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Gently, I touch his arm and glance down at his hands. My temperature drops to zero.Fuck!I’m coming apart inside. The crucifix has burned a deep imprint in his palm, the heat so scorching I can actually see smoke rising from the incision. And then I look up at his face and a crippling fear seeps through every pore of my soul.
Nick’s face has lost all trace of humanity. His head is swollen and misshapen; his skin as white as chalk, his eyes sunk back in his head with bloated pouches beneath. His lips are the most frightening: cracked and twisted in a grimace that reveal razor-sharp upper incisor teeth.
Sweet Jesus.
I dare not move, dare not breathe or blink as I watch what the man I love has become.
And then he stares at me with those awful, red eyes, and I feel powerless to do anything. I’m frozen; transfixed on him like a blind woman who has suddenly regained her sight.
“I’m s-sorry …” he rasps. “Please …”
A cold paralysis creeps up my neck and my back. It’s like a gate has been thrown open, letting in a flood of images I’ve refused to look at until now. Little dark pieces of a jigsaw coming together to create the most horrendous picture: Jessica’s murder, the strange dream, flashes of Nick making love to me. Somehow, everything culminates in one horrific conclusion …
With an anguished cry, I bolt out the kitchen and scramble upstairs to the bathroom. Locking the door, I collapse on the floor, my whole body trembling with fear. “Jesus!” I rock back and forth, screaming and crying. “Jesus, Jesus!”
This can’t be real; I must be hallucinating. Perhaps I finallyhavelost my mind. Yes, that’s it; it must be the Thurlax making me see things. No way in Hell can this really be happening. I don’t believe in …
No.
I won’t even allow myself to think it.
And then there’s a quiet knock at the door. I shriek with terror.
“Darling, let me in.” Nick’s voice is a soft and soothing lullaby, slinky as a box of chocolates. Somehow, this makes everything all the more horrific.
“Go away!” I shout. “I-I don’t want to see you.”
“Carly, baby, please open the door. I need to talk to you.”
“No!”
“Darling, I love you. If you’ll just let me explain—”
“You’re a vampire. A f-fucking vampire, a v-vampire …”
There.
I’ve said it. The man I love is a vampire. A bloodsucker. A creature of the night. But even as I say it, I’m overcome with a deep sense of incredulity. What the hell am I babbling? Vampires aren’t real. They only exist in books and movies, a figment of Bram Stoker’s overactive imagination. This is real life, for Christ’s sake. I have a job, a family, I go to the shopping mall, I do normal things. My world is so friggin’ mundane, vampires just don’t figure.
“My God, this is driving me crazy,” Nick shouts. “I want you so much, Carly. I worship the ground you walk on. I need to hold you, to be with you. If I don’t, I’m going to do something stupid.”
“You’re a monster!” I cry. “Y-you killed Jessica.”
There’s a long, black silence. I say it again. “Y-you killed Jessica. You sucked her f-fucking blood.”
“No, I didn’t. Please, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Yes, you did! You k-killed her, and now you’re going to kill me.”
He slams his fist against the door, causing me to cower back against the bath. My stomach lurches, and I fight the urge to throw up. I need as much distance between us as possible. Then I hear him sobbing, crying like his whole world has ended, and my heart breaks a little.
“I could never hurt you,” he chokes. “I love you more than anything. You know that.”
“You lied to me, Nick! You lied to me about everything. All this time, you’ve been hiding the truth from me. I thought you were perfect, but you’re a vampire and a murderer and, oh, Jesus … I can’t believe I’m saying this. Either this is some sort of nightmare, or I must be going crazy. This can’t be real.”
Nick continues to cry, the full weight of his body pressed against the door. “So, is this how it ends?” he sobs. “You’re going to just leave me standing here? What happened to forever, Carly? What happened to all those promises you made? You said you’d love me no matter what. You said you wanted to marry me.”
“I-I did. But that was before … oh, God, I can’t take this.” And then I start crying, too.
