“Yes,” he said, smiling. “But you fainted so conveniently before I could request my terms.” His smile became more of a grin then.

“Oh?” I said a little surprised.

“Uh huh,” he said and went on, “You have to promise me that a week before every full moon—”

I put up my hand, stopping him. “No,” I demanded, “you can’t ask me to do that. Isaac, I want to be here…I—“

He placed his fingers upon my lips to hush me. His face was unreadable, but still, he was smiling; his dark eyes soft with adoration.

“You have to promise that you’ll be at my side,” he said, and my heart quickened. “Because I know that without you here, I’ll become something far more dangerous.”

I almost cried, but instead I choked it back and smiled, nodding slowly. “I do promise,” I said.

After a thoughtful hesitation, I added, “But why the change of heart? I thought you were afraid.”

For a moment, Isaac’s gaze strayed from mine. Patiently, I waited for his answer, but at the same time, I was desperate for it.

“I can trust myself around you now,” he said, still not looking at me but then finally he did. I sensed a mysterious longing in his expression; an emotion dark and unresolved. “I could never hurt you. Ever.”

Isaac stood and went over to the window, pulling the curtain open the rest of the way. More soft, gray sunlight flooded into the room. I could see the tops of the trees outside covered in glistening white, but nothing fell from the sky.

“Isaac,” I said as he turned around to face me. “For now—and I’m not sure how long now will last—I can live with the way things are, but…” I stopped and inhaled a deep breath, looking down toward the sheets. “But what about later? What do we do when my fear of being without you becomes a burden?”

“What are you saying?” He stopped in the center of the room as if he could go no further until my answer permitted it.

I waited, thinking my answer over carefully because I wasn’t even sure of it myself.

“I need some time to think,” I said looking up at him.

It wasn’t what I had expected to say, but the sudden depravity of struggle and frustration inside of me, left me with no other choice. I needed time alone, away from everyone and everything.

“I can leave you alone,” he said, “as much time as you need.”

“Not here,” I said gently. “I need to go home for a day or two; just to be able to clear my head.” Immediately, I could see the obvious protest in his face. “I’ll be okay—you have to let me do this.”

He had made it back to the bed by now and stood over me, looking down upon me with sad, conflicting emotions.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “If that’s what you need, I won’t deny you.”

He hated himself for agreeing; his posture thick with condemnation. I glimpsed his fists unfolding carefully at his sides. I stood upon the bed and he reached out for me instinctively. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he gathered my body into his; my legs straddled around his waist.

“I’ll be fine,” I whispered laying my head down.

He crushed me against him.

22

ISAAC BORROWED NATHAN'S FJ Cruiser and took me to see Uncle Carl in the hospital later that day. Beverlee asked why I looked so ‘worn’. Good thing she couldn’t see any of the wounds underneath my clothes. There was no way I’d find a worthy excuse for any of that.

Uncle Carl was doing good, considering. I felt guilty for thinking about so many other extraordinary things the whole time I was there.

“The book is great,” Uncle Carl said weakly. “Beverlee read some of it to me earlier. Awesome stuff.”

The smile on my face was genuine, despite my worries elsewhere. It was the best thing ever to see my uncle able to talk again. I stayed with him until visiting hours were over, and I picked up where Beverlee left off on page fifty-six.

I went back to my own house that night. I wasn’t afraid to be there anymore. I was hardly afraid of anything. I had a lot of thinking to do, many dark secrets to tuck away properly inside my head; choices to make and the equally devastating consequences that all of them threatened, to consider.

“I really don’t like this,” Isaac said as we stood together on the front porch; the house keys dangling in my hand.

“Think about it, Isaac,” I said. “After last night, this is probably the last place they’d expect me to be.”

I glanced over then and saw Sebastian, Dwarf and Damien watching us from the barn entrance.

“No,” I said, looking back at Isaac, “They go with you. I don’t need babysitters.”

“I’ll tell them to go home,” Isaac agreed, but I knew he was lying. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he would leave, himself. But I left it at that. I let him believe that I was oblivious to his intentions. It wouldn’t have mattered otherwise.

Isaac kissed me deeply and reluctantly walked down the porch steps, looking back twice before he made it to his car. He stopped with the door open, maybe in case there was the possibility I would change my mind and I admit I almost did. I didn’t want to spend even an hour away from Isaac, but this time to myself was important.

He drove away.

The house was cold and empty. As I walked through the kitchen and then the rest of the house, I made it a point to look at absolutely everything, trying to find something that didn’t feel changed. Uncle Carl’s favorite chair was empty; the navy and red zigzag afghan that usually hung over the back of it lay sloppily in the floor. Dust had begun to settle on everything. Aunt Beverlee had always kept the house dusted; once every other day at least. The fireplace had been abandoned; no lingering warmth or the smell of recently burned wood came from it. I went upstairs to find Uncle Carl and Beverlee’s room a chaotic mess. Clothes were strewn across the bed, the chest of drawers half open.

The door to Alex’s room was always shut. I stood in front of it for the longest time before deciding to go inside. It had been cleaned, even more so than my room. Everything had a neat little place upon the shelf, or dresser, or desk. All of Alex’s clothes had been tucked neatly in the drawers and hung away inside the closet. Beverlee had hoped that Alex would come back, despite her being banned from the house, and so she did whatever she could to make Alex feel at home. Just in case.

From across the room, I noticed a photo of Alex and I together that had been taped to the dresser mirror. I walked over and took it into my hand, staring down at the memory. Alex’s loving, smiling face looked back at me. Quietly I laughed, recalling that moment. We were sitting together on the beach in Savannah; her arm around my shoulder. Minutes before the photo was taken, Alex had dumped a bucket of sand crabs on me as I lay on the beach.

I put the photo away inside a drawer. I couldn’t look at it any longer.

I slept alone in my room, but I knew that Isaac Mayfair, the love of my life, was nearby watching over me. I slept without dreams. I slept without memory of them if there were any, and that was a good thing.

I stayed home from school the next two days. It was like Georgia all over again, skipping school to mentally recover after what I’d been through. No one came to my house, not even those who had tried to kill me before. No one. But I saw Isaac’s car in the distance, from the window in Uncle Carl’s office upstairs. Sometimes I saw Damien’s. Beverlee finally came home only once to get some clothes to take with her back to the hospital.

“They’re going to start Carl’s physical therapy,” she said so happily. “As soon as next week.”

I rushed to hug her. “That’s great, Aunt Bev!”

“Yes, it’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ll have to hire someone to build a wheelchair ramp out front for when he gets to come home.”

“Did they say if they expect him to walk again?”

Beverlee had mentioned at the hospital that Uncle Carl was paralyzed from the waist down.

She buried her hand in the bottom of her purse and fished out her keys. “He’s already moved his legs a little.”

Beverlee hugged me one more time before she hurried out the door.

I spent the rest of the day inside, having no real recollection of anything other than my thoughts. How does a person overcome things so tragic and unbelievable? I thought about the world around me; the oblivious world filled with billions of oblivious minds. And I contemplated everything. My solitary life, the differences between it and every other life. And I thought that maybe I wasn’t so different after all. Everyone has their own troubles, their own battles to fight. Everyone eventually faces darkness and hardship. Mine was just a little out of the ordinary and I could live with that.

But I never came to a decision and so my time alone to think had been not wasted, but spent making me more torn between lives than before. I knew that I didn’t want to live as a beast; that was one thing for certain. I could never imagine enduring such pain. The very thought of it wrenched my insides with trepidation. And Aramei, the Blood Bond, I didn’t want that either, though I admit it was more acceptable than the latter.

Remaining human, continuing on with this mortal life, trapped inside the body of an inevitable death, was also something I didn’t want.

But those were my choices.

For now, I decided that choosing none of them would be the best choice.

Day by day; to live and enjoy what life I had at that moment, was ultimately the only decision I could make.

Isaac was waiting outside in the driveway when I went to leave for school the next day.

“Need a ride?” he said, smiling, though we had discussed it late the night before over the phone.

The sun was out. It wasn’t helping to melt the snow much, but it was nice to see it. The gray gloom of clouds and weather was beginning to get to me.

I smiled back, tossed my canvas backpack into the front seat and jumped inside his new Jeep; newer and shinier than Damien’s.

“Where’d you get this Jeep?” I said, testing out the feel of the leather seats. “Better yet, where’d the other car go?”

Briefly, I thought about that car, but all I could remember was flipping around inside of it.

“Nathan and Xavier ditched it behind our house,” he said.

“What are they,” I chuckled, “the clean-up crew?”

Isaac laughed too and pulled me next to him.

“Sometimes.”

Almost to my school there was a long, silence between us, both of us surely thinking along the same lines. He wanted to know what was on my mind, what sort of conclusions had I come to in my time away.

We pulled up into the parking lot.

He put the Jeep in park, turned the key and gazed out the windshield. His thumbs tapped undecidedly upon the steering wheel.

“Nothing happened, Isaac,” I said. “She didn’t come back for me.”

“I know.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

His thumbs stopped tapping and then he looked at me. “I thought about leaving with my father to go back to Serbia...,”