What Kills Me (20 page)

I shook him. I heard things crack. His
pulse fluttered against my thumb and his eyes started to roll
backward. A tear leaked out of his eye and dropped onto my
arm.

It extinguished my fury. And I felt as
limp as the man in my hands.

Crying out, I threw him on top of one
of his writhing friends. I slapped my hands over my eyes. I wished
that I could breathe as humans did. That I could pull in the
chilled air and feel it calm my nerves, feel it regulate a frenzied
heartbeat. That heartbeat would tell me when I was in control
again, when things felt safe.

The girl had crawled behind a row of
bicycles. I walked to her, hunching to appear small. She hugged her
knees to her chest, her face buried, her body a tight, convulsing
ball. I knelt beside her. I touched her shivering elbow and she
jumped.

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I asked.
“Shh. It’s okay. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

The force of her heartbeat made the
inside of my chest vibrate, and I rubbed her back. Images flashed
before my eyes. The empty alley. The men coming out of nowhere. The
leader’s crazy eyes and twisted smile.

“You must be terrified,” I whispered.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

She looked up at me, her eyes
overflowing. Tears streamed down her face and under her chin,
mixing with the blood on her neck. I stared at the red smears on
her collar and inhaled the metallic smell. I could taste it, salty,
pungent on my tongue. The flavor seemed to coat the back of my
throat. It was intoxicating.

When I opened my mouth, it
was as if I could taste her scent, even though I couldn’t breathe
it in. The sounds of her deep breaths were hypnotic. I leaned
toward her. Suddenly I longed to be closer to her, to taste the
blood.
If I could just hold her…
I was so close that my nose was almost touching
her cheek. I felt her pull away. I grabbed her arm, and my lips
pulled up and away from my teeth. She shrieked.

I threw myself away from her. “Oh
God,” I said.

She scrambled up and ran from me, her
face twisted in terror. I watched her disappear out of the alley
and I stood alone in the street, listening to the moans and the
faint heartbeats coming from the broken bodies around me. I covered
my mouth with my hand, feeling my hard, sharp teeth against my
palms, and I looked to the sky to keep the tears from falling. I
saw that it had become dark and the full moon now lit the city. I
felt the stillness of my body. I felt neither cold or warm. I just
felt deep, unspeakable anguish. And in that moment, for the first
time, I felt unequivocally that I was no longer a human being. I
was a monster.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a
figure on a building top, several blocks away. As I turned to look,
the figure stepped off the edge and disappeared.

I tore down the street toward the
apartment, knocking over a rack of clothing and shoving a young man
into a display of sandals. In front of the building Kinman was
loading our bags into the backseat of a car and Lucas was standing
by the driver’s side. When he saw my face, he ran to me.

Sobbing, I collapsed into his arms. I
tried to talk but everything kept streaming out in a
mess.

“I’m so sorry,” I blubbered. “I
shouldn’t have gone out. I hurt people.”

He shook me to break the grip of
panic. “Calm down. What happened?”

I told them about the five goons and
the girl in the alley. I told them about trying to save her and
beating up the men. “And then, oh God, I tried to eat her,” I
said.

“What?” Lucas said.

“I tried to eat the girl.”

“Did you?” Kinman asked.

“Nooo,” I moaned, my face in my
hands.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you go
out,” Lucas said. He held me at arm’s length, his hands on my
shoulders. I looked at him through my fingers. Concern screwed up
his face. His eyes were cast down.

“I’m sorry, Lucas.”

He shook his head and
stepped away from me. Free of his hold I staggered back. It
stung.
He must be so disappointed in
me.

Kinman slung his huge arm over my
shoulders.

“You know, Zee, maybe the humans
deserved it,” he said.

“No,” I said, rubbing my wet face. “No
one deserves that.”

“What else could you have
done?”

“My parents taught me about
diplomacy.”

“You don’t speak Mandarin or
Taiwanese,” he said. “How were you going to negotiate?”

“I don’t know.” I leaned back against
the car. I felt dizzy.

“It’s all right. It’s over
now.”

He smiled at me and patted my
back.

The figure on the rooftop.

I gasped. “Wait. There was someone on
a rooftop. I couldn’t see his face. But he saw it all and then he
jumped off the building.”

Vampire.

Lucas and Kinman looked at each other
and quickly returned to packing.

“What can I do?”

They ignored me. Lucas strapped his
swords to his back. Kinman put a cooler into the trunk and slammed
it so hard that the car hopped. He tossed the keys to Lucas, who
got into the driver’s side and started the engine. Kinman opened
the passenger side door.

“We have to go now,” Lucas
said.

I ran to Kinman and threw my arms
around him. He hugged me, crushing me, lifting me off the
ground.

“Thank you for your help,” I said into
his ear.

“Safe travels, Zee,” he said. “Stay
alive.”

I climbed into the car and Kinman shut
the door. He reached through the open window and handed Lucas a
map.

“Kinman. I am in your debt,” he
said.

“Don’t worry. We’ll meet again. Be
safe. Oh, I almost forgot.”

Kinman turned and grabbed something
that he had propped against the gate. He put it through the window
and into my lap. It was a short sword in a gleaming ivory
sheath.

“For the lady,” he said with a
grin.

I touched the pearl inlays that
decorated the handle, tracing the intricate floral patterns. Two
butterflies flew among the flowers.

“Thank you,” I said, forcing a
smile.

“Don’t be upset,” he said. He rubbed
the top of my head. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Lucas put the car in gear. “Thanks
again,” he said.

“Hurry. You need to get out of here,”
Kinman said. “Follow my directions. Call me if you run into any
problems.” He stood and patted the roof of the car twice. As we
drove away, I looked into the side mirror to see Kinman, but he was
already gone.

We drove in silence. Lucas leaned
forward, scanning all the street signs and double-checking his
rearview mirror. I lay my sword on the floor against my knees and
sat back.

I should not have gone
down that alley. But I needed to help that girl. I should have been
more in control of my emotions. Then I wouldn’t have been so
violent.

When we pulled onto a highway, Lucas
asked: “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

He shifted in his seat and studied my
face. I could see him in my periphery, his eyebrows pinched, his
lips tight.

I remembered Lettie’s warning: “Their
impulses could manifest themselves in you…They were vicious. They
were pure evil.”

I had been vicious. I had been evil.
And then cowardly. I had left the men there. In broken piles. They
had deserved punishment—but not the kind of pain I had inflicted.
They could be dead for all I knew. I could have killed them. I
could have killed that girl. I was what the prophecy had warned.
Dangerous. Unpredictable.

In my mind I heard bones crunching.
The girl’s wail. The strained breaths of the wounded. I saw the
leader’s horrified expression. The blood on the girl’s neck. The
desperation that I felt to taste her blood. The images haunted me,
tortured me, shamed me. What had happened in a blur was so crisp
now in my memory. It was cruel.

“I should have listened to you,” I
said. “I should not have gone out.”

“It’s my fault,” he said.

I looked at him. “Seriously? Don’t…” I
started.

“It’s my fault,” he repeated. “I
should never have left you alone. You’re my
responsibility.”

“No, Lucas, I’m not…”

“Yes, you are my responsibility. If
you had a sire, he would be the one taking care of you and teaching
you. So, in the absence of a sire, I’m it.”

“I’m sorry that I’ve been a
burden.”

“You’re not a burden.”

“I did a terrible thing,” I
whispered.

“What?”

“I hurt those guys in that alley. I
really hurt them.”

“You didn’t mean to.”

“But I did.”

He didn’t respond. My guilt was
excavating my heart.

“I wanted to hurt them,” I said. “I
wanted them to suffer. What does that say about me?”

“It says that you got angry. It says
that you fought for something. You were trying to protect the
human.”

I shook my head. “I might have killed
them. I don’t even know because I ran away.”

“Listen,” he said. “You’re still
young. You’re still getting used to your abilities. You don’t have
any sense of what you’re capable of. When I first became a vampire,
Nuwa was constantly testing our powers and our strength. That
doesn’t stop. The older we get, the more powerful we become. I
still test myself. I tested Jerome every night. I should be testing
you. I should be teaching you how to be a vampire.”

Jerome.

“Since I became this, only bad things
have happened,” I said. “Everyone who I come in contact with is in
danger. I used to be…good.”

“Zee,” he said. “These horrible things
that have happened, they do not define you. You are still
good.”

For a moment we were silent. He looked
so troubled by our conversation, by my misery. I was making him
suffer with me.

“Hey,” I said, fighting to lighten my
tone.

“Hmm.”

“I think that was the first time that
you’ve ever called me by my name.”

“What? No.”

“Yes,” I said. “See? You do like
me.”

He clucked his tongue and shook his
head, but he had a faint smile on his face. It loosened the grip of
grief. Feeling bold, I reached over to the gearshift in between us
and rested my hand over his. He stiffened. I gave his hand a
squeeze.

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded once. If I had blinked I
would have missed it. I was about to move my hand when he closed
his fingers around mine. He didn’t look at me. I watched him watch
the road. He now wore a slight frown but he looked
peaceful.

My hand was the only part of me that
was not hurting. It made me forget that we were running. It made me
forget my fear and my remorse. The only thing that I wanted to be
real was the pressure of his fingers gripping mine. And I thought
if he could enfold me in his arms, if he could bury me in an
embrace, then I could escape from this chaos, this pain.

He finally glanced over at me. The
left corner of his lip curled and he winked. I smiled. I loved
that. It filled the emptiness inside of me. It was a flash of light
in the darkness. I felt grateful for his presence, his friendship.
I thought of how he had encouraged me during our sword tutorial.
How earnestly he had explained the correct stance and how pleased
he’d looked when I countered his attack. I thought of how he called
me “schoolgirl” and “killer” and how he’d called me by my
name.

He released my hand to turn the wheel,
crossing two lanes of traffic, and my hand felt naked. He shifted
in his seat, making the leather squeak. His brow wrinkled, his eyes
narrowed.

I had clung to his fingers
like a starving leech and it creeped him out.
My hurt was followed by the realization that I might have
feelings for Lucas.

No, wait. You’re confused
because you’ve gone through craziness together. You feel gratitude
because he’s always saving your life, and you feel dependency
because he’s your only ally. And most of the time, he’s sort of
mean to you.
But he’s not. He’s great to
you. He takes care of you. He reminds you that you’re good.
Oh geez. He’s going to feel weird around you if
he thinks that you like him. Say something.

“So, if you’re my substitute sire,
does that mean you’re like my dad?” I said, staring into my
lap.

Oh my God. Of all the
things you could say.

When he didn’t respond, I looked at
him. His eyes darted to the rearview mirror.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I think we’re being
followed.”