Dark Secrets (104 page)

David?

He looked at me, his
emerald-green eyes shining out under his low-pulled
brow.

Did he find me,
David? Did Mike find me?
I clutched Mike’s
shoulder tightly, studying David’s face for proof of a lie, trying
to feel my heart beating—to steady it—but after months of sensory
deprivation, everything was so loud and so bright. I couldn’t feel
it beating anymore.

David closed his eyes,
nodding, and looked away.

I knew what Mike
would’ve seen. I knew what David would’ve seen in Mike’s
head—even
he
couldn’t look at me. “I’m sorry, Mike,” I cried. “Oh, God.
I’m so sorry.”

Mike let out a gust of
air and his sad gaze drew me in as he pulled back. Tears streamed
over his cheeks, his eyes falling stunned into the silence that
stopped on his lips. “Ar, I…”

My cheeks flushed with
heat; I turned my face away.

“
No.” Mike took my chin in his fingers and made me look at
him. “No, Ara, you have
nothing
to be sorry for. You did nothing wrong. This is
something that was done to you.”

“
He bit me.” I
touched my neck.

“
Yes.” Mike’s eyes,
with desperation hiding in the corners, met mine. “Do you remember
anything else?”

I looked at David,
who lifted his head when he read my thought;
He bit me, does that mean I’m a…?

He shook his
head.

I’m not a
vampire?

He closed his eyes and
shook his head again.

My breathing slowed
entirely. I lowered my head and rested my hand across my
lips.
Why? Why aren’t I dead then? He bit
me. I should be dead, right?

Our gazes locked
again; David nodded.

Mike moistened his dry
lips, then wiped a palm across his mouth. “I wish I’d never let you
out of my sight. Just a split second was all it took. I just—I was
watching you. I was right there and…” He bit his knuckle for a
second. “I tried to get to you—but he was gone.”

“
It’s not your fault,
Mike,” I whispered; it was all I could do to console him. My throat
hurt and the muscles under my jaw felt strained.

“
I should’ve
protected you. It was my job, Ara.” Mike looked at David for a
second. “They…they say you have the same mark on your neck as that
kid who died—Nathan?”

What? He died from a
vampire bite?

David
nodded.

A vampire? Not you,
David? You didn’t do it, did you?

He closed his eyes.
Mike studied the both of us, no clue we were exchanging our own
private words. I looked away from Mike, and my wide eyes studied
every inch of David’s face. There was no way David killed Nathan. I
couldn’t believe that. I
wouldn’t
believe it.

David looked up, his
warm eyes softening as he opened them and muttered, “Thank you,”
under his breath.

“
They just can’t
understand why—if it was the same guy—why Nathan didn’t report an
attack,” Mike said. “Ara, you shouldn’t be alive right now. Your
attacker was carrying some rare tropical disease. You
died!”

“
I died?”

“
Yes. They pronounced
you brain-dead. You flat-lined, they took out the breathing tube
and your heart stopped. But then, the monitor—” he looked at the
small screen behind me, “—it started beeping again. You kept going.
Somehow, you found a way.”

The memory of the
darkness filled my mind; the air became thick and hard to inhale,
closing me in, the dry smell of dirt choking me. I looked down at
my hand. “My ring?”

“
It’s here.” Mike
pulled it from his pocket and held it up; it looked so small and
fragile in his broad, strong fingers.

“
I thought I’d lost
it. All this time, in the darkness, I thought I’d lost it.” My
voice quivered as the reality of being alive set in.

David closed his eyes
and looked away when Mike slipped the ring back onto my finger. I
had no time to stop him—it just happened, and the hurt on David’s
face tore my heart as it dropped into my stomach.

“
They wouldn’t let
you keep it on,” Mike said softly. “But I kept it close to me every
day.”

Like a habit that had
been formed over years, I twisted the ring around on my finger and
studied the shimmering red of the ruby, regretting having asked
Mike about it. “Where’s Vicki? My Dad?”

“
They went for
coffee,” Mike said. “They stayed for a while, but your dad needed a
break—he’s not doing so well.”

“
Can you call them?” I asked Mike, but looked at David
quickly.
I need him to go, David—I need to
talk to you.

“
Sure.” Mike nodded.
“Sure, kid. I’ll be right back. David, man?”

David snapped out of
his stiff-lipped stare. “Yeah.”

“
Don’t let her go,
okay?”

He nodded and took my
hand, crushing the ring against my finger as he squeezed it. “Don’t
worry, I’ll take care of her
for
you
.”

Mike paused a second,
ignoring the resentment we all heard in David’s tone, then, with
his phone in hand, closed the door, and I turned to David, trying
to stop my lip from quivering.

“
I know,” he said. “I
know where you’ve been. I tried to bring you back, but I just
couldn’t reach you.”

“
Why? Why did he do
that to me?”

David’s face crumpled,
but he stiffened immediately and held straight. “He wanted to hurt
me.”

“
Why?”

“
Do you not remember
what he showed you?”

Rochelle?

He looked away. “He’s
never forgiven me. I thought we’d moved past it. But he was just
biding his time until
I
fell in love.”

“
But, that was fifty
years ago, wasn’t it?”

David nodded,
stroking my cheek with the back of his finger. “I’m sorry, Ara.
There are no words…” He shook his head. “
No
words I can offer you to make
this all right.”

I grabbed his hand and
held it to my cheek. “It’s okay. You’re here. That’s all that
matters.”

“
No. What matters is
that you’re alive, and that this will never, ever happen to you
again.”

“
So…he won't…I mean,
he won’t come back for me?”

David shook his head,
seeming to detain the words that might’ve accompanied the
action.

“
How can you be
sure?”

“
Because he left you alive, Ara. For what reason, I do not
know, but the fact that you’re still here—that he gave you the
chance to survive, and that he didn't kill Mike when
he
found
you—”

“
What? Jason was
there when Mike found me?” I pushed myself up to sit.

David nodded, pressing
my chest until I laid back down.

“
How do you
know?”

“
I saw it all.” He
rolled his chin toward his chest.

I looked away, going
numb all over. “He told me he was going to make you watch.” I hoped
he wouldn’t.

“
It
wasn’t like that, Ara. He wouldn’t show me.” His fists clenched. “I
all but ripped it from his mind. When I saw you here, saw the
tearing on your throat—I knew. There is only
one
person in this world who would
do that to a girl everyone
knew
belonged to me.” He took off across the room,
stopping by the window, with the daylight reminding us both that
the real world still existed out there. “I went straight to
him—
forced
him to
show me. Only…I wish I hadn’t.”

“
I’m sorry, David. I
should never have went with—”

“
No, Ara.” He appeared beside me, taking my hand. “None of
this is your fault. None of it. I left you. I did this. Not you.
You should hate
me
.”

That’s not possible,
David. It’s not your fault—Jason did this, no one else.

He sniffed once,
staying silent for a while, looking down at my ruby ring. “I will
never understand why he didn’t finish what he started—but I am
eternally grateful that he didn’t.”

“
The darkness? He
wanted me to be lost down there,” I concluded.

“
No.” David shook his
head. “No. He said something—as he left you. Something that just
didn’t fit.”

“
What did he say?” My
brow creased; it felt so weird to use those muscles
again.

“
He
kissed you on the cheek and touched your hair, but he did it so
gently.” David absentmindedly copied the action of his brother. “He
touched you the way
I
would. Then he said,
You don’t know
how special you are. I can break your body, but I’ll never break
this.
” David placed his hand over my
heart. I looked up from my chest and into the confusion on his
face. “It just doesn’t make any sense. I
know
him; I know what he’s capable
of. Whatever changed his mind, you don’t know how lucky you are—how
lucky
Mike
is.
Ara, he was going to—” He closed his eyes.

An involuntary shudder
edged up my spine. We both breathed heavily in the silence for a
second.

“
But he bit me. Why
didn’t I change?”

David drew a long
breath, masking the shaking in his chest. “I’m sorry, Ara.
You—”

“
I don’t have the
gene?” Hot tears filled my eyes again. I felt myself being pulled
backward—like I’d stayed put in the crowded lounge of an airport
and watched myself leave. David looked away. “But, I…I changed my
mind.”

“
I know.” David
nodded. “You just—it’s just not in your blood, Ara.”

My whole body stilled,
my eyes closing tightly around hot liquid. “I don’t want to die
anymore, David. I can’t be without you again.”

“
I know. I know, my
love.” He stroked my hair, holding my face to his chest, but there
was nothing he could say. “You can never be a vampire, Ara. The
promise of eternity was never mine to give.”

The emptiness of
stolen dreams consumed me, and something died within my soul; all
hope fell away to the darkness of my nightmares—like a rose,
falling through eternity to a marbled ground of nowhere—laying
lifeless and spoiled with a single drop of crimson on her pretty,
white petal. The only colour she would ever see again.

David rested his
forehead to mine and tucked a lock of hair behind my
ear.

“
How can that be?” My
words touched his lips in a breath. “How can it be over now that
I’ve made up my mind?”

His jaw tightened.
“Sometimes, Ara, life is cruel.”

“
I can’t do this,
David. I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself that I’ll never get
back—this can’t be the end.”

“
You’re marrying
him
,” David’s voice quavered as he
nodded toward the hall—to where Mike went to call my dad. “That’s
as concluded as things get.”

“
But you told me to.
You wanted me to.”

David’s fingers
tightened around my face. “I’m no saint, Ara. I want what’s best
for you, but at the same time…” He let out a heavy breath. “I
couldn’t care less if being with me meant the end of your
future.”

“
Then don’t let me
go.” Hope filled my voice. “Stay with me. Run away with me,
I’ll—”

“
Ara? I can’t. You know I can’t. I have things I need to deal
with—things I must return and take care of, and running away—” he
looked down at my face, “—it’s not the answer, my love.
Life
is the answer, even
if loneliness is the outcome.” I went to protest, but David shook
his head and pressed his thumbs firmly into my cheekbones, gently
pressuring me to silence. “You
will
have a good life with him. I know now that I’m
leaving you in good hands.”

We both looked to the
hall—to Mike, to my best friend and fiancé, practically bouncing
around the corridor, smiling with more joy radiating from his heart
than I had ever seen. When I looked back at David, he was already
looking at me; his lips twitching as if words rested there—maybe
words I wanted to hear him say.

“
I don’t want to have
a life anymore. I want to be with you.”

“
I know,” he said
sympathetically, like an adult telling a child her mother was
dead.

“
Don’t do that. Don’t
speak to me with such finality.”

“
I—”

“
Please. I had a lot
of time to think in the darkness, David, and none of it matters to
me now.” I sniffled, wiping the liquid from my nose. “Love. True
love—that’s all that matters.”

David shook his head.
“You can never be immortal, Ara. I sat here, by your side, all this
time, and I
watched
you die. I was helpless, unable to save you—forced to let you
fade away a little more every day,” his voice broke to a whisper.
“You disappeared into nothing, until every trace of what made you
mine, what made you
real
—was gone.”