Escaping Solitude Read online

  The sailors shout. Even the captain, who usually seems content to hide below deck, starts yelling, pointing. I find Edmund, his chin tilted up, lips murmuring what is possibly a prayer. And everyone moves. Sailors hurry up both sides of the rigging, one of them Felipe, whose gritted teeth flash as he climbs.

  One of his shoes slips, and… God, my old friend is falling.

  I lurch forward, but Edmund is there to save him. He has to reach over the side of the ship to catch one of Felipe’s flailing hands. I latch onto Edmund’s free arm as Felipe disappears over the rail, hand clenched in Edmund’s.

  Edmund’s body stretches taut between Felipe and I. I feel a violent jarring go through him—probably beneath the full weight of Felipe’s body—and Edmund howls. He tears his hand away from me and reaches over the side, both his arms grasping for Felipe. I watch him put one foot on the rail and tug. Felipe flies back on deck, and both men fall to their backs in the rain.

  Only then do I smell Edmund’s blood.

  In a single flash of lightning, I get a glimpse of his right arm. I don’t have time to fully understand what I’m seeing, but it’s all blood, bone, and twisted skin.

  A sail flaps in the wind above us, successfully cut before pulling down the mast and cursing us all. The captain appears at my shoulder, his hair lank and wet around his face. “Get him below deck! For Christ’s sake!”

  Felipe and I are careful as we lift Edmund and carry him down the steps. He’s awake but strangely quiet, his lips pressed together in a thin, white line. He groans when we lay him in the center of the hallway. The boat lurches too much for farther travel.

  Flat on his back, he cradles his arm. “Fuck, I don’t even want to see.”

  I wave at Felipe. “Get Michelle.” I look at Edmund and think I know what needs to be done—but I cannot do it, not to him—and I don’t trust Felipe to be of any worth either. In fact, I want to kill him, because his fall did this. His idiocy cracked Edmund’s arm over the railing with enough force for bone to break skin. My sailor’s blood drips everywhere, but I am not hungry; I am horrified. “Edmund,” I say. “You need to see so you can tell us what to do.”

  He takes a deep breath and lifts his head to inspect the damage. His skin turns the color of parchment. “Jesus.” His head falls against the floor, and he closes his eyes tight. I think he’s trying not to be sick. “You have to…shove the bone back in place.”

  With shaking hands, I wipe the wet hair from his forehead. He feels too cold and too hot all at once. “I can’t.”

  He has enough energy left to laugh. “Well, someone bloody well has to.”

  “Andrew?” I hear Michelle behind us. She moves quickly but freezes when she sees Edmund coated in his own blood, bone exposed and covered in what looks like strawberry jam. “Edmund!” she shrieks. She falls to her knees beside him but doesn’t dare touch.

  “Andrew, lift me up.”

  I wrap my hands under his arms and tug until he’s sitting upright in my lap, facing Michelle. I feel Felipe behind us, watching.

  “Michelle…look at me.” His words explode between panting breaths. “You have to…break it again. Break it back in. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, my God.” She covers her mouth with her hand. “But can’t Andrew—”

  “He needs to hold me.” Amazing that Edmund is the calmest among us. “Please. Quickly, before I lose too much blood. Just do this, and we’ll bandage me up, and I’ll be fine.”

  She nods, and he slumps back against my chest. Thankfully, we vampires are too panicked by the scent of his blood to feel the usual excitement, or Edmund would have made a beautiful meal. Above us, the sound of running feet and shouts echo as the storm continues to wreak unholy havoc.

  I can’t watch, but I know when it happens—when Michelle fulfills her task—because there’s a wet popping noise, and Edmund’s whole body tenses. He curls in on himself, me above him. There’s a long moment of silence before: “Captain’s quarters has bandages,” he whispers. He goes limp in my arms. I wish he’d lost consciousness sooner.

  I STAND IN the doorway and watch him sleep. He’s in our bed, bandaged and resting. I told Michelle to keep Felipe away from me because, at this point, I’m liable to kill him. The storm has passed—on deck. My anger rages below, much darker than any meek thundercloud. I hear scattered voices behind me. Two of the sails tore, so we’re merely floating for now as the sailmaker—a tall vampire with freakishly long fangs—does his harried duty.

  The captain stomps up to my side, but I don’t spare him a look. “Bad luck,” he says.

  I curl my fists at my sides to keep from throttling him.

  “But Edmund is a man of the sea. He’ll be fine. Just hope it doesn’t get infected.” He smacks me on the back and leaves as if he’s done some great service.

  Fucking sailors.

  I close the door behind me and sit on the edge of our bed. After we got his arm bandaged, I stripped him of his wet clothes, so he’s wrapped in nothing but sheets and the long blanket Michelle carried around earlier. It smells a little like her. I run my fingers across his collarbone, over the bite mark low on his neck that’s becoming practically permanent. God, but it’s just like when I found him washed up on the beach.

  As if an echo of my former self, I tell him once again, “Don’t die.”

  He mumbles something upon waking. I think it was my name. He opens his eyes and gasps. “Mary, mother of God, I need rum.” He grimaces and squeezes his eyes closed as I rush from the room. I come back with two jugs, quickly handing him the first. He takes three long pulls before falling back amidst pillows. “Is Felipe all right?”

  “Is Felipe…?” I stand and pace as much as I can in the close quarters. “You should have let him go over.”

  “No. I was serious when I said we never would have found him again.”

  “So?”

  “Andrew, he was trying to help. Let it go. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “And if the wound gets infected?”

  “It won’t.” He lifts the jug. “I’ll drown any illness with rum.”

  I cover my face with my hands and barely notice I’ve started crying. I haven’t cried in… I don’t remember the last time.

  “Andrew?” His voice cracks. “Stop, please. Come here.”

  I rush to him and press my face against his chest. His good hand relinquishes the rum and runs through my hair.

  “Love. It’s going to be all right.”

  I chuckle against his skin, although my eyes still burn with salt. “I’m hundreds of years older than you. How do you still manage to make me feel like a child?”

  He shushes me and squeezes the back of my neck. Together, we drink rum until Edmund’s pain goes away and I have, for the moment, numbed my fear.

  Chapter Thirteen

  HE SPENDS MOST of his time on deck now, soaking up the sun. I swear he grows more freckles every day. The crew skirts around him, worried over the state of his arm. There’s a chance he could even be lame once it heals.

  If it heals.

  If he lives.

  The nights are spent drinking too much rum and making love—gently. I tell him we can rest, just go to sleep, and he refuses, as if his time is running short. He has another of his nightmares, and he wakes with the now familiar look on his face as he clings to me with one hand.

  “What is it you dream?” I ask.

  “You. Underwater. Dead.”

  “It’s not possible.”

  “You’re slipping away from me,” he says and falls back to sleep.

  It is only due to our close quarters that I am the first to scent the change in him. Edmund has always smelled sweet to me, but one night, I wake before dawn and he smells sweeter. He smells wrong. I hold him tightly, and he mumbles. Only then do I notice the way our sheets are soaked with his sweat.

  Before he wakes, I rise and bring water. I wait an hour for his eyes to open, unwilling to hurry his understanding. It is with some peace that I realize the
re are enough vampires on this blasted ship to tear me to pieces, for if Edmund dies, I’m going with him.

  I’m staring when his eyelids flutter, and eyes like the sea stare back. “Andrew?”

  “You should drink some water.”

  He leans up on his good elbow before glaring at his bandage-wrapped arm. “I’m sick, aren’t I? You can smell it. Rotting meat.” He sighs and bites his bottom lip. “Well. I have no words.”

  Edmund without words is almost as terrifying as Edmund without his head.

  We send for the captain, the only creature on board with any kind of medical training—although he’s been nothing but a disappointment so far. As soon as word spreads that he’s been beckoned, the area outside our room fills with vampires, Michelle and Felipe shoving to the front.

  Felipe claws at me, his long hair a mess, dark circles under his eyes. I don’t believe he’s slept a peaceful wink since the day of the storm. “What’s happened, Andrew? God, tell me he’s not dead!”

  I shake my head, no, and Michelle speaks with authority. She is, after all, our leader. “Everyone clear the space. Go back to your quarters.” She waves her hand as if the immortal crowd is a hungry herd of cats.

  The three of us squeeze into the room I share with my darling, where the captain, in his velvet jacket, perches like a gargoyle on the side of the bed. Edmund, his freckled face dripping sweat, nods at him and looks up at me. “Come in and sit.”

  Michelle and Felipe do not ask if he refers to only me. They accept his invitation and pile nearly on top of each other in the only chair while I sit on the bed and take Edmund’s left hand in mine.

  “We’re not going to England,” he says. “We’re going to the Elder.”

  “No. We must get you to a mainland for proper medical care.”

  His hand squeezes mine. “Andrew. The Elder is closer.”

  I turn to the captain. “How close?”

  “I could get him there in four days,” he says.

  I close my eyes. Four days.

  Edmund’s fingers find my face. “It’s too late for medical care anyway, unless you plan on chopping my arm off—which is not happening. I’ll probably just get another infection.”

  I bring his hand to my mouth and kiss. “But what if you’re wrong? What if the Elder isn’t where you think he is?”

  He shrugs, bare chest glistening as the rising sun peeks through our window. “Then, I’m dead. I’ve always been a gambling man. Hey, Felipe, what will you do if I win this bet?”

  Felipe moves with vampire speed and kneels by the bed. “I will wear a dress for a hundred years.”

  Edmund laughs and ruffles his hair. His eyes crinkle around the edges. “Why do you look like dog shit?”

  I laugh as Felipe turns an amusing shade of red. “Me? You…”

  Edmund is smiling that giddy smile of his.

  Felipe puts his hand on Edmund’s ankle. “You must live. No one else…amuses me as you do. And I would be bored again without Andrew. I will not see him broken.”

  “Neither me,” he says, although it is a promise Edmund cannot possibly make.

  FOUR DAYS IS much too long, although the wind assists. I feel as though even the weather knows the direness of our cause as she hurries us ever closer to the proper longitude and latitude off the coast of Africa. Edmund stays mostly in bed, although he makes me guide him upstairs on occasion to stare at the sea. He tries to hide that the fingers on his right hand have turned black, but he hides nothing, not even his fear.

  Not fear, perhaps, but a strange melancholy that stoops his shoulders and steals the light from his eyes. He seems so much older.

  All night, he shivers and shakes. Fever dreams. Michelle worries for me and makes me rest in her room while she or Felipe keep watch over my darling boy. One night, I find Felipe curled around him like an undead blanket, murmuring sweet words, petting Edmund’s head. I have never seen Felipe so kind, and when he notices me watching, he looks up at me, eyes red, and apologizes over and over until I shake him and make him stop.

  Each morning, I wake and know Edmund to be alive. I believe I will feel it if he dies. I will feel it and follow him into the abyss.

  Edmund must realize my intentions, because on the third night, he holds me close and says, “You mustn’t. You will not kill yourself when I’ve gone. Who will remember me if you’re gone?”

  I make no promises, and I don’t know how much he remembers anyway.

  The morning of the fourth day, the captain comes into our room. It stinks of illness, I know, and his face betrays nothing. “We will be there within the hour,” he says before turning stiffly and hurrying back on deck.

  Edmund blows shallow breaths against my neck before pressing his lips to my jaw. “You know what to do.”

  I nod and kiss his forehead, his cheek. His face is lined with stubble because he’s been too sick to shave every day as per usual. I think of the long-ago night of cannibals and how my beautiful Edmund has stared death in the face too many times.

  But he does have a plan for catching our Elder. Of course he does. Edmund always has a plan, even if it’s mad. Ever since changing our destination, he’s asked that we hold back portions of meat and fish. He’s asked that we create a sort of blood stew to draw the Elder up from the depths. The time has come to put his plan into action.

  I help him dress: nothing more than breeches and a shirt. He’s barefoot, as always. I have to carry him upstairs, and it appears every single passenger has made his or her way on deck. Humans and vampires alike turn to Edmund and try not to stare at how his boisterous, charismatic presence has wasted away to weakness.

  I set him in a chair, but he pulls himself up to stand and leans on the rail. He has a few curt words with the captain, and soon, the cook and two sailors come huffing and puffing up the stairs with the Elder’s repulsive cocktail.

  At Edmund’s signal, they pour it into the churning waves. Whitecaps roll red, and now comes the waiting.

  We all watch at first, but after several minutes, spectators lose interest—but not Edmund. His eyes never falter.

  A dark fin breaks the surface, followed by another, another.

  “Oh, my God,” he says and smiles. “Sharks, Andrew. My beautiful monsters.” He turns and reaches for my hand. “Like you.” He laughs, and I’m mystified that he has the energy for amusement. The spark is back in his eyes as he watches the massive, dark shapes dance through our blood bath.

  Time passes. Hours. The water below runs clear, the sharks disappear, and Edmund eventually folds back into his seat. I crouch next to him and hold to his left arm, too fearful to even look at his right.

  “Behind my knees,” he says.

  “What?”

  “My ticklish spot is behind my knees.”

  I force a smile. “I would have figured that out eventually.”

  He shakes his head. “I am going to die at sea.”

  “No,” I say. “No, you’re to outlive Armageddon. I told you that.”

  He turns to me, and he’s like a walking corpse with his gaunt face and pale skin. “I’m sorry, Andrew.”

  “No.” I pull him to me and rub my face all over his. “No, you are not going anywhere.” I press my face against his neck and try to find his scent, but it’s gone. He doesn’t smell like himself anymore, which is when I realize… I hold him at arm’s length. “Edmund, I’ve got it.”

  He blinks at me, waiting.

  “The Elder needs human blood.”

  He takes a sharp inhale.

  “Human blood, Edmund. It’s what we long for—not animal blood. We want the taste of love and hate and passion. We want the taste of a soul. I’ve told you, haven’t I?”

  His eyes widen as he reaches for me. “Yes, you have. You’re brilliant. Now, how are you at swimming?”

  “Swimming? What? I…”

  He grins. “I’m the bait.” He stands, right arm useless at his side. “Come save me.” He leaps over the rail with the grace of a man leaping
from a carriage.

  I shout his name and try to catch him, but down he falls over the side of the ship and into dark-blue water. All around me, voices scream, but I hear nothing as I follow my beloved into the depths.

  The water steals my breath when I hit, but I find Edmund immediately—my strong swimmer. Even with one arm, he floats better than me, keeping his head high as I swallow salt water.

  “I’m going to kill you myself!”

  “Liar!” he yells over the slopping sound of waves.

  I can’t hold his body to mine, because we’d both sink, but I do keep a hand on his shoulder as we bob up and down, feet kicking.

  “I hope this Elder doesn’t mind the blood of a dying man,” he says, but I am busy watching the water for sharks. I don’t know how long I can keep kicking, swimming, and Edmund is too weak for this. The ship lingers nearby, and someone throws a rope to us, which I hold onto tightly.

  “This is madness.”

  “Perhaps,” Edmund says, “but I need you to bite me. Open my skin.”

  “You have a massive arm wound. Why would I need—”

  “Fresh. Not rotten,” he shouts. “Here.” He lifts his left arm from the water and extends it my way. “Just take a quick bite. Hurry!”

  I do as I’m told and take a quick nibble of his wrist. His blood tastes less of him and more of death. He plunges his arm underwater and continues to float.

  “Jesus, I hope this Elder is quick at waking.”

  I cling to the rope and try not to drown.

  “Lovely day for a swim,” he says. “I do prefer the sea a bit farther north, but—” His head disappears below water, but I’m quick enough to grab his good wrist and tug him back up. He sputters when he breaches the surface and immediately screams a litany of, “Oh my God, oh my God.”

  “Edmund!”

  “Something grabbed my ankle and pulled.” He doesn’t mean to, but he almost pushes my head under the water when he wraps himself around my chest.

  “Christ.”

  I hold to the rope—and Edmund—as our gazes spin around us, searching for a sign of the hand that just tried to drown my sailor, but the water is too dark and moves too much. I see nothing but the frightened whites of Edmund’s eyes, and I assume I look no better. What kind of battle can I be expected to win underwater?