Blood Ties 01 - The Turning - Blood Ties 01 - The Turning Part 10
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Blood Ties 01 - The Turning Part 10

How disappointed he'd be in me now. But then, I'd been just as bad as him, pushing aside adolescent dreams of romance for study and determination, until medicine consumed my life and any relationship that wasn't a calculated career move seemed like a waste of time. I'd let so many trivial things get in the way of my own happiness that I couldn't remember what the things that might have made me happy were anymore.

My body grew numb as I walked back to Nathan's apartment. I hadn't left a note, but I'm sure the hastily riffled-through faxes would give him a hint as to where I'd been. Tension coiled like electricity in the air as I crossed the street. The windows of the apartment were dark, but the shop's easel sign was on the sidewalk. I steeled myself against the unavoidable stench of incense and headed down the stairs to the bookshop.

There was no need for the precaution. The air was clear and no peaceful music soothed me as I entered the room and leaned against the counter. I heard muffled cursing, followed by the distinctive thud of books hitting the floor.

"Need some help?" I called.

Swearing followed a startling bang. Nathan emerged from the shelves, one hand pressed against the top of his head.

"You're back," he said flatly, wincing as he ran his fingers through his hair. "Sorry. I had some stuff I needed to do." I couldn't tell him, I decided. If he asked, I wouldn't lie, but it would be suicide to volunteer the information.

He didn't say anything. He went behind the shelves again and continued doing whatever I had interrupted.

I followed him. He slammed the books into their places on the shelf and walked past me to the other end of the shop, where he fussed with a display of tarot cards that didn't look as though it needed rearranging.

"So, are you going to talk to me or what?" I asked quietly as he fanned out an open deck as if they were a row of magazines on a coffee table.

"I'm sorry. I'm being rude. How was your evening? Did you have a nice time with your sire while I rummaged through your burning apartment?" The sarcasm in his voice was like a slap in the face.

My temper rose. "You went to that apartment all by yourself. I didn't ask you to go. All you wanted was your precious book!"

"This isn't about the fucking book!" He slammed his fists on the table. A sealed deck of cards bounced onto the floor. "How long did you wait before you went snooping through my stuff to find his address? Did you give any thought to what you were going to do? No! After everything I told you, after what you lived through at his hands, you went after him unprotected. He could have killed you!"

"But he didn't. I can handle myself," I said.

"You don't know what he's like!" Nathan yelled as he put a display of candles in order.

I hoped he broke every damned one of them. "And you do?"

"Yes!" He turned to face me, a handful of orange candles still in his hand. "He's capable of things you can't imagine. Things you wouldn't want to know."

"He's a killer. It's in our blood to be killers. It says so in your freaking vampire bible!"

"Is it in our blood to torture? To maim? Is it in his blood to prey on the weak and exploit kids like Ziggy? Because I've got the same blood in my veins that he does, and I've never had the urge to rape and murder a sixteen-year-old girl!"

I couldn't believe my ears. Cyrus was definitely evil. In the short time I'd known him I'd heard him refer to humans as pets and seen him casually feast on a corpse as though it were a fine cut of beef. But I knew myself, and I would never have been so attracted to someone capable of such a heinous act. "He couldn't have done that."

"Are you so sure? Because it was on the last order. I've got a newspaper clipping about her disappearance upstairs. He was awfully proud of her. Apparently, the fun for him is in killing the girls as he's violating them. He likes to watch them die while he's inside them."

Nathan's description of the obscene act made my stomach churn. I covered my mouth with my hand. "I don't want to hear any more."

"No, you want to experience it for yourself." He exhaled noisily. "But you go ahead and do what you want."

"That's not what I want."

"Hey, I really don't care. Apparently, nothing I say is going to matter." He went back to his candles.

His calm fed my growing anger. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means no matter what I say, you're going to do what you damn well please." "Why shouldn't I?" I shuffled the artfully arranged cards into a single pile on the tabletop. "The only words out of your mouth are 'don't do that, Carrie,' and 'it's dangerous, Carrie' and 'I'll kill you, Carrie,' but you never tell me why!"

"I dispense information on a need-to-know basis!"

"You sound like my goddamned father!" I shouted, stamping my foot.

Nathan made an exasperated sound and threw his hands up in the air. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"If I ask questions, you get all evasive. You don't want to share anything about your life, but you seem to want me to just blindly trust that you know what's best for me." I pointed at him. "How do I know you're not just as dangerous as Cyrus?"

He stepped so close to me that our shoes touched. "Oh, believe me, I'm the most dangerous thing in this room right now."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, and you're about to see just how dangerous."

I tilted my head so I could look him in the eye. "Is that a threat?"

"You tell me." His breath was cold on my face.

We glared at each other in silence, tension dancing between us like a ballerina with a broken leg. I don't think I'd ever been more infuriated.

He turned away, but neither of us had spent our anger. This was merely the eye of the storm.

He faced me again, his arms folded across his chest. "Fine. Prove to me you can take care of yourself."

I hesitated. "What?"

"Attack me."

"You're not serious." I laughed.

"The hell I'm not!" He stepped back and braced himself for a fight. "I'm angry at you. You're angry at me, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm not about to indulge in mindless violence with a vampire."

"Would it be better if I was a human?" He rolled his eyes. "This will work out some of that aggression. And you can prove to me that you can stand up to Cyrus. It's a win-win situation. Besides, right now, I'd really like to kick your ass."

"Kick my-" My mouth dropped open as I sputtered in resentment. "Oh, I'm going to put the hurt on you so bad!"

I charged him with no specific plan of attack. My shoulder collided with his midsection. He tumbled backward, and I fell to the floor on top of him. We upended the table on the way down, tarot cards fluttering around us as we struggled.

My flying hair and our flailing limbs obscured my vision. I swung at him blindly. Pain reverberated down my arm as my fist connected with his jaw.

Nathan pinned one arm behind me and rolled me onto my back. The hard floorboards bit into my knuckles, and I arched my back to relieve the pressure. Unfortunately, this motion pushed my breasts against his chest, and it was more than a little arousing.

I used my free hand to yank his hair, pulling as hard as I could. He grabbed my wrist, squeezing brutally, and I released my grip. He forced my arm above my head and held it to the floor.

The anger between us dissipated, abandoning us with only the raw, primal sound of our heavy breathing. I stopped struggling the same time Nathan loosened his grip. Painfully aware of how close our bodies were, I looked into his eyes.

He pressed his hips against mine. Apparently, I wasn't the only one affected.

"You suck at fighting," he rasped. He leaned forward, his mouth a millimeter from mine. I closed my eyes and tried to stop my body from trembling. His breath teased my lips, and I shivered.

The bells above the shop door chimed. Nathan sprang to his feet, using a book from the nearest table as a shield to hide his obvious state of arousal. I rose clumsily beside him and hoped I didn't look too flushed.

The customer who entered was about fifty years old and had long, graying hair. She looked us over with knowing brown eyes.

"I've come at a bad time. I'll be back later." She gave the overturned table and scattered merchandise a pointed glance before turning toward the door.

"No, no." Nathan reached down to right the table. "What can I help you with tonight, Deb?"

The woman looked from him to me with an expression of uncertainty. I coughed and smiled, trying-quite unsuccessfully-to hide the guilt written all over my face.

At Nathan's urging, the customer rattled off a long list of ingredients she needed to make a protection charm. He directed her to the herb pantry at the back of the shop and promised he'd be with her in a moment.

"Deb is a regular," he explained, almost apologetically. "You might as well go upstairs."

"Not to my apartment?" I asked hopefully.

He stared at the ground. "Yeah, I was meaning to tell you about that."

"It's completely gone." I could tell by the look on his face.

He couldn't meet my eyes. "I'm sorry, Carrie."

I went to Nathan's apartment, my head still spinning. What had I been thinking? I'd met this man just over a week ago, and now I was rolling around on the floor with him. And after his tall, dark and surly act. Had I really become the wilting Southern-belle type, just waiting for a big, brooding Rhett Butler to come and dominate me?

I wandered around, absentmindedly picking up clothes strewn around the living room. Once the dirty laundry was folded, I moved on to the coffee table.

I straightened the hopeless pile of books and papers. Not too thoroughly, lest I be accused of snooping again. Thinking of everything he'd said downstairs only made my blood boil, so I gathered stray dishes and dropped them unceremoniously into a sink full of soapy water. I meant to wash them, until the coffee mugs turned the water a soft pink and I lost my stomach for the task.

My manic cleaning spree continued through the house. In the past nine days, I had become homeless, hunted and, soon, unemployed. I probably had enough money in my bank account for a few months' rent and utilities, but the point seemed moot since I didn't have an apartment anymore.

Did the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement pay a salary?

Nathan had offered blood, shelter and protection. The least I could do was tidy up the place. Because he's not getting anything else. My behavior downstairs might have raised some of his expectations. I'd have to nip that situation in the bud. Moving to his bedroom, I stripped the sheets from the bed and threw them into the corner that appeared to be his dirty-laundry hamper. Vampire or not, it appeared men just couldn't clean up after themselves.

A pang of sadness washed over me as I realized I no longer had a home to clean. Or clothes. Or major appliances.

How had my life suddenly become so complicated? How would I survive as a vampire? How long has it been since he's flipped his mattress?

I eyed the goldfish bowl on Nathan's bedside table as I wrestled the heavy mattress off the box springs. I'd read somewhere that goldfish had a memory span of three seconds. Every three seconds, that poor fish had to come to grips with a new and frightening reality. I could definitely identify with that.

I lifted the bowl, pressed my face against the cool glass and counted to three. "Surprise."

I sighed as I set the container back in its place. It didn't seem to phase the little orange guy. He just kept on swimming. Another three seconds passed as I wrestled the mattress over and back onto the box springs. Panting and sweating, I looked to the fishbowl. No reaction.

Fish were survivors.

I opened the closet doors to look for clean sheets, on the off chance he owned some. There were assorted bare hangers and a few shirts that hadn't been worn in so long that the shoulders were dusty. Three mismatched tennis shoes huddled together in the corner next to a dried-out, curled-up object that resembled a dead mouse.

I found a set of sheets on the top shelf and pulled them down. Something heavy and sharp came down with them and landed on my foot. I said a few choice words and leaned over to pick up the offending object. It was a small picture frame, weighty for its size. The picture was yellow and faded.

A pretty young woman beamed at me from the photograph. She wore a simple white blouse and a long tartan skirt. She clutched a bouquet of wild flowers tightly to her chest. A young man in a plain-looking suit stood next to her. The couple posed on the stone steps of a small country church. I squinted at the man. He bore a remarkable resemblance to...

I flipped the frame over and carefully removed the photograph. There were no names, but someone had recorded the date. June 23, 1924.

I stared at the picture. Nathan, just twenty years old, stared back.

"Carrie? Sorry I took so long, but you wouldn't believe how that woman can talk about her cats."

I put the photograph back into the frame, replaced it on the top shelf and slammed the closet doors shut.

"Wow, this place looks great," Nathan called from the living room, veritable appreciation in his voice. He came into the bedroom and laughed when he saw me. "You're making the bed, too? Do I have to pay you?"

"And I flipped the mattress. That'll be twenty bucks." I eyed the shopping bags he held. "Or whatever's in that Victoria's Secret bag."

He laughed, a tight, embarrassed sound, and dumped the bags on the bed. "I didn't know what size you are, so if these don't fit, we'll return them."

Nathan had thought of everything. There were sweaters and T-shirts in safe, neutral colors from Old Navy, jeans, and pretty silk panties courtesy of Victoria's Secret. "I saved some of your clothes from the fire, but they were so full of smoke, I didn't think they'd ever come clean." A lump formed in my throat. "Nathan, you didn't have to do this. I-"

I didn't realize I was crying until my voice grew too thick to speak.

"I didn't mean to make you cry. I just thought you could use some stuff." He cleared his throat and handed me another bag. "If I give you this, do you promise to stop?"

I snorted through my tears. "I'll try. When did you buy all these things?"

"When I got back from the fire. You were gone and I was pissed off, so I went shopping."

"You went shopping because you were mad at me?" I took the bag from his hands. "Remind me to stay on your bad side."

He chuckled at that. "Must be some lingering feminine influence from a past life. If you ever catch me watching The View, go ahead and kill me. I just figured you might come back, and I wanted to make you feel really guilty."

"Don't worry, I do," I said, reaching into the bag. It was plastic, stamped with the logo of a local grocery chain. I froze when my fingers closed on a familiar object. "Nathan... what?"

With trembling hands, I pulled out the small framed photo of me and my parents on graduation day. It had been on my dresser when I'd last seen it. "Oh, thank you."

Appalled at the sight of my fresh tears, he backed away. "Whoa, whoa. I thought you were going to stop doing that."

"I'm sorry. Nobody's ever done anything so nice for me." It wasn't a lie. I'd been raised to believe that nothing came easy, nothing was free, and the only person I could depend on was myself. I reached into the bag again. "Is this my...this is my diploma."

"I figured you might want to keep it, for nostalgic purposes." He scuffed his shoes on the carpet. "You know, this fire might be the perfect way to break ties with your former life. People die in fires all the time."

Former life. My photo album. My journals. Everything I'd valued as irreplaceable was gone. My father used to say our society puts too much value on the past. I wished I could scream his words back at him now. My past was all that was left of you. Now that it's gone, so are you.

"Let's not talk about this right now, okay?" I said as I dabbed my eyes on the back of my hand. Before Nathan could protest, my stomach growled loudly.

A look of concern crossed his face. "How long has it been since you've fed?"