Waiting for the End

I stood just outside the door to Rhage's apartment for the longest time. It was still only half past five. He'd still be sleeping and who was I to bang on the door and wake him? What an attention whore I was. I had half a mind to just jump back to my plane of existence and leave him be.

I could see it now. All that would have to be done is me going up to the roof like old times. Like back when I was happy with Eric and we'd drink champagne and cuddle. I could just sit on the edge of the roof and wait, then when the time was right, just ease off the side and fly, straight into the pavement at 80 miles an hour. No way I'd heal that like a fucking superhero.

Then, I'd be dead for real. Forever.

That thought should not, under any circumstances, be compelling enough to make you smile.

But I did.

I took my hand away from the door and gave serious thought to going through with the aforementioned plan. This way there would be no one for me to have to reply on. There would be no way for Eric to bring me back. It's a hell of a lot harder to die when you're already dead.

It was now or never. I step away from this door and the decision is made.

But my feet wouldn't let me move backward. Of course, upon hearing of my plan for self-destruction, limbs would oppose helping. How helpful. I sighed and dug in my purse for the key ring, realizing that Rhage had given me a set of his on my last visit. This was in ways less obnoxious but more intrusive. Bah, bad me. Bad, bad me.

I opened the door very quietly and shut it behind me. The deadbolt scraping shut sounded like two cars colliding. I stopped and listened.

No sound.

Rhage was a heavy sleeper anyway. I'd have to jump on him to wake him up.

I tiptoed toward the bedroom, one inch at a time. I cursed the hardwood floors for making my shoes squeak. When I made it down the hallway, his door was partly open. My heart pounded at the sight of his still form, he'd wake up any second now and tell me to leave. I knew it.

But he stayed still, even as I stood over him, hand stretched out just inches from his massive shoulder.

No. Intrusive. Bad. He'd be angry.
I grimaced and crept back into the hallway.

I found my way to the kitchen and opened the freezer. There behind the bags of frozen veggies was my stash of Italian roast. Thank God it was still there. Ground up beans of salvation, is what they were.

A few minutes later I took a mug of black coffee and sat at the breakfast nook, leaning over the table and placing my head in my hands. Even though it was marginally warm in his apartment, I was still freezing. The steam felt wonderful on my skin. It was probably left over from the shooting last night, where death would keep reminding me that he'd almost won again and again. The smell wafted upward and filled me with a sense of calm and normality. I'd been drinking coffee for thirteen years. It was the last normal thing left. Coffee had been around for a thousand years and would most certainly be around long after we were all just dust on the window sill.

I closed my eyes, remembering the innocence of my teens. How easy it had been. How much I'd complained then when things had never been complicated. Boo, my parents are mean. Boo, I hate cooking. Boo, math is hard. That was before the killing, the jet-setting around the world. The kidnapping. The torture. The getting shot. The vampires. The complicated relationships.

"Cady?"

My head snapped up. Shit, I'd nodded off.
"Hi." I attempted a smile, but it was probably more of a grimace. Smiling was very hard when you were so very close to the edge.

Rhage's hair was rather mussed. He was wearing boxers and nothing else. Obviously he hadn't been expecting me to show up. Whoops.

He walked over and I stood up and hugged him tightly, taking in the scent that was Rhage, the beat of his heart, the hot skin of his neck against my cheek. One of his large hands cradled the small of my back, the other at the base of my neck. He gave the best hugs.

When he took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye, I blushed, having forgotten how just how handsome he was. I'd given him every part of me, many times. He was a generous lover, but that didn't mean I hadn't returned the favour whenever possible.

I wasn't afraid of him like I was Eric.

"What are you doing here, Cady? Is something wrong?" He looked genuinely concerned.

I felt my weak smile crack and it took all I had to hold myself together. This was not the time for crying. There was a story to tell.

He tried to pull me into another hug, but I backed away from him and overshot, falling backward against the counter. The cup of now lukewarm coffee sloshed inside its mug.

"If you touch me right now, I'll cry. Can't cry yet. Not.." I stopped and took a deep breath. I was speaking gibberish. Rhage looked almost frightened.

"What happened?" Rhage asked again.

I pulled myself up onto the black granite counter top and took a long sip of the coffee. Now that it was only warm, it needed sugar. I grimaced and put the mug back down.

"Remember when I told you every last person who'd wanted to kill me was dead?"

"Yes...?"

"Well, that wasn't accurate. Eddie and I were walking back-"

"Eddie?" Rhage looked confused. I'd been gone a long time and there was much to cover.

"My, uh... well... he's not really like a boyfriend... But see, Eric and I broke up two months ago and I moved out and then I met Eddie. I got mugged in an alleyway-"

"God damn it, again?!" He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the short mane into something resembling the feathers on a macaw. It made him look all the more charming.

"Yes, again. There were three men. I killed one, incapacitated another, stabbed the third. The second man got up and got me in a choke hold. Just my lights went out, someone got the guy off me and when I looked up, there was Eddie slamming the guy into the side of a building. It was actually quite impressive.

"From then on, we hung out, went on a few dates. Nothing serious, but he helped me forget some of the... bad feelings left over from the separation with Eric.
Then, the other night, Eddie and I went to a concert and when it got out, there was a guy standing in the crowd with a ski mask." I stopped, took another breath.

Rhage walked over and put his hands on my knees. He knew what was coming next. We were eye level and I looked away.

"I got shot from three feet away. Through-and-through wound through the right side of my chest."

Rhage's eyebrows knitted together and he opened his mouth to say something. I quieted him my my finger to his lips. If I stopped now, I'd never be able to begin again.

"Everything turned to chaos. There were screams, people scattering everywhere. I fell to the ground and whacked my head on the pavement. It hurt, but not as much as it should have. I couldn't breathe. Everything was blurred as a crowd gathered around me and Eddie shouted something to someone and then told me.. something. I wanted to get up but my body wouldn't cooperate. Someone was pressing on the gunshot wound and it hurt worse. I was coughing up bloody froth. Everything went black and..."

Rhage looked enthralled and horrified at the same time.
"And what? What happened?"

"And.." This was the hard part, the honesty segment, "I had never felt so relieved. Finally, this was all over. No more fighting. No more hiding. No more dodging Eric's calls and missing yours. No more being blinded by flashbulbs or spending hours in a make up chair. No more pretending to like executives of companies. No more... No more anything. I was free. The last page had been turned! There was nothing anyone could do. No reboot button, no refresh, no skipping from here to there and suddenly everything's just okay."
My voice cracked and I wiped savagely at the tears falling down my cheeks.

"Then I woke up."

"What, it was a dream? You came here to tell me about a dream?" Rhage raised an eyebrow.

"No! It was NOT A FUCKING DREAM!" I was surprised at myself, shouting at the one man I could still trust. I reached out and hugged him again, then wiped the tears off of his neck. "I... I'm sorry. But no, it wasn't a dream. It was all real." I lifted up my shirt and showed him the smooth red mark underneath my right breast. Yesterday that had been a gaping hole. Yesterday my ribs had been obliterated and there was a tear through the bottom of my lung.

"Then how are you alive?" He brushed a finger over the angry welt before withdrawing. I pulled my shirt back down and glared at my hands.

"Eric brought me back. Somehow Eddie managed to drag me into the lobby and up the elevator with no one calling the police. Then... I'm not sure what happened, but two hours later I woke up with a bandage and the realization that I was ten steps closer to being a vampire.

"Yes, yes, I know I'm genetically a pretrans over here. The thought of spending an eternity with Eric, in a world where I have no friends, no one to talk to, and people still doing their best to murder me... It's a miserable thought. And Eric just won't let me die. We had a very serious talk the last time something like this happened. I told him not to resuscitate me, that I couldn't be what he is... He agreed. But he lied.

"Now we're bonded. And... the sun hurts my eyes, and my teeth hurt and I'm irritable and.. I heal like a vampire and blood is appetizing, and... I'm so close. There's a line and I'm tripping over it. Eric... I don't... I can't.

"Rhage, I'm terrified. And that's the reason I'm here. I know you can't magically reverse what's going on over there, but maybe I can spend some time with you until things blow over... Maybe I can stay long enough to go through the... the.. thing. If you want me to."

Rhage looked uncertain, as though he believed me but didn't want to. Maybe he was expecting other female's company. Maybe he was married to someone else now that I'd run away. I'd just barged into his apartment seeking refuge from my world, expecting it all to go my way just because.

"Sorry, how thoughtless of me... I'm so... You know what, I'm gonna.... I'll show myself out." I'd never felt more embarrassed or rejected. Assuming really does make you an ass.

I slid off the counter and Rhage stayed exactly where he was, which meant I was right up against him from knee to shoulder. I had to crane my neck to look into his solemn eyes.

"You just told me you got shot and almost died. You are not going anywhere." He brought his hands up to my neck and I felt a slight tremor in them. He pressed his lips gently against mine, staying up against me for a good five seconds.

I pulled myself back up onto the counter to look him in the eye easier. He was two inches taller than Eric, but so much more approachable. Maybe because he had normal emotions. Sort of.

"What do you mean I'm not going anywhere?" I asked slowly.

He leaned up against my knees and I took the hint to move them apart so he could lean between them. He put his hands halfway up each thigh and gave me a hard stare. I didn't know what to make of it. Was he pissed at me? Had I said something terrible?

"I mean, you are not leaving and going back to be someone's undead slave," he responded vehemently. There was venom poisoning the ocean blue of his eyes. I attempted moving backward a little, but his hands held strong. That reminded me way too much of my run-ins with the fairy. The one I'd only talked about in abstract terms.

"Uhm... Okay, that's decided, I'm staying for however long.. but uh.. please, uh..." Oh no, what if it was Xavier? What if I hadn't actually killed him? What if he was finally here to end me? Why now? How had I been so stupid?! Why hadn't I noticed earlier? This was a mistake!

I started panicking, tightened up and had trouble breathing, thinking I was going to die, I'd come so far just to die, Oh God, I'm dead. Tears were streaming down my face and I'd curled in on myself, trying to protect my organs. My chest constricted. I clamped my legs together in pointless hopes of keeping his prying hands from ruining me again. I wouldn't win this time. My vision had gone blurry and I noticed suddenly that Rhage wasn't touching me at all, that my legs weren't broken, that my intestines were still within the confines of my abdominal cavity.

It took a long moment for my breathing to slow and my vision to clear. Rhage looked horrified. I was instantly relieved and NOW more embarrassed than I'd ever thought possible.

As it turns out, it doesn't matter how fast you heal on the outside, on an emotional level it could take much longer.

No one had seen what Rhage had just seen. No one.
That had been the good thing about traveling constantly. I could just retire to my bland hotel room and have panic attacks there. No one would know. No one would care. It was private.

How was I going to explain this?

"I.... Uh..." My voice sounded faraway and childish. "I think I have to go now," I whispered. Tears of embarrassment pricked my eyes. It hurt being this raw and emotional. I had to rebuild my shell before everything poured out again.

I slid off the granite counter top and past Rhage, who was still struck silent by the prior events. How was I going to explain this?

"Cady," he said quietly, "what just happened?"

I stopped and stayed staring at the stainless steel fridge. I couldn't turn around and face his looks of pity. I just couldn't.

"Remember when I told you about that fairy? Xavier?"

I felt Rhage move a few steps closer. "Yes, the one that tortured you?"

I nodded. "Xavier could shift into any form he pleased. He didn't just torture me. He didn't just mutilate me. He raped me. Not just once. He followed me around Europe when I was modeling this fall. He'd show up at photo shoots. He'd hold me hostage in my hotel room until the next appointment. He would rip and tear at me, gag me so my screams couldn't be heard, then rape me. He'd break my bones one by one and then he would rape me. Because of some fucked up, perverse twist of nature, because of the vampire blood in my veins, I'd still react and climax every single fucking time, despite how disgusted I was with my body, how much I wished he could just put me out of my misery. I'd pass out from the pain but he'd always rouse me back and start again.

"One day, I got away from him and had lunch with a fellow model. On the way back, I got myself an iron dagger and that night I murdered him. I cut him into little pieces, stabbed out his eyes, cut his head away from the rest of his body, pulled out his heart, did every last thing I could think of to make sure he was dead.

"Then I went back to work. Every day or every other day, I'll suddenly think I see his reflection in a store front, or I'll wake up and see a shadow in the corner and think it's really him, or there'd be a car following me on the freeway for more than five minutes, or even just a brunette man walking behind me on 5th avenue. I'll ... the attacks are brought on by a lot of things, but I've always been able to hide them. You're the only one who's seen. You're the only one who knows why.

"I thought I killed him. I left him to rot. He's been buried in a Siberian forest for two months now. He's dead, but I'm still not sure if he's really gone..."

When my voice gave out, my knees did. I ended up sitting awkwardly on the floor, hugging myself and wishing the cold would get out of my bones. I listened to the thump of Rhage's bare feet on the hardwood and took a shaky breath. He went down on my knees in front of me, hands sitting very, very lightly on my shoulders. He looked astonished, like he couldn't think of what to say.

"Can... Is it alright if I hug you?" he asked. I nodded, scooting closer and getting into his lap. He didn't so much hug as encase me, grip tight but not like steel, body warm but not on fire. He was a world of difference from any man I had ever met. He realized it wasn't so much about vengeance as it was about trying to move on.

We stayed like that for a long time before I finally leaned back in his arms and had the courage to look into his eyes. It wasn't often Rhage looked totally serious.

"I will always be here for you. I will always listen. I will always be supportive. I will be your rock," he told me in a hushed voice. He took a hand from my back and cupped my cheek. "You can lean on me until you're stable. I won't let go unless you ask."

Now I was the one struck dumb, mouth opening and closing with nothing to say. I felt the truth in every word.

"Thank you," I said.

I had never meant those words more than I did then. With that, we got up off the floor.