Page 156 of Blood Lovers

“What the hell is wrong with you?”.

Now it’s her turn to slowly turn her head to look at me. Her eyes are narrowed down into slits, her mouth a straight line, her face flushed with anger. Then she points to the sign. “That.”

I look at it. It says ‘Petrified National Forest.’ But it’s been spray-painted over with some kind of graffiti tag. I look back at Syrsee, confused.

She starts spitting her words at me as she continues to point to the sign. “Do you see that? Do you? Do you know I could be getting a fucking pedicure right now?”

I… don’t know what to say. I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What?”

“I could be taking a shower, and being pampered, and… and… and eating something that is not a Slurpee or Lays fucking potato chips!”

“What?”

She turns and stands right in front of me, grabs me by the collar of my t-shirt, tugs on it and continues her rant. “I’ve been feeding you, asshole! For ten days! Ten!” She screams this. “And you… you… you have done nothing but drink me and pass out! Do you know how many times I wanted to kick you into the ditch and leave you there?”

I don’t say anything. I’m just kind of stunned.

“Do you?” She’s screaming. “And look!” She points to the sign again. “The horse and rider. They put this here for me!”

I look back up at the sign and… OK, I guess I can kinda see a horse and rider in that graffiti tag. It’s a figure eight on its side. Like a snake. But it doesn’t have a snake head. One end is a crude drawing of a horse’s head, the other a messy human face in profile.

“Only it’s not the horse and rider.” Syrsee has stopped yelling now, her voice rather soft. Almost… sad. “It’s me, Ryet. Me. The fucking night mare.”

She says that word in a very specific way. Night. Mare.

“What?” That’s all I can say because I’m so lost.

Suddenly, she’s crying. Not a held-in sob, the way I was in that last encounter with Jane. But a full-on ugly cry. It’s more like wailing. And she’s still ranting. Something about blood, and days, and clothes, and growling, and fear—she goes on and on about being scared.

And all I can do is blink at her because I don’t know what she’s talking about and she’s still tugging on my t-shirt collar like she wants to choke me. And… now that I look down at it, isn’t my shirt. It’s brand-new. Kinda stiff, and white, and too big. Because it’s blowing in the wind. Making it ripple across my back and something feels very, very strange back there.

I reach behind me, still trying to pay attention to all the angry words this woman is spitting out at me on the side of this road so she doesn’t think I’m not listening, and feel… bones.

Wings.

Or, at least, the start of them. Bumps on my upper back pressing against the brand-new cotton of my t-shirt as it ripples in the wind.

Syrsee stops yelling and just stares up at me, sobbing. Streams of tears run down her face and all I see is… her. Sitting in that truck back in White River. Crying in the parking lot of the diner because she was having a little breakdown.

And then I remember how easy things got. The fun banter. The way she smiled. The way I smiled back. And how, maybe for the first time since I lost my family, I had the desire to make a woman happy.

I have that same desire now.

She tugs on my shirt one more time. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

I take her hands, pry them from my shirt, and pull her close to me. She shakes her head, crying again, trying to push me off, but I don’t let her.

I hug her.

And even though I don’t understand anything she’s really talking about, I get it. She’s mad at me. She’s been taking care of me. She didn’t kick me into a ditch, she fed me. She cleaned me, and clothed me, and saved me.

And she’s done.

But more than that. She’s scared.

She fights me off for a moment, wailing about something else now. But I don’t give in. I hug her tighter, letting her know she’s not getting away.

It only takes another three seconds for her to give in and kinda slump into my chest, pressing her cheek to my heart, crying in a very sad way.