The Heart's Ashes (21 page)

“
Where are we?”

“
Home.” He nodded across the road to a small house with a
white picket fence and the homely glow of a porch light calling me
to its embrace.

I burst into
tears, covering my face. “How do you know where I live?”

“
I’ve always known.”

Through my
hands, I looked over at my house again, knowing Mike would be in
there—that he’d be so afraid to know I was right across the road,
standing with the man who stole my life.

Slowly, I dropped my hands beside me and took a cautious step
back. “
How
do you
know?”

“
Ara, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have.”

“
You need to leave. Now.” My finger pointed, but I wasn’t
brave enough to direct it at him. I aimed at the floor.

Jason nodded,
his eyes looking to nothing, and my heart tore for how much he
looked like his brother. I wanted to hold my locket—but I gave it
away. Left it behind in the life I was supposed to forget.

“
Can I just say something before I go?” he asked.

“
No.” The strong girl in me folded her arms and walked past
him to her house, but the one in control right now, the weak one,
just looked down at the ground—afraid to move.

“
Ara. Please. I need to explain something to you.”

“
Why did you save me?” I demanded.

“
I—”

“
It doesn’t make sense,” I continued, not letting him speak.
“You wanted me dead. You hate me!”

“
Will you let me explain?” he asked softly, extending a
downward palm.

“
Why should you have the satisfaction of an eased
conscience?”

“
Not for my benefit, Ara. For yours.”

I wiped a tear
from my cheek, considering things. “Fine. I’m listening.”

“
Can I sit?” he asked, motioning to the park bench.

I think I
nodded.

His lips
turned up softly.

“
Don’t smile like that.” My voice shook and I felt taller.
“That’s David’s smile. Don’t do that.”

He did it
again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just...sorry.” The man of my
nightmares leaned on the backrest of the bench and studied me for a
second, looking so human, so...not evil. “Ara. I’m a monster. I
know you know that. But you have to understand something.”

Feeling weak
and shaky, I sat on the moist grass with my legs crossed, but
stared him down. “No. I only want you to tell me why you saved me
after you tried to kill me!”

“
I never wanted you dead. Not really.” He let his breath out
heavily. “If you died, if Eric killed you, what do you think David
would’ve done?”

Knowing what I know now about David;
“I’m not sure.”

“
He would rip apart everyone Eric loves. Destroy his entire
bloodline, then torture him slowly.” Jason cast a gaze to the moon.
“I loved Rochelle—the way David loves you. I can’t breathe, Ara. I
can’t think. I can’t even feel anymore. Well, at least—I
couldn’t.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“
Try.”

“
I...well, when we become vampires, a lot of human nature is
burned up. We don’t typically feel for humans. Unless we love one.
It’s deemed repulsive to love them, yet so many of us do. When I
fell for Rochelle, it was as if the world had opened up and turned
on a light I never knew existed.” His eyes watched the lake, full
of wonder, which washed away quickly as he closed them for a
second. “But I only got to hold her for a short time, Ara, because
David killed her. He
killed
her, and I can never see her again.”

I gagged on
the pity I felt inside

Jason leaned
his elbows on his knees and looked at the grass between his legs.
“The pain haunts me, tears me apart. I was in agony for fifty
years, burning to the core—unable to make it stop. Nothing but hate
and pain and the prospect of revenge.” Jason clenched his hands
together. “When my brother fell for a vampire girl, I convinced her
to change a child. She did. And he hated her for it; he sent her to
be tortured. But I didn’t feel satisfied. My fuel for vengeance ran
bone deep. So, I waited. Then, he found you.”

My heart
picked up a little.

Jason drew a
deep breath, unable to look at me. “I came to your room when he’d
go hunting. I watched you while you slept—all the while planning
how I’d hurt you. I hated you. I wanted you to feel everything I
felt. I wanted to hurt you more than any girl could possibly hurt.
So I plotted my revenge.”

“
I don’t want to hear this.” I shook my head and went to
stand.

“
No—” Jason landed beside me, a gentle hand to my shoulder.
“I’ve come to you, so many times, to tell you this. But, I didn’t
want to scare you.”

“
That’s ridiculous, Jason. I have a right to be scared of
you.”

“
I know.” He dropped his hand. “I know. But I, I won’t hurt
you. I promise.”

“
Your promises mean nothing to me.”

“
Just sit back down. Please?”

Shaking my
head at myself, I plonked back on the grass. “Why would you want to
tell me this? What does it matter?”

“
Because you need to know how I feel. You need to know you’re
safe—not just know, but
believe
, to your core.”

“
What changed? Why did you change your mind and leave me
alive?”

“
I didn’t.”

“
Huh?”

“
I had to talk myself
into
hurting you. I—” He bit his knuckle, then dropped
it. “I’m sorry. This is really hard for me.”

“
Hard for
you
?”

He smiled, and the resemblance of his brother didn’t irritate
me quite so much. “When I held you in my arms, when I danced with
you and you looked at me that way, like you knew me, I almost ran
away. But my anger burned, and I forced myself to remember why I
came—remember Rochelle, remember what
I’ve
lost. And you came with me—so
easily. I hoped you’d fight me. Anything. It would have taken
only
one
thing
and I would have left you. But you came, all the while pleading in
your heart for David to save you.” He sat back on the bench. “It
angered me that he got to have you. That he got to be happy. When I
led you away, I had to battle with myself the whole time to hurt
you, and every strike, every ache I caused on your delicate,
fragile little body—it shattered me. Half the things I had planned,
I couldn’t do. I...I dropped you from the tree, and regretted
it
instantly
.”
His eyes shut tight.

“
You bit me. You undressed me, you tortured me,” I cried,
becoming hysterical.

“
I know.” He held his hands out, as if he wanted to place them
on my body, but couldn’t. “Ara, I’m so sorry.”

I shook my
head, unable to believe my ears, insulted by the very words he
spoke.

“
Can I tell you something else?” he asked then continued
without a response. “I know it’s no consolation, but...I was never
going to rape you.”

My head
whipped up to look at him; he couldn’t look at me.

“
I just wanted to scare you. And I’m so,
so
ashamed of myself for that,
of
all
things.
But—” his voice dropped to an almost whisper; “when I bit you—it
was to change you.”

“
I can’t
be
changed.”

“
I didn’t know that, then. And Mike came for you—before I
could get you out of there. If not for the darkness, he would’ve
seen me. I was going to take you, wait for you to change,
but—”

I waited.
“But?”

Jason leaned
back, shuffling uncomfortably. “I heard his thoughts as I was
lifting you from the ground. He was desperate.” He stared ahead,
his eyes narrowing in thought for a second. “I’d never heard that
kind of desperation before. I just couldn’t take you. So, I covered
you.”

“
You
did that?”

“
I have never been more ashamed of anything I’ve ever done in
this world, Ara, and never—” he looked at me, his elbows on his
knees, his head resting in cupped hands, “—
never
have I been more sorry. It
suddenly wasn’t about revenge or anger. And I didn’t realise that
until it was too late. So, I bit you—to keep you.”

“
Keep?”

“
Yes.” A wave of silence passed between us for a moment.
“After all the time I’d spent watching you, planning to hurt you,
when I finally touched you, held you, breathed you in—” he looked
into my eyes; the emerald-green started my heart, “—I fell in love
with you.”

“
No.” I shook my head. “No, that’s sick! You’re
lying.”

“
I wish I was.” Jason offered a comfortable smile.

“
Then, how could you do that? Don’t you know what that did to
me—to my life?” I yelled.

“
Yes. I do.” His voice broke. “I wish I could make you see. I
am eternally sorry for my actions, Ara, I just—I wanted David to
hurt. I
still
want him to hurt. But not by hurting you. I didn’t know what
I was doing to you—not then. I knew what affected a human, but I
didn’t understand it.” He groaned, cupping the back of his neck.
“When Rochelle died, something in me snapped, and it didn’t knit
back together until it was too late—I’d already damaged you, and I
couldn’t take it back.”

“
No!” I pushed up and got to my feet. “I don’t want your
apology. You need to leave. Now!”

“
Ara. Please?” He stood too, reaching for me.

“
No!” I screamed. “You hurt me. You’re a monster. You don’t
get absolution.”

“
Please?” He appeared beside me. “If you just let me talk to
you, I can make you understand.”

I stopped
freaking out and looked up into his warm, almost human eyes.
“There’s nothing for me to understand.” I shook my head, my voice
becoming unsteady again. “You stay the hell away from me!”

This time, I
felt strong enough to walk past him, to leave him at my back where
I couldn’t see what he was plotting. My skin crawled, but I kept
walking, cringing when a cold breeze picked up and I thought I
heard a whisper saying, “I’m sorry.”

I spun around
to yell at him, but he was gone.

The crickets
hummed again, starting their chorus’ all over the lakeside, one
after the other, spreading word that it was safe—that we were all
okay. And standing amidst the dark and cold, right across the road
from home, from normality, the fight to hold back convulsing tears
just took too much effort.

What the hell
just happened?

I took my
phone out and checked the time, half wishing it would ring—that
Mike would call and I could tell him everything. Tell him who it
was that attacked me, tell him how Jason saved me, held me softly,
talked to me like David would, and confessed that he’s...that
he’s...

The reality
hit me heavily then.

Love. He said
love
?

Chapter
7

The sides of
my tongue swelled up, filling my mouth with saliva—the kind
followed by bile—every time the face of that monster flashed in my
mind. I folded over, clutching my hands to my stomach, holding the
contents of my gut inside as I reached the gate and swung it
open.

The house
looked so dark, so empty, despite the front light being on. I
prayed silently for Mike to be awake, not wanting to walk in there
if the house was void of his warmth.

A breath of
hope filled my lungs as I pulled my keys from the lock, but dead
silence greeted me, turning the breath into a small screech as I
folded over again and cried into my hands.

Mike, why
aren’t you awake? Why do you wait for me every other night but
tonight?

My bedroom
door sat open, the darkness inside reaching out onto the tiles, but
all the same, seeming homely and comforting. I’m safe. I’m
warm.

But I’m not
okay. I need Mike. I just need to talk to him.

I placed my
keys in the bowl on the phone stand and tiptoed through to the
kitchen. More dark. More silence, which made my quiet sobs seem so
loud, echoing off the tiled floors. I didn’t want to wake him if he
was sleeping, and though I was upset, the last thing I wanted was
for him to run out from his room, with that look of concern, and
ask me why I was crying. I had to tell him. I had to finally tell
him who did that to me, who attacked me. But if he asked me, I’d
close up and not say anything.

I walked on my
toes a little, covering my mouth, holding my nose to stop the sobs
coming out as I passed Emily’s room and headed down the hall to
Mike’s.

A wave of
relief eased my soul when I saw the yellow glow coming from under
his door.

Instead of
bursting in and falling into his loving arms though, I hesitated,
my fingers over the handle. Everything will change if I tell Mike
this. He’ll be so mad at me for not telling him who attacked me,
and he’ll be even more enraged that I met with Jason tonight. But
if I don’t tell him now, I never will, and I’ll wear this grief for
the rest of my days.