Blood Hunt (4 page)

Mona pressed on. “You go out drinking a lot, even for someone as young as you are.”

Jim stirred for a moment at this, then settled. Tori nodded, shrugged, said nothing.

Mona continued. “It’s not that we want to run your life. You’re not a child … you can do what you want. But we’re very worried about you, Tori. You drink, you don’t sleep, you come home at all sorts of hours and refuse to tell us anything about where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing.”

Mona was gaining steam as she spoke, getting on a roll.

“You’re smoking all the time now, there’s no sense in hiding that. You’re never in a good mood. When you’re home, you’re either asleep or brooding. You hold down a job, but you clearly don’t like it.”

“Clerical work isn’t exactly a stimulating career,” Tori interjected.

“It’s not a career at all, and you know it,” Mona replied. “It’s just something you’re doing because you feel like you’re supposed to. Tori, that’s our point … this life you’re living, it can’t be healthy for you.”

Something about this struck Tori. It was the truth, of course; her day to day actions couldn’t possibly be good for her, and yet …

“It hasn’t hurt me yet,” she said.

“We don’t want it to get to that point.”

“And what exactly would you suggest I do?”

Mona paused, looked at Jim for support. He took her hand, squeezed it, nodded. Mona continued.

“We’d like you to see a therapist.”

Tori rolled her eyes. “Oh, Christ …”

“It could help,” Mona said.

“No, Mom. Not happening.”

“Hear her out,” Jim said.

“Why? I don’t want to waste your time, or mine, or a doctor’s.”

“This is hardly a waste of time,” Mona said.

“There is absolutely nothing a therapist could do for me,” Tori said. She could hear anger creeping into her voice, and some small part of her cried out against it, but she seemed powerless to keep it out.

“Please, Tori.” Jim looked tired and old, a man of fifty-eight having a talk he had hoped never to have with his daughter. Tori tried to force herself to relax.

“OK, fine. You want me to see a therapist, and you want me to hear you out. Got it. Go ahead, make the pitch.”

“The ‘pitch’ is that you’re not healthy,” Mona said. She saw Tori take in a breath to respond, and cut her daughter off. “Oh, physically you’re fine. You seem to be in great shape, though Lord knows how long that’s going to continue if you keep smoking and drinking the way you do. It’s your emotional state we’re concerned about, Tori. You won’t
talk
to us.”

“I
can’t
talk to you,” Tori said.

“That’s not true,” Mona replied.

Tori made a sound of frustration, shook her head, looked to her father for help. “Yes it is. Jesus Christ, mom … this isn’t the same thing as when I was eleven and needed a training bra, but I was too embarrassed to ask.”

“We understand that, Tori.”

“No, you don’t. If you did, you’d let it go. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, and you need to stop pretending you are. Whatever it is that happened to you, Tori, it changed you. It made you …” Mona paused, at a loss for words.

“That’s what this is about, really, isn’t it? It’s because I’m different, and because you miss the bubble-headed idiot you sent off to school.”

Mona looked as if she’d been slapped. “Tori, your father and I love you.”

“Then stop trying to change me.”

“We’re not trying to change you. We’re trying to help you.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“We couldn’t think of anything else. We’re scared! We’re scared that you’re going to run off to New York. Behaving like this, in that city, can get you
killed
. Who will look after you?”

“I’m an adult. I don’t need looking after. We’ve been through this … repeatedly. I guess it’s not sinking in. Are we almost done?”

Mona was slow to anger, but Tori’s attitude had finally taken her there. “Why?” she snapped. “Are we cutting into your drinking time?”

“Mona—” Jim began, but Tori was already talking over him.

“Yes, Mom, that is
exactly
it. I’m so very desperate for a beer and a smoke that I simply must abandon this otherwise
scintillating
conversation. I apologize, do go on! I believe you were accusing me of being crazy?”

“I never
said
that!” Mona cried. “I never said you were crazy. Don’t you go twisting my words, assuming things I never said!”

“That’d be crazy,” Tori muttered. Mona shot her an angry look, but opted to otherwise ignore the comment.

“This is not going well,” Jim said. “Perhaps we should save it for another night.”

Tori sighed. “Daddy, it’s not going to be any better some other time. If Mom has things to say, then she should say them. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be out of your hair in a week and this won’t be a problem anymore. I can make it faster than that if you want.”

“We don’t want you to go anywhere, Tori,” Mona said.

“You may be disappointed,” Tori replied.

“This sarcasm isn’t helping anything!” her mother snapped, and Tori felt anger boiling over, taking control. She let it happen, almost thankful for it.

“Fine. I think we’re done here, then,” she said, standing up and walking toward the door. She wasn’t ready to go out, hadn’t put on any makeup or even brushed her hair, but this needed to stop before she said something stupid.

“You’re leaving?” Mona asked.

“What else is there to do?”

“You could sit and talk instead of fighting with us.”

Tori paused at the door, her back to them, and sighed. “Talk about what, Mom? My job? My friends? My life? It’s … empty. My life is empty, and this place is empty. There’s nothing here for me.”

“We’re here!”

Tori turned to face them. “You’re not enough. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but it’s the truth. I love you both, but you’re not enough, and you have to let me go. If you don’t, I’m going to go insane.”

It was Mona’s turn to roll her eyes. “There’s no need to be melodramatic,” she said.

“Melodramatic?”

Tori felt her eyes narrow, felt her fists clench. She took a step back into the room, grappling with her emotions. “Is … is that what you think this is?”

“What is it about your life that would drive you insane?” Mona asked. She was still angry, Tori could hear it in her voice, but there was something else there, too. A sliver of doubt, as if her mother knew she had overstepped her bounds.

“You know nothing about my life. Nothing.” Tori was trying not to yell, only barely succeeding.

“You won’t
tell
us anything!” Mona cried. Jim put a hand on her arm, but she shoved it away, glaring at her daughter.

Tori closed her eyes, looked at the floor, tried to get herself under control. When she thought she could speak without shouting, she looked back at her parents.

“I can’t.”

“Tori, please—” her mother began.

“I
can’t!
God, please listen to me! I can’t tell you. Not what I was, not what I did. You don’t want to know, and I don’t want you to know. Don’t make me
hurt
you like that.”

“Better you hurt us than hurt yourself,” her father said, his voice.

Tori smiled, but she had started to cry.

“Hurt myself …” she murmured, and laughed. “No, you don’t need to worry about that. I can’t hurt myself. I’ve tried and tried. I’ve been trying ever since Two left.”

Neither Mona nor Jim seemed able to find a response to that, and after a moment Tori laughed again, still weeping.

“I’m indestructible. Do you understand? I smoke two packs a day. I drink
bottles
of alcohol every night. God … I fuck like a
rabbit!
No protection. With men who might be bringing me to the motel to cut my throat.”

Jim and Mona were still silent, staring, unable to respond. Tori grinned at them through her tears, savage, hating herself for what she was saying but unable to stop.

“Is that what you wanted to hear? Nothing can kill me. Nothing can help me. Nothing can change me. I’m already dead.”

She drew a hand across her eyes, stared at her parents, unable to change the painful expression her face had contorted itself into. More a grimace than a grin now, really, but was there even any difference? It didn’t matter. She could see fear in their eyes now, their expressions those of people who have been thrown with sudden force badly out of their element.

“Now you
really
think I’m crazy,” she said, “but I don’t care because there’s the truth. You asked for it. Tori died on a winter night, in a mansion in Binghamton, at the hands of a monster. All that was left was another monster just like him. I did horrible things and I
loved
doing them, until Two showed up. She saved me, and she brought me here to you, and then she left me here, empty, and I hate her. I fucking
hate
her for saving me and then leaving me all alone.”

“Tori, I don’t understand …” Mona was at a loss, shocked and scared, pale and shaken.

“Of course you don’t understand!” Tori roared at her. “That’s what I’ve been telling you all along. You’ll never understand. No one understands, except Two, and she left me. She
left
me!”

Tori looked around the room, jaw clenched. It seemed as if at any moment the walls would cave in on her, collapsing and burying her, trapping her here forever. She put her hands over her eyes.

“I have to go,” she said, and turned to make her way toward the door. Stumbling, barely able to see through her tears, needing only to get out. She heard her mother call her name.

“I have to go!” she cried, and then she was out into the night air, racing across her yard, pulling herself into her car. Roaring engine, screeching tires, rushing wind. Tori left her parents still sitting bewildered, trying to understand this last outburst, and drove out into the night.

* * *

The miles rolled by underneath the wheels of her car, but where was she going? To New York? No. She was not yet ready to say to Two the things she had said to her parents. It was hard enough to admit to herself this hatred she felt for Two, who had left her here in this grey world with no pleasure, no pain, no hope. She would not be able to say the things she needed to say. Not yet. She wondered if she ever would.

Tori drove, cried, tried to sort out what to do. It seemed a thousand voices clamored at her at once, each demanding her attention. One voice wished only to rend and tear, to hurt things, to take satisfaction in strength and savagery. Another whispered promises of salvation at the bottom of a bottle or, failing that, at least escape for a time. Another murmured incessantly, unyielding, desiring nothing more than the smell of sweat and the feel of a man’s skin. There were other voices; some advocated that she keep driving, others that she turn back. Whispers and shouts and screams offered everything from solace to suicide, and Tori listened to them all, unable to choose from the options offered up by her own traitorous mind.

Old habits finally won out over indecision, and Tori found herself in a city parking lot, across the street from a row of bars, looking herself over in the car’s rearview mirror. She could barely remember the drive, wasn’t sure she wanted to be here, but could think of nowhere better to go. With a feeling that was very much like relief, Tori surrendered to habit, let the training of so many previous nights take over. Inside there would be a bottle. Inside there would be smoke. Inside there would be men, some of them too drunk and busy staring at her breasts to notice her blotchy cheeks and bloodshot eyes.

When he was asleep next to her and she sat in bed, still hot and awake and unfulfilled, Tori smoked and sat, staring out the window with her preternatural eyes. She tried not to think about who she had been. She tried not to think about who she was now. She thought instead about Two, the only person left that she loved and the only person left that she despised. When the voices began in their nonsense language at the back of her mind, she paid them no attention. When sleep finally took her, she did not dream.

Tori lived in motels for four days before returning home.

* * *

“Dad? Daddy?”

Tori leaned in through the front door, her voice tentative. She had hoped to catch her father before he went to work, while somehow avoiding Mona. Over the past few months, Jim had been better equipped to talk to her than her mother. He would probably not understand her leaving, would not agree with her that it was what she had to do, but in the end he would accept it. He would let her go to whatever destination she had chosen, though what that destination was Tori could not say.

There was no response to her call, and this seemed odd. Her mother didn’t sleep well, but it was possible that she was still angry and purposely not answering. Her father, though, was nearly always up at this time. It was almost dawn, but all of the lights were off, the house silent. She flicked the switch to her left, more out of habit than out of any need for light, but nothing happened.

Tori felt a shudder run up her spine as she stepped through the door and into the silent house.
Relax
, she told herself.
Bulb’s burned out, and they’re asleep. That’s all.

Something made a crackling noise under her feet. Tori looked down, then up above her head. The front hall lamp, a glass dome containing two light bulbs, had been shattered, the broken stumps of the bulbs still jutting from their sockets. The tiny things crunching and snapping below her feet were pieces of the broken glass.

“Mom?” Tori tried again, registering vague and distant surprise at the amount of tension in her voice.

There was a noise from the bathroom, just a single sound, small and lonely, but to Tori’s ears it was like a gunshot. She jerked, gasped, whirling in that direction before she fully realized what she had heard. The faucet had been leaking all summer; her father hadn’t gotten around to fixing it yet.

Tori was struck by a sudden urge, so strong it was nearly impossible to resist, to simply turn around and run. She didn’t understand it, but the sound of the dripping faucet had filled her with a slow and crawling dread. Mealworms inching up her back, snakes churning in her stomach, a cold and mold-coated floor against her skin. Abraham had made her feel like this, when she first met him, before he bit her and stole her life away.