The Fourth Horseman

The Hunter

I fell asleep on the bus ride home surprisingly, but awoke with a start as soon as we pulled into the station. I knew the first thing Jay would do would be to go to my house, that is if he chased me. Even though he had pretty much professed his loyalty to me I was still undecided. 

Just incase he did decide to go to my house, I opted to rent a room at the cheap hotel across from the bus station. And as luck would have it, an ABC store was still open.

 Lucky me.

I went inside and bought myself a small bottle of Jameson whiskey. This one's for you Jay I said sarcastically and walked up to the front to pay. I stepped out of the door and unscrewed the cap off my bottle. Just as I was taking a long chug I heard a man's voice yell "Nicky! Nicky is that you?" I looked around to the corner stoop and all be damned if it wasn't my dad's best friend Kenneth. 

We called him Kenny back in the day and he would run the roads with my dad on their Harleys pushing drugs and getting high. 

I ambled over to Kenny and took a seat on the ground next to him. I looked down and he was missing a leg and wrapped in an old worn blanket. 

"God damn uncle Kenny what happened to your leg?"

 I took a long drink from my whiskey bottle and he said, "well kid, diabetes and hard living caught up to me. Real sorry to hear about your parents passing together a few years back."

They had died together, on the same night, bad batch of black tar heroine.

"It just ain't been the same since. Real sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral. I'll bet it was real nice." 

We sat in silence for awhile and he pulled himself a bottle of gin out and took a sip.

"Never could understand how you could drink that shit Kenny, might as well chaw on a pine branch."

He just laughed and we sipped our drinks together in silence.

"What brings you out here tonight? You looking for trouble?"

"Nope, actually the opposite. I'm running from it."

Kenny looked over and said "you in the wrong crowd kid? I thought I always told you if you sleep with dogs you gonna get fleas." 

Kenny never was one to have a way with words. He told you like it was. He told you the truth. And no one ever wants to hear the truth.

"Yea, yea I know. My problem is I got a man and I really like him but I ain't known him that long. I'm just trying to make up my mind. And sometimes , that's the hardest thing to do."

I was pretty well drunk at this point but still up for a talk with an old friend.

"He wants to mark me. He's a vampire and he loves to drink my blood. He has killed two men just for touching me and beat the shit out of another. I'm ok with him marking me, and I do have strong feelings for him, but I feel like once he does that there will be no going back for me. No re-do. It will be done and then where will I be. I got no one left in this world so what does it matter anyway, right Kenny?" 

"Do you love him? Do you want to be with him or you got someone else? Is he what you want in this life? If you want something, right here, right now, take it. That's how we always lived. It could have been girls or drugs, whatever it was if I wanted it, I took it. I didn't once stop to look in the rear view mirror. 

Same with your daddy. He saw your mama one night at a bar and looked at me and said I'm going to marry that woman, he didn't even know her name. And guess what he did? He married her and they loved each other, then had you. Just remember kid, the choice is always yours to make, but if you wait too long, you'll loose the choice all together."

I finished off my whiskey and threw the bottle to the side, curled up and cried for the first time since my parents died. I cried and it felt good. Kenny let me cry at his side and gently placed a hand on my shoulder. 

" I lost my choice a long time ago. Fell in love with a pretty little girl from Tennessee. She waited for me, loved me, and wanted to be with me. I wanted her too but just couldn't give up the drugs and the road. When I finally did decide to head back to her and make her my wife I learned she had died in a car crash only 3 months before I showed up. So you see, my choice was waiting for me, but it only waits for so long, and I missed it."

I wiped my eyes and looked up to the sky. I decided I may just want Jay after all. I don't have to drunk his blood, but would he stop drinking mine? Did I want him to? All I knew is I wanted more from Jay than whatever it was we were doing right now. And I was determined to at least try and make things work out for the best. Whatever that choice may be. 

Right about then a black Chevelle came tearing down the road and screamed to a stop at the bus station.

 Jay got out frantic and ran inside.

"Damn what's he looking for?" Said Kenny. 

"Oh that's my old man, he's just hunting for me."

 Kenny busted out laughing and said he hadn't seen a fella look that crazed in a while. I laughed too, just cause I got to watch Jay as a spectator. He still didn't know I was just crouched on the other side of the road with a drunk homeless man. 

He ran back outside and to his car. He  almost got in but he stopped in his tracks and smelled the air. He took two big deep breaths and his head spun around to face me. He looked at me and I looked at his stupid ass. 

I started laughing and went to stand up but he was pulling me up off the ground before I could blink. He looked to Kenny and then back at me. Before he tried to kill Kenny I put my hand on his chest and said "Jay, this is Kenny, Kenny this is Jay. Kenny was my dad's best friend back when he was alive."

Jay's eyes softened when he heard me say that and he looked to Kenny and said "nice to meet you sir, if you'll excuse me I'm going to take this lady home." 

See you around Kenny, was all I could say before Jay picked me up and carried me to his car. 

"We need to talk."

 I watched his mouth moving but the liquor took over and my eyes began to close. He was still screaming and upset but I was too intoxicated to care. Come what may I would make my choice. The same choice I had planned on making in the first place. 

I was Jay's girl after all.