Neither (22 page)

“You're not sleeping with him, are you?” Well, technically yes, but I am not having sex with him, which is what she's asking.

“I'm not having sex with him.”

“For real? You look like you have.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can tell when people have had sex. There's this, I don't know, glow that they have. It's like they have a secret they don't want to share. You two look like that.” We certainly have our secrets, but they're not about sex.

“Nope. Still have my V card.” Damn card.

“Good girl. Although, when I was your age, if I had a boyfriend like that? Damn, I would have jumped on it a long time ago.”

“Ew.”

“Hey, I'm not that old.”

“He is sexy,” I say. This cannot be denied.

“Where did you find him? I know you told me, but I've forgotten.”

“Party. There was a drink that got spilled, he made a witty remark, I made a dumb one, and the rest is history.”

“So is he the one?” Of course he is, but I don't know how Aj is going to take the extent of our relationship.

“I think he is.”

“Just be careful.”

“You're not going to tell me I'm too young, and there are lots of fish in the sea and all that?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm your cool Aunt Jenny. When Sam got married and had you I promised myself I would be a cool aunt that would let you get into trouble. So here I am, being the cool aunt.”

“You are the cool aunt.”

“This is not news.”

“Shut up,” I say, shoving her arm. She grabs mine and twists it behind my back, not enough to hurt, but enough that I am incapacitated. I wiggle, but she's way too strong.

“Give?”

“Yeah.”

“Say it.” I sigh.

“Aj is the coolest aunt ever and I aspire to her awesomeness, which I can never achieve,” I say. It's the phrase she came up with a couple of years ago for when we have wrestling matches.

“That's right. Don't you forget it.” I swat her with my hand, but she ducks. “Too slow.” Not if I'm immortal, but I'm not thinking about that right now. “I think a need a whoopie pie. You want?”

“Sure,” I say, even though it's a tie between what I want more: the whoopie pie or her blood. Such is my life.

We consume two whoopie pies each while we watch trashy TV. Aj pulls hers apart, licking out the frosting before eating the cake parts. I keep one ear trained toward my parents’ room, and all I hear is them softly talking about what to do and whether she should start taking some of the painkillers and other drugs Dr. Chase has been pushing on her. I try to block it out, but I hear most of it anyway.

“You look like you're at a funeral,” Aj comments, and then winces. “Ouch, that was tasteless. Sorry about that.”

“It's okay. You don't have to walk on eggshells. I'm fully aware of what's going to happen.”

“I'm so sorry that you have to go through this.”

“I know.” Other people have said similar things, but from Aj I know it's sincere.

“I just wish I could do more. Sam won't let anyone help him.”

“That's Dad.”

She sighs. “He's going to have to suck it up, because I'm going to be here. I'm coming every weekend, just so you know. He told me about the road trip. I'm going to come up and stay with the house if you need anything. I thought I could clean and get rid of some of those casseroles and so forth. Is there anything you need done?”

“The sink's a little leaky. You don't know how to fix that, do you?” Aj knows about thumbscrews, but I'm not sure how much she knows about plumbing.

“Pft. I got this. I fix all kinds of things in my apartment complex because my landlord is useless.”

“Really? I didn't know that.” You learn something new every day.

“You make me a list and when you get back, it'll be done.” She glances at the clock. “I should get back. I still have some research to do before I go to bed.”

“What are you working on now?”

“Some branding irons. Nothing too fascinating. I'll keep you updated.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

“Bye, kiddo. Tell your parents I said good-bye.”

“I will. Thanks, Aj.”

“Anytime.” We share another hug and then she leaves. I shut the door behind her and the house is calm and quiet.

I suddenly can't stand the flowers anymore. They're ugly and dying and they smell thick and disgusting. I haven't been able to breathe since they've been in the house, but no one else seems to be able to get rid of them. Might as well be me. I get a big black trash bag and shove every single damn flower in the whole house that I can find into the bag. I kind of want to smash the vases, but some of them are pretty, I guess. Most of them are ugly and plastic, so I toss those in the bag. It gets full fast. I tie the top with multiple knots and drag it outside to the shed. When I get back inside I open all the windows to air everything out, and then I stack the vases in the sink.

Feeling satisfied, I go upstairs to see my Peter.

“Feel better?” he says, his eyes glued to a textbook. I turn my head and see it's one of the books I got him on medieval life. It is. Aj would be so proud.

“Much,” I say, pulling my hair out of my ponytail. “I still can't figure out why people think dying flowers are a good way to say, 'I'm sorry you have terminal cancer.'”

“What would be a good way?”

I yank my hands through my hair, trying to work through the curls that have turned themselves into knots. “I don't know,” I say, grabbing my brush. “Will you help me with this?” Peter's very good at brushing hair. I don't have the patience. “I just want people to be sincere. They say they're sorry and they have that look in their eyes, but you know it's bull. It's like they get something out of it. I don't know what. People are pretty sick.”

“Humans are fascinated with death. When they see someone who is close, who has touched it, they are interested.”

“Well, it's stupid.” He slides the brush through my hair gently. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the brush on my hair. “Something Aj said got me thinking.”

“About what?”

“That Mom's going to have a funeral, and be buried and have a headstone. What are we going to put on it? I mean, where is she going to be buried? I don't know any of those things. I feel ashamed I never thought of them.” How could I not have considered that? Ever?

“Your father will take care of it.”

“But I should want to be involved. I don't want him to have to do it all himself. That's not fair.”

“You are young, Ava. The reason they have not involved you is because they didn't want to.”

“That's not really fair to them.”

“It's not fair to you, either. To have to deal with those arrangements when you're losing your mother.”

Something about the way he says I'm so young irritates me. Does he see me that way? “I'm not a baby, Peter.”

“I know.”

I turn to face him. “Is that how you see me? As a child that needs to be protected?”

He puts the brush down and puts both hands on the side of my face. “I don't see you as a child, but it is my natural instinct to protect you. Part of this is because I adore you, and another part is because I have Claimed you.”

“So you don't see me as a little girl? Someone you're stuck with?”

“You are not a little girl, Ava.” His hands drift down my face, and his thumb brushes across my lips, then drifts down both sides of my neck. “I would not do this to a little girl,” he says, kissing my mouth slowly. I kiss him back. I certainly don't feel like a little girl.

“Sorry, that was childish,” I say when he pulls back and smiles. “I should know better.”

“You are human.”

“I guess.”

Eighteen

Brooke

“Hi Jamie,” I said when he opened the door to his room and found me sitting on his bed. His first reaction was shock, and then a smile spread across his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you.” Granted, I'd seen him all day. I'd hung out outside his school with Helena as my annoying shadow. She was out there now, ready to do whatever she was going to do.

It didn't make sense to me. Yes, I understood why Jamie's friends were reluctant to accept me as a part of his life, but I didn't see where Helena fit in. Why was she helping them? What was she getting out of it? It had been my experience that people, immortal or not, didn't do things unless they got something out of it.

She'd barely talked to me, but when she did, it was about stupid things like where I was from and things like that. She was fishing, clearly. She wanted to know what I was doing here and what I wanted with Jamie. The thing was, my original reason for coming here, to find Ava, didn't seem important anymore. I wasn't really sure why I had done it in the first place. I guessed I had lost my direction and was trying to find it again. I hadn't known this immortal life without Ivan, and I needed to find a piece of him, and that seemed like the only way. Now that I'd found Jamie, I had something else. Something warm and bright that I could look forward to. Someone who understood what it was like to be alone in the world.

“So you decided to just hang out in my room and wait for me?”

“I didn't think your family would take a strange girl walking through the house very well.”

Jamie snorted.

“Well, my dad probably wouldn't notice, and my sister and mom are at work. So you could have.” I'd heard his dad downstairs, grunting at a game of some sort. He seemed like a real winner. “So what do you want, Brooke?”

You.

“I don't want anything from you, Jamie.”

“Listen, this is a lot for me to take in. I know you've explained everything, but I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking this is a dream. It's just so hard to believe that immortals exist and no one has ever discovered them.”

“We don't want to be discovered. Besides, what do you think would happen if someone said they saw me jumping out of a tree?”

“No one would believe it. But what if they took a video?”

“They'd say that it was faked. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a noctalis that would let you live long enough to take a video. So there you have it.”

Jamie looked as if he wanted to sit, but didn’t know where. The room was only large enough to accommodate a bed, a small desk and a chair. I moved over on the bed, hoping he would sit next to me. He considered for a moment, putting his book bag over the back of his chair. I patted the space next to me.

“So this is where the magic happens?” I said.

“Not exactly. You're only the seventh girl I've ever had in here, and two of those were my mother and sister.”

“Lucky number seven,” I said.

He was nervous, his heart jumping around. I liked that I made him nervous. He didn't know it, but he almost made me nervous. If I could get nervous, he would be the one to make me so.

“What do you want, Brooke?” He wouldn't let it go.

“Honestly, Jamie? I want to spend time with you. I just feel so... lost.”

“What happened to the one who made you like this?”

“He's gone.”

“Gone?”

“He's not here anymore. He didn't die, because he was already dead, I guess. So I guess that makes me dead.”

“You don't look dead.” He touched my knee, not meeting my eyes.

“I don't feel dead,” I said, touching his shoulder and moving my hand across his chest, feeling his heartbeat through his shirt. It sped up, and I smiled.

“What brought you here? I know you're here for a reason, to find someone. You can tell me.” His voice was sweet and pleading, and I wanted to tell him, but I didn't know what he'd say.

“I was trying to find someone, but instead I found you. The other things don't matter anymore.”

“Are you sure?” He finally looked at my face, but removed his hand from my leg. My palm was still against his chest.

“Yeah. I am. I was looking for something I didn't need to find.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Stay. If you want me to.” I took my hand away, waiting for his reaction.

“I do,” he said, cupping one side of my face. “You're not the only one who's lost.” His thumb caressed my lip and he leaned closer, as if he was going to kiss me. “You're not going to kill me, are you?” His fear was palpable, but also his wish to kiss me. It was like I could feel it in his skin.

“I'm going to try not to.” I hoped I'd said the right thing. I couldn't lie to him about something like that.

“I can't picture you hurting anyone.”

“I have. I've killed a lot of people.” My lips moved against his finger, and I wanted to flick out my tongue and taste his skin. I knew just what it would taste like. Cinnamon and sweat and life.

“I don't want to think about that.”

“I don't, either.” I didn't want to think about anything but his lips on mine and his hands on my body. I wanted him everywhere. I wanted him to burn away the memories of all the bad things I'd done. This was the first time I was ashamed of all the things I'd done since I'd become immortal. I hadn't thought about the lives, about the people. They didn't matter. I'd justified it in my mind.

I thought back to that moment when I'd almost killed him. What if I had? I wouldn't be sitting on this bed with this boy who somehow was scared of me, but still wanted to kiss me.

He was leaning in when we heard the door slam downstairs. I'd heard the car coming, but I didn't want to ruin the moment with him.

Jamie sighed and pulled away.

“Here we go,” he said, getting up and going down the hall. His father had a beer in one hand and was pointing the other hand at Cassie. Her polo shirt did little to conceal the growing bump under it. She smelled like French fries and grease.

I stayed down the hall, but just out of sight.

“I'm not going to have you bumming in my house anymore.”

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“I don't care. How about you move in with that loser that you spread your legs for?”

“Dad,” Jamie said in a quiet, but stern voice.

“You shut your face. This has nothing to do with you.” Jamie had told me about his dad and his drinking. I was all too familiar with living with an alcoholic. When things were good, you were always terrified they were going to get bad again. His dad had been doing well lately, but there was always that chance.