Nick’s head fell back into the
comfort of my pillows. I recommenced rubbing his back and whispering it was all
right. That if he talked to me about it, he’d feel better afterwards. I felt
Drei watching me with skepticism. He didn’t think I could make Nick feel better
about what had happened, and I wasn’t sure myself. But I needed to try, and
that was all I paid attention to. I was needed for something other than being a
babysitter. That was more important than Drei could know. So I had to try.
“They came late…after everyone was
asleep. I was out late, past curfew, with a few friends. They had been drinking
and smoking all sorts of stuff…I thought they were hallucinating when they
dropped me off, insisting the sun was eating my house. Course they didn’t know
it wasn’t the sun. I shooed them off and called 911. I ran inside, trying to
find someone, anyone. But Mom and Dad, their door was locked, like it usually
was when they had been arguing. Kit and Kate weren’t breathing when I found
them…I didn’t know what to do.”
As he spoke, I drew the memory from
him in a way not unlike how I had obtained the memory of my mom and dad—I
wanted to see what he saw, to pick up what he left out. It swelled inside me,
the sensation of smoke filling my lungs. Flashes of blinding red heat mingled
with glances of sickly figures and engulfed, endless hallways turning in a maze
of utter hopelessness. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, now that it was as
much a part of me as it was of him, but I knew I couldn’t hold onto it. It was
already overwhelming me with confusion and grief.
“I didn’t even wait around for the
fire trucks; I just ran. As fast and as far as I could. Pretty soon I didn’t want
to stop anywhere, wasn’t sure if I could. So I just kept going.”
Then the solution came to me. I
released the memory, allowing it to float away from us—to find someone willing
to listen or just dissipate into the atmosphere, I wasn’t sure which—and to
leave us in peace. Though his eyes were blind to it, the swirls of black and
red spiraled from us, rising through the ceiling like a beautiful version of
the catastrophe it was. From there, I could feel a wind lift it away,
dispersing it across the sky.
His eyes, glazed when he had
remembered the events leading up to this moment, shone as they turned on me, a
serene smile on the edge of his lips. One of my hands still rested on his
forearm. “Then you found me; you saved me from killing myself. Thank you.”
Nick fell back asleep after that for
the rest of the day. Drei left to brief a few of the other vampires, promising
to return when Nick woke again. I was relieved of my sitter duties in order to
nurse Nick and prepare him for the storm to come. It would be rough and I could
tell Drei wanted him gone.
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