Free What Kills Me by Wynne Channing Page B

I’d still rather have a root
beer but at least I’m not starving.”
    “You’ll be starving again
soon.”
    “Will it always be like
this?”
    “The hunger is always there. But it
abates with time. You’re young. Your body just needs the blood to
grow strong.”
    He returned the saw to its place on
the packed shelf and a cloud of dust wafted up.
    “Is it just the three of you here?” I
asked.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry if I’ve intruded. Lucas
seemed upset.”
    “Don’t worry about him. He’s wary of
strangers.”
    “I guess it doesn’t get stranger than
a barefoot schoolgirl in chains.”
    He laughed.
    “Jerome only joined us a few decades
ago. We needed help with some extra work. His presence has really
brightened Lucas’s spirits,” he said, pulling the stool under him
so he could sit with me. “He was probably pretty sick of his old
man’s company.”
    “Have you been vampires for
long?”
    “More than six hundred years,” he
said.
    “Wow,” I said. “I can’t even imagine
what that would be like.”
    “One day, you’ll know,” he
said.
    Will I?
    “Have you always lived here?” I
said.
    “We’ve lived all over the world.
America. Asia.”
    I wondered if I would ever get to
travel to those places. If I would ever go home.
    “Noel?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been very
kind.”
    “You seem like a good girl, Zee,” he
said. “I had daughters who were about your age.”
    Had.
    He rubbed his chin with the back of
his fingers and leaned forward to pick up one of the broken cuffs.
He shook his head. “Who put you in these?”
    I opened my mouth and then closed it.
What could I say? I was afraid that he wouldn’t understand. That he
would turn me over to the Monarchy if he knew. Instead, I dropped
my head and swallowed a rush of emotion.
    “I…I can’t,” I faltered. “I’m afraid
that…”
    “Don’t worry,” he said. He put a hand
on my trembling shoulder. “You’re safe here.”
    Someone approached in the grass. The
footsteps stopped in front of the door.
    “Come in, Jerome,” Noel
said.
    The door squeaked open and Jerome came
in. He had put on a white T-shirt. He carried some clothes over his
left arm and held a pair of white runners in his right
hand.
    “I hope they fit,” he said, presenting
me with the items.
    “Thanks.”
    “Jerome, accompany Zee back to the
house so she can take a shower and get cleaned up.”
    “Yes sir.”
    As we walked through the field, I said
to Jerome, “Noel is so nice.”
    “He’s a good man,” Jerome said,
nodding. “He used to have a big family, two sons and three
daughters.”
    “Used to?”
    He shrugged. “When he was
human.”
    We kept walking. “Now it’s just Noel
and Lucas,” he said.
    “And you,” I said.
    “And now you,” he said.
    “Oh, I’m just passing
through.”
    “Sure you are,” he said with a
grin.
     
    ***
     
    I knew that he knew that I was
watching him, but he ignored me. And I just stood there, dressed in
a black T-shirt, navy track shorts and over-sized runners, amazed
by what he was doing. Lucas was fighting imaginary opponents in the
woods. He leaped up and kicked his legs apart, doing the splits in
mid air. His feet snapped two trees flanking him. They tumbled,
crackling and whispering, against other trees.
    “That’s incredible,” I
said.
    He continued to beat the
air.
    “Where did you learn martial
arts?”
    When he didn’t respond, I said: “I
just wanted to thank you and say that I’m sorry if I offended you
earlier. I really appreciate everyone’s help.”
    I turned on my heels and started to
leave.
    “You don’t have to thank me,” he said.
“I didn’t help you. My father did.”
    “I’m grateful.”
    “What else do you want?”
    “I don’t understand what you
mean.”
    “You say that you don’t know who your
sire is, that you have no guardian,” he said, walking toward me.
“That’s bull. Who are you? What are you doing here?”
    “I’m