Page 47 of Before We Burn

My throat tightens. I still remember their faces. All of them.

“The youngest was six, the oldest fourteen. I killed the children quickly and first. I wanted their parents to feel their hearts break before I ripped them out. The father tried to fight me. He wanted to live, and I could hear it in his thoughts. The mother, on the other hand, didn’t care about life or death. She cared about her children.

“As I drained her husband, she ran past me and up the stairs to check on her kids.” I look in the mirrors above the vanity to my right. My reflection displayed there—of course the mirror is charmed. I look at myself as I say, “Her scream haunts me to this day. I hear it in the wind sometimes, like she’s watching me. It’s what I deserve, honestly.”

I look back to Everett, who hasn’t moved an inch since I started my story. “Why’d you tell me that?” he asks, and I shrug.

“We all do terrible things. I’ve been a monster—a true monster. I would walk into a room and everyone would go silent. At one point, people feared me more than they feared the Council. I never told them, though—they would have my head. But I have over three-hundred years worth of treacherous memories I cope with every day.”

I’m being honest for the first time in a very long time. Constantine was the last person I had a conversation with about this, and she urged me to get out. She was once a victim who fell for the glamourous life of being on the Council’s payroll. I thought I was doing something good for my people, for my kind. But I was wrong, similar to Everett now.

I was furthering the separation of vampires, humans, and witches. I’m the reason it is so hard to get a treaty in place with the humans. This war is entirely my fault.

“I feel like I have nothing left,” Everett says, his voice weak and broken. He’s about to bring the bottle back to his lips when I reach for it and suddenly slip into the tub.

The water overflows and soaks the grey tanktop and short set I’m wearing. The water is cool—too cool for anyone to comfortably sit in—and I realized he did it on purpose. Colder water slows your heart rate. He didn’t want anyone knowing he was panicking.

His free arm wraps around me so I don’t fall under the water, and I take the opportunity to snatch the bottle of liquor out of his hands. He tries to grab it, but I’m too fast and throw it against the wall, making it shatter and spill along the floor.

Our bodies are pressed together, his arm still wrapped around my waist and holding me in place. Our eyes connect and I see the hurt. The need for it to stop. His thoughts flow as his wide brown eyes, clouded by full thick lashes, stare back at me. I understand that. I understand the desire to silence your demons and awake a new person.

I grip his face, my hands buried into his deep beard, my thumbs brushing against the coarse hair there. My face is set into a frown, and I try to hold back my hysterics. There have been so many times I’ve wished I had someone. So many times I needed someone to be there. I’m going to be there for him now. I think we can be that for each other.

But his thoughts shift.

His suffering suddenly stops, and his thoughts turn softer. Images of me flash through his mind, a montage of me rolling my eyes and sighing. A smirk pulls at the corners of his lips, and my thumbs instantly move to pull his mouth straight. His lips are plush and soft. Cloud like.

“Benny was my family,” he whispers, a tear falling down his cheek. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if he never forgives me.”

Everett is very close to passing out. I battle with the ramifications of giving him more of my blood. There’s always a possibility of attachment, but that’s more typical after a series of cluster feedings. I’m wary about giving him more, but I can’t let him continue to be this inebriated. I bite into my wrist and blood pours out, tinging the water and bubbles red.

My eyes never leave Everett’s. He doesn’t even look at my wrist as I offer it. I shift uncomfortably. His hands move to my waist, gripping my hips firmly to hold me in place. I breathe deeply, looking to my wrist in a silent plea for him to take it. But he just simply shakes his head.

I groan, frustrated and ready to force feed it to him, and he raises a brow. “Everett, this isn’t funny. You’re drunk, and I’m scared something will happen to you if I leave. I can’t live with another death on my conscience. Especially when I didn’t actually cause it; I just didn’t stop it.”

He just looks at me for a moment, his thoughts more steady. “You’re beautiful.”

The words are clear and coherent, and his hands still hold me there as I try to move away. I shake my head, trying to play off the shock clearly written on my face.

“Please, Everett. Take the blood. If you haven’t noticed, vampiric blood has healing properties. It’ll sober you up. You’re drunk.”

“I am. That doesn’t make you any less beautiful.” He stares at me in wonder while my blood drips at a slower pace. I need him to drink.

“Everett, I’m going to need to feed again if I don’t seal this wound. Please, take the blood.”

It’s like something ignites in him. A smile spreads across his face, and I know I’m about to have to shove my wrist in his mouth.

“Marz… Can I call you that? I feel like we’re close enough now for that.” He is drunk and overly confident.

“Sure.” My tone is bored, but I am thoroughly entertained. The heavy-hearted Everett is somewhere else, and this one is more curious.

He nods and continues, “When I feed on you… I feel things I shouldn’t be feeling. It fucked me up even more when I realized I felt it without feeding on you.”

The room goes silent, and the water suddenly feels too hot. My wrist falls slowly until his lips meet the skin, gently kissing the wound. My breath hitches, and I almost ask what he’s doing until his eyes lock onto mine and he finally latches on. I feel him. It’s like electricity traveling from my body into his. His thoughts are loud, and he’s greedy with his pulls. Such a distinct difference from the vampire-hating soldier I met not so long ago.

He stares at me intensely as he pulls more and more blood. I bite my lip, trying to stifle the sounds threatening to pool out of me. The want for him is there, and I’m about to give in to it before I remember he’s drunk and him feeding on me is not the consent it feels like it is.

Everett pulls away, and his thoughts are more coherent. I can tell the blood is working its magic, coursing through his body, repairing each blood cell he broke and making his brown skin glow once more.