WE DECIDED BETWEEN US TO stop for the night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. We’d been on the road for over twelve hours and both of us were starting to get pretty tired. We hadn’t mentioned the stupid pregnancy idea again, and I had all but forgotten about it when I rushed ahead of Sam and towards the bathroom of our motel room.
“Wait!” Sam said, tossing me the brown paper bag. And then, when he saw my face, he added, “just humor me.”
I rolled my eyes and shut the bathroom door.
“Hey, you want some food?” Sam called after me. “There’s a Pizza Hut a few blocks down. Do you want me to grab you something?”
“Sure,” I replied, taking the cardboard box out of the paper bag and ripping it open. I waited for Sam to leave, and when I heard the motel room door close behind him, I peed on the stick and replaced the cap.
I tossed the test on the counter and promptly forgot about it. I wandered out to the main room, where I had thrown my bag onto the first of two single beds. I decided to take a quick shower while Sam was getting pizza. I took my oversized toiletry bag into the bathroom and locked the door. I had just turned the water on when I spied the pregnancy test sitting on the counter.
Two lines.
I dropped the toiletry bag and fell to my knees, swiping the test off the counter as my knees buckled. I turned the test over, to recheck the helpful little diagram that was stuck to the back. One line—not pregnant. Two lines—pregnant.
I read those words and my entire world came crashing down around my feet.
There are things worse than death. And here I was, in the midst of one of those things.
I think back now and still can’t believe how calm I was. Now, I realize that I was in shock. I acted quickly, knowing that Sam could return at any moment. I opened my toiletry bag and emptied the entire contents onto the grimy bathroom tiles. Bottles of makeup, nail polish and hairspray scattered everywhere. My eyes fell upon a disposable plastic razor, and I snatched it up. I smashed it under a can of hairspray and fished out the sharp razor blade.
I stood on shaky legs and took one final look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t live through one more thing. Certainly not this. The word baby tried to enter my thoughts and I banished it angrily.
Monster.
What had Ryan done to me?
What the goddamn had he put inside of me? It was too much for me to bear.
I didn’t want to think about any of it, ever again. I was done. Finished.
I told you to leave me there to die.
And God, how I wished he had.
Deciding to kill myself was relatively simple. It was the only solution I could see to my impossible quandary.
My words to Ryan became a chant that I repeated over and over.
I told you to leave me there to die.
The sharp, dragging pinch of the razor blade took my breath away as I gouged it into the pale flesh of my wrist. Up, not across. How did I know that? It didn’t matter. Deeper, deeper. Jesus Christ, it hurt. I cried out and kicked the vanity, trying to distract myself from the pain. I forced myself to think about what I had endured in Mexico, and my Turning, and how this was absolutely nothing compared to the pain I had experienced before.
I watched, fascinated as my own blood began to pump from my artery. Bullseye.
One down. One to go. Only–
“What?” I panicked, watching in utter disbelief as the skin around my wound began to knit together. “No, no, no!” I rubbed my wrist, and underneath my blood was a perfect patch of skin—no cut, no pain, no bleeding, and, most of all, no escape.
Ryan’s words came back to me then. You’re a vampire. It will heal in a matter of minutes.
No escape. Unless …
I skated around the slippery tiles, now slicked with my blood, looking for the bottle of sleeping pills Ryan had given me after pulling me from the bathtub. I had tossed them into my bag at the last minute, and now I was relieved.
These things are like vampire valium.
Yes, but could they kill a vampire?
I unscrewed the lid and shook a couple of the bright blue capsules into my hand, crushing them in my palm.
Bingo.
My skin immediately began to sizzle. No wonder. The thick sludge in the capsules smelled exactly the same as the Asphodel flower Clair had been wearing in her hair. Only this blue gloop looked like concentrate. I climbed into the empty bathtub, clutching the razor and bottle of pills to my chest. I took the razor blade and wiped it against the aqua–colored stuff in my palm, getting as much as possible on the thin blade. I took a deep breath, and repeated my earlier action against the delicate, completely healed skin of my inner wrist.
I screamed. The blue stuff—Asphodel root, according to the pill bottle—immediately entered my bloodstream, and my whole body began to convulse. I leaned over the side of the tub and retched violently. Vampire poison.
Sam had been gone maybe ten minutes at this point, and I didn’t want him to get back until I was well and truly finished. The bathroom door was locked, hopefully buying me some extra time if he did get back before I bled out.
Other wrist, Blake. Hurry up.
I managed a messy cut on the other wrist before I dropped the razor blade and slumped back in the tub. Everything inside me was on fire. Except my stomach. From my waist to my hips, I felt a buzzing numbness that could have been the stone in my womb dying along with me.
Thank God.
It was going to be over soon, I knew it. The pills were working well, and quickly. I closed my eyes and waited to die for the second time in as many months.
My ears picked up the jingling of keys, and the door to the motel room opened.
“Pepperoni pizza okay?” I heard Sam ask casually. “Mia?”
“Y–yes,” I called out weakly. More than anything, I didn’t want him coming in until I was dead and finished. I asked you to leave me there to die.
Despite being close to passing out, I could still see what was going on beyond the bathroom door. I watched with closed eyes as Sam placed the pizza box on the table and sniffed the air.
He can smell my blood.
“Mia?” he called, a little more urgently this time. He approached the bathroom door. “Everything okay in there?”
“Fine,” I managed in a voice barely above a whisper. “Nearly done.”
I saw the concern on his face grow. He could definitely smell my blood. I saw it in the way he shifted his stance, the way he was literally drawn to it. And there was plenty of it. My wounds were in no danger of healing around the noxious Asphodel that stung my skin and set fire to my veins. There was so much blood, I felt like I was drowning in a river of red.
I asked you to leave me there to die.
“Mia, open the door!” He tried the handle, which I had locked.
“I’m coming in,” Sam said, and I heard the door handle crunch as he easily broke the lock with his vampire strength.
Damn. Through my hazy eyes I could make out a pair of shoes, blue jeans, and then I was being picked up by my shoulders, and shaken.
“Mia?” Sam yelled. “Mia!” I saw as he surveyed the room, taking everything in. The razor blade on the floor beside the tub. The poisonous blue goop that I had squeezed from the sleeping tablets. And the blood. It was everywhere. I saw him go pale and wondered if his bloodlust would resurface after so many years. Maybe he would finish me off.
“What have you done?” he asked me. More shaking. I was sitting up now, propped against the side of the bath. Sam grabbed towels and wrapped them around my bleeding wrists. “No,” I said, trying to stop him.
“Mia,” he said desperately, his eyes boring into mine. “Why would you do this?”
“I have to get it out,” I gasped. I started to sob. My head bobbed and black dots started to take over my vision.
“Get what out?” he asked, a look of dread spreading across his face.
I realized I wasn’t going to win here. He was going to stop me from dying, and this thing would still be inside me after they stitched up my wrists and washed the blood away.
“Please,” I whimpered, grabbing at his shirt I pointed to the positive test on the floor. “Sam. You have to get it out of me!”
His face fell when he saw what was in my hand. “I was right,” he murmured.
And then, “Oh, Mia.”
I passed out.