I was going to kill him. I was going to drive a stake through his heart then cut him up into little pieces and burn them then bury the ashes just to make sure he wouldn’t come back to life. Then I’d break up with him.
Why go through such desperate measures just to make sure the guy would stay away from me? Because Reese, my idiot soon to be ex-boyfriend, had the nerve to try to kiss me after I woke up. Thank God that other guy was there, otherwise Reese would’ve succeeded in kissing me. I was so extremely tired and weak and I still felt like wet noodles, minus the Jell-O, which was a good thing.
But when I laid eyes on Reese’s goofy and insanely proud grin, I found a surge of energy that let me spring out of bed—a bed?—and jump at him, even as the other guy was yanking on his arm. “I’m gonna kill you, Reese!” I shrieked, tackling him to the floor and swinging my fists wildly.
“Whoa!” and then someone was lifting me up in the air with annoying ease, even as I struggled, then I was thrown back on the bed and was left to wrestle with the mess of sheets.
Reese got to his feet, a hand over his eye. “What the h*** was that for?” he shouted.
“Let me pick!”
“OK! You go sit over there!” The guy I didn’t know pointed at a dining table in the opposite corner of the room. Reese glowered at me then at the guy before stalking over and plopping himself on one of the thinly cushioned chairs that were around the table. I noticed that on the table there was an open suitcase full of t-shirts I remember Reese wearing. The only reason I remembered was because they always had some sort of joke or saying that would make me laugh.
I looked around the rest of the room. There was a yellow light at the side of the room, which was probably a bathroom from the corner of a porcelain sink I spotted. A small TV in the free corner of the room, a second bed about two feet away from the one I was in, and a square window with streaks of light sneaking in around the closed curtain. It felt like I was staring directly at the sun, even though I only caught a glimpse of the light in the corner of my eye. I flinched, my anger once again flaring.
“God, Reese!” I shouted, zeroing in on where he sat with his arms crossed, slouching in a way I found annoying and sexy at the same time. “What the f*** is wrong with you? Huh? You just randomly felt like turning someone into—into—Argh!” I threw my head in my hands. Even if my brain had accepted what I now was, for some reason my mouth just didn’t want to believe it.
“No,” Reese said. “I felt like turning my girlfriend into—“
“Don’t say it!” I wasn’t ready to hear it voiced just yet.
“Why not?” he asked in a cheery voice, as if he had no idea that what he did was drastic and stupid and just so Reese. “It’ll be fun.”
I lifted my head at that word. “Fun?” I spat. “Fun! How is this gonna be in any way, shape, or form . . . fun?”
He shrugged and a corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m having fun.”
I jumped off the bed again and launched myself at an already cringing Reese for the second time, only to be intercepted by the guy I didn’t know. He grabbed my forearms and blocked my way as I shouted every insult I knew at Reese so loud that someone in the next room retorted back a complaint through the wall. He had children around and didn’t want them hearing that kind of language.
I huffed and looked up at the guy blocking me. “You really should just let me kill him,” I told him, matter-of-factly. “It’d probably be easier for the both of us.”
“Not really,” he replied, pushing me gently until the back of my knees knocked into the edge of the bed, causing me to land on my butt. I looked up at the guy again when he didn’t immediately let go and studied his expression, not entirely blocked by bushy, dark hair that hung in his green catlike eyes. It didn’t seem like he was still holding me down just in case I might jump back up to attack Reese again. It seemed more like he was calculating something. It took me a moment before I realized what he was testing.
Body heat. In the bathroom right after Reese bit me I had been a furnace in Brazil and this guy had been the AC in the North Pole. Now we met somewhere in Canada because he still felt a little chilled. His skin felt more like we’d touched after both being in a snowstorm for a while, numb and a degree warmer than my skin.
Then I pushed him away and met his eyes defiantly. Something in his gaze told me that he knew that I knew what he’d been doing.
“Who are you anyway?” I barked, angrily.
“Aiden,” he answered. “And you’re Mo and that’s Reese. Now that we have that settled, no more fighting, got it?” He gave both me and Reese looks, but mine lasted longer.
I crossed my arms and worked my jaw, narrowing my eyes a bit at him. “Like I’m listening to you. I’ll batter Reese as much as I want.”
“I never agreed to that,” Reese put in flatly.
“You lost you’re say in things when you—you—“ Again. Mouth, not ready to accept and voice things, just yet. I got to my feet again, only to be pushed down a bit harder than before, by Aiden’s hands on my shoulders. I stood up again and swatted his hands away. I was considerably shorter than him, and he was probably a lot stronger than me too, but I wasn’t about to be afraid of him. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed. Aiden cocked an eyebrow, his own sign of defiance and something else altogether—a challenge.
We stood like that for a second or two until Reese said, “I second that motion,” got to his feet then stood between me and Aiden. He backed off, eyes never leaving me with something that seemed like amusement. Oh, great, he was having fun too.
Reese put his arm around me, a lazy action he did everywhere we went together. It felt so familiar and usual and just plain normal that it reminded me that nothing was normal at all.
I turned on Reese, throwing off his arm and shoving his chest until he slammed again the wall with a heavy thud. “You can’t touch me either,” I growled in his face. He was shorter than Aiden so it made the intimidation factor easier to accomplish. I glowered at him so nastily that he had to look away. I stepped away from him, shaking my head. “You have no right to lay a finger on me. You and me? We’re over.”
Reese gaped at me, his eyes bugging out. “Are you kidding me?”
I scoffed. “Oh, yeah. Totally, a huge joke. Good one, huh? Kind of like when you turned me into a friggin’ vampire!” I let in air through my nose and pressed my lips together, because the catch in my voice when I said that last word was too noticeable and I was not about to cry. Not Reese or this whole vampire thing deserved any of my tears. Both of them only got anger.
I let out my breath on my next sentence. “Just stay away from me, Reese.”
Then I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door loudly enough to get more complaints.
Locking yourself in the bathroom of some obviously cheap motel is probably not the most mature thing a person could do, but when it’s your last chance at being alone, maturity flies out the window.