Page 33 of Feathers From the Sky

“Just passing through,” he says, and I roll the window down. I’ve only taken a single bite of the burger, but I throw it out of the car, anyway. If he doesn’t want to give me answers, I’m not going to cooperate with what he wants.

“Really?” he admonishes and then he shrugs. “Well, I guess your stomach can keep growling, because I’m not stopping again. I’m not hungry.” He glances over at me in a way that makes me think he’s lying.

My heart is running rampant in my chest, and I wish I had something else to pull over top my clothes. Ohio weather is far colder than Virginia this time of year, and I’m not remotely prepared for it.

I turn, looking for something in the backseat, and what I see twists my stomach up. My dad’s things are spread haphazardly in boxes and piles over the seat.

“How did you get my dad’s stuff?”

“Look at your hand; see if it helps you remember.”

My left hand has a long scar on it, going from my thumb to my pinky. It’s new despite the mostly healed skin.

“What is this? Roman, what do you want from me?”

He sighs, merging lanes around a semi-truck. “That’s a more complicated question than it ought to be, baby.” He rubs his beard with his hand, and I briefly wonder if it smells like me.

“It’s really not. Answer it,” I say.

“You know what I am?” he asks, taking his eyes off the road. I close my eyes and inhale. Long teeth extend in his mouth, and then he’s biting my neck. It’s still sore, and I reach up to trace the two small punctures on my skin.

“Someone committing way too hard to a Twilight cosplay.”

“Don’t do that. What am I, Gwyn?” He growls when I don’t answer. “Say it.”

My mouth falls open, subject to that tone in his voice, and I hear myself tell him the words he wants to hear. “You’re a vampire.”

His smile is a threat.

“Correct.”

“But you were out in the daytime.” I’m breathing heavily, and I bend over to put my head down between my legs. “Vampires aren’t real, they just aren’t,” I mutter.

He sighs, irritated. “The sun only limits the oldest ones. I simply get a headache in direct sunlight.” My breaths are coming faster and faster when he says, “Relax, Gwyn. Breathe.”

Strangely calm, I sit up and fold my hands in my lap. “And that’s how you make me tell you things when I don’t want to. How you’re controlling my reaction.”

“Yes. Good, we’re getting somewhere.”

“You drank my blood. In the swamp. Right?” My hand rests on my throat, and the skin is sticky. “Is that how you—you said you were claiming me? What does that mean?”

“You remember that,” he says with a bark of laughter that hurts my ears. “I didn’t know if you would or not.” He wears a satisfied smile, and I swear there is a gleam in his eyes. “It means you’re mine, and I can do with you as I see fit.”

“Why me? Why do you have my dad’s things?” I look out the window, unable to see anything on the dark plain.

“You know what I am, Gwyn, but do you know what you are? What your father was?”

I snap my head around to look at him. “A human. What are you saying? My father wasn’t a vampire,” I assert, crossing my arms.

Roman makes a sound like grinding stone, and it seems like I’ve offended him.

“You’re both hunters. You helped me get into his storage unit so I can go through his shit.”

“No, I didn’t. Hunters? What are—”

“I really don’t feel like explaining wards and magic to you, but I needed you to spill your own blood so I could get into the storage unit.” I stare at him blankly, and for whatever reason, it infuriates him. I watch his jaw tighten and his face transfix into stone.

“Your father killed my mother, and I think he had something to do with my brother’s death, too.”

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