Heartbeats

Chapter Twenty-Two

His fangs hung over his lips as he smiled and tried to help me, considering he was the reason I had fallen off the stool. I pushed his arm away. “I can do it myself. Damn it Charles, is today ‘cause bodily harm to Jacie’ day?” I grabbed the counter with my right hand so I could pull myself up. “Just don’t touch me. Just don’t.”

When I stood back up Charles had a big frown on his face. “Sorry,” he mumbled softly. I rolled my eyes and motioned to the pizzas on the table. “Go ahead and dig in.” I crawled back onto the barstool as Charles attacked the pizza. Mason came over and pecked me on the cheek.

“I’m sorry for earlier. We were being idiots, fighting to fight rather than to resolve anything.” His eyes were soft as they met mine.

“It’s fine.” But it really wasn’t; it was getting annoying.

“So.” Charles forced the word through a mouth full of dough, cheese, and meat. He swallowed. “Have you two puppies been playing nice?” He fixed his eyes on Malcolm, sitting across the table from him.

“Yup,” Malcolm answered, unintimidated.

“So who are you anyway?” Mason asked, jutting his chin up to Malcolm in one of those primitive male gestures.

“Malcolm. I’m not from around here, so don’t expect to recognize me.”

Mason nodded slowly before shaking his hair out of his eyes and offering Malcolm a hand to shake. “Mason,” he introduced his self.

They shook hands, and Malcolm told him he knew. He then turned to Charles, acknowledging him with one simple statement.

“I don’t trust you.”

He way of speaking was so blunt Charles looked like he had been slapped. “What? Why not?”

Malcolm swallowed the bite he had just taken. “I’ve met your kind before; they only brought me pain and sorrow. It’s inevitable, like we’re programmed to do that to each other.”

Charles pushed up from his chair while Mason and I just stared blankly, already knowing where this was going.

“So you’re going to brush me off because of a bad experience? That’s lame, like giving up on roller coasters because your first one made you throw up.”

Malcolm glared at Charles. “Attempted genocide hardly compares to roller coasters, now does it? But I suppose you’re right. I’ll give you my trust, but only if you earn it.”

Charles looked irritated beyond belief, but I couldn’t tell if it was because Malcolm wasn’t immediately drawn in by his charm or because of what Malcolm had said. He nodded slowly, easing back into his seat and picking at the peperoni on his pizza half-heartedly, not making eye contact with any of us. So maybe he was concerned about the supposed genocide Malcolm mentioned, and not simply his own little world.

The tension in the room was thick, so I turned to Mason and asked him to elaborate on what had happened to Rodney, whispering a plea for him to not accuse Charles so blindly.

“Rodney. Right.” He eyed Charles cautiously as he spoke. “Like I said he’s dead, completely drained of blood and what not.”

Malcolm tensed immediately at hearing this, and his eyes flickered to Charles. “Easy,” I hissed under my breath, so just he could hear me. I continued, this time loud enough for Mason to hear. “But it wasn’t Charles or Adelaide. I would bet my life on it.”

The chair creaked as Charles relaxed into it. He could obviously feel the uncertainty that radiated off Malcolm, and he kept shooting worried looks to me. I could trust Malcolm because we had common ground, and, despite the fact we had tried to maim each other moments before, we had nothing to fight over. It was evident that there was something in his past, however, which made it near impossible to hold friendly relations with vampires, or even relations at all. There were only two people I’m currently aware of that could kill Charles, and both were in this room.