Chapter 11 - Veronica

I'm outside the clinic, shaking hands with the clinic's coordinator, Daphne when I see movement from the corner of my eye. Before even turning fully to see him, I know who it is.

The person I thought I would never see again. The guy I thought was shaken from my trail when Percy kept me in that basement for over two weeks.

"Do you know him?" Daphne asks, tracing my stare to where he's standing, waiting for cars to pass so he can cross the street. Although he's been following me around for years, he's never actually spoken to me directly, and my skin prickles at the thought that he might be heading this way to confront me.

He's ruggedly handsome in a way that might appeal to someone who isn't terrified and annoyed by his presence, with a mop of dark brown curls and a well-groomed beard. When I've described him to the police departments, I've guessed that he's around six feet tall, but he doesn't look it because he's the stocky kind of person with enough muscle that he seems a little shorter than he actually is.

To my horror, he looks both ways and crosses the street, heading toward me.

My brain is split—on one hand, it might be nice to finally confront him, tell him to leave me the hell alone, but on the other, I know that confronting stalkers can just motivate them more.

"Veronica," Daphne says, putting her hand on my arm. "Are you okay? You're looking a little pale."

My heart is skipping around in my chest, trying to find a regular beat. My mouth tastes like battery acid, and my mouth is suddenly dry. It doesn't matter what I want or don't want—this is happening now. He's nearing us, with a determined look that sends pure ice flooding through my body.

"Hey," someone else says, and I see Linnea approaching Daphne's side. "What's going on?"

"This guy—" Daphne starts, then stops when a Ford Bronco comes to a sudden halt in the parking space next to us, and Percy comes tumbling out, all legs and limbs, not at all like the trained special ops agent he's supposed to be.

He looks up after catching himself from face-planting on the ground, clearing his throat, and meeting each of our eyes.

"What is it?" he asks, a murderous look behind his gaze. "It felt like something was wrong—"

At this moment, my stalker finally gets near enough to us that he can talk, and he stops a few paces away, raising his hand and looking quizzically at the scene.

" Just leave me alone !" I snap, turning to him, all the fear gone. His eyes move between me and Percy, widening. He's been stalking me all this time. He surely remembers Percy from when the two of us dated in New York.

" Hey ," the stalker says, eyebrows shooting up, "you're the boyfriend—"

"Veronica, who is this guy?" Linnea asks, pushing forward protectively.

"He's been stalking me for years," I spit, crossing my arms and glancing at Percy, who has a muscle ticking in his jaw. Annoyance rises in me at the fact that he could, apparently, feel that I was in danger, and that he stopped whatever he was doing to speed over here, like he has any claim to me. Like I can't handle myself.

"You need to get out of here," Linnea says, her nearly always-present friendly look slipping from her face immediately.

"Yeah," Percy says, his eyes narrowing, his playful attitude gone. "If you even look at her again, I will make you regret it."

"There's a misunderstanding," the man says, holding up his hands. "If we could just—"

"Get lost," Linnea says, stepping forward and crossing her arms over her chest. "Do not make me call my husband."

The stalker glances between each of us, then nods, backing up, his hands still held up in front of him, like we're the ones bothering him .

At the end of the road, we watch him climb into an old black Mustang and take off down the street. We all stand like that until he's out of sight, and then I whirl around, jabbing my finger into Percy's chest.

He blinks at me, like he's completely confused about this behavior.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I ask, narrowing my eyes on him. "I did not ask for your help."

"I could tell that—" he says, his eyes darting over to Linnea and Daphne for help, but they've suddenly busied themselves with a poster on the clinic's window.

" Don't come riding in here like you're the white horse, here to save the day. You lost that right a long time ago."

I see Linnea's head perk a bit, turning toward us, and I clear my throat, reminding myself that nobody else is supposed to know we dated in the past.

"I'm sorry—" Percy says, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, but even under the apology, there's something dark in his gaze, something heated in the way he looks at me that makes a shiver run up my back. Once again, I picture him fully naked in my bed, wrapping an arm around my midsection and tugging me back so my hips were snug against his, him biting my shoulder lightly as he touched me, teasing, teasing, teasing but never finally giving me what I want.

I swallow, hard, against the thoughts, willing them to go away. Why now? For the past few days, I've had nothing but illicit thoughts about Percy, pushing into my brain at all times of the day, forcing themselves into my head like they belong there.

Unable to stand there any longer, the heat building in my core as I look at him, I push past him, stalking away down the street as fast as I can walk.

Of course, Percy's legs are longer than mine, so he keeps up easily as I make my way down the sidewalk, dodging people who are putting up decorations and changing the downtown street signs.

Several of the shops on the street are altering their normal shop signs for the upcoming Halloween festivities—Derrick's Barbershop is becoming Boo! Barbershop, Main Street Bread is now The Walking Bread, and May's Flowers is now Wicca Wilds. It's kind of mesmerizing to watch the transformation happen but annoying to weave through all the people out here on ladders, working to change them out.

Linnea explained that Halloween has always been a big deal in this town, with the supernatural elements of the inhabitants making the experience even more realistic to the tourists who travel all this way just to see it. The town gets a nice boost in money after the primary tourist season in the summer, and humans get a little taste of what it's like to be around real werewolves.

"Veronica," Percy says, reaching out and touching my shoulder. I jerk away from him.

" Don't touch me," I say, which I know must be confusing after all the touching we've been doing recently.

"Sorry," Percy says, swaying on his feet a bit. I want, more than anything, to walk away from him right now, but the nurse in me can tell that something isn't right.

"Percy," I say, "what is it?"

"Nothing," he says, putting a hand out to the nearest wall. "Nothing—I—"

The vampire venom is winning over in his body again. Down the street, back at the clinic, I see Aris and Ado walk up to Linnea, and I shout at them, waving my hands.

"Hey!" I say, as Percy slides down the wall. "Help!"

***

My arm stings where the needle is inserted, but Percy already looks better, that rosy flush coming back to his cheeks. Aris, Ado, and Linnea are standing in the room with us, watching as my blood flows into his veins. We're back in the clinic, where Aris and Ado dragged us so Daphne could set up the line.

"I came as soon as I could," Maisie says, coming into the room, her med bag bouncing off her full hip like usual. Her eyes skipped to me. "Hey, are they the same symptoms as before?"

"Yes," I say, squeezing my arm to keep the blood pumping. "Faint, weakness, color drained from his cheeks."

"He seems to be recovering," Maisie says, flashing her light into each of his eyes. He winces a little, still weak, but conscious. "So that's what, at least twenty-four hours since the last transfusion? I'm going to work on a way to test his body for the strength of the venom, but I think this is a positive sign. We already see that the treatments will be needed further apart."

Which means that, eventually, I'll be able to leave. Once Percy is healed from this.

"Couldn't you just store the blood?" Aris asks, his hand to his chin. "Seems kind of precarious, to have to set this whole thing up when the attacks happen."

"I was thinking about that," Maisie says, tapping her pen against a clipboard. "It would be convenient, but my hypothesis is that this method works best because it aligns with how the vampires must feed."

"How they must feed?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at them.

"I forget you're not a part of this world," Linnea laughs. "If vampires could gain power by drinking donated blood, there wouldn't be such an issue. But it only works if it's blood fresh from the source. Any blood that doesn't come directly from the human—like if it's been sitting in a bag for a while—doesn't do anything, and can even sometimes make them sick, I believe."

"Yeah," Aris says, sighing and running a hand over his face. "It would definitely alleviate a lot of ethical issues if the vamps were able to just open a blood bank and live off of the blood given freely by humans. But that's not possible. They need to feed off of them to live any sort of quality life, and that leads to them treating humans like they're a food source. Shifters and humans typically co-exist. We have no reason to harm them, or take from them. For many humans, living in an area with shifters can even be a positive thing, as we often boost the economy and provide a level of safety they wouldn't have without."

As has been the constant since this thing started, there's a part of my brain that rejects all of this—vampires and shifters and paranormal politics—but an equally large part of my brain can't ignore all of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

"That's interesting," I say as Ado fixes his gaze on me, his eyes calm and deep, like he knows more than he lets on.

"You smell strange," he comments, and I open my mouth in surprise.

"Uh, okay, damn," I say, putting a hand to my chest and sniffing at my armpit. "I didn't—"

Everyone laughs except for Maisie, who looks white as a sheet.

"He's not talking about sweat," Aris says, on a laugh. "I smell it, too—you smell like a shifter, obviously, but there's just something off about it."

"Could be the bite," Percy offers weakly from his place on the cot. Maisie nods, clearing her throat and clutching the clipboard to her chest like it's her lifeline.

"Yes!" she says, "Veronica's immunity and the venom in her body are likely altering her scent."

The look she gives me says we need to get me another injection of that stuff as soon as possible to keep the others from catching on.

"I wish I had been there," Linnea says, putting a hand on my cot as Maisie starts the process of disconnecting the lines between Percy and me. "I've never heard of a vampire bite triggering a shift. I wonder if—"

"We love you exactly the way you are," Aris says, grabbing her and tugging her in, settling his chin on her head. I look away, the intimacy of it too much to bear. But that just means I'm looking at Percy, who already has his head turned in my direction, his curls only a little flat and sweaty from the episode.

Even rumpled, he looks adorable. Looking at him, I get the same feeling as when I want to scoop up a cat and settle in my lap.

I just want to trace my finger of the swell of his bicep, and feel all that warm, heavy skin under my hands. I swallow and stare forward, wanting to avoid all the pressing emotions in my body.

"Veronica," Linnea says, having extricated herself from Aris's arms. "That man mentioned something about you and Percy being together?"

I try to swallow, but my throat is dry, so I just cough instead.

"Yeah," I say, when her stare doesn't waver, her eyes searching over me. I get the impression that lying right now isn't the right choice. "A few years ago. In New York."

The room goes quiet for a moment, Aris and Ado looking at Percy in surprise.

"When you took all that time off," Aris murmurs, his gaze darkens. "Percy, with a human?"

"She's not a human," Linnea interjects, and I almost breathe a sigh of relief. "Maybe Percy could sense that. I'm sure he would never truly take advantage of a human-like that."

Percy doesn't say anything; just closes his eyes against the bright lights.

"Great!" Maisie says, her voice tense. "You two are no longer tethered to one another."

If only that could be true.