Bloodbank

Twenty Five

As I rounded the corner, my stomach roiled. The sun behind me lit the remnants of Nathan in a bright pink, his head nowhere to be found but his dismembered body scattered. In the week that had passed since his death, the sand had buried half of his arm and scattered over the torso, giving the impression that a body had been unearthed, despite the opposite happening. It hadn't decomposed like a normal, human body, and for that I was thankful; the stench would have sent me over the edge.

One look at his hand, palm facing the sky, a hand that had shown me such kindness, and I was behind the tree whose shadow he had taken refuge under, vomiting up my breakfast. Once the acidic substance had passed, I knelt beside his remains.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to him, glad that I didn't have to see his glassy, dead eyes. My hand rested over where his heart was; I imagined feeling it beat for a moment, and then began scooping the sand over him, creating a mound that the wind would only destroy. I hoped that perhaps the desert would form a new dune over him, burying him for longer than just a few moments, but the environment was scorched and soulless and would bare him to the elements again far too soon.

After I had covered the entire body in sand, I found that I was crying. I shook my head, wiping the tears with the back of my hand. There would be time for that later. For now, I had to find the devil's claw.

I figured that Scott hadn't spent much time outside of the bunker in the daylight, save when he stood by the tree, so the flower must be visible from the tree. Impressed by my own logic, and ignoring the lump in my throat from thinking of him, I returned to the shade of the tree and scanned the horizon.

Immediately, a pinkish flower caught my eye, nestled by the base of the bunker vent. I plucked it quickly, confident that I hadn't seen any other flowers, and turned to leave with it clenched in my fist.

Avoiding looking at the sandy mound, the makeshift grave, I stepped back towards the city, away from the desert.

"Ebony."

I turned, the bunker door wide open behind me. Scott stood, down two stairs in the shade, the hand holding the door open sizzling loudly in the pinkish light of dawn. I held my ground, out of reach of him by a couple of metres; a deer in the headlights. I hadn't expected him to wake. The devil's claw was clenched in my fist, the poison in my pocket, evidence of my betrayal.

"I see you found the devil's claw," he continued, as if I wasn't about to desert him.

"Yes."

"And the poison."

"Yes."

"So you're leaving? Without me?"

"Yes."

"Where's your loyalty? I rescued you from the bank, betrayed my own kind to help you, hell, I'm now a fugitive because of you. And you're leaving without me."

The pang of guilt I was expecting to come didn't; I was left staring at him, his hand now blistering in the sun.

"Ebony, please." He stepped forwards for a moment, his face and arms cast in the pink glow, before hissing and stepping back into the darkness. A pause as he recollected himself, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything I said last night."

"I think you did."

"I'm just trying to protect you."

I paused, and then the words came tumbling out of my mouth without me realising, "What if I don't need your protection any more?"

Scott didn't reply. His hand, now red, let go of the door and he propped it open with his leg instead.

"Can you please just come inside?"

The sun felt warm on my back and half of me didn't want to go back underground with him, to wait for night before I could continue. At some point in the last few weeks, our roles had somehow reversed and Scott was more dependent on me than I was on him. I hadn't forgotten the cruel, vampire infested world in the city, but I was more experienced than I had been all those months ago when I emerged from underground. Scott's green eyes stared at me from the shade, willing me to join him. The warmth up on the surface, however, was inviting, and I was enjoying the higher ground I held over him. He couldn't come outside and influence my decision, and yet something about him coaxed me in, even from the shadows. The lure of his eyes, the curves of his face, barely visible in the darkness.

I nodded, and stepped into the bunker, again. Descended those same stairs, again. Stood in the destroyed kitchen, again.

"I know that you don't need protecting any more. It's just..." he trailed off, "an instinct for me."

I swallowed nervously, "I'll stay with you. On one condition."

Scott quirked an eyebrow, unused to propositions.

"You treat me as an equal."

He laughed, a lilting sound that echoed off the bunker walls, "of course I can do that."

He stepped closer to me, arms encircling my waist.

"I am upset about having to wait another day before we can leave, though." I said, his face buried in my neck, kissing and sucking it softly.

"I can think of a few different ways we can spend the extra time," he murmured into my hair. In one swift motion, he lifted my legs around his waist, and we were at the beds.