Sun Poisoned (The Sunshine Series) (16 page)

“
Okay.” My voice sounds small and I doubt if I even want to really know at this point, but we've made it this far. I have to let him finish.

“
When you turn someone,” Myles says, staring at his knees. “You can. . .control the actions of the person you’ve turned.” I swallow. “It's not something I do.”

I stare at him, trying to get those blue eyes to settle on mine for even a moment so I can see some hint of what he's feeling in them, but no such luck.

“Michael was the one teaching me,” he continues. “So when he told me I should make Evan do certain things, I did.”

I'm half-tempted to ask him what types of things, but I don't want to know just from the sound of his voice.

“So when I came up with the plan for us both to leave Michael, I didn't think Evan would object. Even if I didn’t have that kind of influence over him, he didn't want to be there, in that place with him, any more than I did.”

“
So,” I say, just because I think I've been quiet for too long and I don't want Myles to think he's making me uncomfortable. “When you tried to get him to leave, he went with you?”

Myles shakes his head.
“It wasn’t that simple.”

“
But you just said that if a vampire makes a new vampire, he can control him.”

“
That's true,” he says. “But Evan was only half mine.”

This seems like a conversation that I need to push him in so he keeps going, so gently, I do.
“What does that mean?”

“
I'll tell you,” he says, glancing at me for the first time in a long while. “But you can't let anyone else—Ava, Evan, Alex, or Adrienne—know that I told you this.”

I lean in closer, crossing my legs and staring directly at him. For a second I think he's going to do the same, but one look at me and he loses his nerve, his eyes shooting to the coffee table.

“There are a few ways to change a human into a vampire,” he begins. “The way I've done it was always the same.” He seems to be trying to find as many words as he can to put between me and the thing he’s really trying to say, but I let him.

“
A vampire needs to bite a human and drink almost all of their blood,” he practically whispers. “Then the human has to drink the vampire's blood.”

That sounds familiar, like it was done in a book or movie I've seen, so I'm not as freaked out as he thought I would be.

“Then,” Myles says. “The human eventually dies and the vampire has to bring them back.”

“
Bring them back?” I blurt out. “How?”

Myles thinks for a little then shrugs.
“It's not something I can explain.”

The way he says it makes me certain that he means it's not something he wants to talk about, so I leave it be.

“Anyway,” he breathes, running his hands up and down his legs. “It was never in the plan to turn Evan.” Myles clears his throat. “I don’t know what Michael was planning to do to him, but turning? Never.”

He glances at me, maybe to make sure that I want h
im to go on. I nod so he will.

“
Usually it's only one vampire that turns a human. It's a very personal and intimate thing. . .sharing blood like that.”

“
Okay.” And when I say that, what I mean is,
keep going because I'm about to freak
.

“
Michael bit him,” Myles whispers. “I’m guessing he was going to keep Evan around to feed on until he got bored. Once, he got carried away. He took too much but not enough.”

I take in a deep breath.

Myles glances up. “You okay?”

“
Keep going.”

“
Michael locked Evan in my coffin with me. . .dying and begging me to finish it.”

My throat grows tight.
“So,” I say, but I can't finish a thought right now.

Myles doesn't look anywhere but the space between us, lo
st in memories of his monsters.

“
Evan begged me to kill him. He didn't want to be like us. But I couldn't. I don't know why; I just couldn't.”

He looks like he's going to cry, but he holds himself together.

“And after I gave him my blood…I was going to let him go. Not bring him back.” He practically gulps. “But Michael thought this was the perfect opportunity to show me how to create my first, so he was the one who brought Evan back.”

Even though I don't know what exactly being
“brought back” means for them, I can say with absolute certainty that being “brought back” from death by someone like Michael must have been awful. I squeeze Myles' shoulder when it looks like he's not going to continue.

“
So what does this have to do with Ava?” I say as gently as I can.

He nods like he himself forgot what he was trying to explain.
“Evan left when I asked him to, no questions asked. And Michael let us go. Neither of us were human, so he saw no real need for us.” He takes in a breath. “At least that's what we thought.”

Myles takes my hand and holds it again.
“It was years—centuries before we heard anything about Michael. Evan became a children's doctor at the hospital, and I had just bought the club.”

“
So what changed?”

He shrugs.
“I have no idea,” he admits. “One day everything was fine, and the next, Evan was begging me to not let him go to Michael.” Myles shuts his eyes for a long minute. “I tried my best. . .but he was gone.”

It must be awful to do something so terrifying to someone that they never asked for in the first place. He was trying to help Evan, to make things better, and then i
t slipped through his fingers.

“
I'm sorry, Myles.”

If I had known he was going to have to split himself open in order to explain, I would have stopped him.

Myles waves a hand dismissively but doesn't look up. “Michael always knew he had more power over Evan. He just tortured us both by making us think it was me.”

I want to hug him so badly, but I can tell he’s not ready for that.

“Five years ago, he called on Evan to help him,” Myles says. “He took Evan from me and he took Ava away from her normal life.”

“
It was only that long ago?”

He nods.
“I helped them both escape. Michael never forgave me for it. . .”

“
You can skip the parts I was there for,” I interrupt while attempting a little humor, but I'm not sure if it works.

“
We didn't know Michael had infected Ava.”

“
Wait,” I have to interrupt again. “Why did he just let Ava go?”

Myles looks uneasy.
“He had a set of rules that he lived by, especially when it came to her.”

He sighs like he's running through them all in his head.
“One of them was that if a she could escape without being found—for how long, I don’t know—then she would be free from him forever.”

“
Weird,” I blurt out. But it
is
weird for someone who can do something so horrible as torturing and killing people to have all of these rules for themselves when it's clear that he'll do whatever he wants regardless of the game he creates.

“
Yeah, we didn't exactly buy it either,” Myles says. “We found out that she was infected, and that was the way Michael would win. If he couldn't have Ava, no one would.”

“
Wow,” I breathe out.

“
So what you saw today. . .” Now he seems fractionally more comfortable with what he's talking about. Now that we're talking about the present and not the past. “I'm sorry you saw that,” he says. “We thought she would be alright for a while. It had been so long since the last attack and everything.”

“
How is she?” I ask.

Myles is finally looking at me. His lip twitches in an unsure smile.
”She’s embarrassed, but she'll be okay.”

“
Embarrassed?” I ask.

“
Yeah.” The tone of his voice becoming lighter. “She wants to try to hang out again,” he says. “If that's something you want to do.”

I want to say no, just so I don’t have to deal with one more odd element in my life, but it’s not Ava’s fault this crazy crap happened—is still happening—to her.
              “Sure.”

I sigh again. I don’t want to ask what I have to ask next, but I need to. “Have you found out anything about Jack?”

Myles nods like he knew this question was coming sooner or later. “A little,” he says. “Very little.”

“And?”

“He met an ex-donor in that mental hospital he was at.” He stretches his arms out in front of him. “I’m still trying to find out who it was.”

“Why would he come tell me?” I ask no one in particular.

Myles shrugs. “Maybe he thought you didn’t know?”

“He implied that what he did…” I gulp. “Wasn’t him.”

“It was.” He’s emphatic about that.

Yeah. I know it was. I can’t forget those eyes that night.  Maybe I was just hoping there was a small possibility that someone I thought I loved wouldn’t do that.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Myles says when he notices me staring off into space.

“I just…” I take in a breath.

“I’ll have him watched if you want,” he says suddenly. “So he doesn’t bother you anymore.”

I blink a few times before nodding. Maybe being in a situation like this can come in handy, like Ava said.

Myles and I sit closer than usual, both exhausted from talking about our past lives. His hands linger on mine for longer periods of time. We drift off. Separately, together. He doesn’t let go of me, and I don’t let him go either.

Heart Murmurs

Chapter 7

“
You’re the only thing I ever want anymore”—The National

So, weird crap is definitely happening in the life of Sophie Jean again. Between the Jack thing, and then the whole Ava scene, I’m not sure what to obsess over more.

Luckily, I’ll be practicing with Boo and Trei all day, so the most I’ll have to worry about for five to eight hours is how to explain myself while simultaneously not trying to rip Boo’s throat out while he tries not to claw at my eyes.

Well, that, and Myles invited me to his apartment for coffee before I have to get to the basement.

So it should be a good day. As long as nothing else supernatural pops up.

“Hey,” I hug Myles when he opens the door for me. I don’t know what compels me, but I ask, “Are you okay?” as I pat Malakhi’s thick white fur.

I follow Myles into the kitchen and sit down at the counter.
“Yeah.” He smiles before turning to the cabinet behind him. “You?”

“
I’m okay.” It’s
mostly
true.

“
Kona or Columbian? “ Myles asks.

“
I’ll go with whatever will preemptively prevent a migraine.”

Myles glances at me over his shoulder.
“Okay,” he says, taking a brightly colored can out and setting to work making it.

“
You sure you’re okay?” I ask. I was excited when he invited me over this morning, but after our talk last night, I was worried that he was upset.

He turns on the coffee maker and sits down on the stool next to me.
“Yes,” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist. His lips brush my forehead. “Thank you.”

“
Good.” I try for nonchalance as he stands again to retrieve our caffeine filled cups. When he sits down, he slides a mug in my direction. “Because practice today is going to be enough of a nightmare.” I take a sip of my drink, basking in the warmth of my body waking up.

“
It can’t be that stressful playing with your friends,” Myles says, possibly noting the glare that’s forming on my face as he says the words. “You love your piano,” he defends his previous statement.

“
I do,” I say. “I love it more than anything.”

He smiles.
“My only competition.”

“
And it’s good competition,” I add.

“
Then what’s the problem?”

“
Boo and Trei play via notes and rests and technical-
everything
,” I say. “And I…don’t.”

Don’t
is an understatement. Unless if by
don’t
I mean writing down everything I hear or want to hear as short and long lines, then placing the lyrics on top of them to make it easier to understand. Also, sometimes I’ll write things like, “play louder here” or “pretend the piano is a drum here.” It would drive anyone insane.

I sigh. I know it’s a long shot, but I ask anyway.
“So do you want to come?”

Myles raises his eyebrows.
“Why?”