Мишель Роуэн - Bitten & Smitten

“I think I know where he is. I need somebody to give me a lift. Right now. There’s no time to waste.”

Barry stepped forward. “My car’s out back. Amy and I were going to leave now, anyhow. We’ll drive you anywhere you want to go.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Thanks. You’re growing on me. A little.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

Amy and Barry went to the black door to leave. I turned to the others.

“Thanks, guys. For everything. Wish me luck.”

Quinn grabbed my wrist. His eyes were sad, but he was trying to smile. “Good luck. I mean it.”

I kissed him, just a quick kiss, but I meant every bit of it. I wanted him to know how much he meant to me. If things had been different, then who could say? But they weren’t. I wanted to be with Thierry. And I had to stop him from what he was planning on doing. I blew another kiss to the others as I backed away toward the door; then I turned around and followed Amy and Barry out to the car. I directed them to the Bloor Viaduct—the bridge where Thierry and I had first met. Where the hunters had chased me. The Don River raced underneath, cold and dark and foreboding. I got out and slammed the car door. I quickly scanned the bridge. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there.

“Should we wait?” Amy asked.

“No. I’ll be fine. You guys go.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.” I turned away, then glanced back. “Thanks, guys. Sorry I’ve been such a bitch.”

“You can’t help what you are,” Barry said, and then the little bugger winked at me. “Good luck. Bring the master home in one piece.”

I nodded and watched them drive away; then I turned to focus my attention on the bridge, scanning the length of it. For a moment I thought that I’d made a mistake. He wasn’t here at all. I’d put all my eggs in one basket and I was wrong. He was lost to me forever. But then I saw him. Halfway down, past the protective bars and on a suspension beam, just standing there surveying the night that surrounded him. He didn’t look at me as I approached, but he must have known that I was there.

“Thierry!” I called to him.

I saw he had a wooden stake in his hand. So he was serious this time. This was it. If I couldn’t find a way to stop him, he was going to do it, once and for all. End a life that had spanned more than six centuries. Seemed like an event that the papers and the six o’clock news should cover. An event of great importance. But how did they know? He’d just be another jumper. Nobody to lose any sleep over.

He glanced at me and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come.”

I climbed up on the cement barrier and crawled out to meet him through the opening in the metal bars he’d made last week. There was a time when being this high up would have paralyzed me. I wouldn’t have been able to function—scared of falling, scared of dying. But the first time I’d been chased out there was for fear of my own life, and this time it was out of fear for his. My fear of heights seemed to vanish in times of great stress. Finally I was standing, balanced on a metal slat a little more than an arm’s length away from him. His eyes didn’t look silver now, it was too dark. They were expressionless, dark pools that matched the water so far below us.

“Nice view,” I said.

“Leave here, Sarah. You can’t stop me.”

“Who said I wanted to stop you?”

“Pardon me?” He looked surprised.

“I said that I didn’t come here to stop you.”

“That is a surprise, Sarah. But you have never stopped surprising me since we first met. So tell me, why, then, are you here if you did not have it in your industrious mind to stop me?”

I pulled Peter’s well-used stake out from the back of my powder blue sweatpants. I’d put it there for safekeeping. Definitely not a comfortable thing to carry around, especially when sitting in the back of Barry’s car—but you do what you have to do.

I blinked at him. “I’ve come here to join you.”

“What?”

“I’m going to kill myself, too.”

“Please, Sarah, be serious. I am in no mood for your jokes.”

I shook my head. “Neither am I. I’m through with jokes. I’m serious. Deadly serious.”

I now had his full attention. “You can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“You’re young and beautiful. You have a long and exciting life before you. There’s so much you have yet to experience. You can’t end it all tonight.”

I shrugged and studied my stake. “I’m not happy. I thought being a vampire might be sort of cool. Well, it’s not. I thought there was a cure. There isn’t. I fought against the image of being a bloodthirsty, murdering monster. Well, let’s see, I just killed Peter. I’m a little parched, and I just happen to drink blood now.”

He stared at me. “And for this you wish to join me in my watery grave?”

“No.” I blinked back tears. I was trying to hold it together, really I was. But it was getting harder, the longer I was out there. “What I’m trying to say is that being a vampire sucks. This has been the worst week of my life. And now I know there’s no out. No magic pill that’s going to make it all better. Being a vampire is hard enough with you being around, Thierry. I don’t want to face it without you.”

“Sarah—”

“Shut up. Just let me finish. Dammit. You could have turned your back on me last week and let the hunters have me. It would have caused you a lot less grief. But you didn’t. You helped me.”

“Of course I did.”

“You’re still talking.”

“Sorry.”

“I thought you were a jerk. A real pompous, know-it-all asshole. I believe I expressed that sentiment to you several times.”

He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it. Good for him. He was learning.

“But the whole time, I knew I was falling for you. And it wasn’t just the gorgeous exterior, the power, the money, although I won’t say those things aren’t nice perks. It was you. I could see you underneath it all, and I liked what I saw. I liked it a lot. But then your bloody wife shows up out of the blue. I didn’t know what to think. And then you froze me out. Made me feel like you didn’t think I was anything more than a potential fling. Actually, I think those were your exact words.”

He looked away. “She reminded me of what my plans were. I wanted to keep you from being hurt further.”

“Yeah, now I know that. But then I thought she was everything I could never be. Gorgeous and powerful, with a vast history with you. How was I supposed to compete with that?”

“So you began dating Quinn,” he said bitterly.

“Quinn and I were never dating. I just said that because I wanted to hurt you back. But who knows? Maybe in a different place, a different time, a different life, we might be together. But not now.”

“Why not?”

“Because, stupid, I’m a little bit crazy about you.”

He blinked those dark, dark eyes at me. “Perhaps you’re just a little bit crazy.”

“That’s a definite possibility. But here’s the thing, Thierry. I think I love you. I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way about me. It’s the truth. I love you. And if that means nothing to you, if you’re just going to jump off this bridge because you feel that there’s nothing in this life to keep you here, then go for it. Just know I’m going to be right behind you.”

Silence fell as I ran out of things to say. Tears streaked down my face. There it was. Everything I was feeling was out in the open. I love him. I hadn’t even realized it myself until I heard myself say it. A crush? Yeah. Infatuation? Definitely. But love? No wonder I couldn’t be happy with Quinn, even though I cared so much for him, so deeply it hurt.