How to Kill Yourself in a Small Town (34 page)

Desty

The
woods surrounding the cabin made for plenty of shade, but I sat in the grass
and leaned against the flat tire of Colt’s Explorer, slow-roasting in the sun.
Shut my eyes and stared at the blood red light shining through my eyelids. I
wished I couldn’t hear the yelling coming through the broken window. Colt’s
voice had almost given out, but the crashing and banging hadn’t slowed down
yet.

Judging
by the way the shadows had moved, it was three hours ago that Tough had shoved
me outside. At first I’d been mad that Tough didn’t want my help, but he was
right, I couldn’t help. I hadn’t even been able to handle Colt’s episode that
morning with the gun. That was nothing compared to this. This was like a
full-blown explosion of everything Mikal had been damming up while Colt was her
familiar.

I
told myself I should’ve been grateful for the reminder that I couldn’t handle
staying with Tough. Emotionally, physically, mentally—whatever the challenge, I
was not up to it. I wasn’t made to be badass. I wasn’t a fighter like him or
Colt or Tempie. No wonder Tough didn’t love me. How could he even take me
seriously when there were girls like Harper and Scout around being all strong
and militant and so freaking gorgeous?

Inside,
the noise-level spiked. Glass shattered and wood cracked. Then silence.

A
few minutes passed. Then Tough came out onto the porch and sat in the shade,
looking down at the scorched, brown grass.

“How’s
Colt?” I asked.

Tough
shook his head.

“You
knocked him out?”

He
nodded. The bill of his John Deere hat hid his expression, but he had his
elbows on his knees and he was leaning hard on them. I got up and went to the
porch to sit beside him. Without even looking up, Tough scooted closer and
leaned into my side. His skin was so cold.

“He’ll
be okay,” I said because I wanted it to be true.

Tough
pulled off his hat and let it hang from his fingertips between his legs. Then
he kissed me, really softly on the shoulder, the neck, the jaw, the cheek.
Every kiss was a little harder than the last. When he got to my mouth, he slid
his fingers into my hair and pulled me into his lips like his life depended on
it.

But
his fangs bumped against my teeth and snapped me back to reality.

“Stop
it, Tough.” I stood up.

He
stood up, too, and grabbed for my hand, but I backed into the sunlight.

“Don’t
touch me!” I yelled. “I know how this story goes. The hometown girl, the one who
‘gets you,’ the girl who’s the spitting image of her older sister who you used
to love? She’s the one you pick. I’m not going to be the brokenhearted,
delusional ex, wishing some cheating bastard would dump his younger girlfriend
and come back to me. I’ve seen how that ends.”

Tough
took a step toward me and reached out, his fingertips an inch from the
sunlight.

“I
don’t even like vampires,” I said, backing toward the tree line. Cowards always
back away. “Maybe Kathan, Tempie, and I will see you and Scout around town.”

Tough
snorted and shook his head, this awful smile on his face. He ran his hand
through his hair, then pulled his hat on. Gave me a Screw You, Too, wave.

I
grabbed my backpack out of his truck.

When
I looked over my shoulder, Tough was sitting on the porch again. He had his
head down and his fingers laced over the back of his neck like someone had
kicked the last of the goodtime durr-Chevy-kid out of him.

Tough

After
Mikal killed Mom, I thought I’d hate music forever. For years it made me sick
to even think about. I would wake up with a song in my head and bawling my eyes
out. Sissy would hug me and tell me that the war would be over soon and we’d be
back home and everything would be okay, but I didn’t care about that. I was upset
because music was everything to Mom and to me, too, but music was just a sound.
It was just noise.

I
stretched my leg out, then dragged my boot heel backwards through the dirt and
dead grass by the porch. Made the scrape I’d been working on since Desty left
deeper.

It
was so fucking quiet. The whippoorwills weren’t even singing. I needed a drink.
Fifty rounds of PKR with Jax and Harper and to wake up with a hangover so bad
I’d throw up everything from the last week including my shiny new fangs.

What
the fuck did I expect? I’d known Desty was leaving as soon as she heard Tempie
say I had fucked around on her with Scout. No, before that. As soon as I’d
realized she was this good thing I knew I couldn’t keep her or I would fuck her
up so bad that she wouldn’t be good at all anymore. Mikal was right. I was a
disease.

The
sun was down. It had to be after eight. Colt had come back around a while ago,
but he hadn’t moved or said anything since he woke up.

I
would’ve given anything for some sound to break up all that fucking silence.

Before
I even thought about moving, I was up and in the truck, turning the key back
and cranking up the radio. The music pumping out of the speakers was worse than
the quiet, though. It was just noise.

I
punched the radio hard enough to break my knuckles. Then I leaned back in the
seat and kicked the fucking thing until it stopped.

Some
part of me—I guess the crow magic—knew that blood would help. It remembered
Scout saying she could make her blood stronger for me. That part of me started
the truck and headed for town.

I
smacked the steering wheel. I didn’t want fuck with the heart of a girl who’d
been like my little sister forever. Just considering it proved that I was a
shittier man now than I ever was when I was alive.

When
I got to town, Mitzi’s look-at-me-red ‘66 Ford Fairlane was sitting in the
motel parking lot with the ragtop down. Mitzi was on the hood, kicked back like
she was waiting for something.

I
whipped the truck into the space beside her car and shut it off. Jumped out.
Slammed the door so hard the truck rocked.

“Heya,
Romeo,” she said.

Before
she could hop off the bumper, I was on top of her. Kissing Mitzi felt like
getting murdered. Like sticking your finger down your throat until you throw
up. Like everybody being right about you all along.

Mitzi
laughed and pulled me toward one of the motel rooms.

“Aw,
I missed you, too,” she said.

Tiffani

Not
five minutes after I finished with some skinny vamp-groupie in Lestat
knockoffs, the connection with Mitzi opened. She and Tough were in Halo’s
motel, having sex in the outdated shower. She gave me a quick look around. The
bathroom was full of steam, but I could see that the shower curtain had been
ripped down and a severed arm was leaking blood onto the tile.

Then
Mitzi turned her attention back to Tough. When the scratches across his chest
and stomach started healing, he pulled Mitzi’s hand back up and she dug four
new gashes with her fingernails. Vamp venom welled up, congealed, scabbed off.
Tough had her do it again, down his neck and across his sternum. He had his
eyes closed.

The
connection shut. That was all Mitzi had wanted me to see—Tough realizing he was
too dead to hurt right.

I
leaned against the corner of the mausoleum and listened to anorexic Lestat
finish getting dressed.

It
could have been territorial. Maybe Mitzi wanted me to know that I might’ve made
Tough, but she’d had him first. Or it could have been her way of showing me how
easy it would be for her to stake him. I could reopen the connection and try to
find out, but I didn’t want her to know that she could use Tough to get under
my skin.

I
pulled the Marlboro hard pack out of my pocket and lit a cigarette. Took a long
drag. Then I opened the connection with Tough.

Fuck
off, Tiffani,
he said.

Did
you leave your girlfriend with Colt?
I asked.

My
girlfriend is probably deep-throating Kathan by now. Unless it’s her sister’s
turn.

So
Colt’s alone? You left a castoff by himself? What in the hell were you
thinking?

A
combination of shame and guilt filled the connection for a second, but Tough
shook it off with pure punk-ass belligerence.

Sort
of busy right now, Tiffani, so unless there’s something else you need—

Yeah.
Mitzi’s going to stake you when she’s done fucking you. Better make it last.

Tough
didn’t care. I could feel it. He was existing second by second, refusing to
think about anything but what was happening right then. Maybe he would make it
to be one of those rare long-lived male vamps, after all. That survival-at-all-costs
instinct is half the battle.

I
shut the connection.

The
mausoleum door scraped shut and the stick figure in the Lestat knockoffs came
out, holding a patch of sterile gauze to his jugular.

“Hey,
uh, I’ll be in town all weekend if—”

I
left.

It
was strange to think that in almost five years I’d never gone out to the old
Baumeyer cabin.

It
hadn’t seemed strange before, though. Colt compartmentalized everything. The
cabin equaled training, reading, drinking alone. Tiffani equaled the bakery,
X-Files
,
cinnamon rolls and coffee. Hell, half the time Colt forgot to eat because food
was filed away in the “indoors” compartment and he spent most of his time
outside. If I hadn’t suggested he get a grill, he probably would’ve ended up as
starved as that anorexic kid in the cemetery.

The
cheap, curling linoleum on the kitchen floor crackled under my shoes and the
heartbeat in the bedroom raced. Colt started talking under his breath,
incoherent and hoarse. Fear has a distinct scent that the super-smeller never
misses, but it wasn’t enough to mask the scent of a creature living outside of
time. Feathers. Sex. Tar. Mikal.

The
jealous bitch in me snarled. Colt should’ve been mine.

Probably
what Mitzi was feeling about Tough.

“Hell,”
I said.

The
cabin went quiet.

“Colt?”
I eased the bedroom door open. “It’s all right. It’s me.”

He
was on the floor in the corner, knees up and head down. His whole body
stiffened as I got closer.

“You’re
not real,” he croaked.

“The
hell I’m not,” I said, touching his shoulder.

He
flinched and pulled away. “I can’t handle any more. There’re too many already.”

“Look
at me, Colt.”

He
raised his head. No sudden recognition, no shy smile or flood of endorphins,
just a hollow stare.

“Tiffani,”
I said. “Tiffani Cranston. The bakery. You come a couple times a week to check
up on Tough. Before Mikal, you did.”

“Mikal.”
The gravelly scratch in Colt’s voice made my throat hurt. “I loved her so much,
but I—” He put both fists to his eyes and started rocking back and forth.
“Fuck. Bad dog. This isn’t enough. It’s never going to be enough without her.”

I
slid down against the wall and crossed my legs. “You loved Mikal?”

“She
was all I had.”

“Mikal
was all you had.” Maybe my throat really did hurt. When I laughed it sure felt
raw, anyway. “Your favorite food is cinnamon rolls. Your favorite drink is
Southern Comfort. Your second favorite is black coffee. Your favorite show is
The
X-Files
. Right after we watched the ‘Resist or Serve’ episode, you went out
and got that tattoo on your chest. You couldn’t wait until morning to show me,
so you tracked me down after dark.”

I
could still picture him trying not to grin.

“What
do you think?” he had asked.

“I’m
not that into tattoos,” I’d said, tracing the red tenderness around the new
ink, watching goose bumps rise on his skin, feeling his heart pound underneath.
“Sort of old-fashioned that way.”

“You
like it,” he’d said.

In
the here and now, Colt rested his face against his knees and curled his arms
tight around his legs.

I
leaned my head back against the wall. Tried to tell myself this had been
inevitable. Even without Mikal, Colt would’ve broken eventually. The
hyper-compartmentalized life. The unbalanced temper he’d inherited from
Shannon. The obsession Danny had worked the kids into that Colt hadn’t been
able to escape. The rigid routine where every second was exercise, reading,
guns and ammunitions—no downtime—as if he was scared to stop moving.

Looking
back it was easy to tell myself I should’ve done something, but when Colt was
with me he hadn’t needed help. He’d made those dry, geeky jokes or let me lean
against him for warmth. Nothing else belonged in the “Tiffani” compartment.

The
only time I’d seen a crack was that last morning Colt had come by the bakery, a
little more than six weeks ago. He had watched me get ready to open, but didn’t
touch the lobster tail pastry I’d given him. He barely said anything, even when
I asked him questions. I could smell that he hadn’t had a drink in a week—that
alone should’ve been a clue. We tried to watch an
X-Files,
but he wasn’t
paying attention. After a while, I had shut it off.

“Want
to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Not
really,” he said.

“But
something is.”

He
had shivered, but when I started to move away, he put his arm around me. “It’s
not you. I’m not cold, I promise. Will you talk to me or something?”

I
don’t even remember what we talked about. Nothing important, I guess.

“It
was the morning after you shot Mikal’s familiar,” I told the shadow rocking in
the corner. “Took me a week to find out through the grapevine. By then you’d
already killed five of the poor bastards and gotten enthralled yourself.”

I
could try to tell myself that if I had known I would’ve tried to stop him, but
it wouldn’t have worked. All those times I’d told him to piss off that first
winter—anyone else would’ve given up. Colt had just watched and planned and
caught me one morning when I hadn’t been able to pick up a vamp-groupie. Then
he offered me his wrist.

“Let
me guess,” I had said, “You’ll let me drink if I’ll spy on your brother for
you?”

“Tell
me one time if you know Tough’s in trouble,” Colt had said. “You can even pick
the situation. It doesn’t even have to be mortal danger.”

I’d
been starving, starting to see the veins under his skin pumping him full of
hot, red life. I could’ve warned Colt it was going to hurt like hell—the wrist
is one of the worst places to be fed on—but I wanted to teach him a lesson. I
tore into the vein, clipped a tendon. I heard Colt grit his teeth, but he
didn’t stop me and he didn’t struggle. His heart beat exactly the way Shannon’s
used to when she was turned on.

It
was too much for me—the visceral pleasure of feeding, knowing that Colt liked
the way I was hurting him, smelling the tattoo ink in his skin—too much like
Shannon. She had thought she needed to cover her body with tattoos, couldn’t
stop with just one. “I’m not addicted,” she used to tell me, “I’m art.” Then I
had moved just right and the orgasm brought me crashing back to Colt. I threw
him the hell out of my bakery.

God
hates vamps, but He loves irony. I took Colt’s deal the day before Tough told
Mitzi that he loved her.

When
Colt came by again, I told him what Mitzi had done. I went through the speech—crow
magic, vamps are monsters who get off on mutilation and pain, all that. Colt
just stood there, staring down at the table like he didn’t know what to do.
Seeing that break in attitude had been like seeing Shannon drop all the rock
star swagger in that first panic attack. That was what finally did me in.

I
had sighed. Rolled my eyes at what a damn soft-shell I was.

“Coffee’s
going to be ready in a minute and those cinnamon rolls are almost done,” I’d
told Colt.

He
hesitated. I think he knew people around here didn’t like him.

“You
can leave before the bakery opens if you want,” I said.

So
he had stayed. We didn’t talk. He just sat in the booth and ate his cinnamon
roll.

“You
ate like you could appreciate all the subtleties of the flavors,” I remembered.
“Orange zest in the frosting. Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract in the dough.
Probably just me projecting, though.”

In
his corner of the bedroom, Colt had gone still. He was listening.

I
pushed up to my knees. Leaned forward.

“I
think that’s how you got me, Colt,” I said. “The next time you came in, I
started up the first episode of
The X-Files
so I could watch you eat
without you realizing it.”

The
locusts outside were singing louder than he was breathing. I could feel him
straining to hear me.

“It
took you six months to make a joke in front of me,” I said. “Do you remember
what you said?”

Silence.

“I
screwed up the lemon drops I was making. When I cussed and threw the pan at the
slop sink, you said, ‘It was that bastard Krycek.’”

The
soft huff could’ve been a laugh or the breath someone lets out when they slice
open their finger.

“Remember
me, Colt. Please.”

He
swallowed. I could hear the dry catch in his throat.

“Real
or not,” he said, “You’re the last person I want to remember.”