Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(56)
"Jake, things are going to hunt you all your life. You have to learn so much."
Just when he thought he was talking to a rational person, he remembered that he was having a discussion with a chick who was certifiable. "You get put out for smoking too much peyote, hon? Since when—"
"You're supposed to fight vampires with the Great Huntress's warriors." Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. He was going to die if he didn't hear her.
He sat up. He didn't want to talk about this madness anymore. There was no such thing as the undead and this conversation was blowing the groove.
"How'd you wind up on a bus with a bunch of religious fanatics?"
"I got in trouble."
He sighed. Just his luck to be out in the wilderness, on the run, with a beautiful but crazy pregnant chick. Poof. There went hope. "So, you're going to your grandma's to have the baby?"
Her eyes got wide, then burned with outright indignation. "I'm not pregnant!"
He shrugged. "Hey, where I come from, when a woman says—"
"That's not what happened." She gathered her arms around herself. "Never mind. I should have known better. You took one look at me and assumed."
"Hey, don't get all touchy. I didn't think… I mean—hey, just tell me what happened?"
She shook her head and looked down. He'd never understand. She didn't understand it all herself, and hadn't truly believed until it was too late.
Now, he'd done it. He glanced at the bottle with disgust and screwed the cap back on tight. "Let's start again from the top, since we're sorta partners in some kind of crime—or crimes, plural, who the hell knows at this point? But I'm no choirboy, and I'm not throwing stones from my glass house. I've done enough crap to get put out by my folks, too. So, don't take whatever I said wrong. Cool? I'm not judging."
She nodded, but still denied him access to her gorgeous eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said again after a while, preferring the way she was before he'd offended her. "Listen, my pop was… nuts. Beat my mom. I was going nowhere fast. Loved rebuilding engines and working on anything that moved, but music is my first love. I've seen a lot of dysfunctional crap in my time. People dying in their own bodies, going to work in a hellhole they called a job. If you want to call that the undead, I'll go with you on that… and as for bloodsuckers, I've seen my dad work for vampires all my life. That's why I had to make a break for it."
He peered at her sidelong when she didn't respond, hoping to get the conversation back on a relaxed track. God, she was beautiful. His tone became more urgent as he tried his best to draw her out again. "So, if you did something to get away from a crazy situation, then what can I say? That's why I was on the road, myself."
"I did the unthinkable," she murmured.
Her eyes were on the horizon when she'd spoken. If she would just look at him to know he wasn't kidding around…
"What could somebody as sweet as you do that would cause unforgivable harm?" He truly meant what he'd said, and for his honesty her returned gaze rewarded him.
"I went off with someone I shouldn't have. He was tall, and handsome and mysterious and came into town from New Orleans… I'd never—" She glanced at him and then looked away, swallowing hard. "I couldn't resist him and it wound up killing my mother. She said that what I had become would shame all those from our Cherokee heritage who'd walked the Trail of Tears. My father, God rest his soul in peace, had been a good man. He was a Baptist, and in the military, and would tell my mom that black folks didn't deal with this mess. He would never have understood this, even though he and my mother were both guardians. It was only one time, but it was enough."
What she'd said was too deep. She was a beautiful combination of black and Indian, and her people had had a problem with some foreign white guy that obviously blew into town. That had to be the deal. He could relate. His folks were the same way about differences. Sad, though, that they'd put this poor girl on a bus for something as minor as that—but where he'd come from, infractions were often dealt with more severely. At least they didn't burn a cross on her lawn. But it broke his heart to see her still struggling with cutting ties to home.
"Yeah, well, my folks weren't big on interracial relationships, either," he said, studying the stars. "They didn't want me to even play certain music, so I can dig it. Closed minds, hey… whatcha gonna do? So you left. Cool. Just did it myself, and I'm never going back. So, here we are, Bonnie and Clyde, or the Odd Couple." He chuckled and shook his head. "Who cares if they don't get over it? We'll ride it out together. Cool?"
In that moment, Jake Rider became even dearer to her. She watched him looking up at the stars, his mind open, but not comprehending, his voice gentle, his spirit so fair. She didn't care if he wasn't hearing what she was saying. It didn't matter that it might take years before he truly understood. All she had to do was get to her grandmother's healing medicine to purge her system and she might not be lost to the destiny she was supposed to have. She was to be one of the guardians, too… whenever the Neteru came.
She looked at this handsome man, who had stood up to pure evil on her behalf, and a knowing washed through her. He'd never flinched, never wavered, just drew his weapon on instinct like a warrior, and used his body to shield hers. He didn't even know her name when he'd done it. A dead man lay at his feet, but he'd had kept his goal singular—protect an innocent… her.