Silent Night: Vampire Holiday Romance (The Night Songs Collection Book 4) (17 page)

In my nightmare, Aidan, covered in my blood, chewed the flesh and bone of my fingers. I begged him to stop, but he said he couldn’t. He needed to consume all of me. I only realized I’d fallen asleep when I woke up screaming. Stretching out my fingers, I counted them to make sure they were all still there.

Aidan slept through the whole thing, only pulling me in closer to his body. He held me so tightly I could only take shallow breaths.

I willed myself to go back to sleep. Delirium wouldn’t do me any good. I needed to have my wits about me once I could break free of Aidan’s grip.

**

“Aidan,” I murmured. “I need to get up.”

His grasp loosened just enough to let me wriggle free, he must not have been conscious or it would have never been that easy. I pulled the covers back up over him, taking a few precious seconds that I shouldn’t have wasted to watch him sleep. How could he look so content while my skin crawled at the memory of last night? His lips curled upward as he snuggled against my vacant pillow.

Only a matter of time before he realized I was gone.

Tiptoeing quickly across the room, I closed the door as quietly as possible. Still on my toes, I gathered clean clothes from my room, ignoring the now framed note that Aidan had wrote me the night I’d decided to stay here. I looked like hell. Dirty hair, puffy face, blotchy skin. Since the sidewalk was far from the catwalk, it was just going to have to do.

A phone message confirmed my appointment for my drug test tomorrow afternoon. But until then, I had twenty four hours of emptiness ahead of me.

My jacket still laid forgotten over the back of the couch. I looked at Aidan’s closed door while I buttoned it, expecting it to open any moment. Once I pulled my hat down over my ears, I turned toward the front door.

No looking back.

Regret choked me as I headed to Mass Ave, retracing my steps from the night before. I hadn’t brought anything with me. No keys, no clothes, no plan.

I didn’t know where to go as dusk fell over Cambridge. My old routine would have been to walk through the mall, but I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. I’d expected to return triumphant, in my scrubs, so I could tell them about my great new life as a nursing assistant and my fantastic boyfriend.

One more day until I could lay claim to that job. But for now, I had nothing to brag about.

In warmer weather, I’d hang out in Harvard Square, get a cheap cup of coffee, and see who I could find. Today, it felt good to be outside after the airlessness of Aidan’s room, so that seemed like a good plan. Switching things up, I got a cup of fruity tea and climbed up on the concrete embankment over the T station to watch the world go by. I tried not to think of Aidan while I sipped my drink. I usually loved doing this. If anyone fascinated me, I’d make up a story about who they were and what they were doing here.

For example, I’d never talked to the tiny Asian lady who worked at the magazine shop adjacent to the embankment. Her salt and pepper hair was stylishly cut in a bob, and today she wore a blue quilted jacket with black dress pants. In my mind, her name was Judy, and she had come here to be close to her son who studied at Harvard. Once he’d become a doctor, he bought her the magazine stand. Under a pseudonym, she blogged about her customers, who they were and what they bought.

Maybe I should be the one writing books. Although I had no idea how to give a story a happy ending.

Someone jumped up on the concrete wall beside me. I turned slightly to acknowledge them, but didn’t really see them. I’d moved on from Judy to the impossibly tall, skinny kid roller skating over the bricks on the sidewalk. The laws of physics should have rendered him on his ass, but he glided along effortlessly. Making his journey more difficult was the guitar case slung across his back.

“Don’t have anything to say to me, princess?” Shit. Had I been thinking clearly today, I would have remembered what good business Matt did in the square. College kids loved their pills.

“Not really.” My tea tasted sour now. Matt just ruined everything. I concentrated on Judy, hoping maybe he’d get the hint and go away.

Now that it was dark, a piece of me hoped to see Aidan coming around the corner, looking relieved to have spotted me. I might have run from him, but it didn’t mean I didn’t want to be found.

“Where have you been?” Of course it didn’t work.

I straightened my back and faced him. “At school.” Finally I had something to be proud of. “I’m going to start working soon.”

“Good for you.” He didn’t sound all that sarcastic. “We should celebrate.”

One final scan for Aidan. Nothing. I sighed. Doing the right thing got me nowhere.

Maybe I belonged with the trash.

“Okay.”

Nineteen

The party never stopped at Matt’s house. I stopped to gag at the sour milk smell that hit me in the face as soon as I made it to the doorway. Then I had to put my hand out to keep the actual door from hitting me in the face. Matt was many things, but a gentleman he was not.

Aidan would have held the door open for me,
I thought. But Aidan was also convinced that we were both three hundred years old. So here I was. Back where it all began.

“Look who’s back!” Philthy Phil, Matt’s buddy who crashed here most of the time, called out. Sounding genuinely happy to see me again, he sat in the middle of the living room floor, his shirt rode up over his considerable stomach, a greasy stain all the way down the down the front of it. I could only see his mutton chop sideburns on either side of his impressive bong. It looked more like plumbing than a smoking accessory. Phil never strayed from weed, or far from this room, unless he had to greet the pizza delivery guy.

Pizza. I wondered if there was any. I hadn’t had anything to eat in days. I’d been too nervous before my interview, and too freaked out after it to even think about food. I had to be careful around here. Just because there was food, didn’t mean it was edible. It could have been sitting on the counter for a week.

“Yeah, look who’s back.” A couple of Matt’s porn star cokehead girls sat on the couch. One picked at a sore on her arm, and the oozing wound made me forget all about pizza. Another attempted to clean up the mess in the kitchen. None of the girls that hung around here were ever very nice to me. Matt insisted they were jealous.

Jealous of what?

Nothing could have prepared me for the shame I felt being back here. I didn’t sit, I stood by the wall, jacket still on, heavy arms clutching my stomach. I didn’t make eye contact with anyone. “Hey.”

“Where have you been?” Phil liked me probably a little too much, since once the coke entered my bloodstream, I didn’t say no to anyone. Not even him.

“Princess has a boyfriend.” Matt ran his fingers along my cheek and I jumped. One of the girls on the couch scoffed. “She’s all smart and rich now.”

“Good, she can buy,” maybe the same girl said. I didn’t know one’s voice from the other.

“Relax, Kyndra.” Matt laughed, pulling me into him roughly, almost bringing me to my knees. “We’ll have a good time tonight. You know you missed us.”

Did I? I let myself look around the room, trying not to breathe. Who knows when last time Matt remembered to shower? He’d probably been up for days already. He’d been all over the road on the way here, and it was a miracle he parked the SUV in the driveway instead of the middle of the living room.

Some days, I missed the Matt I knew before he and Phil found his dad’s weed. I never missed this. I hated this. It reminded me of everything I didn’t have. How empty my life was. That everything good wasn’t real. That’s what made it so easy for me to try to alter my reality here with anything they offered me. When I was high, I forgot how miserable everything was.

I needed to forget. Everything.

“So, what have you guys been up to?” My voice sounded thin and I didn’t really care.

“You know, same old same old. We don’t get fancy and change things up around here, princess.” Matt dragged me over to the chair, where I landed awkwardly on top of him. I wonder if he thought he was being seductive. My thigh was going to bruise. “We know a good time when we see it.”

“Stop it, Matt.” I squirmed, trying to sit up. His hand was already under my shirt, groping at my bra.

“Why? Does the truth hurt?” He stuck out his bottom lip then laughed.

“No.” I made it upright, swatting his hand away. It landed in my lap, then fell between my legs. “If I wanted to talk about my life, I wouldn’t have come here.”

“Yes!” Phil leaned back, feigning prayer. “I knew I missed you for a reason.”

My stomach churned. Really, I was going to let him touch me? If nothing else, it wouldn’t last long. A few grunts and pokes, and a mess to clean up. Did it ever do anything for me? I hadn’t realized how bad it was until I was Aidan. But I apparently didn’t deserve that, either.

“I’m not here for that, either.”

“Yeah, right.” Matt laughed too hard. “I’ve got some new stuff. You’ll love it.”

In twenty hours, I was scheduled for a blood test to make sure none of this was in my system. Twenty hours. “I can’t.”

But God, was I curious. The craving made my mouth water. Especially in this place. I shouldn’t have come here.

I put my hands on the arms of the chair to get out of Matt’s lap, but he pushed me back down. “Since when do you say no?”

“I have a drug test tomorrow—“

The room erupted in laughter. Why was that funny, besides the fact they’d never pass it?

“I have a drug test tomorrow.” Matt mocked. “You have a drug test tonight. I need you to test out this new junk for me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Heroin. If I did that shit, tomorrow would sail by without me. Probably the next day, too. I could kiss any hopes of getting that job goodbye.

I’d been so close to getting what I wanted. Why did it all have to fall apart?

“No. That’s too much.” This time I came to my feet, ignoring the sneers of everyone else in the room. “I really need this job, Matt.”

“Oh, is your sugar daddy making you get a job?” That sarcastic pout returned.

“I want a job.”

“You don’t need a job, Kyndra,” Phil insisted. “We’re all fine, and we don’t answer to anyone.”

The only reason they hadn’t been evicted was this house was in Matt’s sister’s name, and the state was under the impression that only her and her son lived here. I racked my brain, trying to remember the last time I saw her kid. Wherever he was, it was better than here. This was the last thing he needed to see. They all laughed at how impossible it was for her landlord to get rid of her. She hadn’t bothered to pay the rent in months.

Matt pulled my face against his, his tongue all over my face trying to find my mouth. I squirmed to get away from him as he slobbered on my chin and cheeks. When he finally hit his target, he tasted like raw onions, stale beer, and unbrushed teeth. Bile rose in my throat, but slid back down, and I was a little disappointed I didn’t get a chance to throw up in Matt’s mouth.

“Why are you crying?” Matt wrinkled up his nose when I pulled away from him.

“Because you’re disgusting and I want to go home.”

He brought his nose to mine. “You are home.”

Maybe he was right. I squeezed my eyes closed, giving in and letting him kiss me again. He groped my breast painfully. I forced myself to think about Aidan, imagining his hands on me, his tongue caressing mine instead of Matt’s choking me.

The only thing Matt and Aidan had in common was they were both crazy.

“What do you have?” I separated myself from the words coming out of my mouth. And in a few minutes, I would separate myself from everything.

Twenty

The needle burned when it hit my vein, but after that, this feeling of euphoria took over my body. Relaxation flooded me; I couldn’t even remember what had made me so tense. Why I was lying naked on this filthy mattress in the middle of Matt’s “room,” which should have been a family dining room. Matt dug through a pile of garbage, some of it hitting my foot.

“Let me clean that up for you.” My words came fast. I sat up quickly, the room spinning, and started sorting through the pile at the end of the mattress. Matt pushed me back down.

“You can do that later.” He crawled over my body, pushing his knee between my thighs. I pulled at his shirt, getting it out of the way so I could undo his pants. This stuff made my inhibitions, my opinions, everything, go out the window. My brain needed to feel everything, do everything. There was no stopping me.

I’d just totally screwed myself out of that job, but it didn’t matter. I’d find a better job. I’d figure it all out. After this.

Matt’s hands worked my breasts. All I could focus on was the dirt under his fingernails. Gross. He needed a makeover. Later. Everything later.

“Don’t bother with that.” I pushed him away. “Just do it.”

“Nice.” He moved in to kiss me but I turned my face away. “That’s what I like about you, you don’t care about all that foreplay stuff. You just want to fuck.”

There was no high that would ever take away my disgust for Matt. It just made me want to fill the emptiness I felt inside.