Indulgence (240 page)

And then there was Matt. I couldn’t fathom why Vincent would
have crafted such an elaborate plan. He intentionally caused our accident
without regard for Matt’s life or my own. Then he stole Matt and hid him. But
where? And why? Why not just kidnap me if he feared me transforming and going
on a wild hunt? Or why not just kill Matt? I shuddered at the thought, but if
Vincent was as selfish as his siblings said he was, why would he go through the
trouble of kidnapping Matt and transplanting him somewhere else? It seemed it
would have been easier to just permanently remove one of us from the situation.

Anger swelled inside of me as these thoughts ran through my
head. If only I had known what that burning was deep in my core, my true
lineage, maybe I wouldn’t have looked so hard to discover what it meant. But
what I was really having a hard time dealing with were the never ending
questions: why me and why now? Was it possible that my ancestors had been happy
enough with their lives that they ignored the burning inferno at the center of
their being? And I just couldn’t ignore it and kept searching for an answer
which brought about the symptoms even faster? And look where that got me.
Vincent stole my husband, manipulated my friends’ minds, manipulated my mind
and now I was one of the living dead – soulless and eternally damned. I should
have listened to Matt when he told me to watch what I wished for. Was he ever
right! What I wouldn’t do to go back to that life I thought was so average and
ordinary and, dare I say, boring.

I came out of my daze and breathed in the cool air. My skin
was hot but my blood was boiling even hotter with anger and contempt for
Vincent. He wasn’t going to get his precious trophy this time.

I leapt from my perch and headed west. The thought of
Vincent not knowing what was coming made me smile.

It took just a few minutes at the speed I was traveling to
reach the lake in my backyard. I slowed to a jog and focused my eyes. Vincent
was sitting on the bench by the lake. Even from this distance I could see how
handsome he was. His silhouette was flawless, each feature in perfect
proportion. I couldn’t let his looks or his charisma faze me this time. I
slowed to a walk as I approached him.

“Allison,” Vincent uttered as he stood and walked towards
me. He grabbed my face with both of his hands and kissed my lips which sent an
electrifying current through my body. I didn’t reciprocate. “You look
beautiful,” Vincent stated as he stepped back and eyed my outfit. “Do you like
the clothes? Francesca made them just for you.”

“They’re nice,” I responded bluntly.

“Nice?” He appeared surprised at my response or lack
thereof. “That’s not the word I would have chosen to describe a custom wardrobe
made exclusively for you.”

“I never liked clothes all that much.”

Vincent didn’t respond. He stared at me as if trying to read
my mind. I was sure he was wondering why I wasn’t over the moon with my new
wardrobe and my lack of enthusiasm must have had him stumped. He was still
holding my hands and I made sure not to concentrate too long on any one image
so he couldn’t pick up on my thoughts.

“What took you so long to get here?” A different expression
washed over Vincent’s face. It appeared that he was worried but I wasn’t sure
if he was worried about me or worried that something wasn’t going according to
his plan. Or maybe he was truly suspicious about my long commute.

“I stopped by the river to take in the view,” I said, trying
to hold back my anger. I shook my hands loose from Vincent’s grip and placed my
arms firmly by my sides. Vincent combed my face with his eyes.

“Okay,” he reluctantly said, apparently believing me or
ignoring the obvious. “Are you ready to go?”

I was in awe of his response but showed no emotion. I couldn’t
believe that he could clearly tell something was wrong with me and he wasn’t
going to ask. Maybe he really was as self-centered as his siblings had said.

I scoffed. “No,” I replied, narrowing my eyes directly into
his.

“No?” Vincent questioned, cocking his head to the side.

“You have to answer a few questions first.”

“Allison, we really have to get going. We have a flight to
catch.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, “this won’t take long.”

Vincent looked me over one more time and finally resigned.
“What is it that you would like to ask?”

I looked down at the ground and then back up into his eyes.
“What did you say to me before you bit me? I recall seeing your lips moving but
I couldn’t hear anything. What did you say?”

Vincent smiled and appeared relieved, maybe by the nature of
my question. “I said that I’ve always known how special you were.”

My heart dropped and if my face could still flush, my cheeks
had to be bright red. “You son of a bitch,” I cursed.

“Excuse me?”

Looking at Vincent now, I felt nothing – no love, no desire,
nothing. Actually I felt something. I felt hatred and abhorrence and revulsion.

“You,” I hissed, “uttered those words to my parents on the
day I was born and somehow engrained in their minds the need to constantly
remind me just how
special
I was. Those damned words have haunted me my
entire life, forcing me to look for my true calling and lead me to this! Lead
me to you! You had no right to do that to them.”

“What I said to your parents on the day you were born was
the truth, Allison. How they choose to deal with those words was their choice
alone. I can’t be held accountable for that.”

“No, you don’t get to blame this on them.” I pushed his
shoulders forcing him backwards and onto the bench.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you, Allison.
This attitude can’t all be about a silly little phrase I uttered thirty-two
years ago.”

“Humph,” I shook my head in disbelief and whispered to
myself, “silly little phrase.” That silly little phrase had had an unbelievable
impact on me for my entire life, an impact which he apparently couldn’t see. I
leaned in over Vincent and placed both hands on the back of the bench, blocking
him in with my arms. “Where is Matt?” I whispered.

Vincent’s head jerked back at the sound of Matt’s name.

“Allison, Matthew is dead. Remember…”

“Cut it out, Vincent!” I yelled, anger seething through my
clenched teeth. “I know everything. Where is he?”

Vincent took a moment before he responded. A cocky grimace
spread across his face. “And what exactly do you think you know, Allison?” His
voice was cool and calm. He pushed both of my shoulders, backing me away from
the bench, as he stood up.

“I know that you bit me the night of the Halloween party and
Marlo ran after you. She saw the accident in your mind; she saw you take Matt.”
My voice broke and venomous tears began to roll down my face at the thought of
Matt. The anger that had been building in my core was now overflowing. “She saw
the visions you fabricated in your mind and fed me as the truth. You used your
gift to record and replay stories to manipulate my mind and that of my friends.
You helped accelerate my symptoms by feeding me blood and passing it off as
wine. Do I need to go on?”

“Hmm,” Vincent mulled his thoughts for a moment, stroking
his chin. “You’ve been talking to Marlo.” He was coy in his response.

“It doesn’t matter who I’ve been talking to. I know the
truth and now I want answers from you. Where…is…Matt?” I demanded.

Vincent turned his back to me and walked around the bench,
seemingly taking his sweet time in selecting his next words. His calmness
angered me.

“Even if I told you where Matthew is, what good would that
do you? You can’t see him. Or rather,” Vincent paused, “he can’t see you.”
Vincent waived his hand up and down, insinuating Matt couldn’t see me because
of my post- transformation appearance. “You can’t openly reveal who you really
are to him, unless…”

“Unless, what?” I shouted.

“Or maybe you would reveal yourself to Matthew,” he said in
a taunting voice, “yes, and then you would be in the same situation I am. A
rule breaker, damned to death.”

“You would like that wouldn’t you?” I snarled. “You would
like it if I broke a rule just like you, and faced death, just like you. What?
Then I would be left with no other choice than to run off with you so we could
exist happily ever after?”

“It did cross my mind,” Vincent replied arching his
eyebrows.

“You bastard,” I roared. Anger piled up in my belly and I
could barely hold it back. The urge to leap over the bench and rip out his
throat was so tempting. “After all you have done to me, you still think I would
run away with
you
?” My voice echoed through the hollow ridges below us.

Vincent ignored my question. “You know, Allison, even if I
did tell you where Matthew is, it wouldn’t matter.” He stopped pacing and
squared himself to me. He twisted his face into mine and said, “He wouldn’t
know who you are.” His lip curled up at the edge, the tips of his fangs visible
and an arrogant grin stretched his mouth.

“You erased all memory of me?” I was disgusted by the
thought. Not only was it bad enough that he had kidnapped Matt and transplanted
him somewhere, but he had erased the past eight years of his memory and our
life together.

“I had to, Allison. It was for his own good.”

“What is wrong with you?” I shouted. “You think you can just
go around manipulating other peoples’ lives for your own benefit?”

“Our kinds shouldn’t intermingle anyways.”

“What in the hell does that mean?”

“Allison,” Vincent stated calmly. “I don’t understand why
you are so angry. If anything, you should be thanking me.”

“Thanking you?” I yelled. “And what exactly should I be
thanking you for?”

“Think about it, I saved Matthew’s life.” Vincent was
sincere in his response.

“You can’t be serious?”

“Your symptoms were there and they were real; you know that
now. I removed Matthew from a very dangerous situation before you transformed
on your own and possibly harmed him, maybe even killed him. How could you be
mad at me for that? I saved him from certain death and eternal damnation.”

Vincent’s siblings were right, he was selfish and
self-centered and lived in his own world.

“You stole him from me, hid him and then basically drugged
me to accelerate my symptoms and you expect me not to be mad? And not only
that, you expect me to thank you for destroying my life and Matt’s?”

“I only nudged your symptoms along. It was inevitable that
you were going to have to transform. I did what I had to do to get you to
finally see what you really were.”

“You did what you had to do?”

“Yes, Allison. You certainly didn’t pick up on any of the
more subtle hints that I had left for you.”

“And what kind of subtle hints did you leave for me?”

“I knew you were dreaming about the garden, of course.”

“Because you planted those dreams!”

“No. I did not plant those dreams.” He said the words with
such sincerity that I believed him. “That was the venom in your system trying
to tell you your history. I heard you talk about the dream and that’s when I
knew you were more than just a descendant with thirteen gold flecks in each eye.
But you couldn’t interpret the dream on your own so I left some books to help
you piece it all together.”

“Books? What books?”

Vincent sighed. “In your den, Allison. At your house.” He
tossed his head over his shoulder and nudged it towards my house. “All of those
leather bound books detail your family’s history. I recorded everything that I
had learned from your ancestors or witnessed with my own eyes and wrote them
down on those pages. I even left the Bible open to the story of the Garden of
Eden thinking it would catch your attention and make you want to read but it
didn’t.”

No wonder Vincent had been so persistent for me to read the
night I came home from the hospital. He had wanted me to figure everything out
on my own.

“And when you obviously weren’t going to read the books I
thought I’d try something else.”

“And what was that?”

“I wanted to plant a different sort of dream. Not one of the
garden because I didn’t want to tamper with that. But I figured since I knew
you could dream, why not plant one that directly told you that you were a
vampire.”

“You planted that nightmare that I had on Rattlesnake
Island? What were you thinking?”

“Allison, believe me, that wasn’t the dream I envisioned. I
dreamt up a romanticized story, something you would see in the movies,
something that would have made you want to become a vampire, not scare you from
it.”

“Well then what happened?”

“I don’t really know. Maybe the venom…”

“Enough. Enough!” I yelled. I couldn’t take this anymore.
Vincent was avoiding anything having to do with Matt. “You could have
approached me and left Matt out of this!”

“Oh yes, because when I told you on our trip home from the
island that you were part vampire, you really believed me,” Vincent
sarcastically replied. “If I would have told you that, you would have run back
to Matthew and told him about the conversation and I couldn’t have that.”

“You could have faked my death! Didn’t you think of that?
You could have left Matt and my friends alone and just faked my death.”

“Events may not have unfolded the way I wanted them to, but
what’s done is done,” Vincent replied.

“And you think you have what you want. Me.”

“I would still like you to go away with me, yes.”

“You have to be kidding me! Never! I never want to see you
again,” I said through labored breath, tears scorching my face. “You stole my
husband, manipulated my friends and cursed me. If I ever see you again, I’ll
kill you myself and save my siblings from having to do it!”

Vincent snorted. “Your siblings,” he stated.