Stolen Sun (The Juliana Lucio Series) (8 page)

W
e spent the next few hours burning logs hot enough to get a substantial amount of ashes
.
T
hough William and Ana both said they were too fine to pass off as human, they would work as good filler so we didn’t
have to steal as much from others. Where they’d gained their human ashes expertise I didn’t
want to know.
I did throw in some pieces of my hair, I just felt like there should be something of me given to my family after all.

Ana had a pair of scrubs for me
to wear since that was what I went missing in.  They were way too long, but we didn’t
think that anyone would really notice because I would be scrunched
up in the trunk of a car.

“Here
,
put these on.”

Ana tossed the scrubs to me and waited.

“Why
aren’t
we
doing this tomorrow?”

“We need to get the blood on them now so it’s dry.  Put them on.”

“Have you ever heard the saying you catch more flies with honey . . .” I muttered under my breath as I walked off.  William chuckled, and Ana just called after me, “I heard that!”

“Good! Maybe you’ll learn something!” I slammed the door to the bathroom.

I wasn’t
really pissed, just nervous as all hell
that things were finally starting to happen and that we were really doing this. I hoped I could keep it together around that many humans; remember not to breathe, move, or
react when my husband came around. That was going to be the hard part. I had been practicing ‘not breathing’ all night; I had been doing pretty well. William or Ana would holler at me when they caught me taking a breath.  The yelling was coming less and less often, and it had only been a few hours. I put the scrubs on and found myself shaking a little
.
I was more nervous than I realized. I heard a knocking on the door
,
and I nearly fell over when I jumped.

“Just a minute, I’m still changing,” I called out, silently cursing myself for letting one of them sneak up on me, even if it was
through a door.

“Juliana, it’s me--Ana. Are you okay? I can sense you, even though your heart rate is steady you feel like you’re panicking. Can . . . can I come in?”

She sounded unsure of herself, but I didn’t
want to be alone at the moment so I opened the door.

“I’m okay
--
just a little nervous about tomorrow.” I told her quietly while playing with my nails.

“We can figure out another way to do this.  We can still leave your car for the police to find tomorrow. We don’t have to give them your body for them to pronounce you dead.”

I knew she preferred this way, it was the safer way. It was also less likely that Antonio would give up, that any of them would find true closure if they didn’t
know where I was.

“No, I think this is the best way. I’m fine, really. I’m just a little nervous that’s all. So, what do you need me in the scrubs for exactly?” I gave her a questioning look.

Now she looked like the nervous one.

“We need to put your blood on them
.
T
he police will check it for a match, so it must be yours, and we can’t use one of our victims or even William or me. It must be all yours, and we need a lot of it
;
e
nough to justify what they found at the scene at least. The back of your car already has your blood in it from that night so we are fine there; it’s just your clothes now.”

“How do you plan on getting my blood …you don’t want to bite me again do you?” This made her eyes instantly turn black.

I guess she did want to bite me again.

I fought hard not to step backward from her knowing that would instigate her further. William had sensed the change in her and instantly flashed to her side.  He put a hand firmly on her shoulder
.
H
e didn’t
say anything, but it was enough to remind her that we weren’t alone, and he would stop her if it came to that.

“I’m not going to bite you
.
W
e are going to slice your arm and hold i
t
above your head.  That should give us a good enough blood flow and a drop pattern to mimic one of a head wound bleeding. But Juliana
,
you will heal rather quickly, and we will have to do it several times to get enough blood on your scrubs to look believable.” I noticed she avoided answering the wanting to bite me comment.

“Can you handle being around my blood? Will it affect you even though I’m not human anymore?” Her eyes were going back to her beautiful turquoise blue, but there was still enough black to make me leery.

“I’ll be fine,” she said tersely. Again I noticed she avoided answering my question about whether it would affect her not. “Why don’t you stand in the shower so we don’t make as much of a mess.” 

As I was climbing in she went to the kitchen to get a sharp fillet knife.
God what was I doing?

“It’ll be okay, I’ll be here the entire time making sure she doesn’t do anything.” William told me.

“Yes, William, but tell me what is my blood going to do to you? Is it going to affect you even though I’m not human? Who will protect me from you if it does?” He held my eyes firmly and refused to let my gaze leave his
.
H
is brown eyes with their golden streaks were never touched
by the black that would betray his hunger. 

“Jules, I want you in every way
–
every part of you.” His eyes stayed brown, “but I will not take anything from you that you haven’t offered me, of your own free will, and because you want it as badly as me. I am not something you will ever need to be protected from. Ever.”  He was holding me locked in his gaze, eyes still brown that let me trust him to be under control
around my blood when Ana came back.

I turned to Ana with that shiny knife in her hand, “maybe I should do this myself.” Her eyes weren’t black anymore but still I wasn’t
bleeding yet.

“You can’t do this yourself, stop being difficult. Hold your arm up over your head,” she said a little impatiently. I guess she was ready to get this over with also.

Before I even had time to register it
,
she had sliced a cut clean through my brachial artery near the top of my elbow and kept going up my forearm filleting the whole thing open to the veins in my wrist. Blood was gushing profusely down my arm, dripping into my hair and soaking my scrub top.

“Ah! Oh my God! Holy mother of
--
why did you do that?”

I tried to pull way, but she held my arm firmly above me letting the blood flow down onto me. I was struggling to pull away from her, but I think that just helped with the blood spatter effect she was going for and didn’t
try to stop me too badly. The initial pain of the cut had resided, and I stopped trying to fight her.

I looked her in the eye as she held my arm firm, her eyes were pitch black. I wasn’t
going to keep backing down from her though, “Let go of me. Now.”

I could feel my arm healing; the wound was almost completely closed already.

“I did it that way so you wouldn’t be waiting for it
;
it’s always worse when you wait for it. I was trying to be
nice,
” She said through clenched teeth, her fangs poking through.

“Nice? This is you being nice? Dammit
,
if this is what you do when you’re nice I can’t wait to see what you do to the Retta’s!”  I yelled back clutching my now healed arm to my chest, even though it didn’t
hurt.

I was covered
in blood, but I knew it wouldn’t
be enough to account for what the police found. We needed at least one more clean slice.

Shit this was going to
hurt.

William had made his way to Ana’s side looking pissed off himself, “Look, maybe we can just get some blood from the hospital, your same blood type. If it’s mixed in they probably won’t catch that ...."

“No. If we are going to do this, we are doing it all the way. Ana, do it again. Just, not as ‘nice’ this time.” I said a little snidely.

William wanted to stop this, I could tell just by looking at him, he was ready to lose it and not in the way I had initially thought.

“Hey.” I said to him, getting his full attention.

“Just keep looking at me. I’ll keep you here.”

I said the same words to him that he’d told to me when I was panicking the first time I fed on someone in public. He helped me through it just by looking into my eyes. I caught his gaze, and this time I was the one holding him. My emerald eyes were bright from the anticipation of what was coming; if I could keep still we could get this done with one last shot. I was hoping.

“Ready?” Ana asked this time.

I held my arm straighter over my head, took a deep unnecessary breath and said, “Do it.” 

Ana cut a clean long line over the same path as before, it was healed
now, but there was still a faint line where she had cut me. I held William's eyes as I concentrated on holding still. Blood was flowing rapidly down onto my shirt; Ana moved my arm slightly back to get the back of my top more thoroughly. William made a move forward.

“I’m okay.” I told him, “I’m okay, stay with me.”

He looked anguished as he watched me standing there bloodied in the shower as Ana cut me one last time.  His fangs began to show, but I think it was because he was fighting himself, he wanted to stop Ana with everything he had
,
but knew he couldn’t.

His eyes looked as helpless and anguished as Antonio had when I went to go watch him; the realization was shocking to me. William was usually so guarded in his emotions I think this was the first time I had seen the real him, and without his realizing it. Being caught up in his gaze, I didn’t realize Ana had finished until she finally said it was done.

I took the scrubs off and let them hang in the shower to dry.
Talk about
morbid
. I was going to take a shower, but Ana thought it would look better if I had old dry blood in my hair. She did say she wanted to ‘dirty me up’ after all.

This was going to be a very long night.

I slept in the basement that night where I had woken up the first time Ana brought me here. I didn’t
want to get my room all bloody and dirty, so I stayed down there and slept on some towels on the bed. Ana was waiting for me
the moment I woke in the morning, and
she
had a bucket of dirt with her.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” I complained. My hair was stiff from dried blood, my skin itchy
,
and I was irritable and hungry from the blood loss.

“Sorry, but we need to do this as soon as possible. We want to give them as much time as we can to get you to Will before sunrise; you need to look the part. This is your last chance to back out Juliana; we can do this without your body. You won’t be able to feed before going, you need to look as pale as can be, and the blood loss will help keep you extremely
bradycardic
as well. Are you sure you can do this around that many humans? William will get some blood to you after they get you to the morgue, but it won’t be fresh.”

Ana gave me a straightforward
look that said
the choice was mine; she was just giving me the options. It was the first time she hadn’t tried to bully me into something.

“I want to do this. I can do this. Ana, please just don’t let my children see me.”

She nodded her agreement and handed me the scrubs stiff with dried blood giving me an apologetic wince as I took them.

After getting dressed, Ana smeared a little grease on my face from the trunk of my car, a little dirt on my arms and hands, and I climbed in the back curling into a ball. William was already at the morgue, waiting. Ana was going to drive me near to the police station and
make an ‘anonymous call’ to report an abandoned car that had someone suspicious hanging out around it.

As for the wound, right before she left
,
Ana was going to make a cut into the side of my scalp. She said that if she used a silver knife that it would slow the healing process down, it wouldn’t
stop it completely, but should give me time to get to the morgue before anyone noticed it healing. Ana was going to stay nearby the scene to keep an eye on things
. I
f it looked like it was going downhill
,
she was going to come on scene and take possession of my body.

She apparently had I.D. stating she was a big wig from the missing person’s division; she didn’t
want to use it unless we had to call it quits though, afraid that someone would call in to check her credentials.