Elle Jasper - Everdark

All at once, a live scene flashed behind my lids. It was nightfall, and I was following a girl out of the mall. I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the place, but it definitely wasn’t Savannah. Young, petite, and blond, looking to be in her early twenties, wearing red flip-flops, holey jeans, and a purple tank top, she swung her hips as she made her way toward the covered parking garage. She happily chatted to someone on her cell and didn’t seem to notice me. A horn blew from somewhere in the garage, and the girl squealed, then giggled to her phone companion. I grew closer. In the distance, sounds of traffic filled the night air.

Long shadows, birthed from low light cast from the overhead lamps bracketed onto concrete pillars, fell over the row of sparsely parked cars. Not many people were about on a weeknight; no one was in the direct vicinity of the girl. She turned down the row with a white metal sign marked by a black capital B . I watched her closely. She dug through her purse and retrieved a set of keys. At the same time, she stopped at a white Camry and pushed the key release. The horn gave one short blast as it unlocked the doors. With her chin she held her cell, and she reached for the door handle.

Hands not my own grabbed her, whipped her around, and slammed her back against the car. Large blue eyes widened in fear and confusion as they stared, horrified, into mine. Tremors of fear wracked her body; I could feel them. Adrenaline rushed through her veins; I could hear the swooshing sound it made as though magnified, only to my ears. Her heart slammed rapidly against her ribs, faster, harder. At the indention in her throat, her pulse beckoned me. The moment she filled her lungs with air to scream, I lunged at her neck and sank my teeth into her flesh. The scream died in her throat as I ripped through her larynx and her vocal cords, until the vessel I sought popped; a rush of wet warmth, sweet, erotic, and heady, saturated the inside of my mouth. I suckled her blood, excitement rushing through me as I felt the liquid slide down my throat. The girl’s body jerked, involuntarily, as life left her. The jerks were hard at first, then weaker. The instant she sagged against me, her heart having stilled and her eyes dull and lifeless, I dropped her body. It crumpled into a heap at my feet, and I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Riley!”

Strong hands gripped my shoulders and shook me until my blurred vision cleared, and Seth’s worried face came into view. He shook me again and shouted so loud my ears rang. “Ri, wake up!”

“Whoa, back off, Bro,” I said, and shook his hands off me. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, and looked around. Slowly, my surroundings came into focus. I glanced at the Kit-Cat Klock on the wall. It was 8:50 a.m. Six minutes had passed.

What the fu—

“Your eyes were blank, but your face . . . ,” he said, and it was then I noticed for the first time his voice had deepened.

“What about my face?” I asked. I moved to the sink, flipped the faucet on, and splashed myself with cold water.

Seth passed me the hand towel. “You looked, I don’t know,” he said, then looked at me with his expressive green eyes. “Mean. You looked mean, Ri. Scary-mean. Not yourself.”

I dried my face and thought about that. “Did I say anything?”

Seth shook his head, a hank of dark hair falling into his eyes. He pushed it back. “No. You just stood there, staring, and looking . . . hateful.”

The memory of the vision struck me, rushing back full force. I met my brother’s worried gaze. “I saw something, Seth. Like a daydream, only it was so freaking real. It was”—I searched for the right word—“sickening.”

“What was it?” he asked, and I noticed then how worried he truly was. His brows pulled into a frown, his mouth thin. “Tell me.”

I closed my eyes and dug my fingers into the sockets, rubbing hard. I looked at my brother. “I saw a kill. I saw a vampire feed.”

Seth’s face grew pale, and his eyes widened. “What?”

My mouth went dry as the memory of the vision, so clear and realistic, pushed to the very forefront of my mind. “It was as though I were him; I saw everything as if I were the killer, only when my hands reached out, they were not mine. They were his.” I shook my head. “I felt everything, Seth. The girl’s terror. The rush of excitement as my teeth sank into her artery. The blood as it pumped into my throat. Every freaking thing.” Suddenly, my stomach rolled, every detail returning in vivid recall, and I felt the color drain from my face. My skin grew clammy. I covered my mouth with my hand. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Seth grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall and into the bathroom with such speed, my head spun just as violently as my stomach. Even then, we barely made it. I stumbled, kicked the lid open with my foot, and retched into the toilet. Seth held my hair back while I lost last night’s lo mein noodles.

A cold, wet washcloth was suddenly resting on the back of my neck. Seth flushed the toilet, closed the lid, turned me around, and pushed me down onto it. I rested my forearms on my knees and breathed, and my baby brother, who seemed so grown up lately, squatted down to look at me. Green eyes just like mine met me with intensity.

“You gotta tell Eli,” Seth said.

I thought about it. “Maybe. But I’m not. It’s probably just my mind effing with me, you know? That night at Bonaventure still haunts me. Seriously. It’s just a lot of crap to take in. We’ve been through hell, little brother. Nasty-hell.”

The frown still on Seth’s face proved he didn’t really believe me. “Yeah, I know, he said. He ducked his head. “You okay, Ri?”

I wasn’t. Not at all. “Yeah. I’m totally fine. Let’s get out of here, okay? And,” I said, playfully punching his arm, “thanks. Not many dudes would hold a girl’s hair while she puked her guts up.”

Seth’s eyes softened. “Well, I’m not just any ole dude, and you’re my sister. I love you.”

My heart was melting.

“I love you, too,” I said. “I’d hug you, but—”

“Yeah, gross,” he finished, taking a step back. He held up his hands in defense. “No postpuke hugging, please. That’s just nasty.” He shuddered.

We both laughed, and I did my very best for the rest of the day to forget the horror of the daydream. Good thing it was Sunday and Inksomnia was closed. I’m not positive I could have kept it to myself.

Eli had gone with his brothers and Gilles to some monthly guardian meeting at Bethesda with Preacher and his people, and while I missed being with Eli, I’d craved time alone with my little brother. So I spent the early part of the day with just Seth. It seemed like forever since we’d done that, and even in spite of the awful, realistic daydream, we had fun. We had breakfast with Estelle and took Chaz to Forsythe Park for a long walk. Then later we hit Cleary’s for lunch. We both had the Reuben, and, swear to God, they make the best ones in Savannah. I could have eaten two and had to literally stop myself from ordering a second.

One of the tendencies Seth and I shared: voracious appetites. We both ate like friggin’ hogs. Luckily our metabolisms kept up with the amount of food we dumped in.

On the way home, we hit the Pig (that’s the everpopular southern grocery chain store Piggly Wiggly, aka Hoggly Woggly, aka the PW), picked up some milk, dog food, a twelve-pack of Cherry Coke, a pack of T-bones, another twelve-pack of Octoberfest, some junk food, and a few things for Estelle, then headed home. As we cruised the city streets with the top off the Jeep, the sun pelted me through the sporadic holes in the overhead canopy of oaks and pines. As my skin warmed, and the briny breeze wafted from the Savannah River to my nostrils, I could almost put behind me the horribleness of that damn daydream, and the way that girl had died; the way I’d felt it, tasted it, experienced it, and how wickedsick real it had been. I mean, I’d tasted her blood. I’d felt it slide down my throat. How the hell could that be?