Sun Damage (The Sunshine Series) (15 page)

Myles stares at his hand for a second before folding both of them together in his lap.
“What do you mean?” he asks softly.

I stare at my boots.
“I can’t be with you,” I whisper.

I glance at Myles, who is staring at his hands.
“I know,” he says.

My chest feels tight and
the mark on my collar bone throbs. I can’t stop myself from grabbing one of his hands, absorbing the warmth that floods my skin. “I wish I could just…” I start, not knowing how to finish. Just what? Run away? Deal with this? Forgive him and pretend everything’s fine?

“
It’s okay,” Myles says, squeezing my hand.

I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. I change the subject to the notebook and the painting.
“I
am
unstable, aren’t I?”

Myles doesn’t say anything.

“How am I supposed to tour?” I let go of him again and put my head in my hands. “How am I supposed to do anything?”

“
It’s probably just because you’re stressed,” Myles says, though his voice is strained from the conversation I just cut short. “I shouldn’t have told you all of that at once,” he says. “It was stupid.”

I
sniff as I straighten my posture to look at him. “His name was Ryan,” I say. “My mom has one picture of him and he has the same eyes and nose that I have.”

The words seem to hurt him as he clenches his jaw. Good. I want someone else to hurt for a change.
“I know,” he says. “It was one of the first things I noticed about you.”

I don’t know how that’s supposed to make me feel. The urge to stand up and kick him out is about to overtake me when Myles stands instead. He stares into
my eyes for the longest moment but I think we both know there’s nothing he can say to make it better.

“
Just promise to keep in touch with me,” he says. “Okay?”

I nod, relieved that there isn’t going to be m
ore of a fight because I’m tired of fighting.

“
Goodbye, Sophie,” Myles says, his hand on the door.

Part of me wants to go to him, beg him to help me fix this, but I can’t move.

“Goodbye, Myles.”

But he’s already shut the door behind him.

Chapter 9

The Maker

“
There’s this feeling I get when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving.”–Led Zeppelin
 

It’s
hard being away from her and it’s hard seeing her, feeling the hurt inside her and knowing I put it there. I don’t think I can do anything to make that pain go away, nor do I deserve the right. It’s my fault that this is happening, whether I want to face it or not. And now, she wants nothing to do with me. She can’t
be
with me. Not that I could have expected her to forgive me; I don’t deserve her forgiveness either.

No matter what, I still have to follow her. I still have to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself or anyone else. Seeing her last night was only confirmation that I should keep an eye on her. It also proved that I’m just complicating things for her and her heightened sense of emotions. I need to watch what happens without her knowing I’m there, the same as before. Only now everything’s different.

If Evan didn’t need me so badly, I wouldn’t have stepped away. Every now and then, he forgets that I can still feel what he’s going through as if I had turned him yesterday. He’s starving, sick, and needs someone to stay with Ava while he gets his blood.

However, he isn’t exactly happy to see me.

“You told her?” Evan asks before he even has the door opened all the way. “How could you tell her that about me–about
us
?”

He was too angry to ask me about it last time I saw him, when he told me how
“unstable” Sophie was. His walls were stronger than I’d ever seen them, so I didn’t push.

I run a hand through my hair. It
’s easy enough staying out of his thoughts, but the emotion coming off of him could knock me over if I’m not careful. He’s angry, of course, but more than that, he’s hurt.

“
Yes,” I say. “I told her. But I think we can call it even, considering everything you’ve done.” I try to keep my tone watered down but I can’t help a small burst of my own anger from escaping into my words.

Evan
’s expression softens. He’s going to apologize again.

I hold up a hand.
“Even?” I ask.

He pauses, but nods once.

“Then stop saying you’re sorry,” I tell him. “I know you are.”

I can feel the guilt coming off of him, even now, dripping in faint, grey waves from his chest outward. It
’s hard when your maker is mad or disappointed with you. Maybe I would know what that felt like if I ever knew mine.

Evan steps aside so I can come in, and passing him, I can see how drained he is. His eyes are rimmed with red and sink into his face, and if I open my mind up just enough, I can feel how hungry he is. That he
’s been starving himself for a while now.

“
I told you to call me whenever you needed to go and feed,” I say. “Why did you wait so long?”

We sit down in the living room and Evan hangs his head.
“I did not want to leave her,” he whispers.

The image of Ava, the skin on her chest blooming in red as she coughs comes to me by accident. We both know I’ve seen it, but neither of us acknowledges that fact.

“How long has she been sick this time?” I ask.

He shifts his head slowly from side to side.
“It has been nearly a week,” he says. “No matter what I do, she does not stay healthy for long.” He rubs his hands over his face, through his hair, and down the back of his neck.

“
And how have
you
been feeling lately?” I ask, knowing that he’s going to lie.

“
Alright,” he says, smiling faintly. There’s no happiness in it. “Just...” He squeezes his eyes shut for the longest time.

“
Tired,” I finish for him.

He
nods, his head against the back of the chair now.

I stand
and he opens his eyes when he senses me next to him. “Will you be okay feeding alone?” I ask. “I could have Alex or Adrienne go with you.”

Evan braces
his hands on the arm rests on either side of him and shakily begins to stand. “I will be fine,” he says. “Will you just help me back upstairs so I can say goodbye?”

I
’ve already placed his arm over my shoulder.

The slow walk up the stairs is enough to make me want to run out of the house. I can feel how his bones have begun to protrude from his skin around his back and ribcage. I can almost sme
ll death on him, but it’s more of a faint, dusty, earth smell at the moment. We can always sense when someone is about to die and when it’s your vampire, you know it even more. I don’t know how long he has left but I know he most likely won’t live to see another summer. I can tell that he knows I know by the way he tenses up and they way his thoughts turn to how he should try to cover up the smell, but I don’t say anything other than, “You’re fine,” when we finally reach the landing outside of Ava’s room.

Evan lets go of me then, and I want to cry when I see how much his hands shake before he grabs onto the door frame and walks inside.

Ava is under a mass of blankets, her dark hair neatly swept to one side of her face. I stay in the hall, deciding that Evan wants a few minutes alone.

He leans down next to her on the opposite side of the bed so I can still see his face, but he
’s not looking at me, only Ava. I’ve known for a long time that he loves her and that she loves him, but they’ve never done anything about it because they both know where they’re heading. Maybe they think it’s better to die as friends than as lovers. Maybe it would make it easier in some way. Evan kisses Ava on the forehead and she doesn’t move, though I can sense that she’s awake, staring at him.

“
I will be back in a few hours,” he whispers. I watch as he adjusts one of the blankets around her shoulder and I can feel from here how raw her neck is from his attempts to lessen the pain of the infected blood in her body.

When Ava doesn
’t answer him, he kisses her gently on her head, letting his hand linger on her shoulder for the longest time before he lets go and comes back out into the hall.

“
She is very tired,” he tells me, as if he needs to explain.

“
Do you need help back downstairs?” I ask.

He shakes his head.
“I will be alright.”

I know by now not to try and help when he doesn
’t want any, but it’s hard to stop myself from reaching out to him. My hand grazes his back just as he’s turned away.

Without turning around, he says,
“You’re a good maker.”

I don
’t have any words for that.

It takes me more than a few tries to go into Ava’s room. The smell is multiplied in here despite how white and sterile everything is. That’s what’s most disturbing. Evan has been taking such good care of her. There’s the smell of rubbing alcohol, clean sheets, and shampoo. There isn’t one speck of dust or even a tissue lying around. Everything in this room is so utterly and immaculately
clean
that smelling the odor of dirt and dried blood almost throws me off.

Ava turns her head when she hears me come in, glancing at the cage where her chameleons are before settling her eyes on me.
“Hey,” she says in a voice that tells me she was screaming a few hours before now. “Long time no see.”

The blankets cover most of her body, but I can see her neck and part of her chest through the light cotton shirt that
’s showing. Everything under that is a deep red, which switches into purple. Her veins are collapsing, imploding and spreading the poisonous blood further into her body every time she has an attack now. I don’t want to think about how much time she has left when I’ve just barely come to terms with how soon Evan will be leaving me.

I
’ve been told by a few other vampires that have experienced it that losing one they’ve created is the worst pain they’ve gone through. That, as their maker, they would keep them alive at all costs. I wonder if they know about Michael and his blood. I wonder if those same vampires would say the same thing if they knew how it felt.

“
Hi,” I say, forcing a genuine smile onto my face as I sit down in the chair near her bed. “How are you feeling?”

She takes a minute to sit herself up and I
’m surprised she has the strength in her aching muscles and joints to do it. When the blankets slip down, I can see how much weight she’s lost as well. She begins to shake, so I cover her back up to the neck.

“
I feel a little better,” she says, her voice raspy. It must have been a bad attack. “Evan left?”

I nod.
“He’ll be back soon, though.”

She slowly blinks.
“So,” she says. “How’s Sophie?”

Ava wastes no time asking me the hardest question she can think of. I shrug, for lack of a better response.

“Is she okay?” She re-phrases.

“
I–don’t know,” I finally say. I have to stare at the carpet beneath my shoes. She shouldn’t be worrying about us; she should be worrying about herself.

“
How do you not know?”

“
She won’t talk to me,” I say. “I told her everything.”

When I look back up at her, her eyes widen the slightest bit. It
’s not something anyone would be able to notice except me. “Everything?” she asks. “About her dad?”

I nod. The only reason Ava knows is becau
se her parents were my mentors when I first decided to live in the human world, when she was just a little girl and very good at eavesdropping.

“
So she’s mad at you,” Ava gathers. She takes in a breath, and I can hear it rattle in her lungs.

“
Yes,” I say, once she’s let the breath out.

She swallows. I
feel her stomach is twist and her hands grip the blanket against her chest. She takes in some deep breaths, counting each one as they enter and exit her body. Once she’s managed the pain, she speaks again. “You have to fix it,” she says.

I laugh, but there
’s no humor in it. “I know.”

“
How are you going to do that?”

I shrug.

Ava’s staring at me and her eyes are watery. “Are you going to tell me how long I have?” she asks now.

I reach out my hand toward her and place it on her shoulder, on top of the heavy blanket.
“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her.

She laughs now, and it
’s nothing more than air, but the way it leaves her tells me that she finds something funny. “Well, no wonder she’s mad at you,” Ava whispers. “You downplay even the most obvious of bad situations.” She smiles weakly.