Page 29 of Before We Burn

“Yeah, it is. Wait…were you here the entire time?” I ask, my mind spinning from the blood high.

“Yeah, you did good. Very messy, but good. How’d it taste?” She’s so nonchalant, checking her nail beds before pulling a compact mirror out of thin air to check her hair. She meets my gaze again with a smile on her face.

“Constantine, why didn’t you help?”

She shrugs, her demeanor telling me she’s bored and done with the conversation.

“If I did, nothing would’ve changed. Besides, I would’ve just ripped their throats out. Sending a message of ‘get the fuck out of my way’ is very smart.” She winks at me then moves toward the car. “Come on, I’ll drive. Human sits in the front with me since you smell like shit.”

I mope the entire way to the backseat, except I do need the break. Feeding from a vein is very different than a bag. It ignites something different, pooling all this adrenaline into you. The first time gives New Bloods a rush, making them feel invincible—godly. Vampires search for this type of high with every feed, some even keeping humans as their personal blood bag to feed from when they’re searching for that high.

I don’t like it, though. Not anymore.

It makes me feel out of control, like I could forget my own name and destroy the world if I really wanted to. All 5 '6”, one-hundred and ninety-five pounds of me. That’s really why I stopped doing it.

I sit back, thinking about all the ways those men could’ve found us. There was never an instance when someone followed me home or found out where I lived. I didn’t take anything I would’ve taken to school. The only thing different was that Everett’s with me.

I glare at the back of his head, burning a hole through it, because I already know it’s his fault. All of this is, honestly.

I see Constantine's eyes flash in the rearview mirror, her face unimpressed with my scowl.

“Did you remove the pig’s tracker?” She spoke so gently it took Everett a second to realize she was speaking about him.

“Tracker?” I ask, sitting forward. “I didn’t check him for a tracker. I thought they stopped that years ago.” Constantine looks at me with an annoyed frown.

“Have I taught you nothing? Why do you expect humans to keep their word?” She has a point.

“Hi, uh…excuse me,” Everett says in a calm voice. “Did you just call me a pig?” I sit back, waiting for a response from Connie, but she just shrugs.

“Only one person in this car blew up a school full of vampires to rip their fangs from their face and experiment on them.” She turns to look at Everett and smiles. “Pig.”

It was at that moment that I knew I would never have peace as long as they were around each other. I wonder how Constantine knows that much already—maybe she did her own research, maybe she’s been following me longer than I thought—but I don’t have the mental capability to deal with it right now.

I lean my head back and close my eyes, my mind wandering for a little bit, picking up on the insults Everett hurls at Connie and the silence Connie gives him back. Slowly, I drift to the place I call the void—a place in my mind I carved out for myself a long time ago for when the voices became too much.

We stop again. Everett won’t stop complaining about how tired he is and how sleeping in the car with his size is impossible. Finally, Connie had enough and pulled into the first motel we came across.

It’s dingy and gross. If I was human, every red flag would be raised, because it looks and smells like somewhere people go to die.

The outside is run down, and the color is similar to if you sat in a room that was once white but is now covered in tobacco sludge. The vacancy sign hangs off the billboard, snow covering most of it. The only reason it’s legible is because of its faint red glow. I can smell the death and despair.

“This is…charming,” I say, begrudgingly.

“Change that tone. This place is one of the nicest rest stops up here. The owner can’t afford to keep the rooms decent and the outside nice, so he focused on the rooms.” Everett says all of this with a matter-of-fact tone. He holds some type of loyalty for whoever it is—a bit of his hidden humanity showing through.

“You have to go in and book the room. We can’t do it,” Connie says, her face set into a scowl and her eyes narrowed like she’s looking lightyears away.

“Why do I have to do it?” Everett sounds like a brat. I kick the back of the seat and lean forward.

“Is it not obvious that we’re vampires?” I point to my face and the dried blood and shit all over my clothes. Everett looks me up and down, but his thoughts go elsewhere. Instead of taking in my disheveled appearance, he notes of my thick thighs and decently-sized breasts. But when his eyes reach mine, his thoughts go haywire.

“Please stop looking at me.” My voice comes out softer than I anticipated, the tension in the car becoming palpable as Everett’s pupils go wide.

“Fine, I’ll go,” he says, throwing up his arms and opening the door. “But it’s only because you went all psycho-vampire and have blood all over you.”

“And shit,” I add, helpfully.

He slams the car door shut, leaving me trapped in a metal box with the one person who can feel my in-denial arousal. I try to play it off, keeping my eyes down while I twiddle my fingers, but she turns her body to face me with a wicked smile on her face.