NOVEL NEXT 67 (Final)
LeBlanc and the police entourage left our house and I finally sighed.
It was over. Hours and hours of police questioning, hours and hours of interrogations and hours of being in terrible pain from injuries tylenol and ibuprofen couldn’t numb.
But now, Scarlet crept out from my room, looking uneasily where the policemen had disappeared.
“They believed you?” she asked.
I nodded. “Demetrius was a serial killer. I’m sure they’ll find his fingerprints or DNA or something in the asylum so I’m just a victim.” Finally. It was almost unreal.
Scarlet wrapped her arms around me, nuzzling my shoulder with her face.
“You and Blacke should probably stay out of sight for a long time though. They’ll be looking for you.”
“I know,” she said. “But what do we do now?”
“If you’re up for it, I’m sure Lee and the others would be glad to have you back. Start writing some more songs, getting out there.”
“But I want to spend some time with you,” she protested.
I turned to hold her close and leaned her head against my chest. “I know. I’ll be there, too,” I reassured.
Scarlet was quiet again, listening to the beating of my heart. “Thanks for staying with me through all of this. It was a lot.”
“Life is always a lot,” I responded. If anything had been drilled into my teenaged brain it was that. Life sucked, and not in a good way. “But I have you.”
She smiled with a soft snort. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
A week later, The Tad Unhinged
restarted their practice sessions. Christian let Mr Slithers loose in his room while song lyrics were being debated. My teeth were grinding together as I went through and carefully removed the background of one photo and replaced it with the snake scales I’d photographed forever ago.When I looked up I found the snake gently weaving in front of me, examining me again. My body was hot, admittedly. And Christian had reassured me that he really only did that climbing-up-on-people-thing for their body heat. The snake slowly coiled around the lower legs of the chair and then around one of my legs, sliding his head along my black jeans like an alligator in a swamp. His tongue flicked as he eyed me.
There were goosebumps on my arms as he did so. His tongue was a bright, almost bloody-looking red as he tasted at my clothes.
Ellias yelled something in frustration and the snake froze for a moment.
We stared at each other.
Christian hushed him, glancing at the creature slowly working his way up to my waist.
“Do you want me to get him?” he asked me.
The snake licked me again. I blinked. There was such an innocent expression on that face for such a predator.
“I think he’s okay.” His weight pulled at my clothes and then he stuck his head under my jacket.
The goosebumps returned with a shudder as his body was cold and smooth.
Christian came over and gently hefted the many pounds of snake away from me.
“Bad boy,” he chided and turned the snake to another direction where he started to slither away.
I let out a sigh.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Sierra startled me by saying. She was right behind me, and I hadn’t even noticed when she’d gotten up from her own computer.
Scarlet wasn’t here. Neither was Blacke as they’d both made the difficult decision to wander off for a while. She promised she’d be back in a month but I knew it would probably be longer. The unfortunate reality was that she and her brother were murderers. And people would still want justice for that.
And on top of that, they needed some education from their new vampire friends a few towns away so it wasn’t like they were that far but it did mean she wouldn’t be sharing my bed with me. Which was unfortunate.
I rubbed at my jaw where the aching hadn’t stopped. I’d been grinding my teeth a lot. They hurt every morning like I’d smashed my face into concrete and by the night they were starting to feel better but it always restarted in the morning.
Scarlet would be back. Blacke might have a harder time sneaking into the town’s populace. That tended to happen when you chopped a guy’s head off in front of a police officer. ButI was sure they’d both come back before long.
It still felt like it would be forever.
“You look tired, Lexi,” Lee said from across the room. Everybody was staring at me now.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“We can handle this here on our own if you want to go lay down,” Lee reassured me. “I’m sure Christian doesn’t care if you use the couch.” Lee looked at him to confirm and he nodded his approval.
“I’m fine, really,” I said. “Just a little tired. Nothing serious.”
But Lee rolled her eyes in that I-know-you’re-actually-completely-exhausted-way I’d come to know pretty well. We’d seen things together. And some things were hard to forget. Some things made it hard to sleep at night.
“I’ll just go use the bathroom, real quick,” I told them and set my laptop aside to stand. The snake had started to find his old route back toward my chair but shrank away as I stood.
There was still silence after I got out of the room and went to the bathroom. I ran the cold water and let my eyes close for a few moments. So much to process still. If I thought my brain was broken because of what my father did, it was definitely functioning less than optimally now, but it was functioning so I could recover.
So the psychiatrist said, at least.
I splashed some of the cold water onto my face and scooped some into my mouth. It immediately got spit out as it tasted wrong. I blinked at the red in the sink. Nothing crazy, just some gentle wavy lines mixed in with the water and saliva.But there was no reason for it.
And then I slowly turned the water off and looked up in the mirror, leaned forward and pulled my lips back. Two tiny streams of blood were welling up along my gums and I pushed my lips back with my finger to get a better look.
My heart sank and I put a finger to one of the canines and pushed. It wiggled under the pressure.
…Shit.
The End.
For now.
AN: If you have any feedback, I'm here for it. The story's gonna get shuffled into a full epub eventually and cleaned up. Some problem area's will be fixed and a couple details that didn't make it in the book will be added. Although some might also be removed, not sure yet.
TY to everybody who's been supporting this story, it means a lot to me.