The Embrace (22 page)

Before Gabriel had arrived in my life I had struggled with insomnia and nightmares of the murders, but he made everything seem real again. When he was around I fell asleep knowing he was watching me, and when he wasn’t I was soothed by thoughts of him.

The night I let Jared touch me was just the latest in a long line of sleepless nights. The insomnia was back and stronger than ever. If it hadn’t been for Jared, who at that point was sleeping like a baby by my side, I probably would have cried.

We stayed together for another month after our night together. The insomnia had grown steadily worse and his teenage hormones were making his love for me stronger. After much thought, I had decided to leave him. Even though Gabriel had abandoned me, I was still loyal to him. I felt as if I was betraying him. I thought that dumping Jared might be the first step to easing my guilt.

We sat on my porch and I told Jared I didn’t want to be with him anymore. He didn’t take the news particularly well. He shouted and tried to make me feel guilty, but it would never outweigh the shame I felt about betraying Gabriel.

When Jared realised he wasn’t going to change my mind, he grabbed me by the arms and the dynamic shifted. Something about the air around us seemed to twist and I could sense there was something else in the darkness around us.

I looked down to the end of the garden, the same place where I had first caught a glimpse of Gabriel. To my surprise, he was standing there again. It had been 10 months since our last meeting, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was him.

Jared didn’t know what caused the change in the atmosphere, but he could feel it. It unnerved him and he quickly left my house. I barely even noticed him leave as I was fixated on Gabriel.

He came to me and kissed me in the way I had so often imagined he would. I tried to explain to him why I’d been with Jared but my betrayal didn’t seem to have changed Gabriel’s feelings. He told me he loved me, for the first time, and pledged to never put me through that again.

From that night onwards everything went back to the way I had dreamed.

Jared carried on down the path. He seemed comfortable in this area, as if he lived here. As I took in his easy demeanour, the pieces of the jigsaw fell in to place.

I
had
been here before, with Jared to be precise. When you’re a child everyone is your friend, and so everyone is invited to your birthday party. I had visited this area with Jared for one such party. It hadn’t stuck in my mind as it had been part of the mass of events before the murders. I did have vague memories of the build up to the party. We had all boarded a coach to be taken to the house in the big city of London, owned by Jared’s grandmother.

I was still shocked to see Jared after all these years apart. After our break up I had fallen back into social obscurity. People eventually seemed to forget I had ever dated Jared. I caught him looking at me occasionally which told me he never fully forgot about me, but I ignored it. I knew that I had something better with Gabriel.

I left school at 18 and went to work in a local hotel on reception. Jared had moved away with a big internship lined up. I had never expected to see him again, but here he was.

Before I realised it my feet began to move. My mind was no longer directing me, everything was just instinct. My feet barely touched the pathway so I knew Jared wouldn’t notice me unless I chose to reveal myself.

That was the question on my mind: should I talk to him or not? More than 3 years had passed since the last time I had seen him, and we hadn’t parted on the best terms. I thought it might help to see someone who had once loved me. I craved affection more than ever since Gabriel had cast me aside, and maybe Jared could provide that. Then again, he came from my long forgotten time of childhood innocence. I didn’t know if I was ready to face that time again.

Once again it seemed my body was making the decision for me. I was speeding up and my steps were becoming heavier. Any second now and I would be side by side with my only human lover.

He looked pretty good. I could smell him and despite being 21 he still retained the heavy scent of testosterone and deodorant that hangs around teenage boys. I found it almost endearing to see how little he’d changed over the years.

I steadied myself for whatever was coming, whatever reaction Jared would have. I reached out to touch Jared’s soft, lumberjack style shirt. With this intrusion, he whipped around to face me.

I had never seen such surprise in someone’s eyes. It was completely different from the shock when someone saw my true, vampiric face. This was surprise in a happy way. It had been a long time since anyone was happy to see me and my worry about seeing Jared suddenly flew away. The smile I plastered on my face was almost real.

“Louisa? Louisa Reed? Oh my god.” He threw his arms around me.

My face was forced into the crook of his shoulder. The smell radiating from him was familiar and tantalising. It took all my strength to push away the red curtain and keep my fangs in check, but I pulled away and carried on with my human act.

“Jared Foster, well I’ll be damned.” I laughed at the irony. I already was damned. “It’s been, what, three years? How have you been?”

That was a loaded question and I knew it. Although I had pulled myself away from Jared’s life after we broke up, I knew he had held a candle for me right until the end of school. Feelings and memories as complex as his don’t go away overnight.

“Not too bad. I’ve been working in an IT job for a while. I moved down here not long after we finished school. My grandmother’s kind of old now so I was just leaving her place. You remember my birthday party here? We must have been ten, eleven maybe?” He laughed.

His laugh lit up the darkness around us as if it had it’s own colour. This man was so full of life and vitality. Part of me, the tiny shred of humanity which had grabbed hold of my human memories as a life line, was jealous of his youth and optimism.

“Yeah. I remember.” I didn’t feel like anything else was necessary. The silence that came after was bursting with tension of every kind.

Whenever I looked in his eyes I saw the pangs of a forgotten love and a youthful crush. I felt a painful awkwardness coming from him and I could tell his luck in love hadn’t improved much.

Although I didn’t want to admit it, there was also an undercurrent of attraction. I could feel his eyes brushing over my risque outfit. He tried not to look, like the gentlemen he was, but I could sense the tiny lapses as he glanced down at my petite figure.

I didn’t love him. I couldn’t possibly love someone so far beneath me, it was impossible. Vampires don’t feel love in the same way as humans. Gabriel’s love for me as a human had been different, and very rare. I couldn’t deny that I felt something for Jared, and I could tell that he still felt something for me, but it was just down to nostalgia.

It was Jared who broke the silence.

“So, are you living in London now? Do you have a boyfriend down here?” I could hear him gulp before the word boyfriend came out. I honestly didn’t know how to answer that anymore.

“Yeah I’m living in an apartment complex a few miles away. One of the new places. It’s nice, different from back home.” I paused.

I didn’t know what Gabriel was to me anymore but I couldn’t express all my doubts to a measly human.

“I’m living with someone. We’re together, I suppose.” I decided to be honest with him, and with myself. “It’s complicated.”

This was the first time I had spoken my true feelings out loud and for a moment my guard was down. I was letting Jared see the hidden part of me and this was far too dangerous. A true killer should never let their guard down like that. I shook it off and put on my fake smile again.

“ This might be weird, after all this time, but do you want to come round to my flat? There’s a taxi rank on the next street and it’s only a couple of minutes in the car. Completely innocent, I swear.” He said.

Something in his voice seemed less than innocent but I could still smell that comforting, homely scent and I felt my stomach gurgling. I couldn’t say no to a potential meal, especially one with such a connection to me. I nodded and let him lead me to his home.

He was right about the taxi ride. To a human it would have been swift but to me it felt excrutiatingly slow. I fidgeted awkwardly throughout the ride but eventually we reached his flat.

It was a small apartment. It wasn’t quite small enough to be classed as a studio, but it was definitely a bachelor pad with no room for a family or a partner. In short, it was exactly the boy’s pad I had come to expect of men his age.

He invited me in, of course. It seems silly to think that a creature so strong and deadly needs to be invited into the home of a weak, defenceless human. Gabriel once told me he thought it started off as a myth to make humans more comfortable. The danger with myths is that once enough people, or creatures, believe them then they can travel across the barrier into reality. Maybe vampires only have weaknesses because our ancestors let themselves believe they did.

I settled down on the sofa and Jared poured out two glasses of wine. The taste of wine had disgusted me as a human and it wasn’t much better as a vampire. I could tolerate it but anything other than flesh and blood tasted like cheap, processed food.

I sipped at the glass, hoping my reluctance to drink came across as a girlish habit. I could hear Jared’s heart racing from across the apartment. He was nervous, bless him. He genuinely thought he was in the room with his long lost love. I almost felt sorry for the poor boy.

We talked for a few minutes about mundane, human things. He told me all about his shrewish girlfriend who had abandoned him, and his ailing grandmother. He described his bachelor lifestyle and his well paid yet mind numbingly boring job.

The conversation eventually turned to me: What had drawn me to London? What job did I have? I made up some story about trying to break into show business and how I waited tables to make a living. Everything that came out of my mouth was dragged up from the bank of movies I’d watched as a human. The life I pretended to have was a living stereotype, but he bought it and didn’t question anything I said.

We managed to make pleasant conversation for long enough. I could feel Jared growing more anxious as time went by. Every time we neared the end of a topic of conversation he had to think of something else to say and for a few seconds his heart would beat quickly in panic until he thought of something.

I almost wanted to use my gift for controlling people to calm him down but that didn’t seem necessary. It was just a quirk of his that I found quite charming in a way.

He managed to skirt around the issue of my “partner” for a long time but eventually he realised we were circling closer to him after the whereabouts of my flat was mentioned.

“Millington Flats? You did pretty well for yourself. Guess your...boyfriend must be rich, huh?” There it was. The b word. We both knew it would come up sooner or later.

I nodded. I had decided it was best to wait for Jared to ask the questions rather than volunteer too much information about Gabriel.

“So how did you meet him?” He said. It was a perfectly reasonable question but I could hear the jealousy in his voice.

I took a deep breath, purely for show rather than necessity as I imagined it was the human thing to do at that moment. “ Well we’ve been going out since before I moved here. He’s from out of town but we’ve known each other ever since my family died. He understood what I was going through and he was always there for me. We started dating and then we decided to move here for a fresh start, after my mum died. So here I am.”

“Are you happy with him?”

I know Jared meant well but that question just drove the knife in deeper. When Gabriel loved me the way I loved him I was happier than I had ever thought possible, but at that moment I was ready to die if it meant peace from the torture I felt when I was around him.

I shrugged. I didn’t know how to answer Jared and right then I felt the tears brimming over. If I had been thinking straight I would never have let my emotions show in front of a potential victim, no matter what personal connection we had, but I couldn’t control myself.

“I shouldn’t be here.” I managed to whisper through the tears.

I was becoming more uncomfortable in this situation and I was desperate to run for the door. Vampires are creatures who thrive on power and control, as all predators do, and I was letting myself become too vulnerable.

I felt Jared’s hand linger over mine and I almost recoiled in horror. He was showing me true affection and this loving gesture wasn’t at all how I had expected the night to pan out.

“Why? Are you scared of him?” I almost laughed at this. Jared must have thought I was an abuse victim or something.

I shook my head and subtly moved my hand away from his. “Have you ever been so in love with someone that you spend all your time thinking about them? Sometimes it’s love but other times it’s pure hatred and you can’t find anything in between. You can’t just forget them or...” I stopped, defeated by my own words.

I locked on to Jared’s glance. I had no idea why he made me so eager to spill out my feelings but I was ready to tell him everything. I guess I owed him that if I was going to kill him.