Masquerade (29 page)

I was sitting on the bed
when he came back out of the bathroom
.
He was fully dressed, wearing
black tuxedo pants and the white button up shirt. The sleeves were
rolled to the elbows and the buttons at the throat were undone
showing a patch of smooth tan skin. He was wearing socks and shoes,
and it gave me the feeling that he was ready to run me down if I
tried to escape again.

I rubbed my temples. I
was
so
going to
be late for curfew. I looked up when I saw movement. Sam knelt down
in front of me, his hands reached out, but he dropped them when I
stiffened. He fell backward to sit on the floor.

“
You have some major
explaining to do.” I said, weary.

“
Where do you want me to
start?” The words rumbled from his chest, and he looked up in my
eyes, his face was open and truthful.

“
Why don’t you start by
telling me exactly what you are.”

Sam

She wants to know what I am. I guess I
should be grateful that she’s still here and listening instead of
still fighting and clawing to get away. The sight of her face as
she watched me change was heart wrenching. It was more painful than
the transition itself. She was horrified. She was literarily
shaking with fear so much that she tried to jump off a balcony
seven stories high.

I’d driven the girl I love
to suicide. Talk about a punch in the gut.

She’ll never love me
now.

I sank back onto my butt
and leaned against the wall. I wanted to reach out and touch her. I
wanted her to stop looking at me like I was a complete
stranger.

I wasn’t going to get what
I wanted.

So, I would settle for giving her what
she wants. Answers.

“
I’m a
hellhound.”

She stared at me for long
moments. It almost looked like she was deciding whether or not to
believe me. “A hellhound?” she finally asked.

I nodded. “There’s so few of us left,
saying we’re almost extinct is an understatement.” In fact, I
hadn’t even known they existed until I changed into one a few years
ago.

“
You never told me. You
lied to me.” She accused, her blue eyes flashing up to mine. I knew
she would be angry, but her anger was still like a slap in the
face.

“
I didn’t have a choice,
Hev.”

“
No?” she snapped. “You
always had a choice. You could have told me the truth.” She jumped
off the bed and began to pace. Her shoulders were tense, and I
couldn’t help but stare at the hemline of her dress. It was
torn.

“
What was
I supposed to say?” I asked, staying sitting on the ground. I
wanted to pace the room like she was to walk off some of my
anxiety, but I was afraid if I got up I would frighten her. “Was I
just supposed to walk up to you and say ‘you don’t know me, but I’m
a hellhound,
and someone is trying
to kill you?’”

“
Someone
wants to kill me?” She stopped cold and turned, her eyes wide. I
could actually see some of the anger drain out of
her
.

“
Yes. It’s what I’m trying
to say. You’re in danger.”

“
That woman tonight…she’s
involved?”

“
Yes, that’s China. She’s
the one…she’s the one that attacked you that night. The night you
can’t remember.”

“
How do you know this?”
she asked, tension building up around her.

I swallowed. “Because I
was there.”

Her entire body stilled.
She was calculating my words, deciding what they meant. There was
only one conclusion. I did this to her, or that I was an
accomplice.

All of a sudden it’s like a
fire started within her. Her hands balled to fists at her sides,
and she speared me with a look. “You’re telling me this now? Is
this some kind of twisted joke? It took me a long time to make some
semblance of a life for myself after my attack. My entire life was
destroyed.
I
was
destroyed. Just when I had my life figured out you came along and
changed everything again. You made me care about you, you made me
feel like I could have a real life again. And now you drag me up to
some hotel room and change into a beast in front of me and then you
tell me that everything between us had been a lie, that you,
you
of all people, Sam,
were the one that destroyed my life in the first place!”

She was practically
hyperventilating, her breaths were coming in short gasps, and her
face was turning red. Alarmed I jumped to my feet. I promised her I
wouldn’t touch her, and I wanted to honor that promise, but I
couldn’t stand to see her this way.

“
I’m leaving!” She yelled
and ran for the door.

I lunged after her, she
couldn’t leave. People out there wanted her dead, and I had to
protect her. I wrapped my arms around her waist and towed her away
from the door, back into the room. She turned and shoved me, both
hands slamming into my shoulders. “Get away from me.”

“
Stop it, I need to talk
to you, there are things you need to hear.” I reached for her again
and she slapped my hands away.

“
I hate you!” She yelled as
she rushed forward and began hitting my chest with the sides of her
clenched fists. “I hate you for this!”

I let her pound me, I
deserved it, and she needed to get out her anger. Because I still
had to talk, and she still had to listen. And because I hated
myself too.

After a few minutes of her
hitting me she collapsed against my chest and sobbed. I was afraid
to put my arms around her so I just stood there, my hands at my
sides and shaking with the need to touch her while she cried hot
tears all over me.

When her sobs became
hiccups, she whispered, “I thought you loved me.”

I groaned and wrapped my
arms around her. “I do. More than anything.”

My voice or my touch
seemed to break through her emotion, and she stiffened and yanked
herself away. “Don’t touch me.”

I held up my hands in
surrender and took a few steps back.

She wiped at her eyes with
the back of her hand and her make-up smeared, leaving black streaks
against her pale skin. “I don’t want to see you again.”

“
That’s too bad, you don’t
have a choice.”

She turned away and stood,
staring at the door probably wondering if she could beat me there.
I was tired. My body felt drained and exhausted. My mouth was dry
and the muscles in my back were sore from tension. I wondered how I
could get through to her, how I could make her understand. As she
stood there with her back to me I realized that talking to her this
way might be easier. I wouldn’t be able to see the hate in her
eyes, and she wouldn’t be able to see the devastation in mine.
Maybe if I just started talking, explaining, she would stay and
listen.

So I began
talking.

“
I live with three
roommates; I sometimes call them my family because they are
hellhounds like me. When I met them I was alone, and I knew nothing
about what I was or how to control myself. I thought I was a freak,
an outcast, and that there wasn’t anyone else out there that could
do what I could. But then China – the woman you saw tonight – found
me one night and offered me a place to go where people
understood.”

Heven made no comment or
even moved from the spot she was standing in, but I knew she was
listening. So I continued, “At first I liked being with them. I
learned a lot about what I am, and it was a relief not having to be
alone. But China, started to change, she became harder, meaner
somehow.”

Heven’s head tilted just
slightly and a little ray of hope bloomed in my chest.
I have to make her understand.
I went to the mini fridge and pulled out a bottle
of water and downed it all. I was so thirsty. Then I reached for
another and uncapped it. When I lifted it to my lips I realized
that she was no longer turned away. She was looking at me. “Would
you like some?” I asked.

She shook her head. “How did she
change?”

“
China’s been looking for
something, an object that she heard about, something that no one
has ever seen. We’d been helping her look, even though we really
didn’t know what we were looking for. All I know is that it is a
map of some sort.”

“
Like a map to
gold?”

I nodded, pleased that she
finally seemed interested. “Exactly. We used to go out every night
searching. Our apartment was here, but we went all over the state
looking. We could never find it, and as time went by she became
angry and frustrated.”

“
Then what
happened?”

“
She
started killing people, Hev.” I heard her soft indrawn breath, but
I continued to talk
–
anxious to get it all out before she began
yelling again. “We began fighting because I tried to stop her a few
times. She would get so angry at me. It was almost like she had to
kill them, and if she didn’t…” I shook my head not bothering to
finish the sentence.

“
She didn’t what?” Heven
asked, I noticed she had come forward to sit on the edge of the
bed.

“
If she
didn’t she would get punished or something. I never understood it
because I didn’t think China was scared of anything.”
So why would she feel like she had to
kill?

“
Then what happened?”
Heven asked. Her voice was deeper than normal because of all the
crying she had done.

“
Then I saw you.” My voice
softened at the memory. “I was running through the woods, and you
were out riding Jasper. I thought you were the most beautiful thing
I’d ever seen. You were so pure and carefree. I envied that in
you.”

I stole a glance at her;
she was staring at the wall, her face drawn.

“
So I started watching you.
Sometimes running in the woods where I knew you rode, and hanging
near the library… I liked being near you, even if you never knew I
was there.”

“
Why didn’t you talk to
me?” she asked, curious.

I barked a laugh; it was
an empty sound. “Why would you ever want anything to do with
someone like me?”

She didn’t answer.

“
Anyway, I started
skipping the nights that we went searching. I started pulling away
from the pack. I hated that she was killing people, but I didn’t
know how to make her stop. The others didn’t seem to care what she
was doing…I think they even might have helped her. I couldn’t go up
against all three of them. I just wanted to be normal. I wanted a
real life.”

“
One day China followed
me, and she saw me watching you. She became angry. She became
fixated on you. She got it into her head that I was pulling away
from the pack and not helping them search because I was infatuated
with you.”

“
Were you?” she asked
softly. Her eyes were riveted on my face and most of her fear had
drained away. She was becoming fascinated by my tale.

“
I loved you from the
minute I laid eyes on you. I’ve lied about a lot of things, Hev,
but I have never lied about that.”

Her eyes seemed to melt a little but
then she caught me watching so she sat up straighter and all the
emotion left her face.

“
China threatened to kill
you. I told her that if she left you alone that I would go back to
searching. For a while that worked, and I thought she had forgotten
about you, but she hadn’t. One night she killed someone, completely
ripped them to shreds, and it made me sick. I told her how
disgusting I thought she was, and I refused to help her hide the
body. That’s the night she attacked you. The night you can’t
remember.”

“
Why didn’t she just kill
me?”

She said the words almost
as if she were talking to herself
.
So I didn’t bother to answer. I didn’t want to
rouse her memory of the attack because I didn’t want to give China
any other reason to come after her.

A lonely tear slid down
her cheek, and she glanced at where my hands gripped her. I let go
and put some distance between us once more.

“
I’m sorry,” I whispered.
An apology was not enough, nothing would ever be enough but I was
out of words. How did you make up for practically robbing someone
of their life?

“
For a
few months after your attack she left you alone,” I explained. “I
did everything she asked, and I only watched you when I was sure
she was out of town. She came home early from one of her trips and
caught me following you again,” I said, pushing my hands through my
hair and shoved away from the wall. I had to move. I was edgy and
tired of trying to find ways to make her understand. “She’s crazy!
She became convinced that I was going to tell you about us, about
what we are. She said that you would tell
–
that we would get
locked up. I enrolled at school to keep a closer eye on you; I
didn’t like leaving you unprotected for so many hours in the
day.”