Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Wow.” Syrsee blows out a breath, making a little mist of steam in the cab of the truck. She’s smiling. “They’re nice people.”
I’m smiling too. On the outside, at least. “Yeah.” I put the truck in gear and we move forward up my driveway, leaving the little welcoming committee—my neighbors who live along this holler with me—behind us in the rear view. “They are nice. I mean, they weren’t always like this. When I first showed up here, they didn’t like me at all. It was as if they knew there was something wrong with me.”
“They didn’t act that way today.” Syrsee is leaning forward as we go up my hill, anxious to see what’s at the top. Which is my house and my land. Our new home, I guess.
For now, at least.
“No. This generation is pretty cool about the whole thing. I don’t even think they’re afraid of me anymore.”
Syrsee chuckles. “Should they be?”
Maybe not before—I’ve never had any urges to hurt humans. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken any notice of humans—but I’m definitely not the same guy anymore. “No. Of course not.” I say this with a confidence I don’t actually feel. But it must come off genuine enough because Syrsee is barely paying attention to my answer. She’s too busy looking around. “It’s not much”—I mean the house, which has just come into view—“but I built it myself.”
Syrsee leans back in her seat as I park the truck in the gravel driveway in front of the cabin, still looking around. “Seriously?”
“Yep.” I turn the engine off, but neither of us makes to get out. “About… fifty years ago, I guess. Cut down all the trees myself and everything. There were a few teenagers around back then who weren’t afraid of me. They helped.”
“Are they still alive?” She’s looking at me now.
“Yeah. Billy Mark and Robby Corten.” I smile, thinking about them. “They were eighteen or nineteen. Something like that. Which was old enough to drink at the time, so they would bring me beer. Try to get me drunk so I would talk. It didn’t really work, but they hung around and helped out, so I painted them a little picture about the devil I worked for.”
“You told them about Paul?”
“I didn’t tell them his name. I just tried to explain that monsters weren’t what they thought.”
I’m looking at her when these words come out of my mouth. Her green eyes are flashing. Bright and curious. She was so mad at me back in the desert when she threw that fit on the side of the road. She was tired, and confused, and scared, too.
After I took over and started handling things, she changed. Her stress level dropped, she took a nap, and she was relieved, I think, that she didn’t have to make all the decisions anymore. Then she stopped being afraid of me.
It’s probably the wrong move for her. I mean, I don’t want to hurt her. I have no plans or desires to hurt her. But I didn’t have any plans or desires to be turned into a vampire, either.
Yet here we are.
Syrsee is still looking at me. Reading my mind, I guess. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Don’t you think you should be?”
She lifts one shoulder up in a shrug. “We’ll see.” Then she opens her door and gets out of the truck.
I stay where I am. Allowing myself another moment to shake off the feeling that my future, which is tied to her future, will be a disaster.
It doesn’t have to be that way, Ryet. You don’t have to turn into a cliché.
No. That’s true, I guess. I don’t. But I haven’t been in control of anything in a very long time. I’m fairly certain that whatever is coming has nothing to do with my wants or choices.
I take a deep breath, let it out, then get out of the truck and try to see my ninety-three-acre West Virginia hilltop through Syrsee’s eyes.
It’s a lot of forest. Really thick with trees. But there are dozens of trails going through it, so it’s good for hiking, which is good for thinking. And I kinda need that right now.
The drive was nice, but most of the time over the past few days my situation didn’t really feel real. Now, though, the wings are starting to itch. I can feel them pushing up against the skin of my back. Stretching it. And one day, probably one day very soon, they’re gonna break through the skin and just the thought of that is enough to make my heart race.
Syrsee is standing on the stone pavers that lead up to a nice-size front porch, but she’s turning in a circle, trying to get a three-hundred-and-sixty view to start things off.
I shake off the sense of foreboding, then walk up to her, place a hand on her hip, and point a finger in the direction she’s facing. “There’s a trail through there that leads to a lake.” We turn a little to the right as I continue to point. “That clearing keeps going over that drop, and into the valley below.” We turn again. “There’s an old cabin that way. I lived there while I was building this place.” And our final turn brings us face to face with the house. “Two bedrooms, two baths. Nothing fancy, but every bit of wood that you’ll see—inside and out—was cut from the trees in these forests.”