Nocturnal (The Noctalis Chronicles 1)

“You were nearly killed last night, and yet you came back,” he says, not answering my question. He speaks with the same casual almost-monotone. His voice sounds like an echo through something hollow. “Reckless.”

“I guess.” I really want to leave, but I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me run. Maybe I am reckless. He wasn't the one who'd tried to kill me. In fact, he might have been the one who saved me from whatever it was the other guy wanted to do with me.

“What were you doing here last night?” I turn my whole body to face him. Fear slides over me like the fog. I have to put one of my hands on the ground for something to hold onto.

“Trying to kill myself,” he says in that same tone. I bite back a shocked sound I was going to make.

“What? Why?”

“I did not want to exist anymore, but I failed.” I remember the other guy saying something about him failing. I don't know what he meant. How messed up is that? Mocking someone for not being able to commit suicide? Not very nice.

“You didn't want to exist?” He pauses before he answers, as if he's choosing his words carefully. As if we're playing Scrabble and he's trying to get the most points.

“No.” The wind moves his hair out of his eyes for a second, but not long enough for me to see what color they are. I remember that moment we had, last night. It freaked me the hell out, even with everything else going on. I do not want a repeat, so I keep my eyes to myself.

“What happened? Who was that other guy?”

“My brother.” He only answers the second question. I swallow before I ask the next question.

“Did you save me?” I don't ask from what. I really don't want to know. The whole thing was bad enough.

“More or less.” He turns his head to the woods, as if he hears someone calling his name.

“I shall leave you now.” Seriously? I look where he's trying to see something through the murk. I'm fine with that.

“Okay.” I don't know what else to say, but when I look up he's gone. I don't even hear his footsteps rustling in the leaves.

***

I stayed in the cemetery. I had no other place to go, so I let a day pass as I sat in the mausoleum with what was left of my family. My human family. I watched the clouds gather and the fog roll over the ground like a blanket that covered everything, making it look unfamiliar. There were a few new graves, but most were the same as last year. Monuments to lives that had come and gone, like dust blowing in the wind, with only a piece of granite to mark their passing.

I thought about the girl. Her face flickered in my mind like the flames of a fire. After Ivan left me with her, I bent down to feed, but she made a sound. No words, just a sound. A little cry of pain. I pulled back and studied her for a moment. She couldn't have been more than seventeen. I looked back at the mausoleum, searching for answers. I had come here many times, over the years. Begging for their ghosts to haunt me, to save me from the endless road of my existence.

I heard my mother's voice, telling me that the right thing to do was often the most difficult. I couldn't remember when or why she had told me that, but the words whispered through my thoughts. So I picked her up and carried her to her car. Brushed her hair back once as I set her inside. If I remembered how to sigh, I would have. I hoped never to see her again. This record of my flickle humanity. If it would have been any other night... she would have been pale with the glow of death. Instead, she got lucky, but I didn't believe in luck.

***

“I can't believe you lost your phone.” Tex shakes her head at me, eyes narrow behind her purple-framed glasses. Her full name is Texas Sarsaparilla Anne Hamilton, but no one is really allowed to know that under penalty of death or dismemberment. She can't wait until she's eighteen to change it. She still hasn't decided on what she's going to change it to.

“I don't know what I did with it. Must have fallen out of my pocket.”

“No wonder you didn't text me back, you whore.” I bump her with my shoulder, hoping I'm forgiven. Tex and I have been friends since first grade.

We'd had a teacher that believed little girls wanted bathroom breaks so they could get into shenanigans. I'd raised my hand and begged her to let me go, but it was too late. While all the other kids laughed and said how gross it was and I died a little inside, Tex volunteered to take me to the bathroom. I was in tears, but she told me a funny story about a puppy and had me laughing when my mom came to bring me a change of clothes. We've been bonded ever since.

“Listen, if you want me to come with you to help pick out your phone, I can call and get off work.” She puts her hands together in a pleading motion and gives me her best doe eyes. Tex hates her job and will do anything to get out of going to work.

“No, it's fine. I think I can do it without you.” She rolls her brown eyes.

“That's such a load of crap. If you didn't have me, you'd be lost.” I raise my eyebrows.

“I think it's the other way around, Tex.”

“Fine, fine.” She cracks her knuckles, making me wince. Her skirt is longer than usual today which means it almost reaches her kneecaps. Tex's goal in life is to be hot librarian so she wears a lot of skirts with button-down shirts tucked into them. It's a style I can't pull off if I tried.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?”

“Depends on what it is. As long as I don't have to put a body in my trunk or hide a bunch of cocaine, you know I'm in.” God, I love her.

“I need you to go over my history paper.” I make a similar-looking plea face.

“I don't know, that seems like a lot.” She pretends to look worried and chews on her fingernails.

“You're such a liar, you know you love it.” Tex sighs.

“What's it about?”

“Spanish Influenza.”

“June 1918 to December 1920,” she rattles off as she watches Justin Strang swagger down the hall.

“Yeah, right. So, will you do it?” I snap my fingers to get her attention. She's still making sexy eyes at Justin and twisting her blonde hair around one finger. She always does that when she's seriously flirting.

“You know I will.” She finally looks at me. History is like crack to Tex. For some reason she has this freakish ability to remember dates and for someone who doesn't like fiction books much, she collects historical fiction, biographies and non-fiction like she's stockpiling them in case of a nuclear disaster. Sometimes we play a game where I'll ask her about an event and time how long it takes her to come up with what year it happened. She beats Google eight out of ten times.