How to Kill Yourself in a Small Town (22 page)

Tough

For
a second on Main Cross I thought I saw the Tracker’s big blue Dodge Ram, but it
had an Iowa plate, so I let out my breath and headed for the house. I guess that
breathing thing was reflexive, though.

It’ll
stop after a while,
Tiffani said.

When’s
this freaking muscle crap going to stop?
I asked.

It’s
rigor mortis and probably a day or two.

Whatever
it was, it felt like different parts of my body kept falling asleep. I probably
looked pretty stupid busting in and out of vamp speed and limping along,
dragging a locked up leg or trying to work the pins and needles out of my arms.
I didn’t even know there was a muscle in my balls. That was a bad one.

And
the breeze kept making me shiver. I’d thought since it was summer that being
cold would feel right, like when you go swimming on a hot day. But it didn’t
work like that. The grass was brown and it was too hot out for dew, but the
chill kept going deeper into my muscles.

The
shadows were getting sharper when I made it to the porch. Jax’s car was gone,
but through the screen I could see him on the couch, talking on his phone.

“He
wouldn’t have gone after Jason again,” Jax said.

I
could hear Harper on the other end of the line like she was standing in the
room, too.

“No
one in the band has heard out of him,” she said. “And I just asked Logan. He
didn’t see Tough around town last night. I’m thinking he’s got to be in
Nashville.”

“Not
with Kathan all over Desty like this,” Jax said.

“Is
she back yet?” Harper asked.

“Yeah,
she came back a few minutes ago to take a shower,” Jax said. “She ran into the
Tracker over by—”

The
Tracker? If he fucking touched Desty…
I hit the screen door open so
hard it bounced off the wall.

Jax
jumped.

“Fuck,
you scared me,” he said. He told Harper, “He’s here. Just walked in.”

“Thank
God,” Harper said.

Hearing
His name sent shards of ice stabbing through my eardrums, down into my chest,
ripping open that part of me that wasn’t supposed to be connected to my body—my
soul. Without thinking, I smacked the phone out of Jax’s hand.

“What
the shit, man?!” He stopped and squinted at my mouth. Guess you couldn’t miss
the fangs. “The fuck? Somebody made you?”

Tiffani
had made me so I could do something, but it felt like my brain was having that
rigor mortis problem.

You
were going to save Colt,
Tiffani said.

And
make Desty,
I remembered.

Yeah,
so don’t you think you should get started before the Tracker finds you?

The
Tracker. Desty wouldn’t have been taking a shower if he hadn’t put one of his
slimy fucking hands on her.

I
turned toward the stairs.

“Where’re
you going?” Jax’s voice felt far away. I could barely hear him over the sound
of Desty. She’d just gotten out of the shower and she was walking down the hall
toward my room. I could hear the bottom of the towel sliding over her thighs.

The
vamp speed wouldn’t kick on so I jogged up the steps.

“Hey—”
When Jax grabbed my arm, it was just reflex to knock him off.

He
didn’t get back up.

Desty
was standing in the doorway to my room. She smelled like oranges or
grapefruit—something yellowish with a foamy buzz like beer—and under that,
alive. Her heart bolted when she saw me, from a steady bass to a double-kick.

“Tough?”
She smiled and ran for me. “You’re okay! I was worried that Mikal found you.”

When
she hit my chest, her body heat soaked into my skin. If I’d had a voice, I bet I
would’ve moaned. She hadn’t seen the fangs yet, but she shivered and goose
bumps popped up all down her arms and chest.

“You’re
freezing,” Desty whispered. She tried to step back, but I moved with her, my body
instinctively following the heat. She burned like an overfilled wood stove. And
damn if I wasn’t thirsty again.

Tough,
back the hell up,
Tiffani yelled across the connection.

Then
it was like another radio turned on in my head. That connection was weaker,
second-hand or something.

Holy
shit, he’s going to kill her!
Mitzi.

What
the fuck are you doing in my brain?
I snapped.
I thought this
was just between me and Tiffani.

Heya,
Romeo,
Mitzi said.
I haven’t heard your voice since Jason cut
that track yesterday.

Stop
it, Mitzi,
Tiffani said.
Something’s not right. He drank a whole
person’s worth of blood, he shouldn’t be hungry.

“Tough?”
Desty tried to push me away so she could look into my eyes, but I was a lot
stronger than she was and I wasn’t letting go.

Tiffani
saw the images flickering through my brain, a pornographic snuff film. Did it
count as porn if the girl was dead for more than half of the fun?

Something’s
wrong,
she said
. Don’t move until I—

The
connection clicked off like somebody had hit the power button.

I’ll
be damned,
I thought,
I did figure it out.
And the sun was up,
so there wasn’t any way Tiffani could get there in time to tear Desty away from
me.
Convenient.

Desty
was staring at my mouth. With my tongue, I pushed at a fang. They took getting
used to for me, too.

Her
breathing was shallow. She hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday and I could
smell me on her breath—the way I used to smell, like beer and sweat and body
spray.

“But…”
Desty shook her head. “You’re a vamp?” Her mood changed as soon as she said it
out loud—scared to pissed in less than a second. She yanked her arm out of my
hand and hit me in the stomach. “You’re a vamp! You stupid—damn—son of a
bitch!”

That
made me laugh. Desty cussed like a homeschooled third grader.

Downstairs,
Jax’s phone started ringing.

Desty
punched me again. The stab of pain from my broken rib was enough of a shock
that I let her go. She stumbled backward a few steps, then bumped into the
doorjamb. Her towel dropped.

I
locked her muddy hazel eyes into mine.

Don’t
run.
Somehow I told her she didn’t want to.

“Tough,
please—” She was fighting me, pushing back, and that pissed me off. I was
supposed to be the strong one, I was supposed to be able to do shit humans
couldn’t. Otherwise, what the fuck was the point of getting made?

Cover
up the window. Lay on the bed.
I told her she wanted to,
showed her how I wanted her to lay, pushed those thoughts into her brain. She
stumbled as she untied the window-sheet, but I busted out the vamp speed and
caught her before she hit the ground. Then she was laying on my bed, scared
again, but she didn’t move.

“You
dickbag. I trusted you.” Her voice cracked and she took one of those shaky
breaths. “I—I liked you, Tough. A lot.”

I
touched her cheek. Maybe I was a vamp, but she was still Desty, my girl. I
wouldn’t do any of that serial killer snuff-film shit—not to her. I just needed
a drink. I hadn’t had anything since that piss-poor excuse for blood Tiffani
had on ice, five or six hours ago. What Desty had—what was lighting up through
her skin like a bonfire in a pitch black field—would keep me satisfied a whole
lot longer.

Tears
started to slip down the sides of her face and drip into her ears.

Shit,
Desty, don’t cry.
I thought it, but I couldn’t push it on her,
couldn’t remember how I did it the first time. It was my job to protect her and
here I was making her cry.
I’ll fix it. I promise.

I
was going to kiss her, but my hand touched that red fire in her leg. I pushed
her thighs apart and tore into the vein. She made a noise in her throat and
flinched, tried to struggle away from the hurt. I felt bite sedative rush
through my fangs. Her body relaxed.

I
had thought it would be like the blood bags, just hard liquor made out of
blood, burning in my chest and giving me a buzz that calmed me down. But
drinking straight from Desty’s body was like mainlining kerosene, then lighting
myself on fire. It turned me on bad. Worse than anything I’d ever felt while I
was alive. My heart pumped like someone had hooked it up to a car battery and
revved the engine. I had to take breaks between swallows because I was
breathing again.

The
screen door downstairs banged open and shut.

“Jax?”
It was Harper. Running. “Baby, are you okay?”

Then
Jax’s damn phone started ringing again.

Harper
answered and it sounded like Tiffani’s voice shouting through an old AM radio.

I
blocked it out. Whatever she was saying didn’t matter. Right on the edge of
coming, knowing it would be the most powerful release I’d ever felt. The
instinct to finish was too strong for distractions. I kept sucking off of
Desty, hyperventilating, feeling my heart forcing the venom through my body,
and getting closer and closer. Everything else faded into static.

Then
ice shot through the back of my neck, down into my still freaking-out heart.
For a second I could see Him again, feel Heaven shutting me out, taste the
cold, sick loss. It all exploded like a dry ice bomb inside my chest.

When
I could see again, Harper was kneeling by the bed, checking Desty’s eyes.
Harper’s wooden crucifix necklace was still wrapped around her palm, she hadn’t
put it back in her pocket yet. Maybe she thought she’d need it again.

“Jeez,
you’re dumb, girl,” Harper said.

What
the fuck do you know, bitch? Desty’s smarter than you’ll ever be. It was me, I—
It was me.
The rage drained away. I’d made it so Desty couldn’t run.
I’d made her cry. And the shit I was going to do to her, while she was still
alive and then…later. Mitzi’s knife-play looked like missionary compared to
that. I licked my bottom lip and tasted Desty’s blood.

I
got up on my knees and touched Harper’s arm. She swiped the crucifix at my head
to back me up.

“Dammit,
Tough, what the hell were you thinking?” She didn’t even look over her shoulder
at me. “You can’t drink out of someone who’s laying down. And you shouldn’t be
drinking out of anything but the jugular. I mean, seriously, are you retarded?”

I
must be. I’d had Tiffani make me so I could save Colt and Desty by making them.
But I couldn’t make Desty a vamp and put her through that pain in her soul
every time she saw something that represented what she gave up. She’d be better
off dead than cut off from God and knowing Hell was all she had to look forward
to. And Colt—

I
was really going to have to kill him. My stomach turned. I swallowed something
that tasted like barf mixed with blood.

The
connection with Tiffani opened.

You
need to do something about Colt right now,
she said. She showed me
a shot of the Tracker’s big, blue Dodge pulling up to her bakery.

Not
barfing took a whole lot more effort when I saw the Tracker climb out of the
truck, wet, rotting skin slipping on his arms and legs like it was full of
pudding and not connected to anything. The nine hour trip from Nashville to
Halo chained up in his backseat came back to me in high-def smell-o-vision.

What
the hell do you want me to do?
I asked her.

You
said you knew how to save Colt,
Tiffani snapped.

I
don’t know if you noticed, but it’s broad fucking daylight outside,
I
said.
I can’t get to him.

What
had I thought, that Mikal would conveniently wait until night to come after me?
She wasn’t the type to just sit around with her thumb up her ass. If she had
known where I was this morning, her and Colt would’ve been waiting on the porch
for me.

My
eyes shot open.

Let
the Tracker in,
I told Tiffani.
While he’s dicking around
looking for me, call the Dark Mansion and tell Mikal where I am.

*****

The
Tracker made it to the house first. Maybe Mikal was too busy fucking my brother
to get her damn clothes on and come kill me. Or maybe it was just routine—send
in the zombie to secure the prisoner before the big shot came in and did all
the ass-kicking.

Jax
and Harper sat at the bottom of the staircase in the living room while the
Tracker wound his trusty log chain around my arms and stomach and pinned the
loops together behind my back. Harper flinched when the padlock snapped closed.