Soulless (The Heartless Series Book 2) (9 page)

What if those people died for nothing?

I can’t breathe.

“Gracen, is everything all right?”

My mother’s concern is evident, and I go on autopilot. “Yes… yeah, I’m fine. I’m great. Nothing to worry about. I promise.”

“Seriously, do I need to come there? Willow and I…”

“No!” I scream into the phone so loudly that even Hart hears it from outside.

He stops shoveling dirt, and his gaze meets mine. He doesn’t look happy. That’s good because I don’t feel happy.

“No,” I try to cover up my initial freak out. “I’m… look, it’s not safe out there. It’s better if you just stay home and take care of Aunt Willow. I’m sure she’s happy to be home.”

“She wants to see you, Gracen. She asked to come and see you.”

My sweet Aunt Willow. All that time with Hart in her head, and no way to communicate with me. What would she have been like to have as an aunt? I guess I don’t even really know. When I meet her, it’ll be like meeting her for the first time, only Mama can never know that.

“Not now. It’s too dangerous.”

There is a pause. “Who told you it was too dangerous? Sam?”

Speaking of, he’s walking up the patio steps with the shovel thrown over his shoulder. With his stature and his wide shoulders, he reminds me of a lumberjack. Most definitely someone who was born in a different era. Not how he looks, specifically, but how he walks. How he carries himself. Sam was born about twenty years ago. Hart… well, much much longer ago than that.

My mom is fixing to go on one of her tirades again. I can tell because she has that tone. Anytime she’s accusing Sam of something, her voice gets an unusually high pitch to it. I bet it makes dogs want to die. I know it makes my ears want to bleed.

I’m happy to hear my mom’s voice. I am, and as much as I want to go home, I know I can’t. It wouldn’t be smart. Hart is right about that. We need to stay here. Lay low. Keep our noses clean, as one of my teachers used to say.

“I’ll come home soon. I promise, but not just yet. Not for a few weeks. Love you.”

“Gracen…”

“Bye.” I click off the phone and lean my head against the wall with my eyes closed. I basically hung up on my mother. Probably the only person in the world who loves me and wants what’s best for me. The worst part is I know my mother. She won’t call back in a few minutes. She’s the kind who lets me stew a few days before she calls back to ask a simple question, and we start talking again. It’s been that way since I got my first cellphone at sixteen. At least we’re consistent.

I love my mother, but I don’t want to hurt her either.

How much stock should I really put in that vision?

Or had it been only a nightmare?

I’d been stabbed after all.

Who says what I saw was a real, honest to goodness vision.

I won’t smell pizza.

I won’t see an alley.

I won’t kill my mother.

That I am damn certain of.

I know I have to hold on to that. Make it stone one and build on it. I’m not a monster.

I’m not.

I look into the living room and remember all the blood-drained bodies.

I’m not.

CHAPTER TEN

“
W
HO WAS THAT ON THE PHONE?”
Hart asks as he comes through the French doors. He’s left the shovel outside, thank God. My eyes catch a glimpse behind him. The ground looks like it hasn’t been disturbed for years. The grave… where’s the dirt? Why is the ground so green? Hart must have some serious demon mojo that I don’t know about yet. “Sometimes people see what they want to see.” He says all cryptic on his way to the sink. He turns on the water and pours the pumpkin spice detergent—Sam’s favorite—on his hands.

It takes him longer than I think he needs to wash the dirt off… to wash away the murder.

I wish I could get past it. I heard what Hart said.

I also heard my aunt talking on the other end of the line and the words of my mother. Aunt Willow was healed. She knew who she was and could eat with a fork. Why couldn’t those poor people in that grave, before they were in the grave, do the same thing?

Or had Hart lied about that too?

“You didn’t answer me. Who was on the phone?”

“My mom. Checking in on me. That’s all.” There is a tug of war going on inside my mind. Part of me thinks I should not only tell Hart about Willow, but that I should rip his head off about it. Another part of me believes I should stay calm, keep casual, don’t let on that I know something is wrong and hopefully keep Hart’s trust long enough to find out the truth. I want to do plan one. Strategically, I need to do two.

Darn strategies.

“What did she want?” It’s more of a question than an accusation. Hart sounds as tired as I feel.

“Just to check in on me.” I can’t look at him. I’m afraid he’ll catch me in a lie. “Said you told her I’d been sick.”

He wipes his hands with some paper towels and then throws them down in the sink. I have to bite my lip to keep from fussing at him. Sam did the same thing. Used to drive me crazy. Apparently it still does.

Unless I’m already crazy, and this is some big made-up dream world.

Yeah…

“Ruby always was a persistent one. Especially when it comes to you. I told her I was taking care of you, and you’d be fine. It wasn’t a lie. I am taking care of you.” He walks toward me. I can feel his gaze on me, like a magnet trying to make my eyes meet his.

They want to. Goodness, they want to, but my brain screams at me to resist.

“That’s what I told her. That you were taking care of me, and we didn’t need to come up there now.”

“She wants us to come to her house?” He sounds like a pre-pubescent thirteen-year-old boy.

“Something like that.” And by “something” I mean Willow. I can’t make myself tell him, though. The urge not to is incredibly strong.

“Hmmm,” he says.

He’s so dang close I can smell the scent of wet grass and mud. It reminds me of April, not September. For the briefest of moments, he looks down at me like he’s daring me to say something, anything. His eyes are filled with what I can only describe as lust, but that can’t be right because he’s him--and I’m me. He doesn’t come any closer. Just stands there. Looking down at me. I don’t know if he’s trying to intimidate me or make me squirm in a good way. Right now, it’s a toss-up.

“Hart?”

Like hearing his name broke him from a trance, he backs away and wipes his eyes with his fingers. “There’s blood in the refrigerator. You won’t need as much as you did before you were fully healed. You just need to drink once, maybe twice, daily to keep going.”

“You said I can’t die, remember?”

“I also said there are worse things than death.”

Like I need reminding.

“Why would dying be such a bad thing?” I mean it as funny since we’d already had the death discussion. I don’t think suicide is funny. Not at all. And I feel bad for anybody who attempts it. I want them to think very, very carefully before doing something permanent they can never take back.

Hart doesn’t take it as funny. His jaw clenches, and I do believe smoke is about to pour from his ears. It might for all I know. I have no idea how demons get in or out of people. Might be through their ears.

“You aren’t dying, Gracen Sullivan. Do you understand me?” He flinches, I suppose at the forcefulness of his own words. He clears his throat, closes his eyes, and takes a big deep breath. I only watch him to see what he has to say next. I assume it will be articulate and poignant.

“You will make the world a much worse place if you do.”

“How do you know that?” It’s a good question. How does he know this much about me? Think about the things he’s known about so far: the demon-killing blade, how I need demon blood to live, how I’m able to heal myself. Hart has been one step ahead on all things abomination from the get go, and I want to know why.

Hart scoffs and crosses his arms over his mud-covered shirt. “Fine. Then don’t drink it. Don’t trust me. But don’t come crying to me when your insides turn white hot, your skin shrivels up, and you—you know, never mind. Just never mind. You won’t listen to me anyway.” With a growl, he walks past me. His eyes don’t meet mine. He doesn’t stop until I hear his door slam upstairs.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
WAIT A GOOD TWENTY MINUTES
until the allure of the demon blood draws me into the kitchen. I’ve smelled it this entire time, but I’ve been good. I’ve not given in to it. I’ve been good.

I don’t want to drink the blood. Not willingly. Not knowingly. If I walk into that kitchen and open that refrigerator… if I open a bottle and allow that blood to pass my lips, taste it on my tongue, enjoy it as it slides down my throat…

I have to stop.

If I do that, it’ll make me a monster.

There is a difference in having something done to you and willingly doing it.

I can’t help what my father or Hart did to me. But I can help this.

So I sit there, and I try my darndest not to smell the blood. Not to want it. Not to feel the headache pounding in my head, threatening to explode my eyeballs if I don’t get what it wants.

There is no way Hart is right, right? How would he even know how it would affect me if I don’t have blood? It’s not like there’s a book on this, well, except the book Seth had, the one he read the ritual from. I’m guessing he didn’t just leave it there when he went kaput.

Still…

Okay, I have to think about this. Hart says I can’t die no matter what now. I don’t know if it’s the gospel or if he’s telling me that so I won’t try to off myself. I suppose it doesn’t matter. If he’s telling the truth, that’s a problem for the world—and for me—but it also means that I don’t
have
to drink the blood. I can pretend I don’t need it and go on with my life.

But Hart also said there were worse things in the world than death. All I can think of, while I smell the blood calling to me, is one of those shriveled up old mummies or Lestat in
Interview with the Vampire
after the fire. Is that what Hart means? Is that what I will become if I don’t drink the blood? A wrinkled, dry corpse-thing. I don’t want to be a wrinkled, dry corpse thing.

The blood smells so good.

It’s not that I want it, I tell myself.

It’s not.

It’s because I need it.

I need to not become a walking corpse.

Or whatever I’d become if I don’t drink it.

I go back and forth in my mind until finally I realize I’m actually standing in the kitchen with the bottle in my hand, which is shaking. It’s so hard. I want to throw it down and walk away. I want to not want it. I try my best to think about those bodies in the backyard. Those demons who were people, like Aunt Willow.

She recovered.

Why couldn’t they…

Why?

My hand is shaking, and my stomach is turning, wanting me to turn the bottle up and swig it down. Every last drop. Every last particle of blood. I want it.

My heart beats in my ears. Everything else seems to fade away, all those thoughts in my head telling me this is a bad idea, all the images of the people in my living room, everything Hart said. It all fades into the background like voices in a restaurant. Just mumbles. That’s all I hear… mumbles.

The blood is in a glass, and the next thing I know, I feel it sliding down my throat. It’s cold, but it’s wonderful. Pure, not like that red wine Hart used to fix for me. It had blood in it, but I never knew.

Or maybe I did know. Maybe this entire time I knew something was wrong, but I did nothing about it. The ostrich is my spirit animal.

It’s not just the taste. It’s the feeling it gives me. It makes me feel strong. There’s a feeling that the darkness inside of me is filling up.

Eating away.

Having its fill.

Having its fun.

I hate this. I love it.

I finish my drink and pour myself another.

The phone starts ringing in the background, but it’s there with the voices. I don’t care about the phone or the voices or anything. I only care about the feeling. I’m strong. I’m invincible. I’m… a monster.

By the time I drain the bottle and lick the remaining blood off my fingers, I’m brought back to reality by the feeling of being watched. A person can always tell when they are being watched, or most of the time anyway.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I know. He’s right behind me. He’s probably seen everything.

I imagine he’ll smirk at me when I turn around, all proud of himself for being right. I tried to fight it. I did. And I lost. I’m just as much of a monster as he is. Maybe I’m worse. He’s a demon. He’s dead. I’m very much alive.

An excuse. I need an excuse to tell him before I turn around. It was a mistake, maybe. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought it was Kool-Aid. I slipped. Something. Anything.

I have nothing.

When I turn around, Hart isn’t smiling. He’s not smirking. He’s not even grimacing. What he is is pale. Very, very pale.

Now that I think about it, in all the years I’ve known Hart, I’ve never known him to be sick. Back when he was Aunt Willow, she never got sick when I was a child. And neither has Sam in the entire time we’ve dated.

You’d think that would’ve been a red flag. I guess I thought he took his Flintstone Vitamins.

Now, he looks sick. Pale with black circles under his eyes. He’s standing there with my phone shaking in his hand, and he’s biting his lip. My thoughts shift from euphoria from the blood coursing through my veins to embarrassment from being caught to concern—I don’t want to be concerned for Hart, but for him to be that pale, something had to have happened.

“What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. Drank your blood, I see. Couldn’t fight it forever.”

“Don’t change the subject.” I lean back against the counter as the blood sings in my head. “What’s going on?”

He clears his throat and shows me the phone. Like I haven’t seen it before now. “Your mom called back. Your Aunt Willow, more specifically.” His lip twitches when he says it.

I think mine does too. “You said they would never recover.”