneel next to it, careful not to hurt it anymore.
“Please,” I say. “Please, please, please.”

It moves a little, twitching its leg. I
’m too afraid to touch it again so I stand against the wall, shutting my eyes as everything starts to spin away from me again.

“
Hey,” A voice. Right in my ear. “You should come with me.”

Their arm is around my waist. I try pushing them away, but that only makes them positi
on my head against their chest.

“
Sophie,” he says, “It’s alright.”

They know who I am. Do I know who they are? I’m crying uncontrollably. I don’t
want to look at what I’ve done.

“
Do you need me to carry you?” It’s a familiar voice but I still can’t figure out who it is.

My head feels like it’s splitting in half. There is no way there isn’t a wound running down my forehead, ex
posing my brain for all to see.

His arm is at the backs of my knees, but I push him away.
“No.”

He stops.

Then he starts to move forward, taking me with him.

I plant my feet on the ground like they’re rooted there.
“No.”

He lets me sink to the ground then. Hard, warm pavement meets my knees. Little bits of rocks or trash stick to my sweaty palms.
“No, no, no, no.”

“
Hey.” His hand is on my arm, less forceful this time. I get the sense that he’s leaning down next to me, but I can’t see anything. I don’t know if it’s the tears or my actual vision and I don’t care. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to see anything.

Whoever it is holds my head with one hand, and I don’t have the strength to pull away.
“Look at me,” he says.

I open my eyes and the only image that greets me is a blur of blond hair and a black shirt.
“I can’t see.”

“
It’s Adrienne,” he says. “Here.” He places something on my face. Sunglasses. They must have fallen off.  “Now, we have to get up.”

I shake my head.
“I—I can’t,” shakes out of me.

“
It’s going to be alright,” he says. “We’ve just got to get you out of here. That’s all.”

Several seconds pass by without a word from either of us. A stranger passes by the alley entrance and asks if I’m okay and
Adrienne presses my face into his chest so they can’t see.

“
She’s fine,” he says. “Had too much to drink, that’s all.”

I want to throw up
but I control my stomach easily enough.

The person walks away and I’m on my feet again, leaning almost all of my weight into Adrienne. My legs are so
shaky. My knees won’t lock.

We start walking. Past people on the street and car
stereos blaring, the sounds of people yelling and laughing fades to a dull white, noise. After a while, I hear a door open, and we must walk through it, because our footsteps on the concrete turn into a clack of footsteps on linoleum.

We abruptly stop walking.
“I need to know the room of Myles Lott, please,” Adrienne says to someone.

I don’t want to see Myles. Not now. Not after what I know and what I’ve done. My pulse is thrumming in my head, splitting it more and more. There’s some clicking of computer keys in front of us.
“You must be the guests he’s expecting,” the person says.

I try to turn my head so I can see who we’re talking to, but Adrienne keeps my head firmly in place.
“Yes. My friend is sick,” he explains. “He told me she could lie down a while in his room.”

“
I’m sorry to hear that,” the stranger says. “There’s a bit of a stomach bug going around, isn’t there?”

Adrienne laughs easily, molding into the small talk.
“Yes,” he says. “Just last week my sister had the same thing.

If they continue for much longer, I’
m going to throw up right here.

“
Ah, yes,” the guy says. “Room 336. Shall I phone him so he knows you’re on your way up?”

“
That would be great,” Adrienne says, and we’re already walking away.

Chapter 15

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