How to Elude a Vampire (VRC Vampire Related Crimes #2) - Alice Winters Page 0,88
again?”
I jump and turn quickly before realizing it’s just Marcus. “Pillow, actually,” I say.
“What are you up to?”
“Punching away my anger. You?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he looks upset.
“It’s stupid, isn’t it? Learning how to fight against a vampire. You can’t fight against a vampire when you’re just a human. But I learned anyway.”
I go over to the supplies and pick up a pair of gloves that Orin would wear. He was never really into the whole fighting thing, but he’d occasionally humor me. I toss them to Marcus who stares at them for a moment.
“Fight me.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Fight you?”
“Yes. Get your gloves on and fight me. No holding back.”
Marcus seems skeptical but puts them on and faces me. “Okay?”
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
I move in and punch him right in the gut. He barely blocks, so I aim another for his groin since I know that’ll get him to move and it sure does. “Marcus, fight me.”
“I can’t fight you. What if I hug you instead?”
I sigh. “So… after everything that happened to me, I wanted to be in martial arts. Orin said he’d allow it as long as I promised to also go see a counselor. I wasn’t very good at the whole therapy thing but the lady knew I liked martial arts, so she came here with me one day. She told me that every time I landed a hit, I was to pretend I was hitting one thing that upset me, I hated, or was bothering me. Got it?”
“Okay…”
I pick up a strike shield which is a small rectangular mat that one person holds and the other strikes. Then I grab one for myself. “I’m going to punch you first. Ready?”
“Yeah.”
I punch the shield he’s holding onto tightly. “I hate how weak this asshole makes me feel. Your turn.” I lift my shield and brace my feet.
He looks perplexed like he thought I was just going to spill everything while he looked sexy. “I’m fine, I don’t… vampires don’t chat about feelings. We just like brood and look cool.”
I stare at him. “Marcus.”
“Fine,” he says as he throws the lightest punch ever at me. It doesn’t even push the shield into me. “I hate that he’s done this to you.”
I switch and punch him as hard as I can. “I hate that he hides behind his tricks.”
Marcus punches the shield a little harder this time. “I hate that I can’t keep the one person I love more than anything safe. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
I punch his shield again. “I hate that I’m putting the people I love in danger.”
“I hate that he makes me feel inferior. I’ve never been faced with something I can’t fucking destroy.”
“I hate that people are dying just so he can prove a fucking point.”
“I hate that you have to live this way.”
I kick the shield as he braces for it. “I hate that I can’t do the job I want. That I can’t do what I enjoy and what I’m good at.”
We go back and forth telling each other things that piss us off, things that make us angry, until I’m breathing hard.
“Then she said to not end it like that. That even though you let the negativity out, you now have to look for the positive things. For every block, you say something good in your life.”
I throw a punch and he hesitates. “Okay… meeting you. I feel like for the first time in hundreds of years I’ve found someone who isn’t my brother that understands me.” He strikes my shield.
“For me, it’s also meeting you. You weren’t exactly a bundle of joy and were a bit evil, but I knew under all of that evil exterior was a nice person.”
“I’m not sure why. You were just more determined than anything,” he says as he lowers his shield.
“Maybe.”
“I’m glad you were,” he says as I set my shield down.
“Me too.” I step into him and lean against him as I wrap my arms around him.
“Do you want to tell me what woke you up?”
“I had another stupid dream.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I hesitate, wanting to smack that wall back up into place but knowing that I shouldn’t. “Not really, but I will. In the dream, I woke up in the room and I was alone. I was confused and in pain. At first, I was trying to wrap my mind around it and I just felt like I should be in the hospital, but clearly, I wasn’t. And that’s