The rain was cold, almost icy against her face, but Gillian didn’t care. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the couple that necked in the shelter of the awning across the street. Though she could not hear them, she could imagine the soft sighs the girl made as his lips and tongue brushed against the spot where the shoulder meets the neck. His hands slid around the girl’s waist, pulling her tight against his body. His cock would be semi-erect, pressing against her hip suggestively while he whispered all the empty promises she needed to hear. They had not noticed her watching because they were so wrapped up in each other that the whole world seemed to disappear. She knew that tonight would be the night they would consummate their relationship. She knew because she’d once been that girl. Had once been the object of his desire.
The clock tower down the street struck the noisy hour, startling the couple out of their lustful embrace. He pulled his jacket over them and they ran down the sidewalk, their laughter carried on the breeze. Gillian felt sick as she brushed the wet tendrils out of her face and started down the street. She didn’t want to lose them in the crowd of people running down the cracked pavement to escape the storm. She didn’t know why. Seeing them was like sticking her hand in the fire—fast and painful. She’d loved him so long and couldn’t let go. Meanwhile, he’d put her away like old summer clothes. But she had to see him one more time. Just once before she stopped the pain. It was a last ditch effort, a hopeless endeavor, for she’d already made her decision. Every breath was a struggle, every sensation a pale shadow of what they once were. It was meaningless to go on after him. Her life was a disease, and tonight she would find the cure.
She followed them for another ten blocks, ducking behind streetlamps and blending in with strangers whenever she drew too near. She knew the path they were on. They were almost to the stylish brownstone he’d once occupied with Gillian. Once there, he’d romance her inside for a glass of wine. He’d whisper a lot of sexy little promises in her ear until she was giggling with feigned embarrassment. Eventually, one glass of wine would turn into five. Once she felt all warm and willing, he’d make his move, kissing and pawing until both of them were on the brink. He’d take her to his bed… Gillian squinted, trying to block the image out of her head. The thought of him in the throes of passion with another woman was more than she could take.
When they reached the stairs in front of his house, Gillian knew it was now or never. This was her last chance. Looking both ways, she crossed the wet street quickly, trying not to attract his attention just yet. As she approached, they kissed again while he tried to fish out his key.
“Patience, you little minx,” he murmured at the blonde. “Wait until I find my key at least.” She giggled, whispering in his ear and sliding her hand into his pocket.
“Jackson!” Gillian shouted as she stepped up on the sidewalk.
The couple froze, turning to stare down at her from the tiny porch. “Gillian,” he began.
“Jackson, I have to talk to you.” She cleared her throat, willing herself not to cry. She’d wasted enough tears on him.
“Gillian, look—we’ve been all through this. There’s really nothing else to say…” he replied, pushing the blonde behind him.
“Yes there is,” she spat, her voice trembling with emotion. “There’s so much to say!”
“Jackson? Who is this?” the blonde asked, pulling at his arm with a nervous jerk.
He turned to her and shook his head. “It’s no one.”
“No one?” Gillian shrieked. “So, now I’m no one?” She started toward them, pushing her rain soaked hair away from her face. “After all the time we spent together, I’m no one? After putting up with two years of your shit, I’m no one?” Her voice rose in volume and passersby were turning to stare.
“Please, Gillian…” Jackson came down the steps slowly, his arms outstretched in a gesture of caution. “Can’t we do this another time?”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll tell her about all the other women before her? The ones you were fucking while we were still together?”
“Gillian…”
“Or how about our baby? The one I spent a week in the hospital with trying to save. The one I had to push out in agonizing pain only to find its lifeless body lying in a bloody stainless steel tub in the delivery room!” She cursed herself as the tears started to roll down her face. She couldn’t contain them anymore and at this point, what did it matter? These were the last words she’d utter, so why not say how she really felt, no matter how painful? “Or maybe I should elaborate on how you left me two days later, convinced that I’d killed our child on purpose!”
“Jax?” the blonde murmured, suddenly not looking so sure that she’d found her knight in shining armor. “Is all that true?”
He started to speak, but Gillian’s laughter cut him off. “Is it true? Like I’d make something like that up, bitch!” Her laughter echoed off the brick walls of the brownstones around them. “She thinks it’s a lie!”
Jackson rushed down the steps and grabbed Gillian around the shoulders, trying to lead her away. He pulled her close, speaking softly into her ear. “Look, Gillian. I’m sorry it didn’t work out between us, but how much longer are you planning on wallowing in this self-pity? It’s sick.”
“Sick? Me?” She laughed harder. “You always had more nerve than sense, Jax.”
He grabbed her tightly and shook her, forcing her to look into his face. “Stop it! Just stop it, Gillian! It is over! You will not ruin my life like you’ve ruined yours! Get a shrink or a doctor or something, but don’t come here ever again, you hear me?!” He shook her again for good measure, looking away from her face so he couldn’t see the tears glistening on her cheeks. “Next time, I’m calling the police!”
Gillian jerked her arm away from him hard enough to send her sprawling to the sidewalk. He backed away as she got to her knees and fell down again, sobbing uncontrollably. “Go ahead, you fucking bastard! I’ll tell them how you murdered me.”
“God damn it, Gillian! Why do you have to be so fucking pathetic?” He sighed, stepping back so that she couldn’t touch him in her effort to get up. “People break up every day…”
“You were the only person I had, damn you!” she shrieked. “You said you loved me.”
“Yeah…well, people change,” he replied, turning to walk away from her. “I just…can’t love you anymore, Gillian.”
She watched him walk away, not daring to glance back at her.
Seth wandered down the street toward the bridge. He hadn’t bothered to clean up after himself, and if he listened carefully he was sure he could already hear the ambulance on the way. Not that there would be much left to find. He licked his lips, remembering her taste. Nothing was quite as satisfying as the taste of blood laced with fear. The only thing that could compare was the sharp flavor of lust. It had a certain sweetness mixed with a spice that burned the throat despite its smoothness.
He strolled toward the other end of town, wondering if he should try to find another meal. He sighed with boredom. What was the point? Everything seemed so hollow these days. After a thousand years, it had finally happened. He was bored with living. The life of a vampire was solitary, save for a few sycophants that managed to attach themselves to him at one time or another. And they all wanted the same thing: immortality. Of course, once it was given, they became these melancholy saps that filled up their days bemoaning their fates. It disgusted him.
Being a vampire was the essence of freedom. No death, no getting older, no disease. He was faster, sexier and smarter than anyone else. He could be anyone. Do anything. And those pathetic fops threw it all away. They moaned about the loss of old friends. The loneliness. The never-ending hunger. All of it seemed to be a small price to pay until the reality set in. After the last time, Seth had decided that being alone was better. And most frightening of all, he’d realized that he was becoming that which he hated the most—a melancholy sap. There was nothing left for him. Humans had hunted them for so long that their numbers had shrunk to nearly non-existent. Once upon a time he’d been able to sense those of his race nearby, but now the air around him was devoid of his kind. The inevitable had finally happened—he feared he was the last.
He’d almost decided to make his way home. If he hurried, he could be there in time for the newest episode of
True Blood
. Their Hollywood interpretations of a vampire’s lifestyle were always good for a giggle or two. He turned down the alley that would lead him to the river. At this time of night there would be no one there to see him take flight. Except maybe a couple of homeless people—and who believed homeless people? They saw flying people all the time.
Her scent hit him before he even rounded the corner. It was heady and oppressive, but not exactly unpleasant. Her blood moved with slow, sinuous inertia through her veins, and she breathed heavily through it. He could hear her crying softly against the howl of the wind around the eaves. Seth realized that what he could smell was her sadness and rage. When he emerged from the mouth of the alleyway, he looked around, trying to find her and seeing nothing. But her scent was there. It lingered on the breeze, wafting to and fro with the sea current. Closing his eyes, he let the rest of the world float away in a flurry of restlessness, his mind focusing on the thoughts of this unseen woman.
“I just have to do it. One little leap and it will be over. Of course I don’t even have the courage to end it. To stop the pain. I have to stop the pain. Jax is right. I’m sick and I’ll never be right again. Maybe there are lives after this one, and I can start all over. A new start where there’s no Jackson and no miscarriages.”
Seth shook his head, clearing the poisonous emotion from his brain. Just another emo housewife, sobbing out her last over the railing along the Battery. He had heard them countless times and their deaths would be a mercy to all those around them. Though they rarely ever went through with it. Like this woman, they were all cowards wallowing in self-pity. He shrugged and looked around to make sure that no one was around before he took to the friendly skies. But something held him back. Something about her scent—it was so interesting. The layers of sadness and anger, both at herself and this Jackson person, he couldn’t help but wonder about her taste. Something so exotic would be a delicious sample. And if she wanted to end it all anyway…
****
Gillian stared down at the choppy waves below her. The river was wild, and tonight it moved like the sea. Her grandmother always said The Confluence was where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers came together to form the Atlantic Ocean. She smiled at the teasing arrogance of the statement. How she missed her grandmother—the entirety of her family, in fact. When she’d told Jackson that he was all she had, she hadn’t been being dramatic. After her mother died, leaving her alone in the world, Gillian had come to Charleston looking for a way to start over. She’d had such high hopes that Jackson would be that new beginning. Instead, all he’d brought her was death. Why should she even try? It seemed that every time she thought she had both feet on the ground, God snatched them right out from under her.
She held onto the rail, leaning way over to stare down at the ice cold waves beneath the sea wall. She wondered for a moment what it would feel like when the freezing water flooded into her lungs after she couldn’t hold on any longer. Would she even know what was happening? Would she try to fight it, screaming and begging for her life? Would it hurt, or would it be like going to sleep? “No, I have to do this,” she whispered. “It’s the only way to start over.” She put her foot out, as if testing the wind, and her fingers slipped around the cold, moist railing. “No!” she gasped, scrambling to regain her footing. She wrapped her arms around the metal and held on, afraid to let go but still afraid to crawl back to the other side.
“Well, just go on and do it then.”
The voice came from behind, and Gillian struggled to turn and look. “What?” she croaked.
“Jump. It’s getting late and you’re in my way.”
“Pardon me?” It was all she could say. What kind of a person would interrupt an attempted suicide with such insolence? She looked around to the expanse of empty sidewalk that surrounded them. “There seems to be no shortage of room.”
“You’re in my favorite vantage point into the harbor. I come here every night. So, if you’re going to jump, do get on with it.” He leaned casually on the rail, staring down at her with a pair of eyes that glowed a silvery green in the dim streetlamp light. His stare was a bit unsettling and she had to look away, back toward the twinkling eye of the lighthouse on the other end of the harbor.
“Are you planning on standing there to watch?” she asked, trying to keep the tremor of fear from her voice.
“Perhaps. Though I must ask—are you planning on screaming and begging for your life? That sort of ruckus always brings the cops around, and I’d just as soon keep them out of it.”
Gillian narrowed her eyes, turning back to glare at him with unmistakable annoyance. “Are you normally this rude?”
“What do you care? You’re getting ready to die.”
“Well, I’d rather do it in peace…”
“You’re the one talking.”
“You spoke first.”
The man sighed heavily. “I don’t see the point in arguing anymore. Just ignore me and do what you need to do. I’ll even turn around.” He sighed and turned his back, pulling a cigarette pack from his pocket and shaking one out. In a few moments, she heard the click of a Zippo lighter and smelled the pungent scent of burning tobacco.
Gillian turned back to the water, trying to will herself to let go.
It will only last for a second and then it’s over,
she thought, closing her eyes and loosening her grip on the hard metal.
“It’s more than a second.”
Her eyes flew open. Had she said that aloud? How did he pluck that thought right out of her head like that?
“You think very loud.” He turned back to her, walking closer as he took another long drag of the cigarette. “And it is more than a second. More like minutes. And it will hurt. That water down there is cold as fuck. So cold that when you hit it, it will feel more like burning.”
“Why don’t you go away?” she grumbled. “I was fine before you got here.”
He laughed, his voice low and rumbling. “Darlin’, I could describe you in many ways, but fine is not one of them.” He strolled over and inhaled the last bit of his cigarette before flicking it into the water and kneeling down beside her. “Why don’t you just let me help you back over the side? I don’t think you really want to do this.”
“I do!” she shrieked, the tears that had been threatening to fall all night finally spilling over her cheeks. “I do… I have to do this…”
“Why?”
“Why do you care?” she snapped, sniffling. She hated herself for crying in front of a complete stranger.
“I’m too involved now.” He held out his hand. “Besides, if you really want to die, there are much better ways.”
She stared at his hand. A little voice in her head told her that if she took it, there would be no turning back.
Taking his hand she realized it didn’t matter.