The Last Girl, Page 2

  I run my hands self-consciously through my hair.

  “You look great,” he says, holding out the flowers.

  No I don’t. I know it. He knows it. He’s just so happy to be getting laid tonight that he’s seeing me through horny-guy glasses. I’m still too sleepy to be annoyed.

  I put the flowers in a glass of water and slip some flip flops on. It’s Southern Florida. Flip flops are a year-round joy here.

  He’s got something romantic planned at the beach. Black cloth goes over my eyes as we get out of the car—a blindfold. I almost panic, but then I realize if I make a fuss, it will invite questions I can never answer. So I smile shakily and allow him to lead me down to the beach. My flip flops are still in the car. I breathe slowly in and out, listening to the waves crash against the shore, inhaling the crisp, salty scent of the sea, feeling the instability of sand collapsing beneath my feet.

  “Don’t move. I’ll be right back. I’ve got to get a couple of things.”

  I try not to be in that dark closet. I try, but I can’t help it. I’m there again, my eyes squeezed tightly shut, silently begging not to be found, not to be killed. A hand is on my arm again, leading me away and I come out of the fog, remembering I’m here with Devon. Everything’s okay.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Shhh”

  My heart starts to hammer faster in my chest. Then it pounds and vibrates in my head. My entire being is one rapidly thudding heartbeat with no slowdown in sight. Something is wrong here, but I can’t make myself remove the cloth from my eyes.

  You’re being ridiculous. It’s just Devon. He has a surprise.

  I find myself in the passenger seat of a car. It’s not Devon’s car. I just know. Even blindfolded I know. This is the point where I should rip the scrap of fabric off and run. There is no evidence this person has a weapon, and he or she hasn’t spoken to me yet. But before my hands can move to the blindfold, the driver’s side door is shut and the car has started.

  It’s so fast, I assume there must be more than one person involved. Tears gather and absorb into the thick cloth covering my eyes. Terror freezes me, keeping me from taking off the blindfold, from trying to leap out of the car that’s moving too fast now anyway. I’m suddenly thirteen again. The dream is real, and I believe that if I don’t see them, they won’t kill me.

  I’m silent and they are silent. The only sound is the wheels scraping against the rough road and the occasional bump. My tears are coming harder now. Why can’t I fight back? Scream? Beg? Try to escape? Just take the fucking blindfold off! But I can’t do it. I may as well be tied up because I’m so scared I don’t know what to do or what to think.

  A little while passes and the car stops. Again, too fast for me to react, my door is open and someone is helping me out. How many are there?

  I cringe away but find my feet moving in the direction I’m being led. “Don’t hurt me. Please.”

  Then I feel stupid. What if it’s Devon? What if this is part of some stupid frat thing he’s gotten himself into? It would be just like him to combine my deflowering with a secret frat party or something.

  I expect someone to start giggling or say I’m a spaz, but fingers gently grasps my wrist, lifting my hand. I feel the planes of his face as he guides me to see him. I shake my head in disbelief.

  No.

  I was good. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell anyone anything. This can’t happen. I did what I was supposed to do. But it’s him. It’s my nightmare.

  “I missed you, Juliette.”

  Christian.

  ***

  I’m still wondering why I don’t put up a fight as he leads me indoors. A gust of air conditioning hits me hard. The humidity in the summer is so stifling that you forget what cool, dry air is like. Any introduction to it, though welcome, is a shock to the senses.

  My mind is racing. Has he been stalking me? Watching me? Maybe that’s why the dreams would never leave. Maybe a part of me knew that somewhere in the shadows was a man with a plan to take me. Why didn’t he take me then?

  His voice cuts through the silence. “You were too young. I saw your potential, but you weren’t there yet.”

  Did he just read my mind?

  “Yes. However, while I can read it, I can’t control it. Not like others. I discovered as much that night. I would be lying if I said that bit about you didn’t intrigue me. It’s a good thing you kept your eyes closed. If you’d proven to be trouble, I would have had to kill you. Then we couldn’t be here now.”

  The musical lilt of his voice is almost too sweet, like a perfume that is a touch too cloying or a chocolate one percentage point too dark. I’m still confused by his apparent ability to read my mind and what he means by control it.

  Before I can puzzle this mystery out, the blindfold is removed and I’m bathed in light. I think I expected to be in a dark basement or some kind of garden shed at the back of some disgusting psycho’s house. But I’m in a very nice parlor with crystal chandeliers, and it’s only the two of us. My assumption of there being others was wrong. Unless they’re lurking somewhere I can’t see.

  This place is swank, a bit dusty and un-used, but swank. It’s got an old world elegance that makes me feel like I’ve been transported through time and across the Atlantic all at once. My gaze shifts to Christian. I take a step back, overwhelmed by his size. He’s as beautiful as I imagined he’d be, and more. There is a sublime perfection to him; he nearly glows. He doesn’t look older than 25, which I find confusing. How early did he start his life of crime?

  That night six years ago, he’d seemed to be somewhat in charge of things. His voice held the same maturity and dark command back then that it holds now. And then I go back to him reading my mind. Pieces start to come together in a sort of subconscious way, but I can’t bring myself to call it forth into a more tangible thought. I can’t bring myself to admit the thing that is tickling the edges of my mind.

  “You know what I am. Let me just say I’m impressed you’re putting it together so fast. And without even a visual demonstration.” Fangs make a snick sound coming out of his gums, and his eyes take on an eerie glow. Then he moves so fast around the room, he’s a blur. He stops right behind me, holding my head to the side. I tense, waiting for a stinging bite that doesn’t come.

  I can only imagine the evil Nosferatu glee on his face right now. He chuckles because of course he’s in my head. I’m only moderately comforted by the idea that he can’t hypnotize me to do his bidding. Or so he says. Of course with that much power, there are a million ways to make me do his bidding.

  I haven’t screamed yet. I wonder if he finds this refreshing or annoying. I can’t bring myself to do it. The enormity of the situation I’m faced with makes screaming or even begging seem ridiculous.

  “Oh, you’ll beg, my little slut.”

  I feel my face heat at that; I’m far too innocent for my age. I don’t know why. I had opportunities, and I tried to go farther with boys, but we always got interrupted. I assumed I wasn’t very good at sneaking around. Now I have my doubts. The timing of my capture is too convenient: right before the grand deflowering. I wonder if perhaps all those interruptions were instigated by him.

  So I ask. Because really, this whole business with him in my head and my entire side of the conversation being conducted in silence is beginning to freak me out even more than my current circumstances.

  “Yes,” he confirms. “I stopped them. I wanted you pure for me.”

  The glint in his eyes implies some sort of subtext that I’m not quite catching just yet, more than a mere fixation with purity. But I don’t ask for more. If he wants me to know something, he’ll tell me. There are few mysteries between us, at least on my end. Christian is nothing but mystery.

  I realize all at once that it was the other vampires I was most afraid of. At least I assume they were other vampires. Though I was scared that night, Christian’s voice soothed me, his hand on my shoulder steadied me, his mercy in leaving me
even after I knew enough to tell gave me an odd sort of peace.

  And yet.

  I am beginning to become more genuinely afraid of him. He seems to have shut off whatever power allows him to eavesdrop on my mind because he isn’t watching me in the same shrewd way or reacting to my thoughts. I assume he can turn this power on and off at will, otherwise it’s more of a curse than a gift. He’s walking circles around me, studying me.

  I shiver as his eyes caress my skin so intimately. I don’t feel like a virgin right now. I feel like what he just called me. A slut.

  “Christian?”

  “Yes?” His tone is sort of absent, as if he’s lost in me, cataloging all my parts, making arcane lists in his mind.

  “Are you going to hurt me?” I hold my breath. There is this stupid part of me that believes he won’t because he hasn’t in all this time even though he must have had opportunities. And he didn’t that night.

  “Yes.”

  His matter-of-fact response unhinges me, but I still can’t work up a full-bodied scream because I know no one would hear me. I’m also afraid if I have some kind of fit here that he’ll get angry and just end me now. The tears start coming in earnest, and though I try to be quiet, it’s deafening in the stillness of the room. It’s loud even to me, and I don’t have super-hearing. Considering the other talents he’s displayed, I assume heightened senses come with the vampire package.

  “I’m used to it,” he says, having opened the door to my mind again.

  I’m not sure if he means he’s used to girls having meltdowns in front of him, or if he’s used to the extra noise. After awhile you probably don’t even notice heightened senses. They just are what they are.

  I close my eyes and focus. Just like the night I had the insane urge to touch him, to see him in my head, now I have the crazy need to block out his ability to see so deeply into me. It’s too naked. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I think it’s possible I can block him. After all, he can’t control my mind. Maybe there’s something special about me. Maybe I’m just stronger.

  I visualize myself in a big cavern of a room that is completely soundproof. With my mind, I shut a large silver door. I’m not sure why that detail is the one I choose to focus on. The silver repels him from my thoughts.

  I realize the gravity of the things I’ve been thinking and that in all likelihood he’s seen them all. Probably this is all silliness in my imagination, which has no effect other than pissing him off. I’m afraid he’s angry now, so I open my eyes cautiously to check the status of things.

  He’s standing a few feet away, his head cocked to the side like a curious puppy. “Well, that’s very interesting.”

  I know when he says this that it worked. Somehow I’ve shut him out.

  “You’re strong for a human. It makes me wonder if some of my Kindred’s blood flows through you.”

  Does that mean he thinks I have a vampire ancestor somewhere? Because I haven’t drunk vampire blood. I shudder with revulsion at even the thought of drinking blood. He’s still looking at me with a curious expression, so I know whatever shield I put up is still working. Oddly, he’s not trying to breech it. Maybe he likes the quiet as much as I do.

  I know he doesn’t mean I’m physically strong. Physically he could crush me like an ant. Physically I can barely push my car in neutral when I need to. But mentally I’ve shut him out of my thoughts with an imaginary silver door. I know he can demand I let him in, and I’m sure he’s got many persuasive ways to gain my obedience should he choose to. But for now, in this moment, I am free of the mental probing.

  “I’ll let you keep your silver door. I won’t be able to read you once you’ve had my blood, anyway.”

  This makes me take a step back. “Please, I don’t want to be a vampire.”

  There could be a lot of benefits, and the things I’d miss—like sunlight—are things he most likely won’t allow me to ever have again anyway. I just don’t like the idea of being trapped here forever in this world. I’ve spent the past few years figuring out what I believe about souls and the afterlife. I have charming notions involving other planes and worlds and maybe even reincarnation. But vampires throw a wrench in all of that. It’s not that I’ve ever believed in vampires until this moment, but now that I’m faced with the reality, I’m not sure what happens to them when they really die.

  Though I know the body and the soul are separate things, I’m so attached to the idea of a body that if a vampire just poofs out of existence, or melts, or something else equally distressing and instantaneous... where does his soul go? Because when a human being dies, there is still the body. We can convince ourselves that some transformative process took place that we couldn’t see. If a vampire dies in the ways I’ve seen in movies and read about in books, do they simply cease to be? Is that the cost of having conditional immortality? Does it destroy your soul and your real immortality? Play now; pay later?

  It seems poetic and ironic. And likely. And for this reason, among others, I never want to be a vampire. The concept is more frightening than anything I can imagine he might plan for the rest of my human existence.

  “You need not worry your pretty head,” he says. “I’ve only turned two women; both were failed experiments. I’m not prepared to go there again.”

  I let out a breath and he moves back into my space. He keeps picking up strands of my hair and tugging his fingers through them. Just staring, watching it glisten and reflect off the light.

  “Your hair is like sunshine. Do you know that, Juliette?”

  I shrug. I keep going back to his casual yes in response to whether or not he intends to hurt me. I haven’t been able to stop the tears, though they’ve moved to a more consistent, silent slide down my cheeks, which I hope he doesn’t find too annoying. The last thing I want to do is irritate or annoy him in any way.

  My next question is a whisper, but I know he can hear it. “Are you going to kill me?”

  He regards me for a minute and shrugs. “Probably. At some point.”

  His nonchalant acceptance of my demise at his hands acts like an arm sweeping under my legs, knocking me off my feet. I’m on the ground now, not bothering to try to be quiet. I think about the sugar cookies, and my mother’s soft laugh. I’ll never see her again. The one safe thing in my life, gone, sealed and placed out of my reach with the sentence the vampire has pronounced on me.

  I want everything to be simple and predictable again. I want to mix frosting. I want to rewind time and stay in my mother’s kitchen, curled up next to the oven where it’s warm and everything smells of sugar and bread. I’m sobbing now, and I don’t care.

  And my dad. I don’t see him a lot, but the last time I saw him we argued about something stupid. Was that really our last discussion? It’s too surreal. I can’t believe it yet.

  The begging forecast only minutes ago has arrived. “Please. You had mercy the last time.”

  “Did I? Or was I merely exhibiting restraint so I could selfishly take what I wanted when it had ripened to my liking? Admit it, Juliette. Deep down you knew I was coming back. Do you know how many times I stood outside your window and saw inside your dreams? Always of me and that night. You knew we had unfinished business. You’ve always known. You dreamed about me more than I dreamed about you. That’s saying something.”

  Though he says it with conviction, it’s a conviction I don’t mirror. There is no way I could have ever known any of this.

  “Are you hungry, pet?”

  Both the unexpected question and the endearment catch me off guard. How can he ask me something so stupid right now?

  I’ve been exposed to enough vampire lore—both old as well as modern twists—to wonder if we’re going to enter into some twisted vampire/human pet relationship and how close that relationship will be to the things I’ve read about. Some of what I read was pretty disturbing. I squeeze my eyes shut to block out what were once sexual fantasies. I can’t think about that right now.

  It feels s
illy to have had such dark fantasies to begin with. My sexual experience is so limited that it feels embarrassing to have even had a sexual thought. It makes me feel somehow less since I don’t have the experience to back it up. How do I know what turns me on or what I would like or wouldn’t like? It seems as if it’s a case of be careful what you wish for, and my fantasies have somehow manifested to punish me for thinking such dirty things. Somehow I know that the reality won’t be safe and clean or nearly as erotic as when it was just movies in my mind that I masturbated to.

  “Juliette? It was an easy question. It’s too early in our relationship to be trying my patience over such simple matters.”

  I can’t believe I just zoned out. I feel wetness between my thighs from where my mind just went, and I blush. Can he smell me? What must he think? Oh God. He’s probably hundreds of years old. He’s probably had sex in ways I can’t begin to imagine. The very idea of doing anything sexual with him freaks me out. It doesn’t even freak me out because he’ll do it whether I want it or not. It freaks me out because I’m afraid I’ll look like such a child to him. He’ll laugh. Then I’ll hope he kills me because living like that seems like it would be worse than him just ending me quickly.

  “Juliette!”

  His eyes flash red and his fangs descend.

  “I—I’m sorry. What was the question?” I can’t believe I’ve already forgotten what he asked me not a minute ago.

  “I asked if you were hungry.”

  I am hungry. Devon woke me, and we’d had plans to go eat, but then that didn’t happen.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?” he says.

  Hell, I don’t know. Actually, I think I know. In fact, I know I know. But it’s another one of those things. If I say it, and that’s not what he wanted, I’ll want the floor to open and swallow me. I’m not sure if I can even force the word through my lips if he demands it. It seems silly. I’ll feel mocked and judged.

  “Yes, Master,” he says, as if I’m retarded.

  My face heats at his demand, and it takes me a second to make myself say it, still afraid there will be laughter and mocking even though he’s demanded it. “Yes, Master.” My voice is quiet, but I know he can hear me.