Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,43
I vaguely remember some yelling matches before my mother left, but I was so small then. They might not even be real memories, just arguments I’ve imagined to fill in the gaps. This is different. Primal. I have a sudden, desperate need to make his pain stop.
I clench my fists and let Seanan drink.
After what can’t have been more than a few seconds, she pulls his arm from her mouth. She’s a tidy drinker, only a red sheen to her lips, like lightly tinted gloss.
My stomach turns and I gag.
She’s next to me in an instant. “Hey, you’re okay. I’m right here.” She rubs slow circles on my back as I dry heave. She pulls back my hair, holds a hand against my forehead to stop me giving myself whiplash. I’m not used to this body, this strength. I’m not used to any of this.
“I can’t,” I whine around a mouthful of acid.
“What the fuck are you?” Dad screams from far away. Another room, maybe, or another lifetime.
Seanan keeps holding me while I rock and sob. Vaguely, I notice there’s dark, dark red on my hands after I wipe my face. Blood. We cry blood, I guess. How haven’t I cried before now?
“Fucking monster!” Dad shouts.
“Back off,” Seanan says above me.
He’s closer now. I can … I can smell the wound. His blood. It smells warm.
He’s kneeling now. His breath on my face. Rancid heat. “What the fuck did you do to my daughter, you goddamn demon!”
He reaches for my face with his good hand. The unbitten one. Before he can blink, I snatch his arm down and wrench it backward at the elbow. The bone strains underneath his taut skin. Pearlescent, almost. He doesn’t scream this time.
“No,” I say. My voice is quiet but no longer level. Even in that one syllable, that tiny perfect word, I hear every biting winter wind that has ever seared skin raw. “You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to pretend to care for me.”
“Grace, I—”
I twist harder. He gasps.
“What did she do to me? She saved me. She found me and she saved me. What did you do, Dad? Let’s talk about that, shall we? Let’s talk about what you did.”
He’s crying again. Tears well and pool and fall down his face. I remember how those tears felt on my own face. How they rolled salty tracks down my skin. I twist harder.
Seanan touches my shoulder. “Grace,” she says, “you don’t have to do this, okay? Don’t do anything you’ll regret. Please.”
I stare at him hard. “What if I’ll regret letting him live?”
She kneels next to me. This time, the motion feels like support, like love.
“Then you kill him.”
Dad keens. I’ve never heard such a sound. Pure, all-consuming fear. It’s the sound I would have made as my heart slowed to stopping if I’d been able.
“All I ever did was care for you,” he says. “All I ever wanted was to help you. To save you. You deserved mercy.”
Suddenly, I know exactly what he deserves. More importantly, I know what I deserve.
“I believe you, Dad. Truly I do.” I loosen my grip on his arm, watch the desperation on his face slide tentatively toward hope. I lean in and whisper, “But murder isn’t mercy.”
I lunge.
USA TODAY
Alleged “Mercy Killing” Victim Alive, Releases Video Statement
Grace Williams, the teenager believed to be the victim of a “mercy killing,” has revealed in a recently released video that she is alive after her father’s attempted murder.
The video, which multiple news outlets have independently authenticated, shows Grace Williams describing the events surrounding her presumed death. “My father did try to murder me,” she says to the camera. “But thankfully, a friend found me where he’d left my body in the snow, mistakenly believing I had already died.”
Ms. Williams says that she is currently recovering with said friend in an undisclosed location and that she is not planning to return to her hometown as she fears for her safety.
“My father didn’t think my life was worth living so he tried to end that life. He believed he had succeeded. Without my friend’s luck in finding me, he would have,” she continues. “But he was wrong on two counts. One, he didn’t kill me. And two, my life was always worth living.”
In the media coverage following Ms. Williams’s alleged death, Grant Williams was portrayed as a devoted and long-suffering caregiver. The attempted murder was widely called a “mercy killing” and no charges were ever filed.