Did you really?Her stupid, hyperactive brain, unable to figure out any way to escape current circumstances, decided on the time-honored amusement of Picking Apart All Layla’s Past Mistakes.Sure, you had a thing for him in high school, and he knew it. All the times he grinned at you while Suze was looking t’other way, all the homework you did for him.
“We were just kids,” she muttered, and stamped back to the bathroom. The towels, hung up neatly on door, sink, and wall-tank, were almost dry. Max had clearly arranged things for maximum airflow; she’d done her best to replace them in the same configuration.
Christ, the vampire picked up after himself better than any adult male she’d hung out with.
Yeah, you were kids. But did you ever think finding him with Cindy just before the wedding was a little too neat and convenient? He didn’t even lock that door, and he must’ve known you’d be along to bring his cufflinks and boutonnière.That was your job, since Suze was finishing up getting her hair done.
“None of my business,” Layla countered, setting off for the bed. The need to be doing something,anything, buzzed inside her bones, filled her muscles with shaky heat. “She wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”
Had Suzy really been pregnant before the wedding, or thought she was? She hadn’t said anything to Layla, but some things were private even between besties.
There were always secrets, from anyone.
Okay, different question. What was she doing alone up at Paradise Point? They never found another body, but…
Maybe Suze had gone up to the local makeout spot to think things through. She’d claimed to be happy, sure, but sometimes Layla wondered during their monthly Olive Garden dinners. Fancy pasta and cheap wine, habitual giggles as they endlessly recycled high school jokes, Layla talking about her job running a cash register at the box store, Suze about her only part-time gig at the Craft Depot, since Dan had a good position at the factory and wanted the trailer kept up.
He’d fallen behind on the payments after Suze’s death; consequently, only the sale of Meemaw’s doublewide and the land it was on had funded their first two years of vampire hunting. Picking up Ben and Ack off the demimonde message boards, then Steve-o last year as the best of a bad batch of tryouts…
“Christ.” Layla stood next to the bed, temporarily overcoming the weird shaky feeling enough to snatch up and hug a plump pillow, its case plain white cotton like the sheets. “Everyone I ever really talked to is dead.”
Suze, the bright bubbly cheerleader, had always looked set to achieve escape velocity from their hometown. Layla would never have believedshewas the one to travel, even if only in junked-down jalopies looking for free wi-fi to download more forum posts, collating sightings, research, bona fides. Or to sit with rapidly warming Cokes in crappy rundown honky-tonks while the men talked in low voices over cheap beers about patterns, firepower, endlessly shooting the shit.
The shit was now done shot, Meemaw would say.
Layla had been content being Suze’s longest-term bestie, content to tag along with Dan’s great revenge quest, mostly content to do research, lookout, decoy, laundry. At least she wasneeded.
What was she now? Alone, infected with vampirism, and literally fucked several ways from Sunday.
She didn’t even know what day of the goddamnweekit was. Layla swayed back and forth, clutching the pillow, staring at the half-made bed, and wondered if the vampire was ever coming back.
And what she’d do if he didn’t.
The lights didn’t flicker, nor was there really any warning sound. But the strangling leap her heart gave a bare moment before Max winked into existence right inside the door—and the invisible curtain—nearly knocked her down, and the brush of warm air across the room was such a relief she also let out a strangled yelp.
He swayed, and she dropped the chair—she’d been poking in desultory fashion at the force-field, more out of boredom than expecting real effects. The chair’s back hit plain beige carpet very near her bare feet, and the next thing she knew she was next to the vampire, grabbing at the waistband of his Carhartts.
Or what was left of them, because it looked like he’d been run through a meat grinder, passed over a hot barbecue, and dipped in seventeen flavors of holy old hell besides. The guck was layer-crusted in some places, steaming in others, and a great deal of it looked like blood.
Dried, and fresh. Along with multiple strata of other crap she couldn’t hope to identify.
He let out a weary sigh, one muscled arm curling over her shoulders, and she had to hope he wouldn’t fall straight down because he was a lot heavier than he had any right to be—certainly he outweighedher, by a long shot—and ending up under a heap of dead vampire was a terrible, terrible prospect.
They’re supposed to go poof and go grainy, though, aren’t they? The others did. He didn’t look dusty, though, which was a relief.
Sort of.
Max took two drunk-staggering steps away from the invisible curtain. Then he half-turned, threw his other arm around her, and went utterly still. Which ended up smooshing Layla’s cheek against his broad, filthy chest, his chin resting atop her head, his entire body curving protectively around hers.
He was breathing, at least. Theka-thump, pause,ka-thumpwas back, and she knew what it was now, beyond a doubt.
Layla was vaguely aware of babbling. “Oh no, no no no. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be all right, Max.”
What the fuck? Have you forgotten what he did to you?But still, she couldn’t stop stupidly chanting comfort, her natural reflex to care for a stranger in need drowning nearly every other consideration.
At least until the invisible curtain got taken down. Would she ever see outside this stupid two-room prison again?
He repeated the sigh, and she realized he was sniffing her hair. Inhaling in great gasps, in fact, as a wave of shudders passed through his very large, very hard frame.
