Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Thousands of them out there, Lazarus had said, thousands that don’t heed the likes of Lord Markadian or his authority. Is that true? Even hundreds is a terrifying number. Even a dozen.
Even one.
Was Tristan’s warning about drinking blood true? If Kyle drinks enough, will he become one of Them—like this Lazarus? Is he already becoming like one of them, with just a drink from the vampire’s hand?
Kyle spent decades barely tasting a drop. Now he drinks every day. And Elias’s masochistic thirst for being bitten grows just as recklessly as Kyle’s thirst for blood. They’re like children given deadly toys, experimenting with dark forces they cannot begin to understand, playing with dangerous appetites.
It all leads Kyle right back to that terrible question that so plagued him the day Tristan faked his death and vanished from his life in a mound of ash. The question of Kyle’s purpose on this planet—What the fuck is it?
“Babe?”
Kyle hadn’t noticed the snoring stopped. He rubs Elias, his arm still wrapped around him. “Go back to sleep,” he whispers.
“You alright? Sun’s up.”
“Everything’s fine,” says Kyle, kisses the top of Elias’s head with a smile. “Back to sleep, I’m right behind you.”
Elias closes his eyes. Kyle does, too.
When the knock comes at the front door, the two of them wake with a start. Kyle checks his phone. No texts, zero missed calls. He lifts a hand and squints at the window curtains, still aglow with daylight. For one, no one ever knocks on their door. Secondly, anyone who would knock knows what Kyle is—and the danger daylight brings.
“I’ll get it,” says Elias, slipping out of bed in his boxers.
Kyle stands in the hall behind when Elias cracks open the door. “I’m so sorry, sir,” comes a woman’s voice, melodic, soft, “I didn’t mean to disturb you so early in the day. I was just—”
“Can I help you?” returns Elias with a note of suspicion in his voice, speaking through the mere inch or two he’s allowed the door to open.
“I’m sorry, again, I’m just … well, how do I put this?” The sound of her shuffling her feet touches Kyle’s ears. “I’m looking for someone. My husband, to be precise. I think he may have … well, I know, actually, that he passed by here a few nights ago.”
At once, like the gift itself has just now woken up too, Kyle feels the woman’s swirls of hope and anxiety inside her, twisting and untwisting, a pair of weathered ropes, full of friction, heat.
“Well, according to the app on his phone, or his truck,” she adds tiredly, “I’m not sure which. There’s so much he doesn’t tell me. Sorry, I’m oversharing.” She lets out a sigh that turns into something of a manic squeak of laughter, indicating all her exhaustion, both mental and physical. “His name is Brock. My husband, the man I’m looking for. Do you know him?”
Elias stares back at her, frozen to the spot, rendered silent by the uttering of that name.
Kyle, rather belatedly, realizes exactly who she is.
“I’m Jessica,” she says. “Jessica Hastings. Have you, um … seen him? Do you know him? He stopped by here, like I said.”
“I …” Elias’s voice is dry when he speaks. His lips smack. His throat is closed. “I, um … I don’t know if …”
“Let her in,” says Kyle from the hallway.
Elias turns, surprised, then faces her, slightly flustered. “I, uh, I’m gonna let you in … apparently.” He steps back, allows the door to open just enough.
When Jessica enters, she comes bathed in daylight. A dress with bright green and white floral patterns, blindingly blonde hair to her shoulders, makeup exquisite, except for a stray mark of mascara to the side of her right eye, something she may have overlooked, or perhaps from wiping away a tear, who knows. And upon her feet, a pair of sneakers that go with literally none of her outfit, not even matching her white beaded bracelets or earrings, perhaps an afterthought, or a choice to make walking around in these desert towns tracking down her husband more comfortable, and perhaps for the long drive, too.
As she comes to a stop just inside the house, her big eyes fall upon Kyle and grow even bigger. She lets in the slightest of gasps, then remains there, speechless, a pale green wallet purse clutched to her waist by her long fingers, nails painted pink.
“Hi, Jessica,” says Kyle, breaking the silence.
She blinks. “No,” she mutters to herself, head shaking.
“Yep, it’s me.”
She continues to stare, continues to not believe, continues to remain by the door, should she suddenly chase an instinct to run the fuck away. But something keeps her there, staring at the teenager she went to high school with, staring at that teenager who stares back at her.
Suddenly she lets out a crazed laugh, slaps a hand over her mouth, laughter choked to silence, then through her fingers she says again, “No … no, it can’t be you. Is it?”