“I don’t want this.” Tears slip from the corners of my eyes. “I’m screwed up enough, and you’re going to break me even further. Maybe you honestly think you’re helping, but you make everything worse. Can’t you see that?”
The leather of his gloves creaks when his fists tighten. Beyond that, he doesn’t move.
“Just leave me alone,” I whisper.
When I push past him, he catches my arm and says, “Christine,” in a voice like death.
I shake him off. “Don’t you dare send one of your ghosts after me.”
“Christine, please.”
Thepleasealmost makes me hesitate. It sounds so unlike him—so desperate. But I keep running.
On the way to my room, I stop to grab a big cup of coffee from the employee break room near the New Orpheum lobby. I need caffeine for what I’m about to do.
The urge to run pounds through my head like a thunderous refrain. I need to go. I need to get away from the New Orpheum, from leering managers and groping hands, from murder and ghosts, from the death god who stalks the tunnels below. I need to run from the poet with the green eyes and gentle fingers, who also happens to be a wolf with a domineering family of shifters behind him.
I should never have stayed in Nashville after my parents died. I should have left, should have run somewhere, anywhere.
This city hates me. It has stolen everything from me—my siblings, my parents, my childhood home, my future, and my voice. After this, I doubt I’ll have the heart to sing ever again.
I’m not even sure what I pack. It’s not like I own much. I think I have all the essentials or most of them. I sling my dance bag over myshoulder and grab the handle of my suitcase, rolling it along as I hurry out the side door of the building and circle around to the parking lot.
My janky little car has never looked so wonderful. It’s an escape, it’s freedom, it’s a portal out of this mess. Normally I wouldn’t drive buzzed. For a human, it would be stupid and dangerous. But my vampire brain recovers from alcohol more quickly than a human’s, and thanks to the coffee and my supernatural reflexes, I know I can handle the car safely.
As I’m loading my luggage into the trunk, I glance around the dark expanse of the parking lot, afraid that the Angel will emerge from the night. If I see him again, I think I might scream. I’m also afraid I won’t have the strength to leave if I hear my name from his mouth one more time.
Run run run, get out, get away.
I slam the trunk, hop into the front seat, and start the engine. Then I twist around to check the back seat for phantoms.
Nothing.
I’m free.
But what does freedom actually mean?
I’m free to go somewhere else…probably a cheap, shabby motel, which is all I can afford. I’m free to do a job I will hate, like serving tables in some greasy diner for years until I know everyone’s usual order.
Since the Angel came into my life, I’ve taken huge strides in confidence and skill. I’ve achieved things I never thought possible, turned dreams into reality. I’ve experienced dizzying heights of pleasure and felt the promise of love in the caresses of two beautiful men.
For a second, I think I might be a fool for throwing all that away.
But I’m trying to do the right thing. The healthy thing. The nontoxic thing.
I didn’t choose to be a vampire or to have debilitating performance anxiety or to lose both my siblings.
But I can choosethis.
I press my toes to the gas pedal, and I drive out of the New Orpheum parking lot.
I don’t head straight out of town, though. Instead, I take a different route, to an eastern suburb of Nashville, and I follow familiar roads to a street I know all too well.
The fifth house on the left is the home I grew up in. Tall, imposing, beautiful. Red brick and white trim, surrounded by a fence of black wrought-iron bars.
I stop my car parallel to the gate, where I can see through the bars to the lawn and the house beyond.
I expected to see cars in the big driveway, maybe a lighted window or two. But the driveway is empty, and the only lights are the lanterns flanking the front entrance.
