Caught in Darkness (27 page)

So far the fresh air was failing
her.

“Veronica? What a surprise!”

Her stomach clenched even as her
feet politely came to a stop. Cliff was the last person she wanted to have to
deal with. Still, she somehow managed to resist the juvenile urge to launch
into a sprint and leave him eating her dust.

Cliff came up to her with a smile,
arms loose at his sides. “I was wondering why you weren’t in the coffee shop
today.
Day off?”

She opened her mouth to answer his
rhetorical question when she finally remembered why she’d been so angry at him
before. And as soon as she remembered that inappropriate, unwanted kiss her
polite almost smile fell into a frown and she crossed her arms over her chest. She
wasn’t stuck at work, where she was expected to have professional manners, nor
was she trapped in a social setting devised by her well-meaning mother. She
could finally tell him exactly what she thought of his advances; it was just
unfortunate for him that she was already in a less than great mood.

“You know,” Cliff was already
continuing, “it’s good that we met up outside of the café, though. I can’t
figure out a socially-acceptable way to ask you to dinner when you’re working,
but I definitely—”

“Are you serious?” Veronica asked
incredulously. “You’re seriously standing there thinking you have a chance in
hell of getting me to go anywhere with you?”

Cliff faltered, eyes widening.

“I don’t even like you!” As sad as
it was, it felt fabulous to finally be able to say that.
“And
after you failed—on more than one occasion—to take the hint you turned around
and kissed me!
In front of my mother!
While I was at
work!”
She was amazed that she wasn’t yelling, though from the
expression on his face she suspected she might as well have been. He looked
like a kicked puppy.

“I…had no idea,” Cliff said
carefully, disappointment heavy in his voice.

She knew she should feel guilty. She
knew she should probably have tried to find a nice, gentle, non-confrontational
or accusatory way of telling him to leave her alone. She knew her mother was
going to hear about this and then they’d be arguing again. But she just didn’t
care. She needed to get him out of her life so that she could focus on the
myriad of real problems popping up around every corner.

“Well now you know,” Veronica
declared shortly. “Next time you’re interested in a woman, try paying attention
to her first. Look for a sign that she’s interested too before you start
hitting on her.” She turned, then, and resumed walking. She had nothing left to
say to him.

She passed a sidewalk bench, a tall
garbage pail, and a couple of trees before her mind returned to the subject
she’d been obsessing over since the previous night. A sigh escaped her lips and
her pace slowed. What am I supposed to do? Their respective jobs weren’t the
problem. She was more than willing to walk away from hers if that was what it
took to keep him in her life, and she didn’t have a problem with the fact that
his job literally took him all over the world. She was even willing to move
with him, though she knew that she wouldn’t see her mother or Allison as often
as she was used to.

But the problem was deeper than
that. The simple truth was that he was immortal and she wasn’t. He had already
lived over two hundred years and he had countless centuries ahead of him. She
had lived over two decades and all she had left was—at best—a large handful
more. In the basest of ways they were entirely incompatible.

But, if that’s true, then why is it
so hard to think about watching him walk away?

She stopped walking, her arms
coming up around herself as her eyes squeezed shut. Suddenly she imagined she
understood the pain her father had felt right before his heart stopped, because
having something sharp stabbing into it couldn’t hurt more than she did in that
moment. And that was a great reminder. Her father had given up everything to
make a life with her mother and still they had been separated far too early.

Veronica’s eyes snapped open, her
breath catching in her throat, as an idea occurred to her. The one thing she
hadn’t considered was following in her father’s footsteps—giving up everything
in order to stay with the man she’d fallen in love with. If I were a vampire
this wouldn’t even be an issue. It was true. But that would require her leaving
her mother and Allison and everyone she’d ever known behind—largely without
even being able to say goodbye. Could she do it?

Can I let him go?

****

Seth was leaning back against his
couch, running through the list of places he and
Jasen
had cleared in an effort to deduce where Richards and the Wilson brothers could
be hiding, when Veronica settled next to him and asked a question that
thoroughly ruined his concentration.

“How do people become vampires,
exactly?”

“What?” Seth found himself asking,
lifting his head and turning his attention to the blonde beside him.

She gave him a funny look and said,
“You heard me. I remember you saying once that you’d been ‘Turned’ when you
were twenty-eight, and you also said that vampires can’t reproduce. So how do
people become vampires?”

Seth swallowed. His instincts were
screaming at him that this was a dangerous topic and should be avoided at all
costs, so he asked, “Why do you want to know?”

Arching a slender brow at him,
Veronica countered, “Why are you acting like you don’t want to tell me? I’ve
asked all kinds of questions over the last couple of weeks, remember? I’m just
curious.”

She was right, of course. He
couldn’t even explain why he was afraid of answering this question, but logic
assured him he was being irrational. Releasing a breath, Seth replied, “In
order to be Turned vampire blood has to be introduced into a human’s
bloodstream in their last moments of life. Bleeding into a human’s open wounds
and then killing them quickly is usually how most vampires
Turn
another, but there are other ways.”

Veronica’s expression was
thoughtfully curious as she nodded and asked, “So drinking vampire blood
doesn’t do it?”

Seth’s lips twitched and he shook
his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

Veronica nodded again and this time
a frown marred her lips. “Then you’ve…died?”

“That was a long time ago,” Seth
replied. “I’ve made peace with it.” She was searching his eyes for proof of his
words so he offered her a gentle smile and reached over, covering her nearest
hand with one of his. “I would never have met you if I hadn’t been
Turned
, you know.”

Her expression eased and she
smiled. “You make a good point.” After a moment of comfortable silence
something shifted in her gaze and she pulled her lip between her teeth before
saying, “Actually, I…I’ve been thinking about something.”

His eyes narrowed as his stomach
clenched again. She was hedging and he couldn’t help but worry that he knew
why. He didn’t know what he’d say if he was right.

“Seth,” Veronica began, shifting
her hand so that she could properly hold his, “I want to stay—”

The buzzing of his cell phone
interrupted her, cutting off what she was about to say and buying him some
precious time to figure out his response. Giving her hand a squeeze he quickly
snatched the phone up and put it to his ear, saying, “Hunter.”

Robert’s voice was rushed on the
other end of the line when he said, “Troy Wilson was spotted outside of town,
to the East. I just got off the phone with the man who saw him. He should still
be there.”

For once Robert’s timing couldn’t
have been better. “Call me if you hear anything else. I’ll check it out.” He
hung up without waiting for Robert’s response and offered Veronica an honestly
apologetic look as he said, “I’m sorry. One of the Wilsons was just spotted. I
have to go.”

Veronica released a frustrated
breath and nodded. She leaned forward quickly, pressing her lips to his, and
whispered, “Good luck.”

He nodded gratefully, releasing her
hand and pushing to his feet with his phone still in his other hand. He wanted
to tell her he loved her—just like he’d wanted to the previous night, when
she’d confessed to him—but he knew better. If she had any idea how much it
would kill him to walk away from her when the time came he was afraid she’d go
through with what she’d been about to say. And he refused to take her away from
her peaceful, normal life.

But there was time enough to deal
with that later. He needed to get to the eastern edge of town, and he needed to
call
Jasen
so that they could meet there. Maybe, once
he’d finally put an end to Richards’s threat, he could figure out how to break
her heart.

****

Veronica was restless. Seth had
only been gone twenty minutes—maybe—and she couldn’t sit for more than a couple
of minutes before she was on her feet and walking aimlessly through the condo. She
couldn’t decide if she was frustrated with that phone call Seth had received or
actually glad for it. Earlier, when she’d been going over the pros and cons of
asking him to
Turn
her, she’d decided it was
ultimately worth it. Becoming a vampire would allow her to stay with him, and
that was what she wanted the most. That part hadn’t changed, but now that she
was alone again she
was doubting
herself. What if she
had misinterpreted his behavior last night? What if he wasn’t in love with her?

Idiot.
If
he doesn’t love you then he won’t
Turn
you.

It seemed simple enough, and the
logic of the thought was perfectly straightforward. But it didn’t help. He’d
never said aloud how he felt, but the night before she had been so sure that
now she wasn’t sure if she was just panicking or if she was right to be
second-guessing herself. And she knew that she wasn’t going to find her answer
by just lounging around in his condo while he was out fighting the evil
vampires. But I need to figure it out tonight. If they won this fight then this
could be her last chance to keep him in her life. To do that she needed her
answer.

She was standing in the bedroom,
hands on hips and frowning when she realized that she had wandered out of the
living room. And then her eyes landed on her keys, resting innocently on the
nightstand alongside her phone charger, and an idea struck her. Maybe I can
figure things out
out
there.

Her keys were in her hand a beat
later, and then she’d turned and started down the hall confidently. It was a
different enough idea that it just might inspire her and help her come to a
final decision, and that was exactly what she needed. Not that Seth would
approve. But that didn’t matter at the moment, since he was busy. And,
fortunately,
Jasen
had brought over her car after
he’d finished with Dennis, so she had her own transportation.

Cemeteries really were creepier at
night, even if the sun was only barely set and the sky hadn’t yet reached its
darkest. Veronica pulled in a deep breath, clicking on the emergency flashlight
that she kept in her car, and reminded herself that zombies still weren’t real
(because, yes, she’d asked). She found the small cement path easily enough and
followed it as far as she could before branching off and navigating her way
past a row of old headstones until she found the one she was looking for. As
always, as soon as her eyes landed on the weather-worn surface of her father’s
headstone a level of sadness settled over her heart.

“Hi, Dad,” she whispered as she
knelt carefully on the thin green grass. “I know it’s late, but…I thought if
anyone could understand the situation I’m stuck in, it would be you.” She
swallowed and sighed heavily, releasing the flashlight in order to curl her
hands in her lap. Suddenly she wished she had known the version of her father
that had acknowledged vampires and werewolves, so that she could better gauge
how he might have reacted to everything that was currently going on in her
life.

But it wasn’t like she hadn’t known
him at all. She knew—after having met her uncle—that he had changed a lot when
he chose Carol over the Claypool legacy. So the reaction that Ronald Claypool
might have had would probably have been different than the reaction that Ronald
Wyndham would have had. The better question, then, was how would her father
have reacted?

Your father always believed you
could be anything you wanted. They were her mother’s words, and when she’d said
them she had been arguing Veronica’s decision to work part-time at a coffee
shop, but they had stuck with her for an entirely different reason. Her mother
had just volunteered that reference, despite her tendency to avoid any and all
mentions of her late husband. And now, several years later, those words held
such a different meaning than her mother could ever have imagined.

She had to believe her father had
been the kind of Slayer who didn’t hate supernatural beings simply because they
existed, just like she had to believe that he would understand what her heart
kept telling her. She felt like she had finally found her place, after a
lifetime of wandering, and that place was at Seth’s side. But in order to
embrace that destiny she was going to have to leave behind the life her father
had tried to build for her and her mother.

Tears in her eyes, Veronica said,
“You gave me my foundation, Dad. I’ll never forget that. But the life you were
raised in wasn’t the one you were meant for, and I’ve realized that that’s
where I’m standing now.”

As hard a decision as it was, there
was no doubt in her mind now. She hated the idea of hurting the people she’d be
leaving behind, but she would be leaving them behind one way or another even if
she stayed. Her heart was in Seth’s hands and a body couldn’t survive without
its heart. Now all that she had left to do was convince him of what she’d come
to realize: they were meant to be together.