Page 16 of Up In Flames

“Sure thing. Glad you’re not, um… dead.”

And that’s that. Time to put Sampson Dean in my rearview mirror. Plus, I suddenly have a great idea for a new vampire hero. He’s tall, auburn-haired, green-eyed, and works nights as a fireman. I’ve been wondering how to set Darius apart from the other Dunleaven heroes. Now I know.

Nothing says I can’t steal fiction from real life, right? And maybe I can work out some of those fantasies my brain keeps trying to have about Sampson from the relative safety of my computer. Clove can jump Darius’s burned and broken bones, healing him with the magick of her pussy.

Idiotic, but at least the idea is more constructive than my other urge, which is to slide on top of Sampson, and rub up and down all the hard angles of him until he cries.

Which is weird. I mean, I’ve hated Sampson for years. Once upon a time, he took my gray soul and tarnished it so black that it burrowed in the ground like a diseased worm and tried to pretend like it was dead. To want him now, when I’ve put my past behind me and regrown my ego, must be a sign that I’m truly deranged.

Though the extra-large male would be a worthy ride—if only he didn’t remember me from before.

There’s no coming back from before.

CHAPTER 6

Sampson

Nina looked shocked when I mentioned the incident from high school. She even reared back like I’d just slapped her across her high cheekbones. The Whore of Babylon blushed a bright red, as if embarrassed by her past. Or me.

Probably me.

Not fair, Sam. The old nickname for her is a remnant of the teenage you, and he was far too self-righteous. Lose the attitude and the insults. Fast.

Good advice. Wish I could take it. But rage at how she once singled me out as unworthy still runs like acid through my belly. It’s been there since the awful moment when I realized that the innocent object of my devotion was in fact made of tar. And that tar baby thought I was… repulsive. She’d stick to anyone who would have her, except me.

I’ve always felt other because of my height, my double rows of teeth, the sixth digit I used to sport on each hand and foot that still requires extra-wide gloves and boots even though they were removed long ago, and my abandonment as a baby, but the thing that’s held me most apart was that moment when Nina let me know I disgusted her so badly, she’d fuck every guy in creation except me. No, with me, she couldn’t even stand that I was breathing in the same room for a couple seconds.

And the kicker? I didn’t even want to fuck her back then. The thought never even crossed my mind. She was the object of my courtly love, the girl I imagined I would one day marry, after college, after dating for a year, and after integrating our families into one long happily-ever-after fairytale. I was happy to be a knight trailing in the fair maiden’s wake, battling dragons for her, and she was… she was…

A shudder passes over me as my stomach twists into a corkscrew with the memories I’ve tried so hard to set aside. Hard to believe a few unexpected moments in high school could affect my life so astronomically, but they did.

Best to admit it, put it to the side—again—and get over her. Again.

Yeah. Great advice, if only I could take it.

As Nurse Clemson putters around, I close my eyes, only to open them when the words she said earlier find their way back into my brain.

“Wait, did you say I had a visitor who looked like a relative?” I was so caught up in Nina, the point hit me hard, but then skedaddled harder.

“Close enough. Darker hair than yours, nearly brown but still red, you know? And tall, but maybe a little shorter than you? Close enough to your height, anyway. Older, though. Know the fellow?” she asks.

I shake my head before wincing at the shot of pain that attacks me from my nape. “No. I don’t know anything about any relatives. I was abandoned as a baby at the fire station.”

“Oh,” she says, stopping in her organizing of cabinets. “I heard about that. Didn’t put two and two together, though. You were brought up by Mr. and Mrs. Dean, right? Shame what happened to them. You have my sympathies.”

Instant heartache rockets through me, as it always does when people mention my adoptive parents. They were great people who died too soon. I owe them everything, and I never forget it. Instead of letting me be raised in some uncaring orphanage, they brought me up in a loving home, made me part of a family and a community, and gave me everything I could ever need. They owned a variety store at the outskirts of the town. I spent a fantastic youth playing in the aisles with all the kids who’d come in for gum or candy, meaning I learned early how to make friends. So long as I practiced kindness, my parents said, I could have the world.

A lot of people don’t get the sort of privileges I received, and I’m grateful. Completely.

Completely.

Except, I don’t lie to myself, not if I can help it. The truth is that there’s a dark streak reeking of selfishness that trails after my gratitude, muddying up the light. I hate that spot of blackness that holds all those questions to which I might never find an answer, but they haunt me, even so. Why did my birth parents abandon me on the fire station steps rather than giving me up the normal way? Why wasn’t I good enough to keep, or at the very least, to place? Who am I, really?

Stupid questions. Thinking them only shovels dirt from beneath the sidewalk on which I stand. One day, the pavement is going to collapse and send me stumbling right down to Hell. I know it. I just can’t shut off my brain.

They didn’t raise you to be an ingrate, Sammy. Forget who you might have been. Remember who they were.

“They never caught the guy, did they?” Nurse Clemmons asks in a sympathetic voice.