Oh, yes. Sawyer was made for me.
But there’s more to her past still hidden. “Your mother isn’t a good person.”
“Caught that, huh.” She draws her legs up to her chin and abandons the food. “Mom only kept me around for the monthly government cheques that she spent on her hobbies. She never really cared for me, so life was pretty lonely.”
“What hobbies?”
She grimaces. “The kind that twists the mind into an addiction, to the point substances came before feeding her kid. Crack, heroin, smoking, alcohol—you name it and it’s probably on the list. They’re her entire focus. That and Corey. They started dating when I was eight, though he wasn’t around often. She mainly went to him, leaving me home alone.”
Underage child abandonment is a crime no matter the century. It was a movement back when I was human and made illegal in the twentieth century. Imagining the child version of Sawyer in some rundown apartment, probably scared and jumping at every little noise, sends more rage through my veins.
“At some point, something changed, and he started coming to our place. I was kept in my room when he did; maybe it washer fucked-up way of keeping me safe. Even that changed as I got older, but I still avoided because his gaze started lingering on me and it creeped me out. To skip over years of drama, she never changed. They’d fight, split, and she’d run back to him within days or weeks. It’s a trauma cycle, but she doesn’t listen when I explain it. Getting kicked out at eighteen was the best day of my life.”
There’s more. It’s in her eyes. “It never ended.”
An old ache—born of trauma and abandonment, shifting every thought I have towards caring for her the way no one ever has—filters through her expression. It’s after years spent holding everything in, the kind that finally makes her lower her arms from her legs.
“No. When the government assistance ended, she hated me even more. Whenever she blows through her welfare, she comes crying to me and I can’t help but get her out of trouble. Every. Damn. Time. She calls and I tell myself it’ll be the last time I help her. She needs to learn responsibility; sheneedsto pay her own fucking bills and get away from that asshole who does nothing but keep her down.” Nails curl into her palms, her gaze distant now, jaw locked. “Life is fucking hard, and I work numerous jobs to keep myself afloat—toattemptto travel.” A look of disgust scrunches her nose. “But when she calls sobbing for assistance, reminding me I owe her for the miracle of life or some shit”—she snorts—“I do it, and fall into her trap. We’re all on this trauma cycle together, in which I can’t tell her no, she can’t be an adult, and Corey won’t grow the hell up and be a man!”
By the time she finishes, she’s seething.My bloodthirsty Sawyer.I love it. I despise her past struggles and her parental situation, but distance away from that life only serves to prove why she has nothing to return for.
“It’s the reason I decided to take this trip,” she adds a moment later, as her skin returns to a normal shade. “A fewmonths ago, I finally stopped answering her calls—though not without extreme guilt. I needed to get out of the city more than I needed air—away from her, from Corey, from work, from just…life. I wanted to see something new, to explore. Instead, I ended up in a car accident, because the world seems determined to make me its punching bag.”
Which also explains a few of her comments when seeing my fangs. My immortality was another cruel joke delivered by fate, and she assumed it’d be her death after a lifetime of misery.
I’ll take care of you now.
Seconds pass, the divide between us widening, because comforting a human through emotional moments isn’t something I’ve done in centuries—and it leaves me perched on the edge of uncertainty.
Thankfully, the moment passes as Sawyer’s head flicks up. “Wait a minute, you asshole! This is why you don’t have a car or phone, but it means you could have gotten me to my cabin or back into town anytime you wanted.”
Putting aside her past and the nameCorey Princefor now, I reply, “Correct.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Correct.”
“Whydidyou bring me here when you could have dropped me off in town and not made me your issue?”
Because you’re mine and I wanted you.She hasn’t had anyone before, so I vow to be that person. Her own personal monster she can control as she sees fit—to target anyone who’s made her feel less.
“Because I wanted you here.”
Pink fills her cheeks. She looks entirely too pleased—too happy—for the dank cabin setting and depressing history lesson. She’s a sparkle in my dark life, though. A snowflake within an endless night.
I want to do somethingforher. Not only keep her, but to make her happy. Truly content and prove that she’ll be cared for.
“What were your holiday plans at your cabin?”
“It’s not the fanciest place, but I envisioned sitting in front of the large window overlooking the woods while drinking hot chocolate and watching the snow fall. On Christmas morning, I’d cook a complete breakfast, and by evening, have wine by the fireplace. If the day was warm enough, maybe a short walk through the area. A time to stop and breathe in that Rockies air everyone talks about. Basically, I was searching for peace. A moment that says,Imade it, before returning to real life. I wanted tobe.”
I can give her that. Everything she wants. All of it. All of what I am and can be is now hers.
This place isn’t a home. It’s a resting place before choosing my next location to wander. Two centuries of wealth have amassed in my accounts with nothing to spend it on, but she can have every last cent if it means making her dreams come true.
I’ll buy her a whole fucking island if it’ll keep her smiling.
My immortal life so far has been pretty meaningless, but my little human, my car crash survivor, will bring meaning to it. I feel it. We’ve been waiting for one another.
