Phoenix Dead (New Adult Dark Romance) (The Vampire Years) (5 page)

He looked up at me, offered a weak smile. “You and me, baby girl, at least that much.”

I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at him and shook my head. “Just you, then.”

I had admitted it yesterday to Danny. Maybe Elliot needed to know the truth, too. Maybe he needed to see where he was headed if he didn't pull back from the drugs and alcohol.

“Elliot, she gave me to Army.”

“Don't say that, baby girl.”

“It's true.”

He grabbed my wrist. In my slightly refreshed state, it held no more strength than the grip of a child, but I didn't break his hold.

“You misunderstood.”

“Hard to misunderstand her hand over my mouth when I was screaming for help.”

Shaking his head, he repeated himself. “You misunderstood, baby girl.”

I twisted my arm free. His hand fell to his knee. He stared at it as if he didn't recognize it as his own.

Walking into the kitchen, I called back to him, “Just cremate her. You can keep the ashes. Paul won't want them if he comes back.”

I just prayed he didn't come back before I turned 18. I didn't want to think about what would happen if he had even a day's custody of me with Sandy dead.

I tossed the towel in the washing machine, put the stain cleaner away and stepped into the back yard. I walked the perimeter to get rid of some energy, my hand in my pocket fingering the buttons on the phone.

Danny had left me last night on the phone with a wish of sweet dreams. My dreams had been blood-filled replays of that night in the house. The memories came to me like I was looking through another's eyes -- Army's. I could see Nestor and the other brothers as they gathered around me.

The phone rang and I jumped. Taking it out of my pocket, I peeked into the house to see Elliot prepping a pipe. Answering the phone, I walked around to the side of the house.

“Hey.”

“You make it to sleep last night?” Danny's voice was cautious.

“Got a couple hours in.” I leaned against the house. It was another John F Long home. The wall was cinder block construction, cool to the touch on this side of the house. “How about you?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” He'd shifted from cautious to distracted.

“You guess?”

“I spent most of the night worried you'd have nightmares from my taking you by the house.”

“Sort of,” I admitted, half smiling at his concern and wishing it wasn't just professional interest. “I mean, I did dream about that night. But I was pretty much outside myself.”

I could sense he was holding back, wanting to ask me the same question he'd asked me every day since I first woke up to find him sitting next to my bed at the hospital.

He gave in to the urge after a few bland questions. “Did you remember anything new?”

“No.” It was a lie. I had remembered another detail about Nestor. There was a name tattooed on his other hand as well -- Oscar.

He changed tactics for a second. “You go back to school on Monday, right?”

“Yeah. School wanted me to wait and finish up taking the first term next year. But my aunt talked them out of it.”

“So today's your last day free of school?”

Sure where he was going with the question, I made a non-committal noise. It was probably the last chance I'd have to see him. There would be a gang war, or some other set of freaks would find something more outrageous to do and he'd be onto a case that hadn't grown cold.

“Do you think you could sit with a sketch artist today?”

“I told you, they were all hair and shadows.”

“Lee, it doesn't hurt to try…”

I closed my eyes, waiting for him to go on. I imagined his body, the way we'd been pressed against one another yesterday. Was he thinking the same thing? He couldn't be, not while he was asking me these questions all over again. Whatever had passed between us the day before was over - for him at least.

“I know you're not afraid, Lee. You were pretty fearless going into that house yesterday.”

I dropped my voice, held the phone tighter to my face. “Because you were with me.”

“Lee, I really want you to do this. Please.” He hesitated as he chose his words, and I trembled waiting for each one.

“Okay. I'll try.”

“Great, I'll send a car around to pick you up, let me see…”

I heard him shuffling through paper until at last he came up with a name. “Officer Henning, she's a couple years older than me, red head, I think…you'll know her from all the freckles.”

“Fine. How long?” I chewed on my lip, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I had expected him to pick me up and drive me home. It was the only reason I had consented.

“Thirty minutes? I have to schedule the sketch artist, don't want to make you wait around for him.”

“Fine.” I repeated tersely. “I'll be ready when she gets here.”

I hung up then and went inside. Elliot was watching television, his eyes glazed over from the pipe he'd just finished off.

“I'm gonna shower quick.” I stepped in front of the television to make sure he knew it was me speaking and not the television. “There's a female cop coming to drive me to the station to meet with a sketch artist.”

“Meet her outside.”

I nodded and his eyes started to slide shut. I turned toward the hallway.

He called me back.

“Baby girl, about the funeral-”

“I told you. Burn her.”

Chapter Nine

I sat with the sketch artist for about an hour and a half with no sign of Danny before, during or after. When the artist was done, the picture looked a bit like Nestor, but with some intentional misdirects on my part. I also told him there was writing on one hand, not both, and that I couldn't read what it said, wasn't even 100% sure that it was writing and not something else.

Still, it was good enough for Danny to send me an excited text by the time I got back to Elliot's to let me know that he had the picture and was running it through the system.

I didn't answer the text. I was in the bathroom, instead, with a paring knife. It is something I had been doing since my second day home, the day I realized all the marks from the attack had disappeared. The first few tests had healed quickly, then slowed as the week went buy. The one I'd inflicted on my calf this morning was gone already.

Blood, it seemed, made me heal faster. That, or I was going crazy and I hadn't healed at all - I was still back in the hospital in a coma or in a nut house.

Provided I wasn't crazy or in a coma, I knew I could see better, too, particularly in the dark. Elliot's house, with the black out liners on the curtains, had been pitch black when I'd walked through it last night and taken blood from his dope head friend. And in the house with Danny, I'd been able to see him when he couldn't see me.

Then there were the times I forgot to breathe - not just seconds or a few minutes, but whole stretches of time. I'd finally timed myself, giving up after thirty minutes of not drawing a new breath.

The phone buzzed on the sink stand, indicating a new text message.

“You there?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“You feeling okay?”

“Fine.” I didn't feel like texting with him. I was still disappointed he had sent someone else to take me to the station and home again.

“You mad?”

I rolled my eyes, waited a few seconds to answer him while I cleaned the paring knife and re-hid it below the sink. Before I could answer, another text came through.

“I guess that's a 'yes.'”

“No,” I texted. “I just thought we could talk about yesterday when you picked me up.”

This time he was slow to answer. I waited about a minute then added, “I still want to talk about it.”

“Not over text, Lee.”

“Then let me call you.”

“Not on the phone, either.”

I growled at the phone, my fingers flying to type in, “Then meet me.”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I don't know what I'll do, Lee, if you start that up again.”

I re-read the message, hope growing in my chest. Then the phone rang, startling me so that I lost my balance where I was sitting on the edge of the tub.

“Yes?”

“Lee.”

“Yeah, it's me.”

God, how Danny waited before going on. I could feel the hard pull of anticipation at my chest, feel need pushing through me, massaging a peculiar life into my limbs.

“You have to trust me, Lee. I want to protect you. But, when I look at you, all my training goes out the window. I feel helpless…” He was talking in a low whisper, his voice rough with emotion.

His voice, the words and emotion they carried, it was like a hand traveling over my skin, raising the fine hairs along my arms and the back of my neck. A tickling tease that made me close my eyes and picture him standing in front of me. I needed him standing in front of me, warm, giving, caring, all the things I knew he would be.

I suppressed another growl. Just my luck that the one guy I wanted to forget my age was the only guy who had ever taken it into consideration.

I'd be eighteen in two crummy weeks, but that seemed a long way off. I mean, my life had changed so dramatically in the course of a single night. Anything could happen in two weeks that would put Danny out of reach. I needed to convince him to see me now.

“I'm still scared, Danny. I know it doesn't show…I don't want Elliot to see it, or Aunt Joan or anyone else…just you. You're the only one I trust now.”

And he was the only one I wanted to put my lips to, to drink and grow strong from while we wrapped one another in mutual pleasure.

“You don't have to be afraid, Lee. The detail will stay with you to and from school. I'll post a cop in the classroom, if it will make you feel safer.”

“No,” I answered. “They closed the campus after Army took me. The whole school's gonna be pissed at me because they can't drive to McDonald's for lunch now. And the principal told Aunt Joan I could only come back if it wasn't a distraction to the other students.”

“You'll have an armed officer, then, driving you, waiting outside the school and outside the house.”

“The city won't pay-”

“You're right. Their friends, Lee, off the clock, but cops all the same. They want to catch these bastards that hurt you as much as I do.”

“And when do I get to see you again?” I bit my lip, drawing blood while I waited for his answer.

“Soon. As soon as I know you're safe from...”

He didn't need to finish the sentence. I knew it wasn't Army he was worried about but his own wants. At least I hoped so. “Danny-”

“Have to go,” he interrupted. “Looks like we might have a hit on the sketch.”

I let the phone slide to the bath mat, my mind running the same thought over and over.

Hell, I hope not.

Chapter Ten

At first, I played fragile with my police escort. As the days passed, the delicacy of my health became real. To stop Elliot from arguing with me, I managed to hold dinner down long enough that he thought I was eating. But when I could finally slip off to the restroom, it came up undigested and with blood - blood I wasn't replacing elsewhere. Cutting Elliot's friend had been a one-time opportunity, or at least a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity. If it happened again too soon, he or Joan would grow suspicious.

But it needed to happen soon. I was beginning to feel as I had the night of the attack - drained and dying. Ms. Fields, the only teacher at school who seemed to give a shit and not act like I'd contracted the plague, noticed. So did Chris, who had appointed himself my unofficial escort to all but third period, when he was at the opposite side of the school.

My real guards noticed it too and told Danny that I was getting more frail. He called and texted me a couple of times - until I pushed too hard and told him it was because I was love sick. The next day I had to go to the school counselor. Awkward doesn't begin to cover it. I certainly couldn't tell her the truth - that something supernatural seemed to have happened. I couldn't tell her I was crushing on the cop assigned to my case and that, as much as I wanted to fuck him, I wanted to taste him, too, to draw whatever sustenance from him he could spare.

Two weeks passed with me getting weaker, a second week of it with no messages from Danny. The morning of my birthday arrived without comment from anyone at Elliot's.

Cranky and starving, I slid into the passenger seat of the unmarked cop car.

“Morning, Lee.”

His name was Mike. I saw him every third day it seemed. I offered him half a smile while I studied the network of veins at his right temple and tried to keep my stomach from growling.

“Look tired.”

“Couldn't sleep.” I was telling the truth, something that was quickly becoming a rarity. I didn't trust myself to sleep, didn't trust where my thoughts went. I was terrified I'd wake up to find Casey limp and bloodless in my arms. If something didn't change soon I would have to try to sneak out of the house, slip my guard detail and hit the park, hoping to find some passed out meth head asleep on one of the benches. Stooping to that would be sadly ironic - I'd spent the last six plus years refusing drugs and alcohol - almost everyone had wanted to push something onto me, especially Paul, who wanted me drunk so I couldn't evade his sick attempts at seducing me.