I circle the clearing, chin down, giving the audience the impression that the delay is part of the show. A moment to ease them into the scene and build suspense. I circle once, loosening, then tightening my grip on the axe. After my second time around, I lift my gaze to her point of entrance. Still no Brinley.
Sweat coats my palms beneath my grip, the chirping crickets only magnifying the moment of desperation.
I pace a third time, eyes dropping to the faux outdoor surface, mentally devising a plan of action if she doesn’t show. As I complete my third loop around the wood stack, I glance toward Brinley’s curtain once more. This time I see movement.
A block of cold, hard adrenaline hits my chest as she emerges from the shadows at last.Whew.
She grips the apple in her hand. It’s bright, shiny red, and it matches her full, tempting lips perfectly. Brinley gives the fruit a lazy toss as she nears me at a slow, steady pace. She stops at the other side of the clearing and pins me with a dangerous glare.
I get right to the script. “Looks like someone’s been climbing the tree again,” I say with a chin thrust.
She gives the shiny apple another toss, then catches it. “Yep.”
I shake my head. “Always trying to push my buttons. You refuse to give me one simple kiss, for fear I’m a danger to you, yet you risk breaking your pretty little neck for one piece of fruit? FruitIcan fetch with ease if you but ask.”
Brinley grins, and I can already sense she’s about to break script. Not that there’s much left before it comes to decision time. “I’m risking my life every day we’re together, if you’re what I suspect you are.”
“Your suspicion is off. I’m not hiding anything, Libby. I’m of no danger to you.”
Brinley takes a step back. “Yeah,” she says wryly. “That’s what my father said too, right before he drank my mother dry.”
Whoa.That is not part of the script. This confirms it; Brinley is riled up again and ready to throw accusations my way.
“At the hospital,” she continues with the convincing quiver of her lip. “The couple caring for me told the tale. My father got bit, he shifted, and he didn’t tell her. Eventually, she became his first victim.”
I sneer. “Tsk, legends,” I say, coming up with a plausible reply since this is neither the time nor place for the topic she’s prodding at once again. “That’s what theythinkhappened, but no one really knows for sure.Zombies, we’ve seen. We know they’re real, but the rest…” I shrug. “That’s the stuff of legends.” I fix a pleading look at her, desperate to get through this without the audience knowing she’s gone rogue.
I glance down at the apple she holds. “Share that with me?” I say.Please, Brinley, just follow the script now.
Brinley lifts a probing brow before giving me the slightest of nods. Then, ever so slowly, she lifts the bright red fruit to her glossy lips and takes a bite. She drags the back of her hand across her mouth as she chews, smearing the lipstick over her cheek.
Heat stirs low in my belly. This is where I cross the landing, wipe the smudge with my thumb, and study her lips in tormented desperation. Yet just as I move to step closer, Brinley reels her arm back and fixes her gaze on me.
I follow her grip on the apple as she flings her arm forward and chucks it hard in my direction.
I want to reach up and catch it coolly in my palm, but it’s speeding toward my face so fast all I can do is smack it away with my free hand. Juice splatters over my arm and face as the apple flies toward the audience.
Gasps sound, and I sense the proverbial crap is about to hit the fan.
“Legends?” she challenges, folding her arms hard over her chest. “You want me to dismissonelegend so I can grasp onto another. Toss the legend of the zompire, Libby. That one’s silly. Oh, but the legend of the Fix—that’s the one you should risk your life on.”
“Risk your life? We’redying anyway!”I rush toward her, hoping to make push come to shove. “Maybe neither legend is true, Libby, but it’s worth a try.”
With Brinley so close, the hurt in her eyes is plain. A hurt that makes me wonder if she’ll ever see me clearly. She probablydidget her feathers ruffled over Buffy’s comment about kissing me. She could be inwardly accusing me of dating her even still.
Sure, Buffy’s comment would ruffle most girlfriends’ feathers, but if Brinley can’t give me the benefit of the doubt, we won’t stand a chance, especially not in this industry.
“This ends today,” I say. “It endsright.Now.” I shift the axe so it’s upright, point the blade toward myself, and thrust the handle toward her.
She wraps her fingers around it. “What are you doing?”
“It’s inyourhands. If you trust me enough, drop the axe and kiss me. If you don’t, then take my hand and make your cut. You’ll see whether I bleed blue as the monsters in your legend or red like the man I say I am.”
Around each thumb, I wear a band that matches my skin. Tucked into the right, is the blue capsule. On the left thumb, the red. If I want to follow the screenplay accurately, I’ll have to use the blue capsule if she cuts my hand because, to my great displeasure, the script notes that Nick is, in fact, a zompire. I assume though, that the production crew reserved this tidbit so that they could go whichever direction pleased them at the time.
If Brinley—or Libby, I should say—opts for The Fix, I’m supposed to kiss her long and hard, seductively move to her throat, and show her and the rest of the viewers that I am exactly what she’s feared all along.
It’s the more dramatic ending of the two. Under different circumstances, I’d be willing to act it out with Brinley and enjoy the shock and awe of the crowd as blood oozes down her throat, but with the tension between us, the seething accusation in her heated glare, I refuse to give her the satisfaction.
