The Purest Heart vi

~ As he had told her, Lochlan was outside waiting for her after work. By Thursday, the guilt of what she had said to him was unbearable.

“Look, Lochlan, about what I said the other day.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, stopping at a red light.

“Just listen to me, please.”

He glanced over at her then back on the road.

“It was a jerk thing to say. You didn’t make me a pure heart. And you’ve been going out of your way to keep me safe. If it wasn’t for you I’d either be dead or a vampire right now. I owe you.”

He shifted the car into gear as the light turned green. He made a right turn. “You owe me nothing, Penny.”

She sat back in her seat looking at him. Penny liked doing that a lot more than she should. “Are you mad at me?” she asked him after a long silence.

Lochlan pulled up in front of her apartment. “Never.”

Every night after work since the day he had come to her office, Penny found Lochlan outside. It was strange for her to be in someone’s company so consistently outside of her work environment. Being with him was not as taxing as she thought it would be. Conversations were light, and he allowed her to sit in silence when she wasn’t in the mood to talk. His understanding of her, the lack of expectations on his part, made her want to be more open. Nothing she did was forced. Penny knew he was protecting her with his life yet he asked for nothing in return.

One night while going home Lochlan missed a turn.

“I would have thought werewolves had a good sense of direction,” she joked.

Lochlan glanced in the rare view mirror for the millionth time. She started to turn in her seat, curious as to what was more important behind him.

“Don’t look around. I think we’re being followed.”

Penny’s heart sank. The days of quiet had lulled her into a false sense of complacency. More than two weeks had passed since the first night he picked her up from work. Lochlan made two right turns, a left, and the SUV he suspected never left this rare view mirror for longer than it took to make the turn behind him. He kept driving at a normal speed, making a right into a parking structure.

“Shouldn’t we be moving to a crowded space?” A deserted parking lot in the middle of the night didn’t seem like the safest place to be under the circumstances.

“We can’t keep driving around indefinitely and the streets are already starting to empty. Nowhere is crowded.”

He had a point. “What now then?”

“We greet our new friends.” Lochlan stepped on the gas, causing the tires to shriek as he drifted around the bends of the structure going up. Penny could hear the SUV coming after them, but it wouldn’t be able to make the turns that his car could. He stepped on the brakes, telling her to jump out, and hide underneath a car. Lochlan came out with her shrugging out of his jacket, waiting out in the open until the SUV came to a stop a few feet away from him. Penny crawled underneath a car. All she could see were feet. Feet in black boots.

“We came for the girl,” a male voice said.

“Where’s Cormac?” That was Lochlan’s voice. Penny thought he sounded a bit smug. “Hope he’s not harboring a grudge over the other night.”

“Give us the girl, or we kill you, and take the girl. Either way, she comes with us.”

Penny stuffed her fist into her mouth to stop a sound of distress from escaping.

“Come on then,” Penny heard Lochlan say.

Car alarms went screeching as bodies came slamming down against them. Penny tried to cover her ears to block out the sounds, biting her lips to keep her sobs silent. Lochlan was outnumbered, and they didn’t plan to leave here without her. One way or another the man had said. Penny knew she wouldn’t be able to live with herself, no matter what form she was in if Lochlan died trying to save her life while she just hid and did nothing.

Under the tight confines of the car, Penny tried to reach her phone in her pants pocket. She finally managed to get it out, and dialed 911. In the lowest voice, she could use she called in the ‘disturbance’ giving the police the description of a black SUV. To give them the license plate number she would have to come out into the open, and she didn’t think it wise. Penny begged them to hurry as a man was being beaten to death. It wasn’t too far from the truth.

Police sirens came blaring in the distance fifteen minutes later. From what Lochlan had told her, vampires had more to lose than werewolves if the existence of the two species was ever made public. If it was the vampires they would leave, covering their tracks. If it was the werewolves, the really bad ones, Penny had just called the police to their deaths. It was a gamble that needed to be made.

The fighting continued as the sirens got louder. A feeling of dread made her body heavy. What if it had been the latter? Penny heard the SUV when the tires screeched against the pavement of the parking structure. She exhaled feeling relieved. All the same, she remained where she was, waiting for Lochlan to call out to her. It wasn’t until he did that she crawled from under the vehicle. Standing, she looked around at the damage they had caused to the cars around them. Lochlan’s had not been spared.

Right before her, he changed, flexing the muscles in his neck. She watched, fascinated by the wounds as they healed right before her eyes, the bruises fading. With the back portion of his car smashed in he had to rip open the trunk. He took out a pair of pants shrugging them on. Not saying a word she went over to him, throwing herself into his arms, burying her face into his chest. He held her. His skin was almost scorching to the touch but she held on.

Sirens, winding their way up the parking structure was their cue to leave. He lifted her into his arms, walking over to the retaining wall. He jumped up on the shoulder-high wall effortlessly before jumping again to the roof of another building two stories lower. He kept running when he landed. Lochlan didn’t stop until he jumped down into an alley with her out of sight. With little care he put her down on her feet, pacing away into the deeper shadows. All she could see of him were his golden eyes reflecting.

“I - I should go home now.” Penny felt danger standing there in the alley with him. It was in the way he moved. The way his eyes stared back at her now. She turned to leave, and he was there.

“You don’t get it, do you?”

He looked and sounded more like a wild animal than a man. Penny felt her entire body go cold as fear gripped her. She had been living in silent fear for weeks, but now fear had manifested itself into a man. A man standing less than a foot away from her.

“There is no going back to normal. There is no home. There is no safe. They will hunt you, and not all of them are so kind and patient Penny. They don't care who they have to kill to get to you. Staying like this,” he said gesturing at her, “makes you a liability to everyone around you. So you can stay in your bubble and pretend as if none of this is happening, but it is whether you like it, or not. Whether you want it, or not, you will be turned into a vampire or werewolf. Your only choice is, how many people are you willing to put at risk before you face the facts?” He stepped closer to her. “There are things that go bump in the night, and then there are things that are the night itself.

“Only death can free you from this. Keep you from going either way. So you choose. Choose and choose wisely before you get someone killed. You asked me why I chose to be like this, this monster you look down on. I could have lived with being hunted like a dog, but I couldn’t live with people dying because of me. Sven came for me too, Penny, and he was not quiet about it. People died because I didn’t make the right choice when I should have. So make your choice and be damn sure you’re willing to live with the consequences.”

Then like smoke, he was gone.