CHAPTERTEN
MERRY
I staredat the back door, trying to process everything I'd just seen and heard.
"I'm sorry, Merry," Callum said. He actually looked contrite as opposed to mischievous, which seemed to be his default expression.
"You're bleeding." I picked my way around the apples, oranges, and peaches on the floor to the paper towel roll and ripped one off. After I dampened it, I walked over to Callum and started dabbing around the injury. Only to realize that the wounds had already healed. I envied that a little, but the whole drinking blood and losing my humanity thing wasn't worth it.
"Thanks." He took the paper towel from me. "I'm already good as new. Physically, at least."
"What were you fighting about?" I asked. "Neither of you seems like the type to randomly beat the crap out of each other."
"I think you heard exactly what we were arguing about," he answered.
"Fine, I heard. But I don't understand. Marcus was right—he violated my privacy. My thoughts. My feelings. All things that should only be shared whenI wantto share them."
Callum sighed and tossed the wet paper towel into the trashcan. "If he'd had a choice, I would agree, but he didn't. He doesn't."
I gave him my best hard stare.
"He's like a radio receiver. If someone, uh, broadcasts the right signal, he picks it up. He doesn't have a choice. He can mostly block it out when he's awake, but if he's asleep..."
"I'm not sure I believe that," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Okay, then, do you believe this? You're not the first person he's connected with and not even the first one who needed help or protection. But you are the first that he's found before it was too late."
"I came to Austin, he didn't come to me," I pointed out.
"It was only a matter of time. He's been getting quieter and more grim with each passing day. I wanted to tell him to do something about whatever was making him so unhappy but telling Marcus what to do doesn't work well. Once he's decided the best course of action, that's it. There is no arguing. No negotiating. His mind is made up. If I'd realized this was all about you, I would have found you myself."
Okay, that wasn't creepy or anything. I blinked a few times and refocused on what he'd said. "And what do you mean by too late?"
Callum crouched down and righted the bowl that once held the fruit. He started piling apples, peaches, and oranges inside. Unable to stand there and watch him clean up without doing anything, I squatted across from him and started helping.
"A few years ago," he paused. "Okay, so it was more like fifteen or twenty years because time feels different to us, there was a young man. He wasn't much more than a boy, only nineteen. He had...talents of the same vein of Ava and Marcus. He was still human, but a vampire was courting him. One who didn't have the same attitude towards humans that we do."
"Now you've lost me again," I said, putting the last orange in the bowl. "I don't even understand what that means. I mean, I know what courting means in the romantic sense, but I'm guessing it doesn't mean the same thing in vampire-speak. And then there's attitude towards humans. Isn't the very definition of vampirism that you lose your humanity, therefore you don't have the same thoughts and feelings anymore?"
Callum carried the bowl to the counter and set it aside. "Let me address the humanity thing first because, wow, that's a lot. When you become a vampire, you don't become some emotionless monster with no empathy and uncontrollable murderous impulses. We think and feel the same way we did as humans. We love, we laugh, and we argue—the same as humans. If someone is a shitty person before they turn, they're still shitty. The only difference is that now they can kill you with very little effort and use their ability to control minds to avoid the consequences. Vampirism doesn't change who we are at our core. It just makes us capable of being the best or worst of ourselves. I realize you don't know Marcus and that this is difficult to believe, but he has always been first, and foremost, a protector. He took up weapons to defend our village when we were attacked. He was the first to stand between danger and those who were too weak to protect themselves. We've been brothers-in-arms for over a thousand years and that aspect of him remains his strongest and most unshakeable. Only now he has the physical and mental abilities to best nearly any enemy."
He took a deep breath before he continued, "And it's because of that characteristic that the story I'm about to tell you is so painful for Marcus. It's something he doesn't talk about, not even with me, but I think you need to know because you'll understand so much more then." He glanced at the clock in the microwave. "How about I make us a cup of coffee while I tell you the story?"
"Fine," I agreed. Anything to get him to go on with the story because, even if it wasn't the complete truth, I wanted to hear. Damn, Callum knew exactly what he was doing. He knew how to hook someone into listening to his story.
He moved around the kitchen and made two cups of coffee as he spoke, "This boy, Tomas, lived in Spain and his family was very religious and conservative. They refused to acknowledge his gifts and vigorously encouraged him to repress them as much as possible." He added creamer to one cup, stirred it, and brought it to me. As he set it on the table in front of me, he continued, "And by vigorously encouraged, I mean they beat him, sometimes only fed him bread and water, and locked him in a small room where he was forced to pray on his knees for hours on end."
My stomach turned over at the thought. "That's horrible."
"It is," Callum agreed with a nod. He sat across from me at the table and drank his own coffee. "That's when Marcus felt Tomas for the first time. He intended to intervene but Tomas turned eighteen and moved out of his parents' home. The physical torture stopped, but the damage had been done. He thought that his abilities were witchcraft and that he was going to Hell. Tomas started using drugs, mostly heroin. And his supplier was the vampire I mentioned, the one courting him."
I truly didn't want the coffee now because this story was making me even more sick to my stomach, but I sipped it anyway. My mouth was dry. There was no way this would have a happy ending.
"Finally, the vampire waited until Tomas was out of his mind from the drugs and turned him. Then, he released him in the flophouse where Tomas had been staying. Most vampires develop control within a day or two, but right after they're turned, they're wild and desperate for blood to fuel the change in their bodies. Tomas killed the other eight addicts in the house. Men and women he'd considered friends of a sort. When he came to himself, when he realized what he'd done, he tried to end his life, but his maker stopped him. By the time Marcus made it to Spain, it was far too late. He killed Tomas' maker, but as soon as Tomas was free, he ended his life. That was the last time Marcus connected with someone. He was...broken for a long time after that. I'd hoped that would be the last time. Until you."
I tried to digest everything he said, but I think my brain finally broke after everything that had happened that day.
"I can't do this right now," I said, staring down into my coffee. Coffee that Callum had made exactly the way I liked it after seeing me make my own exactly once. "I can't take on his issues." I glanced up at Callum. "Or yours."
