Chapter Thirty-Six

A chapter in which Regan is up for it.

“Harley, Harley hurry!”

Milly’s skin was pale. My jacket was wrapped around her, but it wasn’t helping. She was bleeding, she was bleeding all over.

“Harley, faster!”

Sirens, the truck slowing.

“What are you—”

“I can’t blow by the cop, Regan.”

“What’s your hurry, boys—Good God!”

“Please, we found her in the woods, we need to get to the hospital.”

“I’ll, I’ll call ahead, clear you a path. Follow me.”

“Thank you, thank you so much.”

Time blurred, scenery shifted. With strength born of adrenaline I carried Milly through the sliding doors.

“Help her! I need, she’s bleeding, help!”

“Oh my God, get a gurney!”

A man in a white coat tried to take her from me.

“Sir, you have to give her to me.”

A bed on wheels rolled toward us. As carefully as I could I laid her down on it.

People were making noise, yelling “Vitals!” and “Prep the O.R.” and “Don’t look, Tommy.”

“Help her!” I was screaming. “Help her!”

“Regan.” A hand on my shoulder I shrugged off.

“HELP HER!” My voice cracked.

“Regan!”

This time the hand on my shoulder was real, and I came awake with a rasping cry, arms and legs flailing. For a few seconds I didn’t know where I was, and then the dream eased from the front of my mind, the smell of blood faded from my nose, my hands weren’t stained red, and I remembered.

Ira had been coaching me, telling me to stay close, be attentive and cute, non-threatening. I could talk to other humans if I wanted, but don’t go seeking out vampires. And then we’d gone to bed a bit early, to entwine our scents.

“Shit,” I squeezed out, shaky.

“Regan, are you all right?” Ira was a cautious distance away, but leaned closer now that I was coherent. “You were making these…these awful sounds.”

“Sorry,” I panted. “I just—I was dreaming.”

I curled my trembling hands into fists. “How long was I out?”

“Not long, a couple hours.”

“Jesus.” I sighed, unclenching my hands and scrubbing them over my face.

Hesitantly, Ira asked, “Was it your friend?”

I nodded once, jerky. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“You don’t have to,” he said quietly.

Heart still pounding, I laid back down, and after a minute Ira did too.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish I could have stopped her. Zo, I mean”

“It’s not your fault.” I stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing. “You told her to back off, it’s not your responsibility.”

“If I had been tougher on Zo when she’d messed with my other dates it might not have gone this far,” he said.

“I doubt it,” I said. “Zo would have kept pushing until they gave up. At least this way it didn’t happen to some innocent kid who couldn’t punish her for it.”

“I just thought of something,” Ira said.

“Hmm?”

“You might have to stay in town a few days after you kill her.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “I’ve thought of that too. So it doesn’t look funny. How long?”

“Just a few days,” he replied. “Then we can just say we decided we didn’t work, or whatever.”

“Works for me,” I said, and then I yawned.

“You should go back to sleep, you still have blood loss to recover from.” Ira shifted closer, wrapping his arm around me. “Plus, I need to draw again tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said.

On Monday morning, I drove into town and took my equivalency exam. I’m not sure why, other than what else was I supposed to do? I had an entire day to kill before go-time and just sitting around at Ira’s would drive me nuts.

Thankfully, when I’d gone back to sleep I hadn’t dreamed anymore. If there had been more nightmares, I’m not sure I could have managed anything more intense than a fetal position. I had to wear long sleeves to cover bite mark, but it was kind of nippy so that was okay.

Jeff Parker wasn’t in the office when I went in to talk to the secretary. I had half expected her to tell me that there was a problem with my papers or something, that Jeff had done something behind the scenes, but everything was fine. She buzzed up an aid, handed her the small stack of tests, and off we went.

I don’t wanna say I breezed through them because I was there most of the day, but I don’t remember much about them. I’m sure they were the usual things though, English, Math, Science, and some type of history.

When I wandered out of the building later that day, I considered calling Dad to tell him everything was done. But then he would want to know when I was coming home, and I just didn’t have an answer for that. It struck me as I was getting back in my car that he might not know about Milly. That was wrong, he deserved to know, but just the thought of that conversation drained what little strength I had left right out of me.

I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I sure as hell wasn’t ready to talk about it with Dad. Until tomorrow night, I had to stay focused and calm. As I was driving away from town I had a strange urge to turn around and go see Holly. I didn’t know what, if anything, Ira had told her of our plan though, so it seemed best to leave her out of it for now. Not that I doubted for a second she could handle herself, but the security of a secret is opposite the number of people that know about it. Besides, since Ira and I had decided not to start dating going to see his mother might be kind of weird.

Still, I couldn’t shake the melancholy as I approached Ira’s cow gate, and the last time I’d been feeling like this Holly had made me feel better.

“Hey,” Ira called from the kitchen as I walked in. “How did it go?”

I shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll pass. I always do. What’s all this?”

On the table was a full place setting with the various sized dishes, all the little forks and spoons, and a couple folded, cloth napkins.

“We’ve still got stuff to get you ready for,” Ira answered. “Official dinners and whatever else is next. You up for it tonight?”

Some of this I knew from the manor, not that we followed it that often, but still. Shouldn’t be too hard. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Good,” he said. “Tomorrow night this all happens, you cool with that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m cool with that.”