Page 157 of Blood Lovers

We stand there like that for a good few minutes, saying nothing. Just… blowing in the wind. Then she takes a deep breath, pushes back, and I let her.

She looks up at me with those same wounded green eyes that I saw from the little crack in her truck window back in the diner parking lot, and waits.

She’s waiting for me to save her.

She took care of me for ten days and she’s got nothing left.

Nothing… but me.

I smile a little. It feels kinda wrong after everything that’s happened, but I can’t stop it. I like this woman. And I want her to stay. Not so I can eat, but just because she makes everything about my life better.

“Come on.” I keep one hand and tug her over to the passenger side of the truck. “Get in. I’m driving.”

She gets in and I walk around the truck to the driver’s side and get in too. Then I pull away from the road, flip a u-turn, and head the other direction.

Syrsee is sniffling, her words hitched from crying. “Where are we going?”

I look at her and smile one more time. “Home.”

There was a letter in the room where I woke up that first time after Paul burned my family in a church fire. I was alone because Paul would always do that. He would feed me, and we’d… whatever… and then he’d leave while I was still drunk on the blood.

But he’d always leave those fucking letters. And this time it was a large yellow envelope with that deed inside it. Plus my little welcome-to-evil kit.

The land and the house are the only two things I truly own. Ninety-three acres on the top of a hill in West Virginia. There were two hollers on either side of my hilltop and each dirt road was lined with holler people who owned spreads just like mine from top to bottom.

They weren’t halfbreeds. They were just hill people. But over the decades they recognized me for what I was and I recognized that place for what it was too.

Home.

A place for me, away from Paul, because even back then—on day one—he knew I would need it.

I want to hate him for this. I want to hate him for knowing me. But I can’t. He’s gone—and I truly do hope it’s for good—though deep down I know it’s not and that’s why I allow myself that hope.

He’s not gone. Not for good, anyway.

And I don’t hate him.

Will never hate him.

And I love this piece of land in West Virginia.

At first, the people would flash hand signals at me. Little signs to keep my evil away. But I spent a lot of time there in those early years and we got to know one another. Maybe they don’t exactly like me, but most of them are very old now. And when each new child is born on those hollers, they take the time to explain me to the next generation.

I have never hurt anyone in those hills. I don’t drink people. So after about twenty years I was just Ryet. The guy who doesn’t age on the top of the hill.

And they were just neighbors. Ones I’d help if their well went dry or their truck slipped off the side of the road in the winter. They’d come pick my apples from the orchard and I’d find bushels of corn or beans left on my front porch each fall.

I complain about my life a lot, but there’s a huge advantage to living so long as a young person. And that’s… people. I know everyone and they know me.

Home isn’t even a good enough word for my West Virginia hilltop.

It’s the only Heaven I’ll ever know.

So that’s how I thank Syrsee for her help, and her trust, and her blood, and… just for being her and taking this stupid ride with me.

I make it her Heaven too.

At least for now.