One of Them - part 2

"Vampire..." Evaine echoed on a deep inhale, keeping her wits only by sheer determination to see this through. Her first instinct was to write it off as a lie or a bad joke because it obviously couldn't be true. Immortal blood drinkers, the unholy scourge of the night; this was the stuff of fiction, same as magic and curses, there was no way—but she forced that instinct to take a back seat as she considered him, everything he had shown her this night, and she felt it like a knowing deep in her gut that he was telling her the truth. She gazed back at him as all this rushed through her head, her eyes locked onto his, reflecting red with every street lamp that flashed by, and all the mysterious little details about him suddenly started to fall into place. "You ripped a man's heart out with your bare hands..."

Jesse's mouth clamped shut, sharpening the lines of his already angular jaw. He didn't seem to want to admit it as he returned his gaze to the road, and Evaine thought that if she were him, she would have a hard time coming to terms with such a deed. But he didn't deny it, and that was enough. He had killed that man with hands stronger than any human's, saved her life without a moment to spare.

"Jesse, how did you heal me?" Her stomach tightened to remember the pain of waking up with her throat crushed, but whatever he had done had taken it all away, mending her body with miraculous speed. That moment alone was enough to convince her that just maybe magic could be real. "What did you give me?"

"Blood," he answered with less hesitation. He kept his focus on the road ahead, but Evaine caught the way he seemed to gulp unconsciously, adjusting in his seat with discomfort. She was sure that she was imagining it, but he almost looked embarrassed. "Immortal blood can...well, it can bring you back."

The shock of everything had been too fresh when it first happened; she hadn't even thought to stop and ask what substance he had force-fed her while there were so many impossible things happening all at once. She looked down at her hand where she gripped Logan's rag and finally let the stained cloth fall away, marveling at how the wound had already sealed itself over, a thin line of fresh pink skin being the only indicator that she'd even been injured.

"What will that do to me?" she asked, her mind conjuring a new fear of herself turning into a vampire just from that small taste of his blood. No more sun, no human food, no life...just death and darkness.

"Nothing untoward, I swear," he assured her with a smirk of amusement at the look on her blanched face, but then his expression softened with sympathy as he continued to explain. "The eternal change isn't so simple as sharing blood."

Evaine nodded slowly, allowing herself the respite of a moment to process the mix of relief and a childish kind of disappointment that she would wake up tomorrow as normal as ever. She shook her head clear of such thoughts, and then she chose the next question she could think of, determined to keep the answers flowing.

"What was Jensen to you?"

"A hunter," Jesse answered coldly, his eyes dropping down to where his hands rested on the steering wheel as if he could still see the blood on them. "Not just any hunter, mind you. Any human could pick up a stake and crossbow and stalk the night, but Jensen Calloway was what we call a true hunter, gifted with superhuman powers and a divine purpose to hunt my kind.

"That's why it matters that he decided to attack you, because he doesn't make mistakes, and his sense for recognizing the supernatural is unparalleled. It's also a pretty big deal that he's dead, as his kind are something of a rare breed. His absence won't go unnoticed, and sooner or later, someone is going to come around and cause trouble."

Evaine worried at her bottom lip as she thought, trying to make sense of it all. Vampires, now hunters, whatever the hell that eyeless woman back at Logan's had been...God, she hoped she wasn't going crazy.

"Why would he do that, Jesse?" she asked, finally getting to the part that made her feel cold with looming dread. "Is it because I'm...cursed like Louis said? And when someone comes looking for him, will they come for me, too?"

"I wish I could say for sure, but I really don't know," Jesse admitted with an apologetic shake of his head. "I have a friend who knows more about this stuff than me; if she were to examine you, she would definitely be able to give us some solid answers. If it's curse magic, maybe she'll know a way to fix it, and then the hunters would have no reason to bother you. But if anyone does come around asking questions, you tell them it was all my fault and that you had nothing to do with it. You were never even there, alright?"

Evaine liked the sound of that. She would never be able to erase the memories of what happened, but it was freeing to imagine that she could just step back and remove herself from the situation, one that she never should have fallen into in the first place. She could be safe from the monsters and hunters and whatever other kind of dangers might be lurking just around the corner, safe to focus on the one thing she knew she couldn't simply ignore.

"Could I really be cursed?" she asked quietly, noting how strange it sounded coming out of her mouth. She, whose life was about as un-magical as it got, who was still struggling with accepting that such things could even be real. "How would I know if I am? What does that even mean?"

"A curse is born of dark magic, and from what I know, that only comes from a place of hatred and pain," Jesse said, searching Evaine's face with a sideways look as if he was also realizing how strange it was to apply the description to her. "It's something that's meant to inflict suffering, to punish. Are...are you suffering, Evaine?"

"Just from bad luck," she replied with an almost manic laugh of disbelief and a short wave at her general self to indicate everything that had happened to her in the last two hours.

"That doesn't sound so bad." The side of his mouth that Evaine could see pulled up into a little smile, but there was a remorseful kind of weight to it.

By that point, they had already crossed the Jericho town limit, headed toward Richmond Avenue. Evaine pointed out the turn to reach her own street, and with thirty minutes left until midnight, Jesse pulled the car up to the curb of her house. There were no lights on inside, so her mom hadn't gotten home yet, and for that, Evaine was grateful. She needed time to wash the blood from her hair and get rid of what clothes she couldn't save, and if she was seen wearing a stranger's shirt, there would absolutely be an interrogation.

"Here we are," Jesse said in something of an I-told-you-so tone as he shut off the car engine. "Safe and sound, as promised."

Evaine looked up at the darkened house, remembering how keenly she had craved this moment when her hellish night would finally end. But now that it was  time, now that all the fear and insanity had slowed to a halt, she felt frozen under the massive weight of how drastically her view of the world had changed, and how daunting it was to imagine what else she had yet to learn.

"What am I supposed to do now?" she asked weakly, exhaustion already pulling at the edges of her focus now that she was so close to peace and rest.

"First, you're going to hand me your phone," Jesse said, holding an expectant hand out to her, and when she immediately hesitated to oblige, he continued, "unless you'd prefer I show up in person and I introduce myself to your mother when it's finally time to deal with this curse business."

"No," she said quickly, jumping to pry her cell phone from her jeans pocket. "No, phone is good."

Jesse accepted the device from her, making a few quick taps across the screen as if he already knew exactly what he was looking for and where to find it. When his eyebrows made a sudden quirk of surprise, Evaine had no doubt that he had just found her contacts page where the list of names could be counted on one hand. He didn't mention it, thankfully, and made a few more typing gestures before handing it back.

"And now, you're going to go inside, lock your doors, and get some sleep. Enjoy a few days of normalcy while you still can," he said, giving her a stern look as if to say that this advice was not to be taken lightly. "Tell your mother you had a dull evening if you insist you're so friendless; stick to your routines, complain about work or school or whatever young people do these days."

"I'm seventeen," she clarified indignantly. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment, less for the distinction of any difference in their ages and more for the idea that he thought she was a child. He didn't look to be more than five years older than her, if that, but it was only as an afterthought that she realized "vampire" probably threw all indications of age out the window. "And it's school. That's what I...complain about."

He nodded at the confirmation, looking away out the window to hide his knowing smirk. "School it is, then. Go to class, keep your head down, and once I've dealt with the problem back at the house, I'll reach out to my friend who can help. Can you handle this? Will you be alright until then?"

"Yeah," she said, heaving in a deep breath to help bolster her confidence. "I'll be okay. Thank you, Jesse, for...helping."

She had to force her legs to get moving, stiff from the drive and the tackiness of dried blood in her jeans. Jesse didn't move to follow her out of the car or try to walk her to the door, and for that she was grateful as the distance was already helping to refresh her mind, letting it sink in that she was home at last.

The vehicle roared to life behind her as she shuffled across her lawn, and nearly halfway to the front door, she heard the sound of the car window being rolled down.

"Evaine," he called out to her over the sound of the engine and the humming radio in the cabin. She glanced over her shoulder to meet his eyes, reluctant to turn back now that the front door was right there, practically within reach. "This should go without saying, but please don't go out at night. Not alone, not after dark."

She nodded once, and he didn't wait for her reply before rolling his window back up and bringing a definitive end to their night together. She took the last few steps up to her front door and quickly locked herself inside the dark house, and only then did the car peel away from the curb and take off.

Evaine walked through her house like a zombie, her ears ringing with the silence and her mind sluggishly churning back through the events of the night. There were too many thoughts, and still so much mess to be sorted through, but for the time being, it was all she could do to push her questions and concerns aside and just let things be quiet for a while. Fumbling for light switches and door handles, she found her way to the bathroom and started the shower, climbing in shoes and all, and watched the blood run down the drain.