Free Til Death (Immortal Memories) by R. M. Webb

warehouse district, I see the way I actually look. Hair pulled back. No makeup. Stains on my sweatshirt because it’s the only one I own and the only thing I want to wear. I’m gaunt. My skin gray and too tight across my cheek bones. The cups of my bra gap open. I’ve lost enough weight that my breasts no longer fill them.
    I pull the rubber band out of my hair and pick up my brush, working it carefully through the tangled ends before I wet it and dry it so that it hangs long and clean down my back. I shrug out of the sweatshirt and toss it in the laundry basket, picking out a clean sweater from my closet. Not too tight. Nothing form fitting. But at least it’s clean. I swipe on some mascara and blink at the stranger in the mirror. The stranger who at least looks a bit more familiar.
    I’m tooling around in my kitchen, looking for something at least marginally nutritious to feed myself when there’s a knock on my door. Two precise knocks. My heart does that funny little tripping skipping thing it’s learned to do lately and my face goes slack with fear, eyes wide, head whipping towards the sound.
    But those two light raps on my door have played themselves over and over again in my memories of the night my vampire showed up on my doorstep and asked to be let in. He knocked. Twice. Just like that.
    After all this time waiting, he’s finally here.

Chapter 9
     
     
     
    Somehow I’ve made it to the door without realizing it. My hand’s on the doorknob, undoing the deadbolt, and I crack open the door, turning my face to hide the remnants of the bruises spanning my cheek. I gasp, relief flooding through me, happiness verging on exaltation so welcome after weeks of worry.
    “Hello, Rachel.” And as before, I hear the mountains and the evergreens in the snow. “May I please come in?”
    Of course he can come in. I close the door so I can remove the chain and swing it open for him. A smile lights his gray eyes, warming his handsome face. His hands are shoved into his pockets, slightly rounding his broad shoulders. Anger chases away the smile the minute he sees me. It’s like watching the utter destruction of something beautiful. There’s no way to hide the fact that this is a vampire on my doorstep. A predator. A monster.
    He sweeps into my home, closing the door behind him, moving so quickly the door should have banged shut, only it happens in utter, eerie silence. And then, before I can breathe, he’s in front of me and I squeak and step back, banging into the wall. He raises his hand in apology. Long fingers. Delicate yet strong. White skin like stone. Not a man’s hands. A vampire’s. He removes the snarl from his face, schooling it into something more human, something I understand.
    “I’m sorry I scared you.” He approaches me slowly, carefully, his movement graceful and athletic, strong, yet supple. I think of things like cats and snakes.
    I shrug. “It’s ok.” I’m ok. Everything’s ok . What would Max say? Hearing me repeat what must be my incredibly irritating mantra. “I mean. I know you didn’t mean to.”
    “What happened to you?” His cold hands are tracing my injured cheek, his eyes register that he’s made out the imprint of a man’s hand on my throat. “Who did this?”
    With halting words and half formed sentences, I tell him the story. It’s the first time I’ve talked about it since it happened. Tears well in my eyes and I let them fall unhindered. Ever so gentle, he wipes them away. And I cry and I talk and it feels so good to get it all out. Not to be the sole owner of my tragedy.
    “And I hate it,” I say, when I’ve shared the entire story with him, “because I pride myself on being together. On being smart. Strong. And I was so stupid. Stupid to go by myself. Stupid to let him touch me. Stupid to wait so long to get away from him.”
    He presses a finger to my lips and the gesture startles me silent. He bends and swoops me up into his arms, cradling me like a child. I