Chapter 5: Alexis

Chapter 5: Alexis

How?!

How was he still alive?

I had not been prepared. Never in my life would I have imagined that he’d come back from the dead. I guess, for a man who had outlived all his pack members, somehow survived more than seventy years in prison, and beaten the poison wreaking havoc in his body, coming back from the dead was not an impossible feat. But it defied all explanation—all except one.

I had gone insane.

The nervous breakdown from watching my mate die and the subsequent chase that my enemies had given me from one town to another had finally cracked my sanity and let madness seep in.

At first, I couldn’t compute that he was alive. When he emerged from the shadow and came face to face with me, his face gaunt, his color pallid, his eyes wide, it was akin to witnessing a haunting.

But then he had spoken. He had told me his version. At least, that’s what I thought he’d done. I was so overwhelmed by his presence that my brain had asked all the wrong questions, said all the wrong things, and destroyed what could have otherwise been a very cheerful reconciliation.

I had let my emotions take control of my faculties. When I should have been asking him how he had managed to avoid death, how he was still alive, I cast blame on him for calling out Ariana’s name. I shunned him, revoked him, rejected him, and sent him away.

How was it that I was capable of such ugliness?

Now that was the right question, and I asked myself this question many times as I stared at my messy self in the bathroom mirror. The tears streaming down my face were not those of sadness or emotional anguish as much as they were tears of relief.

Yes, relief. I was relieved to see him alive. In fact, it was only after I had ascertained that it was Will and he was alive and well that I had burst out at him.

The question remained—how was he still alive?

Had he been telling the truth about saying Ariana’s name because he had come across her soul on some immortal plain of existence? As badly as I wanted to believe him, I couldn’t help but think that there was something quite off about him. That he was lying profusely just so he could get back with me.

Some things I had said to him were true, others not so much. I did love him. Even when I was falling from that building with a bullet lodged in me, I knew that I loved him.

I loved him even now, but it hurt to love him.

Could I be blamed for feeling this pain? After I had thought that I had lost him, could I be held accountable for the way that I had reacted when he emerged from the shadows?

Of course, and of course, not.

Perhaps, my cruel behavior was my way of getting back at him for saying Ariana’s name, for dying on me. I didn’t exactly have control over my state at that time. Most of me was in disbelief that he was still alive, and what was left was computing how he was alive.

But during all that, I had said some things I had been thinking in my subconscious but hadn’t the courage to say. And some of the things I said had given me a new direction in life.

Such as the fact that I was done being a werewolf. I could do without shifting into my wolf form again. I could do without being part of a pack. Now that I thought about it, I could do without adhering to some archaic norm that dictated that I was to be bonded with another wolf as their fated mate.

Yes, all of that was behind me.

This was the start of my new life.

Fuck all that. I needed a drink.

There was great furor coming from below. I tried to make sense of all the voices, but they were all saying things in that Bangor accent, things that were alien to my ears.

I went down the stairs, still somewhat in disbelief that Will’s visit to me was real.

The bar was packed from door to counter. All the people gathered were wearing red clothes.

“What’s all this?” I asked Izzie, who herself was wearing a red sweater.

“Our busiest night of the week. The Boston Red Sox versus the Chicago Cubs.”

“Baseball. Yikes,” I said.

“Speaking of yikes, I saw that fella that visited you,” Izzie said now that they were both behind the counter, pouring pints of beer to the customers whose eyes were glued to the LCD screen in the corner.

“Lawrence? He was all right. He took me out, we had a little bit of fun. What, do you think he’s raising some red flags?”

“Not that guy. That guy was all right. The other guy,” Izzie said. “The one you were having a shouting match with.”

It sank in my heart, this realization that I hadn’t had a hallucination; if Izzie had met with him, then he must have been alive and must have come into my room for real.

“The haggard-looking guy?” I asked fearfully.

“Is that the same guy who gave you all these bruises?” Izzie asked. “I had a shotgun cocked at him.”

“No, he never beat me or anything like that. The scars that he gave me are all emotional,” I said.

“Those still count as scars, honey. Abuse doesn’t have to be just physical to count as abuse. Most men run the world through emotional and verbal abuse,” Izzie said.

There were so many customers that it was hard to understand what Izzie was saying. It was just as hard for her to understand what I was saying. We both had to speak louder than usual and strain to hear what the other person was saying. The game, in full swing, did not help. Every five seconds or so, the crowd yelled when the players got a strike or hit a home run. It was chaos inside the bar, but it was the good kind of chaos, the kind that made you forget that the world outside was a fucked up place with bloodthirsty monsters lurking around the corners and ex-mates coming back from the dead.

“I just want to forget about him,” I said. “You know, I thought he had died. Then he turns up and tries to undo all the mourning I did for him.”

“Typical men. They gaslight you into thinking that the world revolves around them. And when you finally escape their mental prison, they go and pull shit like this,” Izzie said. “I bet he was really scared to see that you were doing so well all on your own.”

“He’s not that bad. He’s just old-fashioned,” I said.

“Old-fashioned is what whipped women call their husbands who still resort to treating their wives like fuckable dishwashers and house slaves. You don’t want to call him old-fashioned. If anything, we need more woke men than before,” she said.

“Woke like Lawrence, you mean?” I asked, chuckling. I’d just handed two chubby young adults six glasses of beer. They had been all too eager to receive their imbibements. In their happiness, they had tipped me fifty dollars.

“Lawrence is a slick big-city man from what I can tell. You better be careful around him. Chances are he’s not who he says he is. Guys like him think that the world is their playground. All women are toys in that big sandbox,” Izzie said.

“Jesus, Izzie, you hate men,” I said.

“I’ve got my reasons, girl,” Izzie said.

It was much better in the bar than it was in my room. I spent the entire night serving drinks to the old-timers and the watchers of the game, most of whom left very dejected after the Red Sox lost to the Cubs. Some of them even broke a couple of glasses, in response to which Izzie took out her baseball bat and suggested that she’d break their heads if they didn’t pay for all the broken glasses.

It was good entertainment. Good enough to keep me distracted from what had just happened.

I only went up at the break of dawn, and when I crashed on my bed, I immediately fell asleep, not minding that the window was still open and the bed smelled like beer and piss.

I just wanted to sleep.

***

“You look rested,” Lawrence said, holding a rose in his hand. “Quite rested. You are radiant.”

I had slept the entire morning and had promised Izzie that I’d take the night shift.

“Thanks,” I said, blushing a bit. I had put some good effort into getting ready for this second date. Izzie had lent me some of her makeup supplies and had given me a pair of her dresses to wear other than the stolen stuff in the cabinet. I did look nice. During my sleep, my healing had kicked into overdrive. By the time evening rolled in, all of my wounds except for the bullet wound had healed. “Is that rose a callback to our first date?”

“You mean when that boy pestered us to buy a rose, and when we didn’t, he gave up and just gave it to us for free?” Lawrence laughed.

“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “Didn’t you say you’d come by on the weekend?”

“I tried to go the macho route, not call and only come on the weekend. But I was up all night thinking about you, and I couldn’t stop even when I was at work. So…I got off work early, called you, and here we are. I don’t want to be the typical alpha male.”

“Ugh, please never use that word again.”

“Alpha male?”

“Yeah. I have a lifelong aversion to that term. My ex…he was really into that stuff,” I said.

“Ouch. Okay, we’re not getting into that stuff. As long as you promise me you’re not wild about crocheting. My ex loved to crochet,” Lawrence said, giving me his arm. I took it after some thought and let him escort me out of the alley and onto the street.

“I hate crocheting. It’s like the perpetual habit of all single old women who keep a lot of cats in the house and eat only Spam and hotdogs for dinner. No crocheting, no cats, no Spam, and hotdogs,” I said. When I used to be with Will, I never got a lot of chances to speak my heart out about my observations about society because I knew that he’d be a complete alien to these remarks. Being with Lawrence was good like that.

He laughed at my remark and then opened the door of his Lexus for me.

“My, my, they must be paying you in six figures at your job,” I said. I had never been in a Lexus before. The inside was all leather and smelled of expensive cigar smoke.

“Hey, don’t knock the corporate ladder until you try it,” he said.

“Oh, I have done that. I worked at Beckett Pharma for a while,” I lied, wanting to impress him by showing him that I wasn’t a complete hick.

“Holy shit, really?”

Then I spun a yarn about how I had applied there and had worked there as an intern and felt terrible when I saw that he was listening intently and accepting everything that I was saying word for word. What a gullible guy, I thought.

“Man, that sounds like a wild ride. Compared to my boring old desk job, yours sounds like a hoot and a half,” Lawrence said.

“No more shop talk. We’re out to have fun. Take me someplace where I can feel like a little girl again,” I said.

“So, Emerson Elementary School, is it?”

I threw my head back and laughed. He chuckled mirthfully in response.

We ended up going roller skating. Lawrence was a perfect gentleman through and through, holding me whenever I was about to fall, asking the DJ to change the tracks to the ones I liked, and buying me snacks from the Tuck Shop in the rink every few minutes.

I was stuffed and tired by the time our date ended.

“I had fun, didn’t you?” I asked, feeling the flush on my cheeks return.

“I felt like a little girl,” Lawrence said. “Especially when we danced to Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin.’”

“You’re silly,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder after we got out of the car.

“Well, I had a lovely time, and I’d like to do it again if you want,” he said.

“Okay, but space it out. Come to me the day after tomorrow,” I said.

“Or tomorrow?” he asked.

“Someone’s a little eager,” I said.

“I just feel like we have this connection. I don’t want to spend time away from you. It’s clingy, I know, but still…”

“Okay, you can come tomorrow.”

Lawrence came forward, leaning close to my face.

I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back.

“I’m sorry. I am still mourning my ex-boyfriend. He sort of died, and then…I don’t want to get into it. It’s just, it’s all too raw. I hope you understand,” I said.

He lifted his hands and stepped back. “I completely get it. I’m sorry. Handshake?”

I smiled through pressed lips and shook his hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“Hey, don’t apologize to me. I get it. I’m sorry for advancing without consent. That was wrong. I misread the situation,” Lawrence said.

“You’re okay. We’re fine. But you owe me another flower tomorrow,” I said. “A dahlia, this time. Not a rose.”

“Dahlia. Got it. All right, then, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, shaking my hand once again.

I smiled at him and watched him leave the alley. If I could make my way to my room, I’d be able to see him leave in his car. With that in mind, I ran up the stairs and went to my room. Lawrence was magnetic and charming. He was funny without trying to be funny. He knew the right thing to say and what not to say. I could see this going somewhere. I really did. Maybe Lawrence was the first chapter in my new life as a free woman in Bangor.

Or maybe he was a walking talking blood-bag.

It didn’t take me long to recognize the vampires stalking him on the road. They were all wearing matching trench coats with the collars turned up. The pale, bald vampires ganged up on Lawrence from all sides.

Was I destined to fall for men who’d die brutally?

They were talking to him, getting in his face, and putting their hands on him. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Lawrence took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and gave a bunch of them to the vampires. They lit their cigarettes with his lighter, then talked some more to him. Then Lawrence got in his car and left.

I slid to the floor in relief. They weren’t about to kill him. They didn’t even know he was related to me in any way. They were just asking him for cigarettes, as folk often do. It was all good.

When I got up again to see if the vampires were there or not, I only saw a small shadow in the alley across the road. None of the vampires were there. As I stared, the shadow receded into the alley, disappearing in the darkness.

Where were the vampires?