#depravedhero

Damon was running hot and cold with me, and I was finding it difficult to understand just what was going on there. Sometimes, I got the feeling @DepravedHero didn’t quite trust me to tell his secrets to. He never talked about his exes, and in my experience, the things people talk about the least are the things they feel the deepest. Then again, maybe he was just afraid of what I was, thinking we were just too different for him to feel safe with me. Either way, his mind seemed elsewhere, and had been for a while.

I didn’t push it, but I’ll admit to being really goddamn curious. Not to him, of course. If he’d asked (which he didn’t), I’d have flat denied wanting to know. But it was kind of a damned if you do scenario. If he told me, maybe I’d find out he still held a torch for an old flame and I’d wish I didn’t know. Then again, if he didn’t want to answer me, well, he might just tell me to fuck off for bringing it up in the first place. Kick my ass out for good. It didn’t seem to do much good for me to dwell on it. Worrying wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good for anyone, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to make him open up to me.

I’ve never been what you call the relationship type. Too much of your life spent on the road and never enough time in one place tends to make you a lone wolf. It’s hard to break out of that habit. And besides that, it was dangerous for me to get too attached to anyone. Eventually, it just ends up getting them killed or hurt, and I didn’t want to live with that on my conscience. I’d dealt with that after Jo. I didn’t want it to happen to anyone else. Life has a funny way of kicking you in the nuts. My life, more often than most.

Sammy would have found it freakin’ hilarious that I was even thinking about this shit. All this touchy feely crap is his territory, not mine. I tend to stay far away from even letting myself think about getting too close to someone.

This thing with @DepravedHero wasn’t supposed to be a thing. I came here on a job and just fell into him. I wasn’t looking, and damned if I didn’t fall hard. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, honestly. Except it was too late to walk away. I didn’t want to, and even if I’d wanted to, I don’t think my heart would have let me.

What the hell, man? I didn’t know the first goddamn thing about relationships. Who was I kidding trying to have one? And damned if I wasn’t fucking low key jealous of his exes. Me. Acting like a little bitch.

That realization had me wavering constantly between wanting to tie him down and fuck him until he begged me to stay and wanting to storm out in search of the old me who didn’t let anyone get too close. The old me would have drunk my feelings and followed it up with a string of meaningless one night stands just to prove I still had the touch. To prove I didn’t need anyone.

Except...I didn’t want that life anymore. From the outside looking back at that guy I used to be, I could kind of objectively see what an empty asshole he was. I remember what it was like not to feel. Life was simpler. Less complicated. Only me and my dick to worry about, and to hell with all the rest. All that “feelings” bullshit just got in my way. It was something you tripped on on your way out the door.

And yet I wanted @DepravedHero in my way. Wanted him pretty much all the fucking time. So bad, the thought of losing him made me feel physically sick.

Fuck me. That was the hell of it.

I wanted him in my way and staying there. I didn’t want this to end. I was used to everyone but Sam being temporary in my life, and for the first time I wanted something to last. I didn’t know how to tell him that he’d opened up a pandora’s box of feelings I’d kept a tight lid on. I didn’t think he’d want to hear it, frankly. But not telling him felt like a goddamned lie. It felt like cowardice, and Dean Winchester was not a fucking coward.

GODDAMN IT! I really was turning into Sam. That’s just freakin’ awesome.

Tell me why it is I could face down a multitude of monsters and things that go bump in the night, fight the devil himself and all his minions, but this scared the shit out of me so much I was afraid to even talk about it.

Oh yeah, I was a little bitch, all right.

God only knows what @DepravedHero thought of me. I sure didn’t. Well, not exactly. I knew he wanted me in his bed. That much was obvious. And I knew he had a sense of ownership with me. Beyond that, though, your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.

He called me his boyfriend, but I got the feeling there was a shelf life to that. Like he was waiting for something, and I didn’t know what. I didn’t like the idea of being blindsided.

What would he do when I got older? Would he still feel the same? And that ex of his...what if he showed up again? Or her, for that matter? Stranger things had been known to happen.

That’s why I ate a little more than usual. Drank more than I should have. Took long showers that left the bathroom full of steam. It’s why I kept the music cranked up so it could drown out my loud thoughts and danced around the house in my underwear. And when those things failed to keep me from acknowledging my feelings, I let my body show him a passion my lips couldn’t say aloud. Fucked him until I lost my words altogether. Until I had no coherent thoughts left, and I sank into an exhausted sleep in his arms.

I prided myself on being stoic. I’d practically made it my stock and trade. Finding someone who broke through that facade scared the hell out of me. This was all new territory, and I didn’t like feeling so out of control.

That’s the thing about strong emotions. They’ll fuck you up and leave you naked and raw in the middle of a trainwreck you never saw coming.

I knew it was fear talking. Fear so deep, it made the marrow of my bones go cold. I was petrified of losing him.

Only one other person inspired that sort of fear in me. Only one other person mattered so much that the mere thought of losing him was enough for me to sell my soul to keep him.

Sammy.

And realizing @DepravedHero had that same level of sway over my emotions was enough to shut me down completely behind a blanket of denial.

“Nope. I’m not worried. Not me. I’m fine. I’m completely fine. Nothing to see here. Go about your business. Everything’s okie dokie.” These were the things I told myself like a mantra because that was easier than admitting how passionately I felt for him.

As long as I kept busy, I could even believe it. But when there was silence, it became filled with all the things I couldn’t speak aloud, and I felt like I was drowning under the weight of it.

@DepravedHero was reading that afternoon. I was nearby, sitting on the sofa with my laptop, doing a little research on a hunt I’d never go on. The clock in that room ticked so loud, I swear it echoed in the hall like something in a movie, every second sounding louder than the one before, until finally something in me snapped.

“I’m going to go get a pizza,” I said, closing the laptop with impatience. “You like pepperoni, right? I need pepperoni.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I left the laptop there in my seat as I got up, and walked steadily to the door, my eyes fixed firmly ahead. All I could think was that if I could just get to my car, that ticking would stop. Get to my car, put on some music, drive until the feeling of panic passed.

Drive where? I didn’t know. The pizza was just an excuse, and I knew it.

As I climbed behind the wheel and turned the engine over, I slid a cassette tape into the player. I’d grabbed one at random. The music began to play, drum beat thumping in the speakers. I should have let it drive me on toward the highway, but I hesitated. Minutes stretched on and still I sat, staring out over the dashboard out the front windshield at the long drive. I couldn’t make myself shift into drive and put the pedal down. And then I realized why.

I knew with startling clarity that if I drove away, the road would lead me on the way it always had.

The road wasn’t complicated. The road simply was. There was something comforting and freeing in belonging nowhere. Just existing with nothing to mark the passage of time but the rise and fall of the sun over my head.

If I let it, the road would carry me away and I might never come back again. I’d be back on the job, and that would be the end of it.

But instead, I sat there in park and I couldn’t go. This place was home to me. /@DepravedHero/ was home to me.

As the song faded out, I reached up and turned the key, shutting off the engine. One long deep breath.

“Stop being a little bitch, Dean. You’re acting like a crazy person,” I growled at myself, and with that, I climbed out, pocketed the keys, and went back inside.

@DepravedHero was going to ask me. He might have come to his own conclusions about my behavior. He couldn’t have missed how I’d been acting. I figured I had two options. I could either act like nothing happened or I could suck it up and face it head on, tell him directly. Option one was what I’d been doing. It was time for Plan B.

I came back to where @DepravedHero was still sitting and without overthinking it, I tossed him my keys. “Hold onto these for me, would you?” I sat back down on the sofa, and I forced myself to shove my fear aside. “Don’t give ‘em back for a while. Not even if I ask.”

It was the bravest admission I could have made, though I didn’t know if he’d understand it without more explanation.

Damon had been quiet and withdrawn, and I might have taken it personally if it weren’t for the fact that I was getting used to reading his moods by now. I could see just by looking at him, this wasn’t about me. He was off in the past, lost in the minefields of memory.

So I waited. Nothing a little patience and time couldn’t cure, right?

Except that it had been days, and he was still just as distant. Long enough to make me worry. And I only know two ways to handle that feeling. One is distraction while I ignored what was bothering me entirely, and the other is in your face confrontation. Either way, it meant action, not just sitting around biting my nails like a little girl.

I had my speech all ready. I’d practiced it in my head. Okay, not every word because that took too long. But I knew how I was going to start, and kind of the general gist of where I wanted to try to steer the conversation to keep it from running off the rails.

Determined to tackle whatever this was head on, I took a deep breath and I stepped into the room where he was standing at the window in silhouette. Crossing my arms over my chest, I opened my mouth to speak when I spied the things he’d left lying out on the bed. Letters, journals, photographs, all yellowing and slightly curled at the corners. It wasn’t like him to make a mess. I’d been right about his fixation on the past. His mind was clearly wandering back over things he’d done and said, people he’d lost, regrets.

One of those photos there was a polaroid of me, aged seven, holding newborn baby Sammy, and Mom grinning in her hospital bed. Unable to resist, I picked it up and bit my lip as I examined it more carefully. Dad was in the background, so that meant Damon had been the one to take the picture. That was such an important moment. Why didn’t I remember knowing him? I had /very/ clear memories of that day, and Damon had no place in them at all.

And then it hit me. There was only one reason I couldn’t remember someone who had clearly been an integral part of my life. He’d purposely removed himself from my memory. Silently, I looked up at him with a narrowed gaze as he stood stared out the window into the middle distance.

Why would he do that?

And having done it, why the visual confession now?

Perhaps it had something to do with this promise he said he’d made to my dad. A promise that was about me. A promise to what...take care of me? Protect me?

How was removing himself from my life protecting me?

He wasn’t just confessing by leaving these things out. He was giving me proof of something. Something he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud. Or maybe he just thought I wouldn’t believe him without seeing the evidence with my own eyes.

“Damon…” I breathed his name in an undertone, so quietly that most other people wouldn’t have heard it at all. But he wasn’t most people, was he?

Though he didn’t make a sound, I could almost hear his thoughts screaming from across the room, begging me to look at the things he’d left out for me and not force him to verbalize his explanation. Was it painful to him? Was that the reason? Or was he ashamed? Maybe both?

Pressing my lips together, forehead furrowed, I looked down again at the things he’d left spread out, placed meticulously. He wanted me to know he’d done it on purpose or he wouldn’t still be standing there as though he were carved in marble, waiting for my reaction.

“All right,” I whispered. “I get it. We’ll do it your way.”

Filling my lungs with air as though preparing for a plunge, I then let it out again through pursed lips. If I was going to do this, he was going to know how hard this was for me as well. I leaned over and picked up the journal opening it to find the year “1983” written inside the front cover. Well, how’s that for a gut punch? The year Mom died. Guess that’s what I get for being curiosity's kitten. I sat heavily on the bed, took one more deep breath, then dived in.

It was weird, reading over the way he talked about my parents, and even my grandparents. He’d known my family for a long way back, and he knew the demon had haunted us down the generations.Yet when it came to the moment when Mom was killed, he hadn’t been there. Why?

But I knew the answer to that. The name was written on the envelopes that lay still sealed on the bed. Garrett. He’d been with Garrett. Was that the broken promise he’d referred to? Surely he couldn’t blame himself for that. No one could have predicted when the demon would resurface. And anyway, this was half a lifetime ago. Why had he still not read the letters?

The answer had to be in the journals. So I kept reading, poring over the entries for clues. I skimmed over his entries that dealt with his past relationship. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but it just felt like an invasion of privacy. I know he was leaving it there for me to see, but I put myself in this guy Garrett’s shoes, and whatever it was that had gone wrong between them, he hadn’t given permission to have his secrets exposed. I paid attention to the important bits, events and places and dates that overlapped with my family somehow, but those things that were just about the two of them, I glossed over out of respect for whatever they’d had together. It was past and none of my business, so far as I could tell.

Then I got to the entries at Christmas time that year, and I saw how they connected. Both letters were from this time, and it was clear from the journal that the two of them had been having problems. Was this how it ended? Is that what Damon wanted me to know?

I looked up to see him still standing there, still and silent, as if he were holding his breath until I finished finding whatever it was that had him so rattled. He hadn’t moved. He was only waiting, mind a million miles away.

I knew where I would find it.

Looking back down, I turned the page and found myself smack dab in the middle of an account of my dad and Bill Harvelle, who just happened to pick Damon up when the car he was driving broke down. But if my life had taught me anything, it was that there are no coincidences when it comes to my family. No doubt, Dad had been looking for Damon, though clearly not hunting. So what did he want?

Werewolves? No. That was a sideline from the real thing they were hunting.

It was old Yellow Eyes. Of course it was.

Fresh on the heels of Mom’s death, Dad was obsessed with tracking down the thing that had killed her. I remember what he’d been like then. Despite being so young, I remember because I’d suddenly had responsibility for Sammy thrust on me.

I remembered this Christmas, in fact. I’d been left behind in a cheap motel with Sammy and told to guard him while Dad was gone. He’d left me alone for days, giving me money enough to buy formula for Sammy and burgers and fries and Coke from the vending machines for myself. He’d promised me pie when he got back. Told me to keep the door locked until he came with the secret knock. I’d waited, changing Sammy’s diapers and feeding him every time he cried, hoping Santa would come and bring him back to us for the holiday, but when the morning came and it was just like any other day, I’d realized how foolish I was to hope for it. Mom was gone. Our house was gone. And there was never going to be a visit from Santa again. My childhood was over. That was how I’d remembered that Christmas. Dad had never told me why he wasn’t there. He’d simply showed up again sometime before New Years with some Hot Wheels cars for me and a whole cherry pie he let me eat by myself.

What I saw was enough to shock me to the core. He’d coerced Damon into calling up a crossroads demon. I had enough experience with those to know how they can twist the truth to manipulate people into making deals. Damon’s record of what the demon had said to him was shocking when I saw it mention me. A promise to Dad that had something to do with me, protecting me. Break it...how? Had he already done so? He’d mentioned a broken promise before. Was it the same one?

Then the demon mentioned Antonio. I’d seen that name before but had skimmed over that as well, assuming that it was also in the past and not any of my business. But the demon left no doubt of the nature of their relationship. If Antonio was somehow damned for what the two of them had done together, then so was I. But I didn’t believe in that. The way we touched each other felt like something both sacred and profane, but I didn’t think God had any interest in punishing people for love. Especially after...well...I just didn’t.

I read back over the account again, trying to puzzle out what it meant and figure out truth from lies.

That’s when I saw that the demon mentioned Damon’s ex, Garrett too. His soldier. I glanced over at the two unopened letters, the dates of which matched the entry dates in the journal exactly. Had the demon been telling the truth? Had Garrett had an affair? Had he ever loved Damon at all? Was the vampire he’d spent so many years with a liar? Only one way to know, and clearly Damon had never tried to find out.

Picking up the letters, I set the journal aside and looked up at my lover across the room.

“Crossroads demons lie and twist the truth, you know.” My voice sounded harsh and abnormally loud after my long silence. “They prey on your weaknesses. Your fears. You know, nothing that demon said was maybe true at all. At the very least, it might have given half truths, letting you assume the rest. Don’t you think it’s time you opened these letters? He wrote them to you. After living with him for...what...how long was it? Don’t you think you owe him that? I mean, hey, maybe the guy was a complete asshole. I don’t know him, but that’s been thirty five years almost. Give him the benefit of the doubt.”

It was noon when I checked into the Crescent Hotel. I was strung out from the road and pissed off on top of that, so I wasn’t exactly in a chatty mood. Still, I’d come here for a hunt, and I was determined to follow through with it to get myself out of my own head. Anything to stop thinking about...him.

The moment I walked into the large open lobby, I was inundated with the scent of musty carpets and that scent that old ladies have...kind of a mixture of faded roses, oil of Olay, and Menthol rub. The furniture has that sense of faded glory, and I can imagine at one time this place was swarming with people coming to visit the hot springs, but now there are only a few septuagenarians come to visit the antique shops that seem rampant in this place. And then there’s me, standing out like a sore thumb in my jeans and flannel, clearly not fitting in with the rest of the clientele.

“What brings you to Eureka Springs, Mister...Ulrich?” The paunched clerk wrote my name in the ledger, or rather the name on my credit card, barely looking up with more than a glance in my direction.

“Lars...call me Lars.” I gave a bright smile, trying to sell the pseudonym, leaning on the antique wood counter with a weary sigh. “I heard the scenery was spectacular.”

“Well, we’ve no shortage of that,” he said. “I’m putting you in room 135. Just one floor up.”

“You got anything on the top floor? Maybe up on the east wing?” I asked, trying to make the request sound nonchalant. All the reports of ghosts I’d read about were located there, and I was hoping to be placed in one of the haunted rooms.

He looked up at last, a wary expression on his face. “I have one...it...it hasn’t been updated, though. We’re still remodeling floor by floor, and we haven’t gotten to that section yet.

“I don’t mind,” I said, smiling a little broader. “I’m here for the view.”

Oh, he was suspicious all right, but I gave him a look of wide eyed innocence, and he bought it, heaving a sigh and giving in to my request. “Okay. I’ll give you room number 470. Top corner. It’s got windows facing both directions.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said, with an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. Damn @DepravedHero for making me feel so vulnerable.

The man slid the key across the counter to me, then pointed across the lobby to the hallway at the far end. “Elevator is down there and to your right. Stairs too, in case you want to go the old fashioned way.” And he laughed as though he’d said something funny. “Breakfast is included and is in the main dining room from seven to ten thirty. Just bring your key when you come down. Shuttles to downtown arrive every hour from nine until sundown. If you need anything, extra towels or whatever, just ring down to the desk.”

I saw why he mentioned the stairs as soon as I got onto the elevator. The thing was rickety and loud, and it smelled of burnt wiring. By the time I reached the top floor, I’d already decided I’d never step foot in that thing again.

For an old hotel, the room was spacious, though the air was stuffy, and he wasn’t kidding about the decor. It looked stuck in 1910 with a bedspread that looked like something someone’s great aunt Gertie used to keep in her spare room. The mattress creaked when I sat on it, and though I wanted a hot bath, I was too tired to do anything but kick off my boots and sprawl still dressed across the bed, face down, and almost immediately I fell asleep.

When I awoke again, it was dark outside. I’d missed the day entirely, and my head ached. “Fuck,” I said, sitting up and raking a hand through my hair.

It was too late to drive to any of the downtown restaurants, but the hotel bar was still open, and a liquid meal sounded like the best idea of the day.

There was just me and the bartender and an old couple getting sloshed in the corner. Eavesdropping, I overheard them talking about having gotten married earlier that day. They were both on their third or fourth marriage and this was their honeymoon.

Marriage. Not something I wanted to think about /at all/ in my current mood, so I turned my back to them and asked for a bottle of the good stuff, telling the bartender to keep them coming. After all, good old Lars Ulrich would be picking up the tab anyway, so I could afford to get drunk in style.

I drank in silence, ignoring the bartender’s attempts to draw me into conversation. A buddy wasn’t something I was looking for, and I’d be damned if I talked about @DepravedHero to anyone in this place.

The old couple finally moseyed out the door, and I took that as my cue to leave as well. I paid to take the rest of the bottle with me, and gripping it firmly by the neck, I staggered back to my room, leaving the glass behind to drink directly from the bottle.

Bath. I’d been thinking about it all day, and finishing off the rest of my Jim Beam in the claw foot tub I’d seen in that bathroom was the closest to a happy ending for this shittastic day that I was likely to get.

I shucked my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor as the tub filled, and then I eased my weary bones into the water, sighing as I settled back against the porcelain. Steam filled the room, and I rested my head back, taking another drink and then closing my eyes. “Here’s to you, you bastard. You broke me. Hope you’re happy.”

But the hell of it was, I still loved him. I don’t think I’ll ever get over loving him. Even hurt and aching as my heart felt, still I loved @DepravedHero with everything that I was, and I wasn’t going to be the same.

“Drink up, Dean. He’s not worried about your tears, so don’t you waste ‘em on crying anymore.” That was what I murmured to myself, but as for following that instruction...yeah, I was useless. But there was no one to see, and the tub had room to hold a few more drops. I finished the bottle, then set it down on the tile floor with a clink of glass before pulling my arms back inside the tub and letting myself slide down under the surface of the water.

I stayed under until my lungs began to ache, then came back up with a gasp, hair dripping into my eyes. All the salt of my tears had been washed away, and though I was clean, I felt empty inside.

At last I pulled the plug and stepped out, reaching for a towel.

That’s when it happened.

A girl all in white, eyes wide with fear, stood by the door, staring at me. Her hair was wet and her feet were bare and dirty, and I could see her mouthing something, but there wasn’t a sound except the gurgle of the drain and the drip of the water from my skin onto the tiles.

Quickly I wrapped the towel around my waist, staring at her wide eyed. This had to be my ghost. And me with my pants down...literally. No salt. None of my usual tools of the trade. Just me and this ghost girl, staring each other down.

“You...you shouldn’t be here,” I said, trying to sound calm but firm. As if scolding a ghost like a naughty teenager would ever work. “What do you want, huh? You some kind of peeping tom or whatever the girl equivalent of that is?”

She didn’t reply, only shook her head and looked at me plaintively, eyes wide and spectrally dark.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to sneak around in strange men’s bathrooms?” At the mention of her mother, the ghost looked stricken. “Huh. Guess I hit a nerve.”

Suddenly, then, she came rushing toward me, through me, into me, and I gave a shudder from head to toes.

* * * I was standing on the edge of the top floor balcony, my back to the long drop down, looking back toward the exterior door.

“Jocelyn, we can talk about this,” I heard a disembodied voice say. “Your parents don’t have to know.”

“No. You were a teacher. I trusted you. You’re older than me, and I trusted you. Now it’s ruined. Everything’s ruined.”

I could hear her voice in my head plain as day, but it was my mouth that was moving, my voice coming out choked, sobbing, and I felt the cool steel of the railing in my hands as I pressed back against it.

“Don’t you come any closer. I swear I’ll jump.”

That was me too, only it wasn’t me. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. But her pain, god, I felt it. It echoed mine. Love. Pain. Betrayal. A broken heart. She’d loved him and he’d told her it was over. That he’d made a promise to her parents and what they were doing was wrong. Oh...I felt it, and I wept for her...with her, staring wide eyed at the face I couldn’t see but that was never ending for her.

I knew in a flash that she relived this moment every night. All she wanted was for him to reach out to her and tell her it was all right. That he’d been wrong. That he loved her. To wrap his arms around her and never let go.

And he never did. Night after night, he watched as she fell backwards, tumbling, hitting her head on the stone wall of the grand hotel and landing hard on the pavement of the driveway belong. Dead. Just like that.

And for a moment, that seemed like a better way than to keep suffering as I had been.

So tempting. Just to fall and let it be over.

Except it wouldn’t work that way. I’d be trapped here too with her, night after night, luring the lonely and the heartsick to their doom so she wouldn’t have to be so alone.

I understood it.

But I couldn’t give in.

With all my might, I gave a push of spirit and shoved her out.

My heart pounding like mad, I heard a cry of anguish on the wind, and a sudden gust of it threatened to push me over the edge in spite of everything.

“Not this time,” I said, my voice resolute, and I pushed back, rushing toward the doorway that lead back inside the hotel. I was only a few doors down from my room, my door standing wide open. I ran inside and reached for the salt, pouring some quickly at the threshold to keep her out.

The window sashes flew up, curtains blowing outward as the wind knocked out the screens and began pushing me toward the openings, my feet sliding on the hard wooden floor. I grasped the metal bedframe and hung on tight, letting the wind buffet me around.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you, but I’m not giving up so soon.” She was clearly enraged by not getting her way, but I began muttering an exorcism under my breath, determined to hang on tight against whatever she might throw my way. “I’m not like you, Jocelyn. I still love him. And I’m not giving up.”

Until I had said it out loud, I hadn’t actually thought it through. But there it was. Honesty. I wasn’t ready to give up. And I did still love @Depraved Hero, even if he was an ass and even if he made all the wrong choices. I loved him. And I wasn’t giving up on him so easily.

Maybe she could feel my resolve. All I know is that the next thing I know, the spirit was gone. Just like that. Everything was still, and I knew I was alone again in the room.

“Goddamn,” I said, staring wide eyed at the windows where the curtains now hung still and straight all the way to the floor. “That’s it. I’m putting on pants. Last time I take a bath in a haunted hotel room.”

If Sam had been with me, I’d have spent time hunting down her body in order to salt and burn it. But I was alone, and frankly, I had something more important to do.

The clerk in the lobby didn’t argue when I came down, bag in hand, to check out in the middle of the night. He simply took the key and smiled, handing me my receipt. “How was the view?”

Me and the needle, we were best friends. Had been since I returned from World War I.

I’d been introduced much earlier, however, by Doc Holliday who had used morphine as a way to kill the pain of consumption. I’d tried to convince him to let me turn him, but he wouldn’t go for it. He was one of the few humans to whom I revealed the truth about myself, and after his death, the only things I’d kept as souvenirs of our time together were his pack of cards and his stash of morphine. From that point on, whenever I felt overwhelmed with pain, I fell back on it like a crutch.

Morphine was the way I’d blunted the shell shock of the first World War. Then in Chicago I’d tried heroin, and it had helped me dull the guilt that threatened to overtake me. It made me forget, dulled my emotions, let me walk through my days without any of the guilt and shame that plagued me. And it let me dull the ache I felt each time I thought of Jasper Whitlock, now married to Alice Cullen.

He’d changed his name for her to Jasper Hale and become her perfect doll of a husband. It made me sick every time I thought of him. I had fallen in love with him long since, and knowing he didn’t or couldn’t let himself feel the same was a pain I couldn’t seem to get over, no matter how many years it had been. She loved him, I knew that, but she loved the man she thought she could turn him into, not the man he was. I loved him with all his flaws, but I couldn’t say it to him. I wanted him to be happy. I loved him enough to walk away and never tell him why. Carlisle had asked me to join their coven, and I didn’t dare explain why I refused. Just seeing them together...it reminded me of how alone I was, and I couldn’t bear to watch it or to listen to the way she spoke to him, treating him as though he were an unruly child she had to constantly give instruction to. Jasper was no child, and I found myself biting my tongue to keep from telling her so. Biting it until it bled.

Easier to stay away, numb the ache, and try to stop caring.

I’d gone to war a second time to get away from him, and found myself in a Nazi torture camp, the object of experimentation. I escaped with a lot of luck, but when I’d come back to the States afterward, it had been difficult for me to return to anything like a normal life. Then there was Korea, and finally Vietnam, and when I’d returned from that place I’d vowed it would be my last war for this country I had helped bring into being.

Whatever you call it - “Soldier’s Heart,” “Shell Shock,” “Battle Fatigue,” or “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” - it’s all the same thing, and I had been dealing with it since the Revolutionary War. Vietnam, however, was the worst of all, and I had come back feeling that everything was meaningless. What use was it to care about anyone or to feel any sort of remorse or guilt for killing indiscriminately? People died every day in horrible ways. Humans had invented ways of setting fire to the very air so people burned even as they ran in fear. No one was innocent. Anyone could become a monster. I felt justified in letting my vampire instincts take over, and I used heroin as a way to release the last of my inhibitions in that regard.

The torment for me was that there was always this small voice deep within me that harbored a conscience, and I couldn’t turn it off, no matter how I tried to numb it. I could distract myself with drugs, with sex, with blood...but all the while it was still there in the background, reminding me that my actions weren’t human, weren’t sane, weren’t anything other than evil. And I couldn’t stop hating myself, nor could I stop wishing that my life had turned out differently.

I knew, though, that not all vampires were the same. I had heard of some who could turn their emotions off completely, and I craved the kind of absolution that would bring. If I could only have that, I thought, I wouldn’t need the drugs anymore. If I could just stop feeling, I wouldn’t feel guilt or remorse, and I could rid myself of the love I felt that was unrequited. No more pain or heartache.

To keep my feelings under control, I made killing a ritual, trying to establish order in my chaotic mind. Dealing death as a way of turning the randomness of life into something with meaning and calculated logic. I made a game of it, choosing my victims from a crowd by use of an old counting rhyme my brothers had taught me when I was just a child.

“Wire, briar, limber, lock.

Three geese in a flock.

One flew east.

One flew west.

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Out you old dirty dish rag, you.”

I told myself it was simply that their number came up. It seemed as good a reason as any for them to die. After all, death itself can be even more capricious. I gave it a pattern, fitting each killing into a pattern. I collected small items from each killing as a memento, starting first with a piece of jewelry or item the victim carried, placing each token into a little leather pouch I carried around my neck like a totem. Eventually, I began collecting teeth and fingernails, and I wasn’t satisfied until I had completed a “set.” In dark moments when the strain of my emotions became overwhelming, I would fan them out on a tabletop or even count them in my pocket, mumbling under my breath. Two-by-two, rows of canines, molars, incisors, followed by fingernails spread out to recreate the hands that had scrabbled against my chest and tried to scratch and push me away. If I had uneven groupings, I felt incomplete. It was the only thing I had complete control over.

So much guilt. Every time I thought I could do without the drugs, I was overwhelmed with it. I didn’t want it. All I wanted was to be free of it finally. After all, I hadn’t asked to be this thing.

I didn’t admit this side of myself to anyone. I kept it well hidden, in some ways even from myself. I never stayed anywhere too long, and I never stayed sober if I could help it.

One night full of desperation, I broke down and called Carlisle from a pay phone in Jackson, Mississippi. I don’t know what I thought it would accomplish. I was sure he would judge me nearly as harshly as I did myself. He could tell there was a tension in my voice, and said as much.

“Carlisle, it’s me. Garrett Llewellyn. Do you...do you have a moment? I...I need someone to talk to.”

The rain was falling hard in the parking lot as I stood in the phone booth outside a bar I couldn’t even remember the name of. A body lay in the trunk of my car alongside a shovel, and I knew I was going to have to dispose of it, but the drugs were wearing off, and I was starting to feel that creeping guilt again that threatened to drown me completely. I was out of control, and I knew it, and I was grasping at straws for help.

“Garrett?” he said, his voice sounding tinny over the wire. “Where are you? Are you alright?”

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. Alright. Was I? I was fairly certain I would never be alright again.

I ran a hand through my wet hair, pushing it back from my forehead to stop it dripping in my eyes. “I can’t...I can’t do this, Carlisle. I can’t live like this anymore. I’m in so much pain. I need the pain to stop. Please...help me. I need it to stop.”

“Garrett, where are you? You can always come here. You know that.”

I could hear the concern in his voice, but the moment he offered to take me in, I pictured that face I’d tried so hard to forget.

“I can’t.” I shook my head, laughing maniacally at the thought. God knows I couldn’t be there with...them. “I just...remember you told me once about the vampires who could just stop feeling things? You said they could turn their emotions off.”

“Yes, but...Garrett…”

Cutting him off, I smacked the door of the telephone booth with the flat of my hand, breaking out one of the panes of glass. “Tell me how. I need to know how.”

“Garrett, that isn’t something I can do. You don’t want that.”

Pieces of broken glass had sliced into my palm, but I ignored the pain, shaking my hand so small droplets of blood splattered the inside of the booth. “Don’t tell me what I want. You know someone who can help me. Give me a name, Carlisle. You owe me that, goddamnit.”

I heard him sigh, and I could almost picture that furrowed brow of his as he decided what to do. At last, he murmured a name softly, whispering as though he was afraid he’d be overheard. “I knew a vampire named Damon Salvatore once. He was able to do it. I met him in New York. But Garrett, you don’t have to do that. You can come here. I’ll help you. We’ll help you.”

The kindness in his voice made me choke back tears, and I shook my head. “I’ll make do. Thanks.”

And with that, I hung up the phone, swiping my face with the back of my sleeve. I had a name. That was enough. I would find him, even if it took me a year.

From that night on, Damon Salvatore became my obsession. I searched all of New York and found only whispers, an apartment on the East Side, a bartender who knew his name in a club called CBGBs, and that led me clear across the country to Los Angeles where I heard he had part interest in a hotel.

That hotel was run by a vampire named Elizabeth, it turned out, and for some reason, she took a shine to me. “Those eyes, darling,” she said, touching my cheek with a white gloved hand, “could break a thousand hearts.”

I’d laughed at that, but she inspired my confidence, and somehow I ended up confessing myself to her in spite of everything. When I’d told her who I was looking for and why, she’d smiled indulgently, then gave me a room and said she’d contact him. In the meantime, she said, I could have whatever I needed, and that meant drugs and blood...lots of it.

For months, Sammy and I had been traveling together, and it seemed like we’d been around each other just long enough to need a break. Much as I loved my brother, he and I were fighting a lot lately just from being cooped up together so long, so by the time we arrived in Mystic Falls, I had told him we needed to work on this job separately in order to get a little distance and perspective. And also so we wouldn’t end up punching one another in the face.

There had been reports of killings, bodies found in the woods, shredded to ribbons, and the description practically screamed something supernatural, though the local police were blaming wild animals for the attacks. Wild animals, my ass. This sounded like an out of control wendigo or werewolf to me.

Sammy would take the police, going undercover as a Fish and Wildlife officer while I would get to know the locals and see if I could get any first hand accounts of what was really going on.

It was a nice enough town, though the water here had a funny aftertaste I couldn’t quite name, and my dad’s journal mentioned the place, though there weren’t really any details beyond that. It wasn’t like him not to talk about what he’d encountered on a hunt, so I had to believe there was something more to that story. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time something supernatural had happened in this town, and I couldn’t help wondering what it was about this place that drew those dark forces. Was this series of killings part of a bigger cycle? A pattern that would help lead me to whatever was out there? Or was it something new?

Apparently, the local watering hole, Mystic Grill, was a big gathering place, and I figured that was as good a place as any to start my search. Sammy, I’m sure, would tell me I was just looking for a burger and pie, and he would be right, but you can find out a lot about what’s happening in a town like this from bartenders and servers. They tend to overhear a lot of people’s conversations without even trying, and that seemed to me the smartest way to approach the situation. With that in mind, I’d settled myself into a booth. From where I was sitting, I could listen in on the conversations at the bar and keep my eye on the door as well.

The server was a sandy-haired guy who seemed to know everyone who walked in the door, and I overheard someone call him Matt as he brought someone a basket of fries at another table. “What can I get you?” he had asked as he’d come to take my order. Friendly enough, but he seemed in a bit of a rush. Understandable since it seemed he was trying to manage the orders on his own and manage the bar as well.

“Cheeseburger and fries,” I said, giving him a bright smile, ordering a beer to go along with my food as well. “And pie. You do apple pie here?”

“Uh...yep. We sure do.”

He scribbled everything down, then reached to take my menu. I handed it over with a big innocuous grin.

“So...you see the news about those bodies found out on the edge of town? What do you think that is? Bear? Mountain lion?”

He gave me a startled look, then his eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really follow that stuff. Sorry.”

“Really? Huh. I came to town to do a little hunting and fishing, you know, but I hate to go out there if it’s dangerous.” I waved a hand dismissively, laughing a little. “Eh. Maybe it’s exaggerated. You know...the news likes to sensationalize things.”

He took a breath, and I sensed a tension in him that I didn’t understand, but it made me curious. “I...I dunno, man. Sorry. I gotta...I’ll bring you your stuff.”

And just like that, he shrugged, then turned and walked away.

“Well,” I said under my breath, “that’s not weird at all.”

Definitely something odd about this place, I decided. Whatever it was, Matt seemed to know something about it too, and it clearly scared him.

When he brought my food, I didn’t ask him anything else. No sense in making him any more nervous, and there would be time to come back to him once I’d learned more information. Instead, I ate my burger and fries and listened in as people talked, trying to blend in and not call any more attention to myself. Still watching Matt out of the corner of my eye,

I had just begun on the pie when a dark haired, good looking guy came over to my table, calling me by name. I paused with fork still poised midway to my mouth, staring up at him and searching his face with surprise.

As usual, I hadn’t been using my name anywhere, having signed into the motel we were staying in under the name “Mortimer Snerd,” so being called out by name was a shock, to say the least.

“Who’s asking? And where did you hear that name?”