The Poison in Your Blood

I’m fucking exhausted. It’s like, 5 in the fucking morning. I’m standing in Austin’s kitchen drinking a cup of coffee while he puts my suitcase in the car so we can make the trip up to see Blair. Blair lives a good ten hours from here so we decided to take off early so we could get there around lunch time and not have to stop in a hotel. I hate to stop in a hotel when we could just drive through.

It’s been a week since I really talked to Jonathan. He sent me a couple text messages and I ignored them. I know I need to sit down with him and tell him to let me go, but I just haven’t had the strength to do it yet. I sent him one text to say next time he’s in L.A. I might like to see him but it depends on when it is.

Austin comes in and looks me over in my jeans and my jacket. It’s cold at this time of morning. I’m not trying to freeze my ass. I hand him a cup of coffee and he takes a sip. He’s got on a jacket that doesn’t look nearly as warm as mine and a t-shirt and jeans. He looks pretty amazing, like always. I don’t know how anybody could look as good as he does at five in the morning.

“Ready, babe?” he asks. I frown.

“As I’m ever going to be,” I say.

He laughs and pours his coffee into a travel cup. He takes my cup and pours it into a separate one for me and hands it back. I’m sure he’ll force me to eat something along the way but hopefully its nothing nasty. I could settle for an egg McMuffin.

“Blair is so excited to meet you,” I say and roll my eyes. “It’s disgusting. I told her I’d be coming up with my boyfriend and she flipped out, going on about how wonderful and how she was going to make steaks and whatever.”

“Sounds like fun,” he says and laughs.

I frown but nod in agreement. It will probably be a lot of fun so long as Fred stays away from me. I say a silent prayer that Austin doesn’t find out about what happened with Fred because as much as it’d like for him to kill him I don’t want Blair to be upset.

“I have a surprise for you,” he says as we make our way to his garage.

“What kind of surprise?” I ask with a wide smile.

“Nothing too big,” he says and opens the garage door. He pushes the button on his key ring and the headlights on a black convertible Corvette flash. The thing is absolutely gorgeous.

I about piss myself looking at it and then I look up at him with wide eyes. I’ve never been this close to this beautiful of a car without feeling like I shouldn’t touch it. I run my hand over the door carefully.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a Vet?!” I say.

“I don’t drive it much,” he says and shrugs like its perfectly normal that he just has this car in his garage. “I should, I spent enough fucking money on it. I had to have it altered so I could get into the damn thing.”

I don’t answer him, I’m already in the car. I’m running my hands over the dash board and the seats and I’m just in love with this thing. I want it for myself. I can see him laughing at me but I don’t give a fuck. I get to ride to Arizona in a Corvette. A convertible black gorgeous Corvette.

It takes him a minute to get into the car and get the engine turned over but once its started I can hear its engine and I’m feeling all kinds of sexual. I could take pictures lying on the hood of this car in a red corset and hooker shoes and I’d be happy. That kind of sounds like a fun Valentine’s day present…for both of us. I could make a baby on the hood of this thing and be happy.

“Let’s get on the road, baby,” he says and pulls out of the garage and onto the street. The garage door closes behind us and we head out towards Arizona.

It’s a long drive and we go through periods of laughing and having a good time and we go through periods of being bored to hell. We stop a couple times for gas, and on one trip to a gas station I stop in to pee and end up spending a ton of money on junk food like little donuts and chips and soda. Stuff I don’t need and is only going to make my ass fat.

I come out of the gas station with a pair of sunglasses pulled over my eyes and my bag of goodies and walk out to the Corvette. Austin is staring at me and I feel a little uncomfortable. The wind blows and my bangs fly to the side and I’m suddenly grateful I decided on a pony tail. Its getting into the afternoon now and its warm out.

He puts the gas pump back on its thing and watches me come to the car. When I get there I feel a little weird, I can feel him staring through his sunglasses. “What?” I ask as I get into the car.

“I was thinking how pretty you look,” he says and slides into the car.

I stare at him with my mouth open. It was such a cheesy cliché thing to say and yet it still made me feel all fucking warm inside. I have to look away to get the stupid look off my face and I take a breath.

“You are such a liar,” I say and open my bottle of Coca-Cola.

“You are beautiful, Lana,” he says with some slight laughter. “Someday you’ll see it. Why are you so down on yourself anyways?”

I bite my lip. I don’t know if I want to go into it all. A lot of it has to do with Jonathan and the guy I dated before him. But is it normal to tell your new boyfriend about all the shit your ex did to you? I shake my head and take a sip from my soda. Its sweet and cold and for a minute I feel really refreshed.

“I won’t judge you,” he says.

“What’s saying you won’t?” I ask.

“I don’t think the guy that doesn’t have a heart beat is a good person to judge anybody,” he says and laughs a little.

I guess I have to agree with that. I find it odd that he never thinks it strange that he just casually talks about not having a heart beat or about eating murders for dinner. But hey, it all works out I guess. Its still about three hours until we get to Blair’s and it probably won’t do me a lot of good to shut him out after I’ve asked him all kinds of things about him.

“I…had a really bad relationship before I met you,” I say and shrug. “And the guy before him was worse.”

“Worse how?” he asks.

“He was horrible. I only dated him for a couple months, and he talked me into sleeping with him and whatever. Once we got intimate, he got mean you know. It was always like, ‘you aren’t good enough. You aren’t even attractive, I only stay with you because I feel sorry for you’ shit like that. So after a while I got tired of it and I stopped answering his phone calls and whatever. I was like, I don’t need that in my life,” I say. I look over at Austin and I think I should be glad he’s got his sunglasses on our I’d be cowering against my seat. I can the tension of anger in his jaw line and he’s very focused on keeping it under control.

“Guys like that piss me off,” he says. “I don’t see the point in treating a woman like that. If not for a woman he wouldn’t even be here.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I say. I open up my bag of chips. “I left him because I was tired of being put down and I didn’t love him anyways. Last I heard he was married to some girl and they have a couple kids. Don’t know how he treats her. Then, a few years ago, maybe 6 or 7 years ago, I met Jon.”

“He’s the one who called the other day, right?”

“Yea,” I say and eat a chip. I have to think about how to tell this story without it making me look like a whore. “I met him at a restaurant or something. And he was working on his TV show and I was kind of like, you know…I don’t know. I was young and really stupid. I started sleeping with him really early on.” I have a feeling I sound like a whore so I pretty much failed at that.

“He’s an actor?” he asks.

“Oh yea…it’s Jonathan Rhys Meyers,” I say and shrug. There is a pause.

“You’ve made out good then,” he says. I can feel my cheeks turn red.

“I promise I’m not just a star fucker,” I say.

“I trust you,” he says after a second and he gives me a smile. “Even if you were, I don’t figure you’d have stuck around once you found out about me just to say you fucked me.” He laughs then and I feel so much better about this whole thing.

“You are probably right,” I say. “Well anyways, Jonathan and I had a turbulent relationship if I’m being honest. It was all about sex and whatever, but then he started calling me up at all hours of the night and day. He’d be drunk and ranting about whatever was bothering him at the time and I’d be there listening always. I fell in love with him and he never could love me back. For a while he pretended to care about me, but it was always obvious that he didn’t care at all about me. He just wanted an easy place to put all his problems and his dick.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve had some bad luck with guys.”

“It was my fault with Jonathan. When we started out I knew he didn’t love me. I knew he never would, yet I let myself fall for him and I spent years and years being his go to play thing. After a while it was because I loved him and I hoped if I stuck around he would eventually love me. It never happened, to this day he doesn’t love me he just likes to play around with me. He’s always done that. I hadn’t talked to him in over a year when I started sleeping with you, and now he’s in my apartment trying to go out and ‘have lunch’” I say.

“He never met Blair?” he asks.

“Oh god no. I told him once to come out here with me and I’d introduce him to Blair. He asked me what made me think he’d want to meet a woman that wasn’t even my mother. He disregarded completely that my mother was dead and Blair is the closest thing I’ve got. He was such a jerk about it that I told him I never wanted to speak to him again. It about about a week or two later than I told him I thought we’d be better off as friends.”

Austin nods and adjusts himself in the seat of the car a little. I think he’d tired of driving, it’s been so many hours in the car. “I guess that would be a good reason for you to be so down on yourself. The better question is what I can do to change that?”

“I’ve already been amazing enough,” I say and push some of my hair out of my face. My phone rings in a text message and I frown before digging it out of my pocket.

How much longer until you get here?

It’s from Blair. I type a quick reply back and tell her we are almost there and then I shove three chips into my mouth. I’m thinking I need a candy bar but I don’t want to look like a pig in front of him. I think about it for a minute and then shrug and open up my peanut butter cups.

“Shit I haven’t had a peanut butter cup in forever,” he says and laughs. I look up at him.

“You never even looked at me, how do you know I have candy?”

“I can smell it,” he says.

I should have known. He could smell that there had been a man in my house a week later. He’s like a fucking blood hound. “I see,” I say. He laughs and puts his hand on my knee. “Do you want one? Can you eat one?”

“I can eat anything,” he says.

“Well! I don’t know anything about vampires. The only bit I know is from old horror stories and Twilight. In Twilight the vampires didn’t eat anything or drink anything.”

“In Twilight the vampires sparkled,” he says. I give that a moment of thought. Then I realize we’ve been driving for ten hours in the sunlight with the top down.

“…That’s right,” I say. “How is it that you aren’t sparkling or burning up or anything. You are in the sunlight just like it’s normal.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear in fairy tales, Lana,” he says. “The sun won’t hurt me.”

“So do vampires just walk around in the sun all the time?”

“Pretty much. I think all the legends came because vampires don’t make a point of going out and killing people in broad daylight, we only do that in the dark. So at night or early morning.”

I cringe at the thought of vampires roaming the earth all the time. Then I wonder how many of them I’ve encountered throughout my lifetime. Probably more than I’d like to count. I hear him laugh at me and then he takes my hand in his and gives it a little squeeze.

“It’s not a big deal, Lana. We are just like you, except we drink people’s blood,” he says. I know he said that on purpose and I smack his arm.

“Shut up! Why are you trying to make me sick!?” I squeal. He laughs out loud.

“Because it’s so easy,” he says. “So, Blair is going to expect me to eat isn’t she?”

“She doesn’t know you are a vampire, so presumably yes, she is going to expect you to eat. No worries, Blair is a carnivore. We’ll probably eat steak six times. Do you want a peanut butter cup or not?” I ask and offer him one. To my surprise he takes it and eats it. “What about you, Austin? Why did you and your wife split up?”

He gets quiet for a minute and thinks about it. I probably shouldn’t have asked but I had to. I didn’t want to be the only person in this car that was vulnerable. I watch as he thinks about it for a minute and he sighs.

“It’s a long complicated story, Lana,” he says.

“We’ve got two hours,” I say.

“She didn’t like it when I changed. I guess I can’t blame her, things got complicated for a long time.”

“So she didn’t do it to you?”

“No,” he says after a minute. “She didn’t. It was on a tour,” he says. “A girl on a tour. For the first few weeks I was still out on the road, but it was so difficult because the whole process took a couple days and it was all just very painful and…I don’t know,” he says.

“Oh,” I say.

“The whole band could tell something was wrong, but even I didn’t really know what was going on. I just didn’t feel right at first and you know, as the days kind of passed it got worse and worse. They were all sure I’d relapsed because it was right after I’d gotten out of rehab the first time. Then finally the…I don’t know what you call it…transformation…that sounds so cheesy,” he says and laughs, “It became pretty apparent to me what had happened. I did some research and tried to steer clear of the rest of the guys.”

“So is that what happened with the band?”

“Yes, and no,” he says. “A lot was going on before that happened. Stuff that I don’t think I need to share.”

I nod in agreement. He’s entitled to some secrets I guess. I know I have mine. Besides, I don’t think I’m up for the whole ugly story anyways. It probably isn’t one any fan wants to hear, and I have to admit I was only a fan a few weeks ago.

“But once this happened of course it made things a lot worse. You know, there was a lot to worry about, and then I found myself needing to go back into rehab and the whole thing just kind of blew up. I don’t really like to talk about the band issue…it’s another long complicated story and it doesn’t resolve anything.”

“I guess you are right,” I say and stretch my arms up over my head. I’m more than ready to get to Blair’s.

“But anyways, my wife…I got home from the tour and obviously I was a mess. The first thing she noticed, like you my dear, was the eyes. It scared the hell out of her the first time she noticed it. I mean, scared the hell out of her. Looking back it was kind of funny,” he says with a smile. “She was screaming and everything.”

“That’s kind of fun,” I say. Even when I was terrified of him I didn’t scream but the for the night he actually told me he was a vampire.

“At the time I was couldn’t figure out what the fuck her problem was. I hadn’t fed in a few days so they were pretty dark then she went to hug me, I could smell her. That was the weirdest part of everything, how much stronger every smell was. It was all separated; I could smell her perfume and her soap and her shampoo, her skin, her hair, her blood. All of it. It was so strange.”

“It sounds strange,” I say and cringe a little bit. “Is that how I smell?”

“Yes,” he says without hesitation.

“Not sure how that makes me feel,” I say.

“You smell nice,” he says. “All of your smells are nice.”

“That’s relieving.”

He laughs. “She was so scared and so uncomfortable and it went on like that for a couple weeks and finally I knew I had to tell her. After all she was my wife, and quite honestly she was in a lot of danger.”

“Bet that went well,” I mumble.

“Not at all,” he says and laughs. “She flipped her lid. At first she didn’t believe me. She freaked out and she was like ‘This shit isn’t a fucking joke, Austin. Are you back on your shit? Do you need to get back into rehab?’ she was pacing back and forth in the kitchen. I remember how mad she was, she was furious that I’d tell her such a big story over something so simple or whatever. I was like…no I’m not kidding.”

I can picture his ex-wife pacing around shouting and not believing. I didn’t want to believe it when he told me. Now I understand why he said I needed to see it because I wouldn’t believe him. Honestly it’s a little hard to believe. “She was angry?”

“Oh she was pissed. For like an hour she refused to believe me. She was sure I was back on the pills, and for a minute I wished I was so I could just shut her out. Then she sat down at the table with me, real serious and she said ‘I think we need to get you some real help. Some therapy or something, because this has gotten out of hand.’ That really pissed me off,” he laughs.

“I can imagine,” I say.

“Well, it was really early in this whole thing. She was lucky she could run…” he says. He’s quiet for a minute and I can tell it’s a painful memory.

I reach out and run my hand down his arm gently. I feel bad for bringing it up at all. I had a couple of shitty relationships but I never tried to kill my ex. I take his hand in mine and hold it tightly.

“I mean…you know now I can move pretty fast, but she took off and she was screaming, and I heard her car and the tires squeal. It was so bad. I’m surprised I didn’t get the divorce papers right then. After that it just went downhill for a long time. She was always afraid of me and we fought a lot. We’d already had a lot of problems because of my drug problem and what not, then this happened and it only got worse. Then the drug problem came back and that was it for her. She couldn’t do it anymore and I didn’t blame her. We split and she and I haven’t really had a lot to do with each other. I think in a lot of ways she still never got over that one…attack…you know,” he says.

“I…I’m sorry I brought it up,” I say in a whisper.

“Hey, no worries. It is an unfortunate memory, but it is what it is,” he says and shrugs. “But she hasn’t told anybody, she’s been good about the secret and understanding that what happened wasn’t really my fault. She understands. She just can’t deal with it. I haven’t had a real relationship since then,” he says.

“Well, I’m here, and I can deal with it. It just took me some getting used to,” I say. “But today you are going to meet my adoptive mother and you are a part of my family and my life now. I promise,” I say.

When we finally pull up in front of Blair’s house she runs out with excitement. She’s a tall blond with a figure like you wouldn’t believe. She’s gorgeous and even though she’s over 50 you couldn’t tell it by looking at her. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees the car and her mouth opens. I open up the door before Austin even has the car in park and I jump out and throw myself into Blair’s arms. I’ve missed her so much.

“Oh Blair!” I cry and hang onto her for a long minute. She hugs me back just as tightly and then she pulls me away and looks me over in my jeans and t-shirt.

“Lana! You look wonderful, honey!” she says and hugs me again. Then she turns her attention back to the car. I turn to look and see Austin getting out of the driver’s side and putting the top up on it. “What a car…” Blair says to herself.

“Isn’t it a beauty?” I ask her. Austin comes up to where we are standing and I give him a smile. He smiles back and Blair looks up at him. She’s probably a good four inches shorter than him. “Blair, this is my boyfriend Austin. Austin, this is my mom Blair,” I say.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Austin,” Blair says and she gives him a hug. I can see him tense for a second before hugging her back in a friendly way. Blair is a hugger; it’s something you have to get used to.

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Blair,” he says. “Lana told me about the wonderful thing you did for her.”

“I remember when Sarah passed away…” Blair says and takes a breath. “I just couldn’t stand the idea of Lana being in foster care for the rest of her life. So I got myself a lawyer and she came to stay with me.”

“That’s a big thing, to take in another kid,” Austin says. Blair thinks about it for a second and shrugs.

“It was what had to be done. Lana is a beautiful girl and she deserved love and people she could trust, not a foster home with people who didn’t care a bit about her.”

I smile lightly. “I’m very grateful for everything Blair did for me,” I say. “Is Fred here?” I ask nervously.

“Oh no, Fred went out to get some charcoal for dinner. You like steak don’t you, Austin?” she asks.

“Who doesn’t love a good steak?” He says with a smile.

“Well good,” Blair says and smiles widely. “Come on in and I’ll show you your room. Hope you two are pretty serious, I only got one guest room ready for you,” she adds as she turns to walk into the house. I look up at Austin and smile a little bit of an embarrassed smile. He laughs lightly and we follow Blair into the house.

“Oh you got new furniture,” I say as we pass through the living room.

“Oh yea, I got it a couple months ago actually. The stuff I had before was falling apart,” she says. “Annalise! Come out here!” she calls.

Annalise is Fred’s daughter. She was four when Blair married Fred and Blair adopted her too. She’s 15 now, it’s been 11 years since Blair and Fred were married, and I can remember babysitting Annalise while Blair and Fred went on their date nights. She was a sweet kid and she’s grown up to be a sweet teenager with a streak of rebellion.

I hear a couple doors slam and then I see Anna coming down the hall way. I look up at Austin and smile. “She’s my sister,” I say in a whisper. He nods. She’s dressed in black pants and a belt with studs with a black tank top with spaghetti thin straps. She looks like some kind of cross between punk rock and Goth and basically scary as hell. But she’s beautiful anyways, despite the dark burgundy almost purple color of her hair and lipstick that matches.

“What do you want, mom?” she asks.

“Say hello to Lana and her boyfriend,” Blair says.

Annalise gives us a half hearted wave. Blair glares at her and she sighs. “Mom! You are so humiliating!” she cries.

“Oh I know, giving your sister a hug goes against your image,” Blair says in a mocking tone. “But you know you want to do it anyways.”

Anna looks at us and when she notices Austin her mouth drops open and she looks at me. “Lana…you brought…” she’s at a loss for words. I hadn’t really mentioned to Blair who my boyfriend was, because she wasn’t likely to know anyways. But I had kind of rubbed off my love of Hinder on Annalise and she knew well who all of them were. “He’s your boyfriend?” she whispers.

“Yea, why don’t you say hi to him?” I say through my teeth. She flips her hair back and puts her hand out towards him.

“Hi! I’m Annalise!” she says and he shakes her hand with a laugh. Blair is staring at us all with confusion. “Mom! It’s Austin!” she says like Blair should know this.

“Okay…” Blair says.

Austin laughs lightly. “It’s nice to meet you, Annalise,” he says.

“You can call me Anna,” she says. She looks at me and she’s dropped her tough girl wall and she hugs me tightly around my neck. I’m happy she’s about my height, unlike Blair who I have to stretch to hug. She pulls away a little and catches my eye and I feel like I’ve been stabbed in my chest. I put my hands on her face and look her in the eye.

“Anna, are you okay?” I whisper. She doesn’t answer me. “We’ll talk later.” She nods once.

“Why don’t you go on and get their bags out of their car. You can’t miss the thing, it’s a big black Corvette,” Blair says. “I’m going to show them their room before your father gets back.

“A Corvette?!” Anna says and looks us over again before composing herself long enough to walk past us and then she takes off running to see the Vet. Blair shakes her head.

“That girl…” she says.

“She’s at that age,” I say and smile. The truth is I went through that phase too. I had my belly button pierced for a while and my parents never knew about it. I’ve since grown out of that phase of my life.

“She wants to get her nose pierced. She wants that for her birthday. Fred is having a tantrum,” she says. I bite my lip. “Anyways, here is your room,” she says and opens up the door to her guest room. The bed is made in a beautiful dark red comforter with red pillows. “Anna helped pick out the stuff for this room. She said she thought you’d like it, Lana.”

“It’s really pretty,” I say. I look at Austin and nudge him in the side.

“It’s nice,” he says. I glare at him. “Thank you for everything.”

“Oh no problem. I hope you both will be comfortable here.”

“Blair, you worry too much,” I say and kiss her on the cheek. She smiles.

“We’ll I’ll let you both be settled. I think I heard Fred pull up outside.” She walks out of the room and down the hall, leaving me with Austin in the room. I put my arms around his waist and give him a kiss.

“I hope you like my mom,” I say. He smiles before putting his arms around my shoulders.

“She’s great. You could have warned me that your sister was a fan though,” he says and laughs. I shrug.

“I never thought about it really,” I say. “I should have known Anna would get all star struck and whatever.”

“So, Fred…”

“You will meet him when we eat. But…I don’t like to talk about him,” I say and look down at my chest.

“What did he do to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

Suddenly he’s on alert. He looks up and pulls away from me. Maybe he can smell how sleazy Fred is. His eyes fade to black and I put my hand on his shoulder. He shrugs me off and walks towards the door.

“Austin,” I whisper. I can hear Blair now, and then Fred’s rusty voice sounds through the house.

“She came up here in a god damned Vet? A god damned Vet!” he shouts.

“I think it belongs to her boyfriend,” Blair says.

I can hear some bags rustling. Austin is still on high alert and I don’t like it. It’s like the monster inside has the better of him all of the sudden.

“She brought a man?”

“I told you she was bringing her boyfriend,” Blair says.

“What the fuck does she need a man for?”

I cringe at his words and I pull Austin towards me. “Please, Austin, look at me,” I whisper. I give his arm a tug and finally he snaps out of it and looks at me, his eyes going back to green blue.

“He doesn’t smell right,” he says.

“Annalise, what the fuck are you doing?” Fred shouts from the living room.

“I was bringing in the bags like mom told me!” she shouts back.

“Why are you dressed like that? You look like a god damned demon!” Fred snaps. “Go wash your fucking face. We have company here and you are parading around looking like a fucking vampire.”

“Honey, calm down,” Blair says. “Annalise, go on and take the bags to your sister. Ask Austin how he likes his steak.”

I hear some shuffling and banging as Anna makes her way down the hall and then she comes up to the door and knocks. I open it and she’s standing there with her head down. “I brought in your bags,” she says.

“Thank you, babe,” I say and take mine from her. I set it on the bed and watch as Austin gets his bag. I can see that she’s crying a little and I feel horrible.

Austin puts his hand on her shoulder then and she looks up a little. “Don’t cry, babe,” he says to her. I can smell his scent filling up the room and I suddenly know what he’s doing to her. The same thing he’s been doing to me for all this time. He’s hypnotizing her. “Don’t worry about your dad. I think you look beautiful.”

Her face lights up and she looks up at him before quickly wiping her smeared mascara off her face and she sniffs up the last of her tears. “Thank you!” she says.

He smiles at her and takes his hand off her shoulder.

“My mom wants to know how you want your steak cooked,” she says.

“Tell her I’ll take it pretty rare,” he says before looking back at me and winking a little creepy wink.

Anna starts to walk away, but turns on her heel and looks at him for a second. “Would it be alright if I gave you a hug?” she asks. She doesn’t give him much of a chance to answer before she puts her arms around him and I watch him hug her back for a few seconds. “Thank you,” she says and sniffs. “Lana, we still going to talk later?”

“Of course, babe,” I say. She nods and then she’s gone down the hallway. “Thank you for making her feel better.”

“I had to,” he says. “I didn’t want to see her cry. I want you to tell me what Fred did to you.”

“I can’t,” I say. “It’s a long complicated story.” He looks at me with a frown.

“Lana, I need you to tell me,” he says. “Because I can tell there is something wrong about him and I need to know what it is.”

“I have to talk to Anna first,” I say. “I get the sickening feeling you’ll find out before we get home.”

“I don’t like that idea,” he says.

“Neither do I,” I say and cringe. I hope to God he doesn’t find out. The last thing I need is Fred’s lifeless body on my hands. Though I’m sure he’d get rid of the body and he’s creative enough to write a letter or something to Blair in Fred’s hand writing saying he ran off with the bar maid. “We better head down for dinner…” I trail off.

“Lana…I need you to understand if something happens I’m sorry,” he says and pulls me against his chest.

“Fred is a bad guy, Austin. If something should happen…I can assure you that I’d forgive you,” I say. It scares me then to think and know that I mean it, but what scares me the most is how much I, and I fear Annalise, want it.