Thirst (2 page)

I moved as close
to his neck as I dared, right on the edge but unprepared to jump.
The man smelled so good that my mouth watered again. He was as calm
as if we had just been walking a dog, not running for our lives
from a vampire. I had an insane urge to straddle him and lick his
neck, but I stepped back thanks to the warning signals going off in
my head.

I ran to the
window and shoved it open, my own behaviour making me frantic.
Hoping the fresh air would clear my thoughts, I stuck my head
outside. It had been a long time since I was quite as close to a
human for more than a couple of seconds. My body cried out for me
to respond to him in the way I was supposed to, but I wouldn’t. I
had enough guilt on my shoulders. I couldn’t deal with any
more.

His hand on my
back sent a shudder running through my body. For a second, I arched
against him and almost purred. But then I remembered the last time
I felt good when a male hand touched me. I pulled my head back in
and pushed him away as roughly as I could.

He stumbled
backwards, knocking over a lamp and falling awkwardly against a
wall. The thud of the impact made me wince, but he smiled at me
with empty eyes before getting back on his feet. It was
eerie.

He hadn’t spoken
at all, and for the first time I realised something wasn’t quite
right. Although grateful he wasn’t asking me hysterical questions,
I had to admit I should have expected some sort of a response. I
had been so busy flirting with disaster that I hadn’t paid enough
attention to how weird he was acting.

“What’s your
name?” I asked, trying to fill the awkward silence that weighted
the air. Although he seemed comfortable, I was tense enough for
both of us. I realised I was wringing my hands together in a steady
rhythm and moved them behind my back, self-conscious of the nervous
habit.

“Carl. What’s
yours?” He responded easily enough, but the tone of his voice was
blank and emotionless.

“Uh, Ava. Listen,
you’re probably wondering what the hell just happened out
there....”

“I’m
not.”

His calm was
disturbing, and I trembled all over. He might as well have had a
flashing sign saying blood donor hanging around his
neck.

I kept expecting
the man to lose the plot and act like a normal person would under
the same circumstances. He was behaving as though being bitten by a
freakishly strong, strange man and pushed around by a freakishly
strong, strange woman were perfectly reasonable things to
happen.

“You’re amazing,”
he said. I shook my head, his words knocking me even further
off-kilter.

He shot toward
me, intimidating me with his height. Cornered, I panicked. The
sudden sense of alarm I experienced made it harder to concentrate
on not doing anything stupid—like draining Carl dry.

Logically, I knew
I was stronger than him, but I was raised to understand men were
supposed to be stronger than women. It was hard to see him as a
victim when he was heading for me with intent on his face. Holding
my hands up in front of me, I backed away. He pushed them out of
the way, rushing forward to grab my waist and press his lips
against mine.

His tongue forced
my mouth open. There was nothing sexy about it. It was sloppy and
rushed and unattractive. But the pulse in his neck was so
temptingly close, I almost put up with the kiss. On the edge of a
dark line, I stepped back, retreating firmly onto the side of
human.

The girl in me
got pissed off at his roughness. It was a good distraction from the
thirst. I shoved him, slapping his face hard as he stumbled back.
He rubbed his jaw, but the dopey, languid smile never left his
face. I resisted the temptation to slap him on the other cheek just
to make it even.

“You need to go
home now, Carl. Forget about tonight, and mind yourself. And don’t
even think about doing that to me again unless you want a broken
nose.” My voice was steadier than I felt.

He frowned at me,
his forehead wrinkling as though he was trying to figure something
out.

“I want to stay
with you.”

His voice was
interesting, quite high in pitch for such a big man. It had a nice
tone, and I wondered if maybe he was a good singer. I realised I
was staring at the pulse ticking in his neck instead of his face.
To my absolute horror, he inclined his head, offering me his
throat.

“What are you
doing?” I whispered, backing away because the strings holding me
together were already stretched as far as they could go.

He’s willing
, whispered a little voice inside.
What harm is one
little sip?

I shook my head
vehemently, trying to silence the urges. They hadn’t always been
this loud. I doubted one little sip would be enough
anymore.

“I’m... not
sure.” His eyes were confused again, the colour dulling as he
answered.

“Okay, time to
leave.” I wanted him as far away from me as possible.

Gripping his arm
firmly, I held my breath so I couldn’t smell him; I led him to the
door and pushed him out into the hallway. It was hard enough to
stop myself licking his neck without him offering it to me on a
plate. I slammed the door after him and waited to hear him go
downstairs. He didn’t. I peered out the peephole and saw him still
standing there, motionless. His face was slack; he was just...
waiting. It was like someone had switched off his brain.

“Sod him,” I said
under my breath. I stalked over to the alcove that passed as a
kitchen and rummaged around for some bread. After shoving some
slices into the toaster, I fidgeted around my kitchenette, slamming
press doors even amounts of times then scrubbing at a clean plate
until the toast was ready. I slathered on lots of strawberry jam
then sat on an armchair in the adjoining living room and munched
away, the sugar soothing me a little.

His pulse outside
the door was enough to keep me on the edge of my chair. I drummed
my fingers as loud as I could, but the beating went on and on,
louder and louder, until I felt like screaming. My head pounded as
the thirst intensified, my entire throat feeling like it was caked
in dust. The gnawing in my stomach had grown into something I
couldn’t ignore.

I got up to look
through the peephole again. He stood in the exact same
position.

“Get out of here,
Carl!” I shouted at him before storming into the bathroom for a
shower. The water helped drown out the sound of the blood pumping
through his veins and made me feel a little more human. I had to
get rid of him—that much I knew. His reasons for sticking around
niggled at me; the abnormal blankness on his face bothered me even
more. It wasn’t natural.

After I showered,
I went back to wandering around the flat. After a few minutes of
pretending Carl wasn’t there, I relented and opened the door again.
I had to figure out his game.

“Why are you
still here?”

He shrugged, his
eyes unfocused.

“Where do you
live? Are you sick or something?”

He shrugged
again. He tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck once
more.

“Oh, crap,” I
said, slamming the door and retreating in a hurry. I spent the next
couple of hours lying on my bed with music blaring until I fell
asleep.

The first thing I
heard when I woke up the next morning was a slow thud, thud, thud.
It took me a few minutes to realise it was him. Still
there.

I went to the
door and opened it, exasperated beyond belief. Carl looked like he
hadn’t moved all night. His face brightened when he saw me, but
dark circles cushioned his bloodshot eyes. He yawned then, looking
completely exhausted.

“Why won’t you go
home?” I asked, startled by the whine in my voice. He stared back
at me.

“Sit down.” I
meant in my apartment, but he sank to the floor. Not a good
sign.

“Leave, and don’t
come back,” I ordered, testing out a theory. He cocked his head to
the side and looked at me with puppy dog eyes.

“What the hell?
Just come in, before someone sees you.” I glanced out into the hall
to see my slutty next-door neighbour smirking at me from her
doorway, her dressing gown opened just an inch too far.

“Lover’s tiff? At
least you finally found a man,” she said, tossing her
honey-from-a-bottle coloured hair. She winked provocatively at
Carl—who didn’t notice—then went back inside, leaving the stench of
overly sweet perfume in her wake.

“Come on,” I
said, majorly annoyed at my neighbour.

Carl followed me
into my apartment; straight away, I felt suffocated by his
presence. My flat wasn’t large, but it seemed miniscule with him
there. He was huge and filled up all the free space.

Pacing up and
down, a rush of thoughts came to me at once. Vampires could enslave
people, enthral them. What if I had somehow done that to Carl? I
hadn’t done it before, but I was as unnatural as the vampires; who
knew what I could do?

When I was
younger, I had been desperate to learn about my origins and snuck
lots of books on vampires home from the library. They were supposed
to be fiction, but I was pretty sure a lot of it was accurate. My
grandmother caught me and flipped out about it before I could
finish them, but from what I read, vampires had abilities. Mind
control being one of them. Maybe I could do the same thing—or
something similar.

I was infected
with vampire poison while still in my mother’s womb. Born an
oddity, I was a human-vampire hybrid with a soul. A conscience.
Guilt. And major thirst for human blood. With that kind of
conflict, I should have had a split personality, but instead I was
just a tad OCD.

Acting like a normal person ended badly
for me, so I made the choice to hide from humans and vampires. My
grandmother had made sure I remembered the legacy my mother left
me.
Nobody
can know
. If vampires
didn’t find out how I was created then they couldn’t do it again. I
thought I was the only one, which made me a fluke—or a freak. I
hadn’t tried to test my limits, so I was never sure what I could
do.

One thing was clear—Carl wasn’t going
away. He did whatever I told him to do—anything except leave—and he
acted like he was a willing sacrifice or something. The more I
considered it, the more I was sure the whole mind control thing
could be done. But I didn’t know
how
it was done. I always assumed it had something to do with
biting humans.

I definitely
hadn’t bitten him. But he was still there, not moving, waiting for
me to command him. I stared at him, not having any idea what to do.
If I didn’t know how I caused it, how could I fix it?

“Why don’t you
try to get some sleep?” I suggested. “There’s some stuff in the
fridge, If you’re hungry. Help yourself.”

Remembering how
he had spent the entire night outside my flat without moving, I
decided I needed to be more specific.

“Listen Carl,
look at me. You have to take care of yourself without me telling
you to. Anytime you’re tired, sleep. You’re hungry, eat. When
you’re thirsty, drink. Whenever you need to use the bathroom, go
find it. You get dirty, clean yourself. If you’re in danger, save
yourself. Even if the danger is from me, okay? I’ll be back
soon.”

We had spent the
entire morning in the same apartment, and now I was ready to eat
him alive. Literally. A bit of fresh air and some space would do me
good. I locked him into the flat, unwilling to risk him following
me. He wasn’t happy about being left behind, but it was for his own
good.

It was a bright
winter’s morning, and the streets were relatively empty. I grabbed
a sandwich from the nearest shop and made my way to the park. A
woman bumped into me, and my fangs shot out straight away. I
retracted them, but being so out of control rattled me.

“Wish I’d let the
damn vampire eat him,” I muttered to myself, scaring an elderly man
who was passing by.

I sat on a cold
bench in a quiet corner of the park. It was nice not being close
enough to a human to want to bite them. But I still worried about
Carl. I had to get rid of him—to protect him from me. I would never
hurt him on purpose, but I had come too close to crossing the line
to ever trust myself with him.

I shivered; both
from the cold, and the niggling insistence I had to call someone
for help. I was out of my depth and didn’t exactly have a list of
people to turn to. Only one person knew the full truth about me,
and that caused the distance between us. She hadn’t treated me
well, yet I grew up craving her love and acceptance—no matter how
much she failed me. She was my only familial link, the one my
mother charged with my care, the one who could have loved me but
didn’t.

At 25, I could
now stand as her equal. I could defend myself. But the thought of
asking for her help made me feel like a child again. She’d always
wanted to cure me, as if I was diseased. Facing the idea of asking
her advice cut deep. I didn’t want to prove her right, but I had
nobody else in the world to turn to; I ensured that when I ran away
and made a life of my own, intentionally alone. The choice was out
of my hands; I had to put pride aside to help Carl.