How to Kill Yourself in a Small Town (4 page)

Desty

I
couldn’t find the diner Mayor Dark had been pushing, but there was a bakery on
the square with a sign in the window that said it had NP-protected wireless
internet, so I went inside. It was more sophisticated than I was expecting for
a place as rural as Halo—more coffee shop chic than farm-town eatery—but being
the NP mecca of the US probably had something to do with that.

There
were three people in line in front of me, so I had time to count the money I
had left after my idiotic recon of the Dark Mansion. Just under two bucks in
coins. Halo was an expensive place to look for somebody.

“What
can I get you, hon?” the woman behind the counter asked. Tiffani, according to
her apron. She was middle-aged, with hair that dark shade of reddish-maroon
that no one actually has, and her irises were a weird, brassy color, but the
real attention-getter was her fangs. She caught me staring at them. “Yeah, I’m
a vampire. Now, what can I get you?”

I
checked the price board.

“Um,
a plain bread knot,” I said.

Tiffani
sized me up and I wondered if I was starting to look like someone who lived out
of a backpack or if she was just offended that I didn’t want one of the more
intricate-looking pastries.

“Something
to drink with that?” she asked.

“Tap
water?”

She
got me a cup of water and the cheapest, plainest pastry out of her glass-front
case.

“Dollar-forty,”
she said.

My
stomach growled.

“If
I got some of the strawberry butter with that, how much would it be?” I asked.

“One-eighty.”

“Can
I, please?”

Tiffani
dropped a little tub of it onto the plate with my bread knot. I handed her my
coins, then went and sat down by the big front window.

At
first all I could do was focus on eating. Maybe I was just really hungry, but
that bread was incredible and the strawberry butter almost made me cry. It was
like a sweet-buttery-tangy orgasm on a warm, fluffy bed. I ate half of it
before I even took a breath. After that, I had to force myself to slow down and
enjoy the little piece of heaven the way it deserved to be enjoyed. If Tempie
could’ve tasted that… Strawberries were her favorite.

Still
trying to put off eating the last couple bites, I got out my computer and
hooked up to the wireless. The bakery probably had some kind of spell that kept
the otherworldly NP-energies from messing with the signal. I wondered if cell
phones worked here, too, but no one in the bakery had theirs out and I couldn’t
check mine because I’d sold it back in Tucson. Having one had never done me any
good once I started chasing after Tempie anyway, considering I spent most of my
time in NP towns like Halo.

I
had one email from Aunt Arie, sent a week ago.

Everything’s fine here,
sweetheart, just getting a little worried. Haven’t heard out of you in a while
now. If you could, drop me a line sometime so I can tell your Mom everything’s
okay with you. She misses her girls.

For
a while, I stared at the screen and tried to think of something to tell Aunt
Arie. “I know Mom doesn’t actually care where I am or what I’m doing because
she just wants to be left alone to die” didn’t seem appropriate. Not when Arie
was trying so hard to act like everything was normal. And I couldn’t say I’d be
there soon because who knew how long it would be before I even found Tempie,
let alone got her back home?

All
I could do was send the standard “Everything’s fine with me, too!” It was lame,
but I hoped it would be one less thing for Aunt Arie to worry about.

I
ate what was left of my bread knot, glanced around to make sure no one was
looking, then licked the last of the strawberry butter out of the little
plastic tub.

Then
I opened Tempie’s blog. Nothing new. The last entry was fifteen days old. The
title was “FINALLY!!!”

My search is over. I’ve been
all over this country and even to Mexico looking for a way off of this mortal
coil of one reincarnated hell after another. I’ve finally found the one who can
take me out of this eternal rat race, and my angel was even closer to home than
I thought, right smack in the middle of northern Missouri. So, I guess there’s
no point to this blog anymore, except letting you know that you can get out,
too.

The
first time I’d read this entry was two weeks ago, the day after Tempie posted
it. Since then, fifteen days’ worth of congratulatory comments from the people
who followed her blog had piled up. No responses from Tempie, though.

Fifteen
days. I rubbed my eyes hard, thinking through the figures again.

Everything
I’d read said foot soldiers couldn’t make familiars because they didn’t have
the power to inflict their essence on humans. Enforcers like Mikal wanted total
domination over their familiar’s will, but once they had it they moved on to
someone new fairly quickly—their average turnover was eighteen days. Alphas
like Mayor Dark wanted obedience, devotion, and affection. Some alphas kept
really well-trained familiars until their brain corroded from the constant
presence of the fallen angel’s essence. Average brain-corrosion-time? One
hundred and seventy-nine days with a wide range of normal, according to the
articles.

I
could hope and pray that Tempie had met a foot soldier who was just stringing
her along with promises of making her his familiar, but Tempie knew too much
about fallen angels to be tricked like that. She had a whole page on her blog
dedicated to telling a smooth-talking foot soldier from an enforcer or an
alpha.

If
I found Tempie and she was already a familiar, there wasn’t anything I could do
until her fallen angel let her go. The internet was full of stories about
people who tried to steal their enthralled loved ones back. Sometimes the
familiar killed the person trying to save them. Sometimes the person trying to
save the familiar—their sister or child or husband—ended up killing them
instead. “Death is the only release outside of the fallen angel’s will,” one
article had said.

My
teeth hurt. I forced myself to unclench my jaw, then I got up to refill my
water and walk some tension off. I didn’t know that Tempie was already a
familiar. Maybe she wasn’t yet. Or maybe she’d changed her mind.

I
slid back into my booth and scrolled through the previous entries on her blog,
trying not to think what the chances were that Tempie had changed her mind
about something for the first time in her life.

There
was a picture of her new angel wings tattoo and a post about what she’d done
for the artist to get him to ink her for free. She had a week’s worth of Tip-a-Days
on how to get a fallen angel to notice you in a crowd of angel-groupies, her
reviews of the NP communities in Santa Barbara, Tucson, Fort Worth, and New
Orleans, and pictures of fallen angels she’d met along the way. Every so often,
she had a rant about the worthlessness of human men.

After
a while, I gave up on Tempie’s blog and went to the message boards for people
whose family members had been enthralled. No new studies or helpful articles,
just the usual suicide-watch posts about dealing with cast-off familiars.

One
guy had written,
U gotta think creatively. NEthing can b a weapon n there
hands.

Twelve
hundred and forty-one commenters backed that up with detailed examples. Some of
them made me sick, but I couldn’t stop reading. What if I didn’t read this one
about drain-cleaning liquid and it turned out Tempie was already a familiar and
then, when I finally got her home, she tried that?

I
checked my eyes in the front window of the bakery. I didn’t look too much like
I was about to cry, but I did wonder how long I’d been there. Sometime while I
was reading, evening had crept up on me.

“Closing
time.”

I
gasped and jumped like some kind of cartoon. I hadn’t heard Tiffani come up
beside me and she didn’t show up in the window. She was staring at the screen
of my computer. I snapped it shut.

“You
don’t have to go home,” she said. “But get the hell out.”

“Okay.
Sorry, I lost track of time.” I slid my computer into my backpack and zipped
the compartment.

“How
long have you been in town?” Tiffani asked.

My
heart started pounding.

“Why,
have you seen me before? I mean, a girl who looks like me?” I pulled the
graduation photo of Tempie out of my back pocket and shoved it at the vamp.
“Did she come in here? She really loves strawberries, so she probably ordered
one of those strawberry tarts or something with that strawberry butter. How
long ago did you see her?”

Tiffani’s
black, perfectly shaped eyebrows almost touched. “I just asked how long you’d
been in town.”

“Just
since this—”

Her
nostrils flared. Here she was sniffing me and I was telling her I hadn’t been
in town long and wouldn’t be missed.

All
of a sudden, the bakery’s tall tables and slick, black-seated booths looked
very, very empty. I bet she had furnished the place with all that vinyl so
blood would wipe right off. And I bet nobody would hear me scream through those
brick walls.

“There’s
someone waiting for me,” I said.

Tiffani
shook her head.

“You
don’t lie to a vamp, hon. We can hear your heart beating.” She tapped her nose.
“And I got the super-smell. You haven’t been in regular contact with anyone for
a very long time. Do your folks even know where you are?”

I
swallowed hard. Clutched my backpack and stared at the door. Running wouldn’t
work. Even a slow vamp was faster than a human.

What
was it Coach C had always said in P.E./Self-Defense? The way to protect
yourself from undead NPs was to remember the three Bs.

Except
I couldn’t think of any Bs.

“B-back
off,” I stuttered.
There’s a B for you.
“Or I’ll, uh, stake you.”

Tiffani
rolled her brassy eyes.

“Get
out,” she said.

I
started to. Then it occurred to me that no matter where I went, they were going
to require cash. I looked over my shoulder.

Tiffani
was standing with her hand on the lock, watching me go.

“Forget
something?” she asked.

I
shook my head.

She
started to close the door.

“I
just wondered, um, if you wanted to buy any blood,” I said.

Tiffani
laughed in a joke’s-on-you kind of way. “Every vamp in Halo has a regular food
source, kid. You’ve heard about the NP-human protection rules Kathan set up to
keep the tourists safe?”

I
shook my head.

“All
human residents of Halo provide goods or services to their NP protectors,” she
said. “With vamps that’s usually blood.”

“But
what if you wanted a snack for some time when your person was sick or
something?” I asked. “Or maybe just for a changeup?”

Tiffani
looked at me the way she had when I ordered a plain bread knot and tap water.

“Do
you have a kit?” she asked.

I
shook my head.

“I
do, upstairs,” she said, holding the door open. “Work your hand while I get it.
I don’t have the patience right now to go through ten veins before I find one
that’ll fill a bag.”

Tough

Harper’s
voice woke me up.

“Come
on, Jax!” She was downstairs, probably standing between him and the television.
It must’ve been getting late if she was trying to talk him into going to the
bar. “You never want to go out when Logan lets me have the night off.”

I
sat up and leaned into the fan. It was just blowing hot air around, but it
dried up the sweat. Earlier, I’d had a few beers and tried to sleep through the
hottest part of the day. Must’ve worked—it was getting dark outside and inside
the temp had dropped to around a thousand degrees. I tied up the sheet over my
window to let some of the stale air out of my room.

Jax’s
voice blended into the sound of the fan, but I could guess what he was telling
Harper.

“I’ll
ask Tough,” she pouted. “He’ll go with me.”

Jax’s
voice got a little louder, saying something about how I probably would go with
her and thank God for me. They both knew that even though Morning Fang wasn’t
my band anymore, I couldn’t stay away from music. It was like I was addicted or
something.

I
ran my hand through my hair and pulled on my jeans. Jax could kind of be a dick
when he wanted to finish a game and Harper wouldn’t leave him alone, which
usually meant I had about ten seconds before—

My
bedroom door opened and Harper leaned in as I was zipping my fly.

“Hey,
Tough, want to go to the bar?” She had on one of those sparkly black halter
tops. The way it gapped away from her stomach showed off her all-over tan and
bellybutton ring.

Even
if I hadn’t wanted to go, she probably could’ve talked me into it looking like
that.

*****

As
far back as I could remember, there had never been a slow night at Rowdy’s.
Even before we started playing there, it’d always had a band cranking out some
real old country and the place was packed. Cover was eight bucks for anybody
without a protector, but the bouncer, Cris, let me in free since that rule was
mostly for tourists.

Dodge
nodded at me from up on stage, then went back to singing “Six Days on the
Road.” Dodge was Addison’s cousin. He couldn’t growl, but he had a decent voice
and he was a hell of a bass player. Someone had to step up and take over the
band and I was glad it was him. They had Brandt Gilbert filling in on drums and
Willow was doing her best to play rhythm on my Gibson. She shrugged when she
saw me, like she was apologizing for not being very good. I gave her a smile,
but I was wondering why they didn’t just get a new guitar player instead of
moving Willow. She was a drummer all the way down to her bones.

I
danced with Harper for a while—the kind of honky-tonk dancing you do with your
friend who’s your best friend’s girlfriend—and tried not to think too much
about how the band sounded without me. Dodge didn’t play any of my songs, maybe
because he thought it’d piss me off. Maybe it would have.

Music
used to be this thing I could do with everything I had—sing, play, dance. I’d
get so high on it that nothing else mattered. Ryder could whoop my ass up one
side of the yard and down the other while Colt stood by and hollered at me to
keep my stance open. Harper could fall in love with Jax and dress up like his
favorite video game chicks when they had sex in the room right across from
mine. Even knowing I was trapped in Halo for the rest of my life didn’t used to
matter because when the music started I’d get it all out. I’d bang on the
strings and wail and pretty soon it’d just be me and the sound.

But
that was before Jason Gudehaus stole my voice and ran off to win that fucking
singing show. A month wasn’t as much time as it seemed like, but everything was
different and it kind of made me sick.

Then
I saw Harper look at me like she was about to cry and I realized I was mouthing
the words to the song. I shook my head like it wasn’t a big deal.

She
hugged me and whispered, “Tough, I’m so sorry.”

I
had to force a big smile to get her to stop. Thank God Dodge started “Redneck
Woman,” Harper’s favorite song. The way she danced to “Redneck Woman” is the
way I wished girls would dance to every song—plus, it always made people laugh
when a guy sang lead.

We
were still on the floor a little later when Harper saw someone over my
shoulder.

“Scout’s
here.” She bounced up on her tiptoes and waved at her sister. “Hey, Scout!”

I
ducked my head and pulled my hat down tight like that would help. Scout had a
crush on me. It was funny when she was a kid and we were in high school, but
about the time she started wearing way too short skirts and lipstick that
always looked wet, it started to feel weird. Like,
your-little-sister-is-jailbait weird. If her parents were still alive—if my dad
hadn’t gotten everyone’s parents in Halo killed—maybe they could’ve
straightened her out.

I
got Harper’s attention and pointed to the bar, but I didn’t make it a step
before I ran smack into Scout.

“Looking
for me?” Scout’s voice was deep down in her throat, but she leaned in close so
I could hear it over the music.

I
shook my head and tried to go around, but she caught me with one hand in my
jeans’ waistband and slid her other hand into my back pocket. It made me want
to scratch my skin off when she did shit like that.

I
nodded at the bar so she’d get the message.

“I’m
thirsty, too,” she said, wrapping her arm around my waist and sticking herself
to my side. “I’ll come get a drink with you.”

I
grabbed her shoulders and pushed her toward Harper, giving her my best big
brother glare. Because, dammit, I practically was her big brother. I didn’t
want her throwing herself at me or any other loser in the bar.

“Come
on, Scout,” Harper said. “We’ll catch up to Tough later.”

Scout
looked just like Harper when she pouted. But I didn’t look back and, thank God,
she didn’t follow me.