Chapter 34

34

I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is I’m not going the speed limit.

“Maybe…Wilmington? The summer house still? Yeah?” I ask Naomi, who fades in and out of consciousness.

I get on the highway but then change my mind and get off, drive back roads. But it’s too quiet, and the snow is bad, and I regret my decision.

“Maybe we should ditch the car?” I ask. “Naomi?”

She groans.

“Should I pull over?”

“I’d say…avenge me…but you…already did.”

“You’re going to be fine. We can’t die,” I say. “We’re not supposed to die.”

“Of…natural causes,” she says.

Can a vampire survive a bullet to the chest? Can anything?

Distracted, I speed through a stop sign. “Shit.”

I make a quick turn onto a narrow, nowhere road.

“Ah!” Naomi screams. I’ve never seen her in so much pain.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m…”

My eyes flick up to the rearview mirror. Red and blue lights flash behind us. A single whoop of a siren rings out, and I’m suddenly boiling alive in my skin. The terror is so intense, I might combust.

“Fuck! Fuck. Where did he come from?”

“Sloane…”

“We’re in a stolen car. You’re clearly injured. What do we do?”

“You could…pull over…and…take care of it…” she says. “Temporarily…incapacitate. Or have…the…whole…tall drink…”

“We shouldn’t have separated from the others. I’m sorry. I thought I could…I don’t know. I wanted to believe I could do this. Be this.”

“Or…” she says. “You can drive.”

We look at each other. I don’t see her as she is now. I see her as the fourteen-year-old girl who sat across from me in the food court of a New Jersey mall, fidgeting with her straw. Smart, and stunning, and funny, and cooler than anyone has any right to be. Who chose me to be her best friend. Who sees me when I can’t see myself.

I slam my foot on the gas.

The acceleration is better than I expect, and we fly.

“Told you,” Naomi says, “you’re…the engine-…revving type…”

“I don’t know about that,” I say, watching the cop car in the rearview. It’s catching up.

“Hiding away…in the burbs.”

“Shh, shh,” I tell her. “Save your energy.”

“For…what?” she asks, giving a weak laugh.

The cop is on us. He tailgates me. He’s at the back bumper. The road is covered in snow, and I can’t go any faster. This is it.

“Hang on,” I say, drifting over into the other lane and then hitting the brake. The cop clips us, and Naomi gasps.

“What the…hell was that?”

The cop gets on his PA. “Engine off! Out now! Hands where I can see them! Hands! Hands!”

“Don’t move,” I say. “Three, two—”

“What…happens on…”

“One!” I shift into reverse, sliding my foot off the brake and onto the gas. I smash into the cop car’s driver’s side. Take off its mirror, dent the door.

I shift back into drive and spin the wheel hard, and we slide, the snow squelching under the tires. I regain control and pass the cop going the opposite direction. Sixty miles per hour. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety. So fast that the convertible top rips back, that the duct tape fails and the side-view mirror dangles free.

We approach a four-way stop, and I blow straight through it. The cop hasn’t caught up to us yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I hear the sirens. More are on their way.

There’s snow in my hair, piling up in my lap. I look over at Naomi. She’s quiet, slouching against the passenger-side window. Her eyelids wilt.

“Nay?”

We reach a fork, and I take the left. There’s some traffic on this road, which isn’t good. Other cars. Obstacles. Witnesses. I clench the steering wheel. It’s a two-way street, and we’re now stuck behind an SUV going so slow, I could scream.

Its driver is smart to be careful in this weather. But I’ve stopped being careful, forfeited the game and all rules along with it, and there’s no going back now. So I speed into oncoming traffic to pass the SUV.

The driver of an approaching sedan hits their brakes, avoids hitting us but spins out, colliding with the SUV. There’s an ugly crunch, followed by a screeching, an awful sort of music. It’s a fender bender. An inconvenience. For them. Not for us. The accident will cause a roadblock. Another distraction for the cops.

I listen, though, and the sirens are drowned out by fierce wind. The visibility gets worse, oncoming headlights merely faint smears. The snow falls harder. The road gets messier. I’d be grateful for this storm if I thought I could continue to drive through it. The tires lose traction, and we start to skate all over the road.

“We might need to find somewhere to pull off,” I tell Naomi.

“It’s…okay,” she says. “This is…as far…as we’ll go….”

I make the next left, which leads us past a Home Depot, a movie theater, to…

“No way,” I say as a mall comes into view. “No way.”

“The…dream mall.”

It’s clearly abandoned, entrances boarded up. There’s what was once a Lord I’ll do whatever it takes to get us inside. Into the dream mall.

I lean over, and I spread my jaws, and I start to gnaw. I bite down hard, and I snap right through the chain. I spit it from my mouth, wipe off my tongue. It tastes sour, like everything. Except blood. Except Henry.

“Look…at you…crashing…into cops…chewing through…locks…” Naomi says as I push open the door for her. “You’re so…fucking cool.”

I hold my breath, waiting for an alarm to sound, but it doesn’t.

A stroke of luck. If I can call anything about this situation lucky.

Naomi tumbles forward, into the dead mall.

It’s dim. There are some skylights, but other than that, darkness. Shadows cross the ugly white and pink and turquoise tile. Diamond patterns. Rats scurry around. I can hear them, smell them. Their scent is powerful and specific, cutting through the rot. Leaking pipes leaving puddles, spots of mold on the walls, fountains with an inch of stagnant water covering dirty coins—abandoned wishes.

We come to an escalator, half-collapsed in a two-story atrium.

There’s a carousel off to the side. A small one, with only a few horses. I can tell it was beautiful once, though the colors have faded, and the whole thing is covered in dust. I feel sad for the horses, trapped in here, frozen. Unable to dance around their forever loop. There are so many ways to be stuck, aren’t there?

“This is it,” Naomi says, falling to her hands and knees. “It really is the…dream mall.”

“It is,” I lie. It looks nothing like the mall in my dreams.

“We made it,” she says, smiling as she lowers herself down onto her side. I cringe because the floor is so filthy. Because I don’t know what to do. “I bet…you have…a sad mall story…one of your…disasters.”

“The Sampoong Department Store collapse,” I say, sitting beside her. “South Korea, 1995, I think? Lazy builders. Greedy executives. There were structural issues that went ignored. Didn’t want to close and lose revenue, even when there were huge cracks in the ceiling. And then, yeah. Five hundred people died. More than that injured.”

“In-…in-…inspiring,” Naomi says, pointing to the crumbling escalator.

“That was a department store, technically not a mall. I don’t know. I don’t know.” I peel her coat back. She was right. She is bleeding. Dark, thick, strange blood. For the first time since I was bitten, since I was changed, the sight of blood doesn’t make me thirsty. It makes me nauseous.

“They found…those two bodies…at Pompeii,” she says. “The lovers.”

“Maybe they were just friends.”

She smiles. “Best friends?”

“Yeah. Or they were together but not exclusive, and then at the last minute it was like, well, fuck it.”

“Don’t…make…me laugh,” she says. “Imagine. Not that…into each other…but it’s…the end…of the world…”

“Yeah,” I say. “Nay, maybe I should—”

“Maybe they…were having…an Armageddon bang.”

“Naomi, are you, um…Should I…?”

She shakes her head. “Give me…a minute.”

“Okay,” I say, wiping my hands on my shirt before I touch her, sweep her hair out of her face. “You’re going to be fine.”

“We should have…spent more time…together.”

“Maybe they’ll find us. Henry, Ilie…Maybe they’ve been following. They’ll know what to do….”

She looks up. “Is that…a carousel? Definitely…the dream mall.”

She writhes in anguish. She’s leaking. There’s blood on the floor.

“Naomi. You need blood. You need—”

“It’s okay, hoss,” she says, smiling. “My time’s up.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Just…promise me…you’ll live. Drink…smoke…fuck…fuck up… live .”

“Don’t say that! Stop. Just stop talking like that. I can’t do this without you. If you go, I—”

“You should…be with…your prince. The way you…look at…each other…he’s so into…you. He…must be…smart,” she says. There’s no color left in her. She’s withering away right in front of me.

“You don’t get it. I can’t survive a minute without you. Not a second.”

“I’m not…I’m not…afraid…anymore. It’s…okay.”

“I am! Nay…” I get an idea. I push my sleeve up. “Bite me.”

“R-r-…rude.”

“Seriously. Bite me. Drink from me. Take my blood,” I say. “I bit Ms.Alice. It’s possible. I think—I think we can take from each other. Give to each other. It won’t taste good, but—”

“I…don’t…have it in me…. I’m…tired….”

“We have to try to do something! Please.” I lower my wrist to her lips. “Please. Please…”

She shakes her head.

“Please!” My pleading echoes through the mall. “Please.”

Naomi’s eyes glaze over.

“Fuck it,” I say, lurching forward and sinking my teeth into the visible blue veins where my arm goes skinny, where the metal once was, which was meant to fix me but didn’t, couldn’t. It doesn’t taste like anything, and it hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt before. What I imagine it would be like to have a tooth extracted without anesthetic, a bone hammered broken, a limb axed off. A removal. An unwelcome alteration.

“Here,” I say, allowing the blood to leak into her open mouth, like Elisa did that first night. Only now it’s my blood instead of Naomi’s own. Vampire blood. Thick and dark and strange and maybe not good enough. Maybe this is a useless transfusion. “Drink.”

Her head lolls.

“Swallow it. Please? Stay with me.”

I keep bleeding. I keep giving. But there’s no response. It’s so quiet, until it isn’t. Until there are footsteps. Until we’re no longer alone in the mall.

My vision blurs, and I know if I lose any more blood, I won’t have any more to spare. But if I stop, if I tie off my wrist, it’ll be over.

I’m suspended in time.

If I don’t accept that she’s lying on the floor, eyes closed, teeth bloody, motionless, maybe it won’t be real. If I don’t accept that we have company, likely the police closing in, maybe they’ll just disappear.

I don’t call her name again, because if she doesn’t answer, that’s an answer. One I don’t want.

I let my eyes wander. I find a greening penny on the floor, heads up.

This really is the dream mall.

I crawl over to the fountain, rubbing the oxidized penny between my fingers. Making a wish as I continue to bleed, as the approaching footsteps hurry closer. I toss the penny in, and it makes a satisfying splash. The ripples go out, and out, and when they fade, I can still see them. Even after the surface of the water goes still, they’re there. In my eyes. In my mind. The hope of the moment, of the wish, rippling out endlessly.

—

When I finally turn around, it’s to the sound of a familiar voice calling my name. To Naomi, sitting up, color in her cheeks, smiling at me, in the arms of strangers we met a few days ago, who are not strangers anymore.

The view is too good to be true. I choose to trust it anyway.

When I turn around, it’s to something better than a dream.

It’s to beauty and friendship and love.

To my life.

I want it, want to savor it to the last drop. The delicious mess of it.

All of it. Everything. Forever.