The Darkest Dream (The Darkest Trilogy) (10 page)

“No, Lucinda.”
 
He shook his head.
 

“But it’s daylight—”

“His reach extends to humans, too.”
 
I almost gasped.
 

“There’s no way a
human
would be able to track—”

“You’re not going out there alone.
 
Please don’t be difficult.”
 
He interrupted me, and I sighed, biting my lip.

“I just need—I smell like smoke.
 
I’ve been wearing the same underwear for days now.
 
I don’t have a toothbrush or a hairbrush or deodorant—
”
 
Earlier
, I had made do with a tube of cheap motel toothpaste and my fingers, but I still felt incredibly grimy.
 

“If you can wait until nightfall, I’ll go out for you.”
 
He hesitated.
 
“I need…”
 
And I knew what he wanted to say.
 

“You’re hungry.”

“It’s more of a thirst, actually.”
 
I didn’t dare risk a look at him, though I imagined a very subtle grin on his perfectly formed face.
 
“There’s a store nearby—”

“Where are we?”
 
I was racking my brain, trying to think of where any motels were in the area.
 

“We’re on the outskirts of town, near the city.”
 
I had grown up in a small suburb of Port Lawrence, California known as Glover.
 
Glover was at least half an hour, in perfect traffic conditions, from Port Lawrence—and the border of the suburb and city was usually considered dicey territory.
 
Had I woken up at this motel any other morning, I probably would have been terrified.
 

Today, however, I felt no fear of muggers—or anything human at all, actually.
 
“I wanted to get closer to the city.
 
It will be harder for them to trace your scent, once it clears up.
 
It’ll blend with the others.”

“Do you have a scent?”
 
I asked and
Darrenhesitated
.

“Nothing quite
like
yours, no.
 
When I speak of your scent…it’s in your blood.
 
Something specific, to each person.
 
When a human becomes a vampire, they lose their identifying scent.
 
We adapt the scents of the blood we drink.”

“What about to humans?”
 
I asked, thinking of the way the comforting aroma of fresh, dewy rain always seemed to waft over me whenever I was near him.

“What do you mean?”
 
He was genuinely confused and I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment.
 

“I mean, can you have a scent to humans?”

“I’ve never heard of it personally, but I suppose it’s possible.
 
Why, do I have a scent?”
 

Now I was beyond embarrassed.
 

“No—I mean—it’s just…I smell rain.
 
Whenever you’re around.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“Obviously, I’m crazy, or broken, or—”

“Is it a comforting scent to you?”
 
he
asked.
 
After a brief pause, I nodded.
 
“Then I’m glad for it.”
 
I shook my head, deciding to move on so that I could hopefully put a stop to my mortification.

“So they can’t find you?”
 
I pressed forward.
 
This information was clearly much more pertinent than my obviously dysfunctional
olfactories
.
 

“If they get close enough, they might be able to smell…death.
 
But we, as individuals, don’t have a traceable scent.”
 
Darren replied.

“How do we find him, then?”
 
I pressed.
 

“He won’t be hard to find, not in Glover.”
 
He paused.
 
“There aren’t many vampires in Glover.”
 
My eyes widened.
 
I hadn’t even considered there being more.

“Are there…any?”
 
He shrugged.

“They pass through, on occasion.”
 

“How many of you are there?”
 
My voice was very hesitant.
 
I didn’t like the reminder of what he was any more than he did.
 

“More than you’d believe,
”
 
he
said softly.

“How many are like you?”
 
I hated to feel as if I was prying, but I had so many questions.
 
There was so much I wanted to know.

“Like me?”
 
He questioned, and I swallowed, preparing to clarify.
 
“Oh—you mean…those on a similar diet?”
 
I nodded and he shrugged again.
 
“Not many, but I’ve heard of others.”

“So I take it that means there’s none around here…”

“None that I’m aware of, no.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“I’m…something of a rarity, I believe.
 
When we’re bourn into this life, we’re fueled by our thirst, pure and simple.
 
We lose our conscience and survive purely on instinct.”
 
He sighed and rose to his feet, crossing the room to sit on the edge of the bed, so that I was now staring at his back.
 

“Like I said before…I didn’t make this choice.
 
It was life or death for me.
 
I drank from a girl whose blood had been protected.
 
The caster who had cursed the blood gave me a choice:
 
I could go on living if I followed her rules.
 
No killing, no torturing…”
 
He paused for a moment.
 
“Or I could die.
 
I could accept the fate I’d chosen for myself, or I could spend the rest of my days searching within myself for whatever remained of my soul.”

“So you did make a choice, Darren.”
 
I told him, referring to our earlier conversation.
 
He had told me that he hadn’t chosen to be the man that he was—but he had.

“I chose to live, because survival is in my nature.
 
And that was what I did until the 40s, when blood collection developed.”
 
I wanted to ask him how he survived until then—but I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words aloud.
 
“Many times, though, I contemplated death.
 
I was practically starved, living only off of the vials I procured from hospitals or what I could scavenge from a body already left for dead.”
 

Even from where I sat, I saw him shudder.
 
“But when they finally began collecting blood, it became easier.
 
I was able to feed regularly, and with time, I established an existence for myself.”

“And…what about your soul?”
 
I asked, before I could stop myself.
 
I knew it was unnecessary information, and I was aware of my earlier plan to stick only to the facts.
 
But I couldn’t help it—I wanted to know more about him.
 
There was something about this dark, handsome stranger that reached out to me.
 

Darren turned his head and glanced over his shoulder, our eyes meeting briefly.
 

“I guess you could say I’m still searching.”
 

I bit my lip, my brow furrowed as I thought for a long moment, considering what he’d just told me.
 
“I know that you don’t think you made a choice, Darren.
 
But you did.
 
You chose to live, and you lowered yourself to whatever methods necessary to make sure that happened.
 
You could have ended it, but you didn’t.
 
That
was your choice.
 

“I don’t know what you’ve done, and I really don’t think I want to know.”
 
I continued.
 
“I don’t know if you have a soul, or if it’s even possible…I really don’t know anything about this world.”
 
I stared at his profile, my heart pounding in my ears.
 
“But I
do
know that you saved me, and that has to count for something.”
 
I whispered, looking down at the pastel colored comforter and picking at a loose string.
 

The air in the room
changed,
the tension lessening.
 
I risked a glance upward and saw that his expression had softened a bit—perhaps just a fraction of the guilt having disappeared.
 
I longed to push him further—to get him to open up to me, to know everything there was to know.
 
Not even about this world of darkness I’d been introduced to, although I did want to know more…but what I
really
wanted was to know
him
.

Of course, I couldn’t push him, though.
 
Not wanting to risk Darren growing defensive again, I continued on with my line of questioning, deciding if I couldn’t know more about him, I could at least explore my other curiosity.
 
He owed me that much, considering I was here because of him.
 

“Do most vampires run in…gangs?”

“The powerful ones like to have minions and
companions
both.
 
Those like Demetrius.
 
He’s lonely now, all of his companions having left him.
 
I left quite some time ago, but I was always his favorite monster.”
 
His voice had that same distant tone it’d had earlier when he spoke of his past, and I tried not to imagine what might be going through his mind.

“He has minions, yes.
 
That night we met—they were there, in that alley, watching.”
 
Darren continued, back with me now.
 
“But they’re disposable—things he can easily replace if lost.”
 
He paused.
 
“They’re lesser than he is—and he wants an equal, again.
 
Someone that he can…relive the old days with.
 
A companion.”

“That’s why he’s come back for you.”
 
It was not a question and so he did not answer.
 
I noticed the way he avoided my eyes, turning away and staring at the curtains as he began talking again.

“There are others who run in pairs.
 
Some have found their soul mates and have decided to spend an eternity together.
 
Some run alone.
 
But yes, most like to have companionship, much like we crave in our human lives.”
 
I longed to ask him if he’d been alone all this time, but I denied myself, once again trying to keep my interrogation based solely on the facts.
 

“So you don’t have any…companions…who could help?”
 
I asked after deliberating a long moment, somewhat proud of myself for having come up with a way to ask an important question that would also lend me just a bit of personal information.

“No,
”
 
he
shook his head.
 
“I know some…”
 
He thought for a long moment.
 
“Someone,
”
 
he
finally decided.
 
I tried to hide my disappointment.
 
“She may be able to help.”

I nodded my head, not missing the pronoun.
 
She
.
 
Surely it shouldn’t bother me that the only person he could go to for help was a female, but the little girl inside of me couldn’t help but feel a little saddened.
 

Right, because
that
was what I should be thinking about right now.
 
The fact that I had some girlhood-like crush on a vampire—
that
was what was really important right now.
 
Not the fact that there was some vicious monster out to torture and kill me.

As I raised my eyes, though, I found his staring back at me—and I knew that whatever I was feeling was something that I had no control over.
 

Just as before, I
knew
that this was where I was supposed to be.
 
With every fiber of my being, I knew that this was right.

“I want to help,
”
 
I
finally told him.
 
And it wasn’t for my own sake that I wanted to help, either.
 
I wanted to help Darren.
 
I wanted to ease whatever of his suffering that I could.

“I know you do.”
 
He was not angry, and he did not tell me no.
 
We sat in silence for several long moments before I spoke again.

“Can you tell me more?”
 
I glanced at the window, wondering how much time had gone by since I’d emerged from the shower.
 
It seemed like it could have only been minutes, but I was sure it had been much, much longer.
 
The light on the other side of the heavy curtains was beginning to fade slightly—and I wasn’t ready for it.

“What more would you like to know?”
 
he
asked.
 

“Everything.”
 
I told him, my voice small.
 
“How—how did vampires originate?
 
Was it really a bat?”
 
I asked, the last question clearly a joke.
 
Darren’s lips turned up ever-so-slightly before he looked down at the floor.