Chapter 9
Beth sat at her desk, staring at the computer screen. Again. It was getting to be a habit; and people didn't bother her about it because they thought she was still traumatized from her latest stay with Coraline. It had been a week. Not a week since she'd been taken, but a week since she'd woken up in Josef's house, and walked into his office to find Mick practically ignoring her. She hadn't heard from him all week, hadn't seen Coraline. Strangely enough, it was Josef who had called several times to check up on her. She thought that would have been awkward. Perhaps it was Josef's 400 years of dealing with women, but he'd been all snark and made her feel completely at ease. Well, he was almost all snark. There'd been a hint of…something…behind it that hadn't been there before New York – or that he'd been able to hide better. She didn't have much time to contemplate that, however, as Steve was all geared up and ready to go, tentatively calling her name. She nodded to him and grabbed her bag, following him out to the van.
They drove in silence to their location. A prominent city councillor had disappeared on his morning jog. Beth was going to collect some shots and hopefully some intel from the location where he was last seen. Steve parked the van and made himself busy with the video equipment as Beth made her way to the trail. She rounded a corner and stopped in her tracks. A familiar form was crouched on the trail, his back to her.
"Mick!" He hung his head for a moment before standing and turning to face her.
"Hello, Beth." She took a step toward. He took a step back. "What are you doing here?"
"The same thing as you, apparently. I'm covering the Councillor's disappearance. You should know by now that fate keeps throwing us together." He scoffed.
"It's not fate, Beth. It's just coincidence. We deal with the same types of cases. Obviously we're going to meet up from time to time." There was something in the way he said that that made Beth stop and really look at him. Not that she wasn't already, of course. But now she saw the exhaustion, the sadness, the doubt written all over his face. Just a week and a half ago on that New York sidewalk, he'd seemed so carefree, happy. Then she'd left him there and everything just seemed to be getting worse and worse. They were both silent for a while before Beth finally spoke up.
"I've hardly seen you since New York…" Yeah he may have had sex with Coraline, but she knew they had a history and it wasn't like Beth could just turn her feelings off. The fact that he didn't seem very happy about his current arrangement meant perhaps all was not yet lost.
"I do have things to do other than follow you around, you know." She flinched at that. "Look Beth, we've both made our choices." His eyes flicked to her neck. Her hair was swept up and it was free of any marks. "Although I guess you didn't choose well. You're obviously not Josef's type." Her hand flew to her neck and his eyes swept slowly over her body, as if he had x-ray vision and was trying to search her body under her clothes. "Unless he chose somewhere else to bite you."
"How did you – Nevermind, I don't want to know. We were two people who 'chose' to find some way to forget our problems, even if for just a little while. It didn't mean anything beyond that. And he didn't bite me."
"But you asked him to." Ah, jealous. She could work with that.
"Maybe I did." She again moved toward him and this time he didn't move away. She was just out of his reach, although he made no move toward her. He stayed stock-still. "But I wasn't asking him. Josef has quite a few years of experience." She moved closer still and he could feel her breath on his neck. His eyes slipped shut. "By that time, he had me so wound up, I didn't even remember my own name. But I knew yours, Mick." She put her hands on his arms and whispered in his ear. "From the moment I tasted my own blood all I thought of was you. It was your hands, your mouth on my body, driving me insane. Even though my eyes were closed I could FEEL when the vampire took over. I don't know if it was my imagination or if it had something to do with my feeding you in the desert, but I felt that change in my blood. Like it was singing for you, begging for you to bite me. To make me yours again. Tell me that's what you want. A week ago I thought it was."
Mick opened his eyes and clenched his jaw. She'd gotten them both worked up with that, but he refused to let her know what she was doing to him. Instead he stepped away from her.
"You don't know as much about vampires as you think you do. Coraline's my sire. You can't possibly know what that means. This is what I want." Coraline took that moment to emerge from the tree line, and smiled sweetly at Beth.
"Hello, Beth." Then she turned to Mick. "I got the pictures you wanted. Are we finished here?" She wrapped her arms around him and she started to nuzzle his neck. Her presence did not seem to lighten Mick's mood. Beth could see lust and desire, but not the joy and excitement she had seen in New York, or when she'd kissed him in the Buzzwire parking lot. As she watched him nod and lead Coraline down the path, those thoughts gave her hope that they might be able to get through this.