Page 40 of Before We Burn

“Are you good?” Narrowing my eyes, I watch for any hint of agitation from him.

There’s no response or acknowledgement. Instead, he gets up and moves from the room like an angry fucking ogre. I drop my head into my hands and sigh out the air left in my lungs. I want nothing more than to celebrate being reunited with Benny, that I now have some sense of home while surrounded by the very things I conditioned myself to hate.

Death, despair, and destruction.

The things I’ve been running from my whole life, except now I’m suddenly comfortable with them in vampiric form.

16

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE JOKING..”

MARZANA

Ihad to get out of there. I’m getting too close—dangerously close—and I don’t want to cross that line. Everett is…different. He is learning and growing, and that alone proves he deserves some type of leniency. But he is also ignorant—willfully at that. He had thirty-two years to ask questions and never thought to start until I forced him to open his eyes.

It’s funny how things become relevant when they start affecting you.

I’ve been around humans enough to know they are impressionable. When human children are born, their brains are under-developed, their minds putty in the hands of their parents. If I was to take one and feed it only my beliefs and knowledge, that child would grow up thinking the same way—most likely. Unless there was someone there to prove what I was saying wrong.

I battle with this idea for a while. Is Everett a bad person, or is he simply a victim in all this too? Human-on-human crime is not totally unbelievable, even though you don’t hear about it much. Propaganda is real and constantly used in today's world. I was just blind to the fact that some people in the military might actually be brainwashed because of it.

I hit the wall with my shoulder, the jolt shocking me out of my mental spiral and giving me a moment to breathe. I need to stop thinking about things that have nothing to do with me. I shouldn’t care about Everett’s transformation—I shouldn’t care about anything that has to do with him. I know he finds me attractive, and he knows I somewhat enjoy our conversations, but that’s all it will ever be.

Conversations that will eventually come to an end, because at the end of this, I will live forever—or until I am hunted and finally put down. Old age will come for Everett, and his body will no longer roam this earth.

Humans and vampires don’t belong together.

I straighten my back and hold my head high. I need to find Connie. There are things we didn’t go over. We knew the humans were looking for us, and now that I killed a few of them, they’ll be using that as ammunition. I can see the headlines now: Vampire Attacks Soldiers During Routine Stop, BEWARE.

A load of fucking bullshit.

I walk out of the house with purpose. Bunny tries to get my attention, but I walk right by her. If I talk to her right now, I’m guaranteed to get more confused. No one truly unsettles me the way Bunny does, and the idea she can see my future and my past makes me scared.

There's a lot of things in my past I wouldn’t like anyone to know. Lives I had taken out of spite. Lives I had taken out of care. I am tortured by the thoughts of those who died before their time, but that’s my burden to bear. Not anyone else's.

Connie stands in the backyard near the tallest tree, her long black hair flowing in the wind while the shaggy pieces hug her chin. Her skin absorbs the moonlight, a soft hue like sun-washed sandalwood holding the warmth of distant summers. But it’s her eyes—those rare russet eyes—that caught and held the world’s gaze, deep and flecked with fire. They speak of memory and mystery, of something ancient remembered just at the edge of waking. I see why people who don’t know her are afraid of her.

I approach her carefully, her face looking like she is lost in a memory. Vampire memories are potent, and if I interrupt an unpleasant one, those emotions could turn on me. Her eyes shine in the light and she sighs heavily. Her warm breath against the cold night air makes her seem like she is ready to breathe fire.

“You found me.” She gives me a lazy smile, her eyes still distant. Somewhere else, somewhere I can tell she is fighting to get away from.

“I could help you. I could get inside your head, tuck those memories somewhere that they won't resurface.” I walk closer to her, the distance feeling unnatural.

Connie shrugs, leaning her head against the broken bark of the tree. Her head fits there too perfectly, telling me she was banging her head against that tree over and over again before I got here.

“The only thing that could spare me from these memories is death, Marzana.” She looks at me with heavy eyes. “What do you want? I want to go back to wallowing in my misery alone.”

She perks up, her brows raised and arms crossed like she is attempting to hold herself together. I try not to look too long. If she sees any pity on my face, she’ll never open up again.

“We need a plan. We have to find a discrete way to get into Boston. If the humans are able to track our movements and see the direction we’re going, they’ll just send men to find us. Which could put other vampires in that area in danger.”

Connie rolls her eyes. “If they’re vampires, they’re in danger anywhere. Boston might be safer, but it’s still not safe.” She turns away from me, her attention shifting back toward the house. “We have to get that tracker out of the other human. What’s his name?”

“Benny.” I smile at the way her interest seems to peek with mention of him. Ever since she saw him, I noticed a hint of desire there. I can hear it like the faintest whisper in the back of her mind.

“Don’t start, Marzana. He’s attractive. Am I not allowed to find him attractive?” She pauses for a moment, her brows raised, waiting for an answer. Once it’s clear I’m not giving her one, she continues, “We’re safe here. Bunny knew we would need the signal from Benny’s tracker jammed and had everything set up to make it untraceable. It’s only temporary, though. I don’t know where she got the technology, so it’s bound to fail at some point. But she’s smart; I like her. We need to figure out a new name for her. Benny and Bunny are too close together. I’m going to get them mixed up.”

I snort. “Maybe you should just call him Daddy.”