I tip my face up to meet his. “I will, I promise,” I breathe against his lips as I kiss him. Reed’s phone rings again on the desk.
Leaning his forehead to mine, Reed gazes into my eyes, “That is Zee. Let me speak to him and I will be right back, and then it will be just you and me…alone.”
The thought of being alone with Reed without the potential of being interrupted is a delicious one. “Okay,” I agree in an instant, causing a grin to appear on Reed’s face. He kisses me one more time and then he is gone from sight.
Left alone in the room, I look around for something to do. There is a television in the next room, but Chinese T.V. is really weird and I can’t understand much of it because I can’t speak their language either. The commercials are bizarre, too. There is always some sort of huge, stuffed animal mascot bouncing around on the screen holding the product and looking jovial. It reminds me of Yo Gabba Gabba!
Spotting Reed’s new laptop on the desk, I open it up and log on to the Internet. I love this computer; it’s uber fast. Surfing the Internet for a while, I check the Facebook website under Leander Duncan. Russell has been using his site that I had set up for him to correspond with his family and me. He has posted pictures of Brownie and him as they have been traveling through Europe in the last week. He has written about what he has seen. I especially like the picture of them traveling through the rural vineyards in France. He looks stoked.
I post a note on his wall, telling him that I miss him and I’ll see him soon. I do miss him. He is my best friend, but I don’t know how he will feel about me after I tell him what I’ve done. I try not to think about it and move on to other websites. I really want to talk to someone about how I should tell Russell about what happened between Reed and me while I was at Dominion’s chateau. I need some advice. I wish that I could ask Uncle Jim what I should do. The thought of my uncle sends waves of sorrow through me because I miss him, too. There has to be someone I can talk to about this.
Molly, I think as my adolescent friend pops into my mind. Summer is almost over and she will be going back to Notre Dame soon for her sophomore year. I haven’t spoken to her since I left Crestwood with Russell. I was afraid to contact her, because if I let her know where I was going, Reed could have persuaded her into revealing it to him. His uncanny ability to use his voice to persuade humans would’ve rendered Molly unable to refuse to answer any question that he asked her. If she had any clue where I was all summer, he could’ve found out instantly and been there to take me back to his home.
I couldn’t allow that to happen at the time. I was sure that the only way to protect Reed from being seen as a traitor to his own kind, the divine angels, was to leave him so that when Dominion caught up to me, he wouldn’t be executed for helping me. I didn’t know that Dominion would arrest Reed and Zephyr anyway and torture them to find out what they knew about me. I also didn’t know that while Reed was being tortured, the Gancanagh, the undead vampire-like species that wants me to give up my soul to become one of them, was targeting me. Maybe it’s better if I try to avoid telling Molly how I had spent my “summer vacation,” I think, cringing at the lies I’ll have to come up with to protect her from all of this.
I know that Molly has probably emailed me a zillion messages, but I haven’t checked them because I had been afraid that Reed could have been able to find me if I logged onto my email. Now, with all of Brennus’ resources and the fact that he has ransacked both Reed’s house and my storage unit to collect all of my possessions, I think it’s pretty safe to assume he is monitoring things like my email. Creepy vampire, I think as Brennus’ face looms in my mind.
He may be monitoring my email, but that doesn’t mean I can’t send Molly one from a different account. With that in mind, I create a new account under a fake name and write her a quick message, telling her that I’m alive and that I need to talk to her. Sending the message, I contemplate what I can tell her when she writes me back. Maybe I can say that I had an opportunity to travel that was just too good to turn down. While thinking about different excuses, an email alert window pops up on my screen. Molly must be online, I think excitedly. I look at the message line, it reads: “I miss you.”
Quickly, I open up the message, but it’s blank. It has an attachment to it so I click on the attachment and I wait briefly while a video feed sets up. Curious, I watch as a dark, hazy room comes into focus. Loud, bangin’ music is playing in the background of the video as the camera pans past several colorful looking individuals. It looks like this is some kind of nightclub filled with scenesters. The camera is moving down a dreary, graffiti enshrined hallway. Panning around, there are several emos standing near the wall watching a band that is in the back of the club on the stage. The camera moves again to the bar where people are milling around trying to get the attention of the bartender.
Slipping in and out of focus several times, the cameraperson uses the lens to scan the crowd near the band that has just started playing a whiny cover song. The thumping of the amps and flashes from a strobe light make the video chaotic as I try to see what this is all about. The camera is slowly coming back into focus and is zeroing in on one particular individual who is milling around with a group of friends. I recognize Molly immediately. She is sipping her drink coyly, holding it close to her as she laughs at something someone leaning near to her is saying. I can’t see her companion well because he has his back to the camera.
I reach out and my hand trembles as I touch the screen where Molly’s image appears. She looks exactly the same, like nothing has changed with her. Seeing her smile again at whatever the person next to her says, she doesn’t even move when the tall man reaches over and gently touches her cheek, caressing his fingers down it. The look on Molly’s face slowly changes; her flirty smile seems to sag. My throat tightens and I find it hard to take the next breath.
The man turns then, looking at the camera behind him. Walking towards it with the stealthy grace of a supernatural predator, his eyes never waver from it. His face is exactly the same as the image I have of him in my mind. His eyes have an iridescent shine in their watery-green depths, piercing with intensity. His ebony hair is artfully falling over his arching eyebrows and the planes of his face are just as beautiful as they ever were—as exquisite and youthful as they had been on the day that Aodh, his Gancanagh sire, had changed him from a faerie into a parasitic creature. Nearing the camera, he poises before the lens, like he is looking directly at me. “Mo chroí…” Brennus breathes. Hearing Brennus call me “my heart,” I instantly feel the burning infection of his venom within my blood flare up in response to his voice.
CHAPTER 2
Missing Pieces
I feel all of the scars in me that Brennus has left behind as he continues to speak to me in his video message. “I missed ye at da chateau—’tis sorry I am for da mistake I made dere. I should have come ta ye meself, na sent da fellas,” Brennus says with regret, not looking away from the camera. “Finn tought we should be cautious. He said I may need ta send an ambassador ta ye—he tinks I may have hurt ye a wee bit too much when I tried to change ye. I tink he is right about dat, but I should have come ta ye meself, nonetheless—if nuting else den ta make ye see whah ye mean ta me.”