Monsters

Zoe swung lightly on the swing and listened to the cry of the rusted hinges as it echoed out across the dark expanses of the park. It was a place that she had once thought to be a refuge from the turmoil and cruelty of her family, but now knew that it had been corrupted and tainted by the life that she so desperately wished to be separated from. The air was cold tonight, abnormally so for this time of year. It was a bad omen, this Zoe knew, feeling the icy chill settle across her bare arms and face.

She had sent word to Mercer to meet her in the park, the boy whom she had met a month ago in this very location and quickly become infatuated with. He had been the one source of light in her life that she thought would save her from the future that became dimmer and dimmer with every passing day, but it was a very short-lived spark, as now she knew the truth of who Mercer was; of what he was. It was only a few days ago when she had found him in the woods that surrounded the town of Austell, his mouth latched to the throat of a deer that he held tightly in his iron grip, draining the blood from its veins.

She still felt the residual fear pulse lightly in her own veins, thinking of the face that had looked up at her when Mercer had become aware of her presence. The beastly face, with sharp fangs that hung down in a blood-drenched V, and the fiercely red eyes that flared at her with terrible purpose. Eyes that had before been the color of deep hazelnut brown, which Zoe now knew to be artificial in origin, as he had clearly been using contacts to hide the true horror beneath.

She thought of how feral he had looked and shivered, feeling like a single droplet of ice was slowly sliding down the center of her back, making gooseflesh stand at their zeniths as if anticipating something horrible and deadly. Then the echo of the growl that emanated from his chest, guttural and animalistic, filled her thoughts, the sound that had sent her fleeing from the woods and not turning back. She had heard the voice of Mercer calling her name a few moments after she started running but she wouldn’t have dared turn back, for fear of seeing him pursuing her.

Now, she sat alone, in the darkness of the park, waiting for the boy, hoping that he wouldn’t show up, for she knew what she now had to do. What her father had tasked her to do. She had never seen her father look so confused or so worried before that night when she had told him what had happened. She had thought that he would beat her like he normally did when she stepped a foot out of line in any way. But he had believed her, told her that everything was going to be alright. It was the first time that her father had seemed at all caring toward her in the twelve years he and her mother had adopted Zoe for.

He had told her what to do. Told her that she had to be the one to face the creature that hid behind the features of Mercer and destroy it. Even now though, as she waited for him to show, she wasn’t sure if she was powerful enough. She still thought it might be impossible for her to do. Her fingers traced the icy metal of the revolver strapped to her hip and winced, feeling the self-hatred that shot up her arm and settle malevolently in her chest. She wasn’t a killer, no matter how much she wanted her father to be proud of her. She had hated the man for so long and yet now, he had twisted that against her, made her hate herself even more, for now she had the feeling of wanting to please him, no matter the cost. She wanted the love she had been denied by him for so many years.

She felt disgusted at herself for even coming to the park, knowing that she was now locked into the events that could spell the end of the boy who she knew she cared so deeply for. Zoe tried to expel the weight that had settled on her conscience through a heavy whisp of breath, but the weight remained, pushing against her chest with the burden of murder. Her father had said it wasn’t murder, for killing a monster was gods commandment of her. But it was murder, no matter what Mercer was.

She pictured Mercer in her mind’s eye, first imagining his clothes in front of her, with his rough flannel jacket and his worn denim trousers, ending in thick leather boots that were always caked in mud and dirt received from his escapades in the woods surrounding Zoe’s hometown. Then she began imagining his features, starting with his tawny blonde hair that sat atop his head scruffily and draped down just shy of his eyes.

She felt a single thump of fear course from her chest as the image of his eyes materialized, at first, imagining them as the horrible red of his feral form, with their shine of an insidious hunger and animalistic ferocity; but then they blended into the eyes she had known before his terrible revelation. The eyes that were a deep chocolate brown that only hinted at the raging fire behind them.

After that came his button nose and the paleness of his face, angelic and without a single blemish, his cheekbones and jaw seeming as chiseled and contoured as if they were sculpted out of marble or stone. Then came the last feature, the feature that always made her chest contract and her heart leap. It was his sly smile that lifted from the left side of his mouth, with a single crescent dimple at the base of his cheek. She couldn’t place the word monster onto this picture, no matter how much she wanted to in hopes that it would make what was to come easier. Instead, it made her want to be the one the bullet was destined for. If it was god’s will to put down monsters, then she should be the first, for killing something so beautiful. A single tear washed up at the edge of her eye lid and spilt over, running down her face until dripping lightly off her chin.

If her father was here, he would be whispering in her ear, his acidic words tainting her mind into thinking this was the right thing to do, corrupting her thoughts into wanting to do something so deplorable and immoral. To end Mercer’s existence was a thought that repulsed her and made her sick to her core. It left her feeling empty, knowing just how easy it had been for her father to take advantage of all the years of torment and torture he had caused her, anchoring it so that he had full control over her like a puppet on a string. The trauma had turned her into a vessel in which the affection she held for Mercer meant nothing in the face of wanting to please him.

Maybe he would be quicker than she was. Maybe he would be able to strike her down before she took the shot and take her life instead of his. It would be what she deserved; this she knew. For she was so easily turned into a killer.

A sound echoed out from the darkness of the woodland that surrounded the park. The sound of a branch snapping. It was sharp and finely tuned, like every fiber of the wood had snapped in a harmonious symphony. A few seconds later and another one answered to its call, Zoe knowing it must be Mercer now approaching, her hand drifting heavily down to the grip of the revolver. This is it she told herself as she rose from the swing she sat on, her eyes homing in on the point the sound emanated from.

A few moments later, a silhouette formed from the void, the figure being tall and slim, walking slowly toward her. The figure stopped just shy of moonlight that draped down through the trees, deliberating on whether to move forward into it for what felt like a millennium before deciding, Mercer’s features being slowly revealed in the celestial light as he shifted across the threshold of darkness.

Even now, after everything she had learnt about him and what he truly was, her heart still leapt in her chest, wanting to close the distance between them and hold him in her arms. Zoe knew that the walls she had kept up between her and Mercer had crumbled to dust a long time ago, only the sheer power of her will were what remained to keep her fixed in place to where she now stood.

The air rose in a thick fog of silence, seeming like the whole world had simply stopped to watch at was about to unfold. Mercer stood with confidence, like he always did, but looked at her with a mix of dread and odd admiration, his eyes swimming with a thousand words that would remain unspoken between them.

Finally, as if he couldn’t bear to stand in the silence any longer, he said, “So, your father works for the Vampire hunters? I should’ve worked out that if your brother was a member then he must be too.”

“He’s the leader. He’s been in partnership with Lilith, funding the whole thing in this town,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice calm and unemotive.

“I thought as much. I knew Lilith didn’t have the funds nor the influence to gain members in this town.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mercer. They’ve told me what must happen. What you are, and what you will do if you aren’t killed,” she said, trying hard to hold as much belief in what she was saying as possible.

He looked at her with knowing eyes, his face serious. “And what is it that you have to do, Zoe?”

Zoe took a breath to steady herself. “I have to kill you, Mercer. You’re a monster and I can’t allow you to hurt other people,” she said, though his expression twisted, knowing that what she had said sounded like empty words, rehearsed over and over again in her head so that she herself might also believe them.

“You sound just like them, Zoe. Justifying a hate for something unknown, something greater than yourselves, so that humanity can stand over everything in the world. They speak of justice and morals, but the organization of Vampire hunters is run on fear and fear alone. I’ve seen the cult Lilith runs kill children for simply being born with supernatural blood. Slaughter infants in their cribs for the so-called crimes their parents had committed, all in the name of ridding that which they deem unnatural from this world.” His eyes fixed heavily on Zoe’s. “And yet here you stand, calling me the monster.”

“You kill people though, Mercer. Drink their life away until they’re nothing but skin and bone.”

“And humans raise animals for the soul purpose of being slaughtered. Keep them in small metal cages so that they spend the brief life you give them miserable, all to be plumped and fed to the right size so that they’ll make the most meat and profit.”

“Don’t try and say that we are the same. We are not the same. You’re a creature born of the night. A creature born to destroy and kill anything and everything.”

“Is that what you think, Zoe, or is that what that man you call your father thinks?”

“My father knows what you are. I know what you are. I’ve seen the beast that you become. You’re a monster, Mercer.” she screamed, the words like a hot iron to her heart.

“Monster?” he tasted the word in his mouth and left it hang in the air for a long moment. “Zoe, do you remember the first time we met? In this very park with tears streaming down your cheeks. I, myself, do, very well. You told me that it was your parents that you were upset with. It was they who you described as Monsters. You’ve let them get in your head. You’ve let him into your head.”

She raised the revolver in her hand so that the barrel pointed at Mercer’s heart, her confidence wavering, Zoe knowing that any longer talking to Mercer could result in her being unable to follow through with her task. He looked at the revolver, his eyes steady and contemplative, before looking up at Zoe. He seemed to drink the image of her in for a long moment before a smile rose softly on his angelic features. Not one of arrogance or mocking, but one of contempt, his maroon eyes reassuring her as if he were more worried about her than himself.

It was an image that froze her heart in place, as she knew it was a face he wasn’t supposed to be expressing toward her. She had hoped the anger would flare behind his eyes and that he would arch forward like a cat ready to pounce on its prey. In the daydream she would force herself to miss before he struck her with his unnatural strength and kill her, so that he would continue living.

“Aim for my head. If the bullets are made of silver than I’ll have a low chance of recovering.”

“No! Please don’t say that,” she said, her composure escaping her in a quick breath. “You are supposed to stop me. Supposed to kill me before I kill you.”

“As if you think I could,” was all he said.

His eyes were on hers and she knew they spoke only the truth. Mercer really was going to stand there and let her kill him, this boy who she had been almost convinced to believe was a monster. She felt a tiny spark ignite at the base of her lungs, like the switch of a light had been flicked on, surging a strange power through her that stopped abruptly at the finger resting on the revolver trigger.

She could hear her father’s voice, whispering in her head to let her finger contract and have the bullet explode from the barrel, like he were mere inches away; Zoe was almost certain she could smell the stench of stale alcohol and cigarette smoke spread across the air around her. The voice forced weight through Zoe’s finger, making it waver as she stared at the boy in front of her. She remembered the feeling he had given her whenever he was around, like her heart only beat in his presence. Like color was given to her vision when he appeared.

She focused on the disgusting voice of her father, remembering all the time’s he had told her she wasn’t good enough to be part of their family. How she was pathetic and stupid, just like her real parents who had died in a car crash, one that he stated was their own doing purely to get away from her. Tears, hot and boiling with years of rage, stung at her eyes, racing down her face and making her lips taste of warm salt.

Through the veil of hatred and sadness, she saw the figure of Mercer approach cautiously in front of her, closing the gap between them until his chest lay centimeters from the barrel of the revolver. She looked up into his red eyes, the ones she knew she should hate, and felt something new rise up within her, like a phoenix out of a fire.

The way Mercer looked at her, the eyes of a being that she knew would never hurt her, washed away the evil thoughts of her adoptive family. Washed away the sadness and the terror they had caused her all through the years so that only one emotion pulsed from her chest into her veins. Love, pure and sweet. Her mind raced with the new sensation, one that had remained alien to her for so very long. The color that Mercer seemed to omit flared as if it were set alight, her world twisting into a single wonderful image, with Mercer at its center. The essence of her that was corrupted by her father’s tainted words withered and rotted in a single blissful moment. She let the gun fall lightly to the floor and heard the soft clink as it did so.

All the weight upon her dripped from her into the soft soil beneath, feeling like she might collapse to the floor with it. Mercer’s arms softly reached out to steady her, his grip firm but soft around her arms.

“Mercer,” was all she could say before she wrapped herself around him, a mix of relief and utter guilt entwining her.

Zoe knew now that there was never going to be any scenario in which she had pulled that trigger; never being able to look at the boy she held so tightly in her arms now and be able to kill him. His arms gently slid around her waist and back, holding her to him for what felt like an eternity. She let his scent fill her nose, allowing it to overpower and intoxicate her mind; its smell like that of vanilla mixed with burnt wood and leather. Zoe perched the side of her cheek to his chest, wanting to have every part of her touching him to solidify the notion that he was still here, on this planet with her.

After the initial sense of the coldness behind the grey shirt he wore beneath his jacket, Zoe began to notice that apart from her own breath escaping her mouth, there was no other sound coming from the two of them. The heartbeat, which she had expected to be able to hear at this proximity hadn’t even shuddered in the time they had held each other, and his chest didn’t feature the typical rise and fall of someone breathing.

“Your heart isn’t beating!” Zoe said, tearing her face away from Mercer’s chest to look at him.

“That’s really the first thing on your mind after you hold a gun to me?” his eyes shone with amusement as they met hers.

Zoe felt the smile on her own face creep up to meet his own. “I guess we haven’t really had the human/vampire chat yet because of the hostilities, but I have so many questions.”

“Ok, then. Shoot,” his eyes were mocking for a second before she realized his choice of words.

She struck out at his chest. “Don’t joke about that!”

“I’m a vampire. It’s sort of in my nature to be morbid,” he said with a wink.

She dropped the subject, feeling the influx of questions beginning to fill her mind about how he lived and what his life consisted of, if you could even call it life.

“So, are you actually alive or are you undead?”

“I’m not alive in the normal sense. I don’t have a beating heart and I don’t breathe, but I would certainly consider my kind as being alive. We just have a different way of life to most.”

“And you drink blood to survive?” she said, wanting to address the elephant in the room.

“Yes, though I don’t have to kill anyone or anything to do so. That deer you saw me feeding from is still very much alive and probably feeling quite a lot better.”

“So, you don’t have to kill people or animals to exist?”

“No, though I am sometimes forced to by the Creed, which Vampires have to abide to in order to keep the supernatural world a secret. Obviously there are also those of my kind that enjoy killing. Like I said, being morbid and evil is sort of in our nature, but I have yet to come across a member of my kind who kills outright and in cold blood,” Mercer said, in a tone that was very matter-of-factly.

“The Creed?”

“It’s sort of like our laws that we have to adhere to if we want to live in the human world. Some don’t and choose to live in exile away from any civilizations, but isolation gets tedious after a while, even for a vampire.”

Even now after everything that had happened in the past few days between learning what Mercer was and almost trying to kill him, Zoe still shuddered at the word Vampire, still holding on to the horrid images of ghastly creatures draining the life out of things she had seen in movies and horror illustrations, yet confused to how estranged she was becoming to the concept of them actually existing. Though now, looking up at Mercer and seeing the affection he held for her in his eyes, she felt, for the first time in a long time, safe, like his arms were a shield from the rest of the world.

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah, it’s just a lot to take in. It’s the first time I’ve really stopped to realize that you aren’t human,” she said, trying to find the right words.

“It’s a lot, I know, but I want you to know everything before I go.”

“What do you mean, before you go?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“I mean that I’m leaving this town. Leaving my family. I’ve been fooling myself for a long time that I might actually be able to live a normal life, but I can’t. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with it, but you’ve helped me find myself through it all. Who I really am. What I really am.”

His arms slipped from their hold on her and he began walking toward the swing set behind her, settling lightly upon the right swing and gesturing for her to sit down on the left with a single wave of his hand. She strode over and perched herself back on the swing, trying desperately to come up with any excuse for him to stay, but couldn’t. She herself knew how hard it was to stay in a life that you weren’t satisfied in. Knew that it was the right thing for him to do before this town latched itself to him like it had her when she was five and arrived at her family’s doorstep.

He needed to escape, but the thought of him leaving her was too unbearable for her to process, the thought twisting and knotting within her stomach like a deadly snake that was slowly releasing its venom into her system.

“I never introduced you to my family, did I?” he said, more as a statement than a question.

“No. Are they Vampires too?”

“Yes. There are seven of us in total and you’ve already met Madeleine at the party the other day. The eldest is David, who acts as our leader. Then there is Michael, who started our coven many centuries ago with David. After that came Shae. He’s sort of the big brother figure to everyone. He’s tried to help me with how I’ve felt about joining the family for a long time. I guess it’ll come as no surprise when he learns I’m leaving. Isabelle joined after Shae. She’s sort of like our mother. Very kind woman, but incredibly ferocious when she wants to be. She almost tore a whole town to bits when she learnt of a few who had discovered what we were. She won’t tell you that though.

“After that came Emily, who Shae sired after she tried to commit suicide due to losing her husband and baby in a freak accident. Those two have secretly loved each other since, though it’s really not much of a secret, and I can tell you it is awful to be around them when they’re together sometimes. After that, I came along, wanting to have a taste for the coven life. Then came Madeleine, who was created by accident by a rogue vampire who she nursed back to health in the hospital she worked at. She’s been hunting him ever since. Very entertaining when she thinks she’s found a lead,” he said with a light chuckle.

Then he remained silent for a moment before looking at her with an odd severity.

“I am very sorry about what happened that night, Zoe. The night of the party. I didn’t mean to let myself go that far as to hurt your friend like that and frighten you,” he said, self-defamation in his voice.

“Mercer, you didn’t frighten me. I was worried for you and…”

“Please, Zoe, let me finish. I’d rather you know why I did what I did first before you forgive me when I really shouldn’t be forgiven,” he said, waiting until she nodded in response before continuing. “We’re all very protective over Madeleine because she is so young, being only 67 years old as a Vampire. She is very good at composing herself and controlling the urges we sometimes are at the mercy to when we are still newborn, but it is always best to have someone there with her to guide her and help stop anything that may get out of control.

When Dylan kept touching her at the party, thinking he could try his way with her, even after she had told him to stop, I thought her anger might puncture her control, so I stopped him myself. I only wished to get him away from Madeleine, but after I grabbed his arm, I found seeing him writhe in my grip to be enjoyable. Almost thrilling. I liked the power that I had over him. And when your other friend, Jarrad intervened, I crossed the line that I shouldn’t have crossed.”

Mercer fell silent for a moment and let his eyes wonder along the rim of darkness that ran along the edge of the woods. She knew she should be repulsed by someone hurting one of her friends, even if it was Jarrad and Dylan, who were barely more than acquaintances now that she thought about it, but the fact of the matter was that she had left the party with more worry for Mercer than the others, even after seeing how hard Mercer had punched Jarrad, sending him across the room until hitting the wall where the drinks table had been.

“Three ribs and a punctured lung. All of these injuries I knew I had caused as soon as my hand met Jarrad’s chest. The sound was like music to my ears at the time, but when I realized what I had done, what you had witnessed, I felt disgusted with myself. Disgusted with how much enjoyment I received from it. I wanted to turn to you and tell you that I was sorry, but I knew then that I had to leave you. Leave this town before I got you into any more trouble and danger with my presence. That night I fled the town, went as far as I could before sunrise, but the next night I just found myself back here. I had to see you, had to explain before I left. But then you found me in the woods. I was going to tell you eventually, but I thought if I fed every night then it might stave off the lust to express my true self. I didn’t ever mean for you to see me like that.”

The silence that filled the air told Zoe that he had finished explaining his thought process behind the past few days, her mind whirring to keep up with the information he had given her.

“Don’t be sorry, Mercer. Like you said, I needed to find out eventually. Granted I would’ve preferred it with less of a shock but I guess the revelation that you’re a vampire would’ve had that anyway.” She waited for a long moment for a response that never came, knowing that changing the subject was the only way to stop him from beating himself up over everything that had occurred. “Living with seven people. That must be a headache when you can’t leave your house during the day,”

“I only live with Madeleine and Emily. The rest are still in America.”

“So, you’re all like an international family of Vampires? That’s pretty cool, I must say.”

“Yes, I guess it kind of is. I’m afraid I won’t be part of their coven much longer, though. It’s part of the agreement I have with them when I leave.”

She had completely forgotten for a moment that Mercer was leaving the town, the twisting feeling returning to the pit of her stomach. She felt the desperate need to wrap her arms around him and refuse to let go, anchoring him here forever until she herself withered away, but knew she had to let him leave. One of them had to go and live their life, and Mercer was always going to be that person. He was strong and intelligent, driven on a will to keep himself going no matter what happened.

“Can’t you just leave for a few years and come back to them?”

He chuckled lightly, clearly amused at the naivety of what she had just said. “It’s not that, Zoe. It’s because of what I want to be. I want to be free of this human illusion we’ve created. Though there is also another reason, one that the Creed forbids if done incorrectly.”

She looked at him then and their eyes held with a strange and magnetic intensity. She usually stopped herself when she felt the powerful urge to close the space between them when she looked into his eyes, with or without contacts; but now it was almost impossible to stop herself from shifting in her seat closer to him, her body arching forward as if pulled by some gravitational force. It was only when she stopped just shy of the middle of the space between them, did his expression change, almost as if he were deliberating on something.

She was about to ask him what it was he was thinking when he mirrored her own movement with graceful speed, closing the gap between them in one fluid second and planting his lips on hers. At first, she thought she might have imagined it as it all happened so fast, but as her heart leapt in her chest and her mind buzzed with a surge of electric passion, she knew that what she was feeling was real. She was suddenly kissing him back, letting her lips move seductively over his and feeling his hand slither lightly along the arching crevice of her back until reaching the peak of her neck, twisting his fingers through her hair and gently pulling her closer to him.

His breath was like cool mint mixed with something metallic and wonderful, Zoe’s pulse beating like an orchestra with every breath she took, building quickly to one large crescendo. Then his lips slowed, his hand sliding from the back of her neck to the underside of her jaw, ending with his fingers sitting lightly on the tip of her pointed chin. Then his lips separated from hers and for a moment, she thought she were falling, let go from where he held her like the floor had swallowed her up, the sensation as perfect as drifting to sleep. But when she opened her eyes, finding his own flaring back at her, she found that she was still sat upon the swing, the only change being that the space was now back between them.

She stared at his face as her heart returned to its normal rhythm, her eyes drinking in his moon-lit features and noting how perfect he still looked with his face half cast in nightly shadow.

“I’m sorry if that was too much,” he said, as if anticipating her to be angry in some way.

“Don’t be sorry,” was all Zoe could say.

She hadn’t been prepared for his kiss but had no idea how much she had secretly wanted it. She had been so caught up in the affairs of the past few days that she had not dwelled on how much she wanted to scream Mercer’s name as loud as she could or wrap herself around him so tightly that they might never be separated. He was her person. The only person in her life that had made her feel special to him. Like she had her place in the world and it was pivoted to where he was.

“I didn’t just come here today just so you could confront me about what I am. I’ve come here on selfish terms too, as I am a Vampire after all,” he said, his voice like a purr.

“What do you mean?”

“I thought I was content with living in the human world when me and my family moved here. I thought it would be as easy as it had been the other four or five times we’d done it. But that night I met you, something changed. When you said about how unhappy you were about living in this town, with the family you called monsters, and how you felt it was all stopping you from becoming the woman you wanted to be, it made me realize how much I truly related to that. Not because of my family but because of how much I was lying to myself, about who I wanted to be. The truth is I want to be able to run through the forest in the dead of night and hunt like I am supposed to. Use my strength and speed without the boundaries I have to uphold. I want to be exactly what I am without having to worry about being something I’m not.” He looked at her then. “I wanted to leave after the first night I met you, but what stopped me was you. I couldn’t understand why you hadn’t left yourself and escaped into the world without a second glance.

“I saw you suffer at the hands of your family. You came to me in floods of tears because of how they had denied you the chance at studying at university. Came to me when your father beat you for not cleaning the house. The more we met, the more I found I couldn’t understand you. Then after a while, I found I also couldn’t let you go. And then the party happened, and I thought I had to leave. I thought I was being selfish and that it wasn’t to be, but the further I got the stronger the pull toward you became. I realized that I wouldn’t be happy now without you. Because you were the element I was missing. You were what caused me to realize who I was, but without you that new beginning couldn’t truly begin. So, I came here tonight, thinking that if I died then it would be one of two good options.”

Zoe sat motionless, unable to speak a word. She wanted to hear more of what he had to say but he seemed to choke on the words, like he couldn’t make himself say what it was he wanted to say. She stretched her hand over to where his lay on his lap, lacing her fingers through his own. The gesture seemed to work, seemed to give him the needed strength to continue, as he looked at her with some sort of renewed hope for his coming words.

“I love you, Zoe Greysmith. I don’t care how quickly it has blossomed within me or how deeply I feel for you, but I have to be honest. With you and with myself. I need you to know before I go. Maybe that might help me with not returning. Then you will be safe from the hunters and your parents won’t treat you so harshly now knowing what you know.”

He loved her. It was the only thing he had said which she had truly heard. It seemed to ring in her ears like the toll of a bell, leaving her a little dazed as she tried to hold on to the rest of his words. Slowly, she began to sift through what else he had said. He had called her Greysmith. It was the name that she had used since coming out of the orphanage. The one her adopted family had given her, but hearing it now, spoken aloud, made her want to be sick. She wanted his voice, the voice that wrapped around her first name like soft velvet, to speak her true name. The one she had inherited from her true mother and father when she was born.

When her mind finally anchored itself and reviewed what he had said, the simple answer it gave was no. No, she wasn’t going to let him go without her. No, she wasn’t going to stay in this town a minute longer, and No, Greysmith was not her name and those people waiting at the house she had called home for eleven years were not her parents.

“My name is Zoe Merridew,” she said, inhaling a deep and steady breath. “And I am coming with you, Mercer, because I love you too. Completely and unquestionably.”

He turned, his face stunned by what she had just said. Again, the world seemed to freeze as if it had turned to watch what his response would be.

“It would be hard, Zoe. Living with a Vampire isn’t easy. You’d go to bed when I was just getting up. We would barely see each other, especially if you had a job. Do you really think you could live like that?”

She mulled this over in her head. She thought about the life she had been living for all these years, how she had felt like there was always something missing within herself, like a chunk of her had been bitten off when her parents had died. But here, in the comfort of the darkness within the presence of Mercer, it felt like that piece had been restored. It was like he had said, Mercer completed her as much as she completed him.

“You could turn me.” she said, the words turning to ice as they left her mouth.

Mercer seemed to freeze where he sat, his shoulders going rigid and his face expressionless. She thought about herself, the prospect of becoming a Vampire and feeding off blood for the rest of her life. At first it seemed to repulse her, making her throat contract as if she was going to be sick just at the thought, but then she thought of the life she would have with Mercer. He needed her, as much as she needed him. She knew without her, Mercer might cross the line between man and monster, and without him, her life would return to normal, restored to its original torment with the Greysmiths.

“Don’t ask that of me, Zoe,” he said finally, unable to bring his eyes to hers.

“I refuse to go back to the way things were, Mercer. You have made me stronger. Made me realize there is still a spark within me that can fuel my escape from my parents. I’m not ashamed to ask it of you to help me, just as you should not be ashamed for what you are. If turning me into a Vampire is the best-case scenario then it’s the path I wish to take.”

“I’m not ashamed, Zoe. I’m proud of what I am. Being a Vampire means a lot more than feeding on the life-essence of others. It’s about responsibility and taking up the mantle of being an immortal. It’s a gift. But where I enjoy being the way that my kind are, there are those that don’t. Those who grow to detest the ones who turned them, such as Madeleine. The look in her eyes when she is around us all, the expression after she feeds. It is one of self-hatred and disgust. I couldn’t do that to you. I’d rather die than see you like that.”

She turned to him, his eyes as cold as steel as they gazed off into the darkness. “If you see it as a gift then why do you not want me to be like you?”

He took in a breath to steady himself, Zoe knowing he did not need it for his lungs.

“I do want you to be like me. More than anything. Like I said, I came here with selfish intentions. Even after the first night I wished to bite you and let you drink from my blood. It would make me worse than evil if I did that to you just so I could selfishly be with you for eternity, but I wanted it all the same. I knew it might make you hate me though, if you thought I had turned you into a monster. It’s that thought that’s helping me through denying you the bite, because it would be so easy for me to say yes. To grip you to me and turn you.”

Eternity sounded long when spoken with his tongue. She couldn’t place why, but when Mercer spoke of Vampirism and eternity it had a strange edge to it, like it was something he had come to terms with long ago, whereas Zoe had not. Eternity was exactly what it sounded like when spoken by a human, a concept. Something which was inevitably unobtainable and to a human brain simply unfathomable. But to Mercer, to an immortal being who did not age, it was something he saw in his future, with time and nature having no effect on his longevity at all. Mercer saw eternity much like humans see upcoming events on a calendar, the time nearing to it ever closer. A time stamp that would eventually come to pass.

But though she could not truly grasp the true weight of the word, Zoe felt her chest ignite with a strange buzz of excitement when she thought of spending that eternity with Mercer. His blood yearned for hers, and her body yearned for his. She now realized that her mind had been set since the very day they had met, secretly and subconsciously so, knowing that he was there to take her from the life she hated and give her one anew.

She rose from the swing seat and strolled onto the soft grass drenched in moonlight, letting her chest fill with the cold, damp air that had slowly begun to settle on the land. The air held many thoughts of her past, remembering the many times she had sat amongst her friends in total silence, always having felt like she was an outsider. She thought about her family, with their toxic words and their beatings they would inflict upon her, breaking down her spirit one piece at a time.

She had to escape. There was no two ways about it. After tonight, she knew she would no longer be Zoe Greysmith from the small town of Austell, whether she left with Mercer or not. Her mind was decided, and she was sure her face portrayed this with how Mercer looked up at her when she turned to him.

“I’m leaving tonight, Mercer. I won’t stay here a minute longer. Eternity is a concept I don’t truly understand. How could I? But right now, knowing that I have the chance to spend it with you, it makes me feel like I finally belong somewhere. I want to be with you, and if that means that I become a Vampire like you then so be it.”

He seemed taken aback for a moment, like he had been expecting a completely different reaction than the one she had given him, but after a long pause, a smile began to rise on his face. Not sly or teasing, but true and warm, teetering on the edge of glee before he too rose from the swing and moved to join her where she stood. As he reached her, he lifted a hand so that it hung between them, Zoe taking it in her own and feeling the familiar numbness in her skin from the icy coldness of his own.

“Having you by my side for eternity, Zoe Merridew, would make this monster very happy,” he grinned, his fangs slightly jutting from where his canines would usually be situated.

“I have lived with monsters my entire life, Mercer, and you, I’m afraid, do not fit the bill,” she said, reaching her other hand up to grip his face as she placed a long and passionate kiss upon his lips.

He ripped himself from her then and began strolling toward the void of the forest, turning back when he reached the threshold of shadow. For a moment she truly thought he was about to disappear into the world without a second glance, but his eyes met hers with a teasing glimmer, a half-smile and crescent dimple building on his face.

“You coming?” he asked, casually.

“Where?”

“Eternity.”

And with that a smile grew on her own face, letting the magnetism between them finally have control, walking across the stretch of moonlit park before finding his hand in hers and disappearing into the darkness, leaving behind the town of Austell and the family she despised.