The Vampire Next Door (11 page)

“I’ll help you,” he said finally, and my heart relaxed and began to beat again. He continued, “How long before you think you’ll be ready to leave?”

I paused for a moment before answering, realizing that although I’d expected him to, he wasn’t going to dispute my decision to leave. His immediate acceptance of my plan was strangely disconcerting, and I didn’t quite know why.

“As soon as my knee is better,” I said. “I’d like to at least be able to run for my life before I set out for the great unknown. But that could take weeks. I honestly don’t know.”

There was a knock at the door, and Reeve and I both jumped, startled. I glanced at him, and the expression on his face looked just as incredulous as I felt.

There was another knock. “Hello?”

It was a woman’s voice.

“Please!” she called. “I saw you go inside- I need help! Please!”

In the last eight months, I’d never once had anyone knock on my front door. I had no idea how to react. After a moment, I struggled to lower my injured leg from the couch.

I stood, leaning heavily on my crutches. Reeve appeared next to me, putting a hand on my arm to help me balance.

“I’d better answer,” I told him quietly. “If she’s out in the sunlight, she’s definitely a human, and she might not…she might not…” I struggled to find the words.
She might not accept that you’re different from every other vampire on the planet.
That’s what I wanted to say, but my mouth was suddenly dry as the bigger picture came into focus.

I’d been so busy trying to get a grasp on my attraction to Reeve, attempting to wrap my mind around the fact that I felt strongly drawn to a vampire who had already admitted to eating humans just like me, that I hadn’t stopped to consider how it would look to anyone else. Even if by some miracle, this person outside actually was non-violent and just looking for help, chances were she wouldn’t take kindly to Reeve.

It wasn’t the time or the place to ponder what, if any, kind of future I would have as a friend of vampire, however, and I shook my head. “Just…stay here. Stay back,” I told Reeve. “If she’s actually wounded, I can probably help her.”

“You can barely walk,” he said. “How are you going to defend yourself if she’s faking it?”

He had a point. Eddie and Reeve were the only people I’d met, post-apocalypse, that I could trust. The man I’d encountered in the dollar store was much more typical of human survivors.

“If she sees you, that’ll open up a whole new can of worms,” I whispered back. “Look, just stay here, keep back and don’t open your mouth. I’ll try to get rid of her, but if she sees your teeth or your eyes, she’s going to freak out.”

Reeve didn’t look happy, but finally he inclined his head, indicating he was willing to go along with what I’d proposed. I wedged my crutches under my shoulders and headed for the door.

“What do you want?” I asked through the door, straining to look through the peephole. Outside, on the covered porch, there was a blonde woman wearing a dirty white shirt. She wasn’t very tall, and from what I could see, she didn’t appear to be carrying any weapons.

She stood on her tiptoes and raised her right arm, which was covered in blood. “I was bitten yesterday,” she said. “I’m not turning, but I need help. Do you have a first aid kit or something?”

I looked back at Reeve, and mouthed,
She’s bleeding.
He nodded and disappeared from the doorway, heading in the direction of the kitchen.

“Are you alone?” I asked.

“Yes. Please! I just need to get home. It still hasn’t stopped bleeding and I don’t know what to do.”

Vamps injected some kind of venom into their victims with every bite- a type of anti-coagulant that prevented blood from clotting- so it was a plausible story. My heart went out to her, despite my misgivings. “I’ll let you in,” I said finally. “But you need to leave after I patch you up.”

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, the second word ending on a sob. “Thank you so much.”

I unlocked the door and pulled it open, moving back so she could step inside.

She was older than I’d expected, deep lines creasing the skin at the corners of her eyes. As she met my eyes, I knew immediately that I’d made a mistake. She didn’t look distraught- she looked smug. The blood on her arm was dried and flaking off in bright, fire-engine red chips. It wasn’t blood at all. It was paint.

I tried to slam the door, but she stuck her foot out, preventing me from closing it. I braced my weight against it, struggling to keep my balance on my good leg as my crutches clattered to the floor. I reached across my chest with my right hand to yank the 9mil from its holster.

Something impacted against the door on the other side, and it forced me backwards. I fell into the sunken foyer, the gun in hand, but the impact jarred my entire body. I cried out as pain tore up my left leg, but I struggled to focus, knowing that my life- and possibly the life of this woman- depended on it.

“Get out!” I shouted, pointing the gun at the woman. Beside her was a grizzled man with reddish-blond hair. He was easily six feet tall, cutting a much more imposing figure than the tiny woman beside him.

They both completely ignored my order. “You don’t want to shoot us,” the man said, and he held up a gun of his own- this one a small handgun of some type that I didn’t recognize- before he pointed it at me. “You’re outnumbered, lady. Just let us take what we want, and we’ll leave.”

“I don’t think so,” I snapped. “Get out now, or believe me, you’ll regret it.” They had no idea that there was a vampire in the house, and that their measly bullets would have very little effect on him- except perhaps to make him angry.

The man responded by shutting the door. I scrambled backwards, edging up the two steps to the hallway, and with a mighty heave, managed to push myself upright against the wall, using my right leg for balance. My left leg stuck out awkwardly, and I could tell from the smirk on the woman’s face that she knew I was pretty much incapable of fighting back.

Reeve had been kind to me, even helped me, but I had no idea just how far his goodwill extended. I had a sad inkling that he might not like these two so much, and it sickened me to think that these people, however awful they might be, could become victims of the vampire I’d just befriended.

“You have five seconds to walk out that door,” I said. “Or I will shoot you. Make no mistake. I will shoot you.”

The man raised his gun and pointed it at me. “I don’t think you understand,” he drawled. “I’m in charge here. And I say we’re staying until we get what we want.”

There was a flash of movement from the corner of my eye- and suddenly Reeve was standing beside me. His fangs were elongated, and in the light from the entryway, there was no mistaking the crimson gleam to his eyes.

“I don’t think you understand,” he growled. “You should have left when she asked. Now you don’t have a choice.”

“Reeve, don’t-” I started, but before I could finish my sentence, he’d lunged forward, placing himself directly between me and my assailants. A gunshot rang out, the sound ripping through the house and ringing in my ears, and I resolutely held my own gun steady, bracing myself for a gruesome battle.

But there was no struggle. There was only Reeve grabbing the man around the neck and slamming him up against the wall with such force that the entire house shook. In the next instant, Reeve had tossed the limp body aside and turned towards the woman.

She fainted dead away before he even touched her, dropping to the tiled floor like a sack of potatoes.

For a handful of heartbeats, there was complete and total silence. Reeve stood before me, facing the door, his shoulders impossibly broad, his form menacing.

Holloway, useless dog that he was, moved up beside me and nuzzled my leg. He let out a plaintive whine.

Reeve turned, looking down at the woman. I saw the glint of his fangs in the faint light. I knew what he was going to do.

“No,” I said. “Please, don’t. Please.”

“Go home, Kennedy,” Reeve said, not looking at me.

“No, Reeve, don’t. We can throw her outside- she’ll run away. She’ll leave us alone.”

“Get out!” he roared, facing me at last. The bloodlust in his eyes was terrifying, and I froze, my protests dying on my tongue.

We stood there, staring at each other, for what seemed like an eternity. I knew there was no way I could deter him from what he planned- even without my injured leg, I was no match for a vampire of his size.

Reeve bent and picked up my crutches. In two long strides, he had closed the distance between us, and held the crutches out to me. “Go home, Kennedy,” he said, and his voice was gentler now. “I don’t want you to see this.”

I knew he had to eat, and I had no idea when his last meal had been, but I didn’t doubt that he intended to feast right now if I walked out that door.

My 9mil was leveled at him. He was standing just inches away from the barrel, his arm extended as he silently urged me to accept the crutches and go. I saw a dark stain on the chest of his white shirt, and a hole where the redheaded man’s bullet had struck him. My gun wouldn’t affect him in the least.

The hope died inside me as I stared at Reeve. I was no longer under any delusions about his existence as a vampire. He was a monster, and always would be. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t reconcile Reeve’s kindness towards me with the fact that he ate other humans for dinner.

We weren’t friends. We never would be. I must have been insane to think otherwise.

I holstered the gun and took the crutches from him. He said nothing as I fit them carefully under my arms again, and I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to meet his eyes. Reeve stepped aside to let me pass, and I glanced down at the dead man as I hoisted myself over the bodies. His eyes were staring blankly, blood pooling beneath his head.

I pulled the door open and clucked to Holloway, who scampered out of the house after me.

I deliberately avoided looking at Reeve as I shut the door behind me and moved out into the sunlight. The outside air felt hot in my lungs, roasting me from within.

That woman had followed me into Reeve’s house. She must have seen me knock on the door. She must have known there was someone else in the house! How could she have been so stupid? But even as the thought formed in my head, I realized that there was no way she could have expected that my companion would be a vampire. Even I could hardly believe I’d walked into his house so recklessly.

I’d let my loneliness govern my decisions, allowing logic to fall by the wayside. I shook my head as I made my way up the sidewalk. I didn’t want to know what was happening in Reeve’s house right now.

Once I got back into my house, I retrieved the note I’d written earlier about the maps from under the flowerpot in the backyard. I took it with me back to the basement. I settled myself on the couch and started tearing the paper into tiny pieces, shredding each piece over and over again into confetti.

The tears in my eyes didn’t fall, and I wondered at the empty sensation inside my heart. I wasn’t sure what this feeling was. It felt…bitter. In fact, it was similar to the gut-wrenching betrayal I’d experienced when I’d found out about Cole’s female friends.

Are you kidding me?

“You’re disgusting,” I said out loud. I barely knew Reeve. He had no obligation to me. We had no relationship beyond two nights spent in the same house. I had no right to feel betrayed by him, especially considering that he’d admitted his dietary preferences to me right from the start.

Against my better judgment, and perhaps as a side effect of my rescuer complex, my thoughts drifted back to the man I’d killed in the dollar store parking lot. With blood on my own hands, could I honestly judge Reeve for killing the two people who’d attacked me?

We both had a body count now. I was as much a murderer as Reeve.