“What the hell?” I ask.
“I forgot to leave a message for whoever finds this motherfucker.” Damien laughs darkly, taking a little jump to step away from Owen without getting wet. He slides his knife in the pocket of my jeans. They look slightly big and definitely toolong on him, but I love that he’s wearing my clothes, carrying my scent around with him.
I step closer to see what he’s done, and freeze. On Owen’s forehead, he’s carved the wordrapist. As unhinged as my brother can be, this time, I find myself agreeing with his actions.
“Do you think we should just leave him here?” I ask. “What if the police find him? We shouldn’t let humans get their hands on a vampire corpse—what if he doesn’t decompose? We don’t know what happens when we die—”
Damien interrupts me. “It won’t be the police finding him, Killien.” He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at his peculiar work of art. “It will either be Jacob or Abby, I’m sure.”
Does he not care what Jacob will think when he sees this? I start to panic, realizing that we’ll be in a lot of trouble the second someone sees Owen dead. We killed another vampire, and that will certainly have consequences.
Why did I not think about this earlier?
Oh, right. I was too busy getting turned on by the carnage. For fuck’s sake.
“What are we gonna do?” I swallow hard, looking between the dead body and my brother’s unbothered, pretty face.
“Pack and get the hell out of this city, of course.” He looks at me like it’s obvious. And it probably is, I just hadn’t thought about it. “I’d burn the house down, but our SUV has been parked outside for a while, and we’d become suspects. I guess it’s better to just let his friends deal with this mess. This is all their fault, anyway.”
I don’t understand why he’s saying that, but I can’t bring myself to ask. We make sure to close all the windows and curtains in the house, and then leave through the front door. There’s no one to see us exit, anyway.
As I drive us home, I can’t help but smile at the idea of running away with Damien. I can’t believe it’s actuallyhappening. It will be just the two of us again. Which is perfect. We don’t need anyone else.
Twenty-Seven
Damien
Ican’t believe we’re actually leaving. Like, literally, leaving Phoenix right now. Killien drives us away from that damn city and all it’s done to us. We’re heading to Las Vegas for the time being. It’s a city we know, at least. We spent a few months there when we were making our way south from Salt Lake County, so we’re not going in completely blind. We need a little bit of predictability right now, because my brother seems to be on edge.
It took him a while to actually process what I’ve done, and the longer he sits with it, the more he panics. Which I totally understand. I mean, I killed another vampire. That should haveconsequences in our society, or whatever. I don’t know, there are no written laws as far as I’m aware. But it can’t be good, right? Although t’s not like I did it for no reason.
Sure, I wanted that fucker dead the moment he set his eyes on Killien. But I wasn’t going toactuallykill him. Not until I caught him trying to rape my brother. Out of all the people in the world, Killien was the last one I’d expect to get into that type of trouble.
He was always so wise, so careful. And also strong. I can’t even count the amount of times he beat up my bullies when we were kids. He’s tall and can be very intimidating when he wants to. But that doesn’t mean he’s untouchable, I guess.
I look at him while I roll one of my lip rings, admiring his beauty. I no longer need to hide my feelings, not after the way he kissed me earlier. Killien is just so fucking perfect. His ginger hair is neatly arranged in his signature undercut. It leans towards the right side of his head, all soft and silky. I almost can’t resist the need to run my fingers through it.
“Should we stop at a motel for the night?” I ask.
It’s just an excuse to get in bed with him, honestly. I almost got him at home, but he started spiraling, thinking that someone was coming after us. So we had to postpone it,again. Honestly, I would have let him fuck me at Owen’s home, in front of his corpse. But my ginger angel didn’t seem too keen on it . . . He’s more sensible than I am. Always has been.
Killien gives me the side-eye, but there’s a subtle curve to his lips. He’s probably fighting back a smile, because he wants it as much as I do. I’d bend over and give him a blow job right now, if I didn’t think he’d crash the car.
“Are you tired?” Why is he even trying? I see right through his serious tone.
“Kinda, yeah,” I lie. “And I don’t think anyone is gonna figure out where we are, anyway. We should stop and rest.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Fuck, he looks hot when he does that. Even if it’s already dark outside, my vampire eyes can make out colors as bright as during the day. If anything, his ginger hair seems to glow brighter still against the lights of the cars passing by. Almost as if he had a halo around his head.
My phone starts ringing in my pocket, making both of us freeze. We stare at each other for a few seconds, until I finally take it out to see Jacob’s name on the screen. I sigh and make myself comfortable on my seat before picking up the call.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Damien!” That’s the first thing I hear from the other side of the line. I roll my eyes as I put him on speaker. “Where the hell are you?! I’ve been looking all over town for you! What the fuck happened?!”
“Have you seen Owen?” I almost laugh out loud when Killien facepalms at my ridiculous question.
“You can bet I have!” Jacob sounds seriously distressed, and there’s noise all around him. Almost as if he’s throwing stuff around. “Why the fuck did you do that?”
There’s a strange silence as I try to pick my words, only broken by the sound of Jacob’s heavy breathing and the cars passing by. Killien taps his fingers on the steering wheel nervously, but says nothing.
