A/N: Not too happy with this chapter. It got too dialogue-y and there's no action. I find Michel an extremely hard character to write, so there may be some OCCishness on his part, as well. Hopefully the next chapter will be better. >.>
It didn't take long for the adrenaline to wear off and exhaustion to set in, along with a myriad of doubts and fears. The vampire mafia was after her, who knew what would happen to her family, and God only knew what Todd would think. But the thing that worried her the most at the moment was what she'd say if she was pulled over. Please, officer, whatever you do don't look in the trunk, because I definitely don't have a dead body in there. Yeah…that'd be great.
She took the interstate out of town, conscientiously obeying the speed limit until she realized that since everyone else was going fifteen miles faster thenshe was probably making herself more conspicuous, not lessand sped up. The ride was uneventful even counting the five or so miles with a police cruiser that rode behind her until taking exit fifty-eight.
Tired though she was, she didn't want to risk pulling over. It was maddening; she knew nothing about her enemy- only the very little that Michel deigned to tell her. And based on past experience, even that was probably mostly lies. In a single night she'd lost everything- career, family, marriage. The first encounter could be blamed on fate, but why had she agreed to dinner? She knew better than that. Where Michel went trouble, and lots of it, soon followed. She thought briefly about abandoning the car. Despite his pleas, she had little doubt that he could get out of the trunk with little effort. She could move to some small town in Idaho or Kansas, change her name to Babs and start waiting tables, or whatever it was they did in the square states. But she drove on instead, painfully aware of the dead body in the trunk.
She had to stop for a nap after the third time she started drifting into on-coming traffic. She stopped at one of those huge gas station cum restaurant and tacky souvenir shop. She ran in first to use a bathroom of extremely questionable cleanliness and grab a pop. She almost didn't see the article in the paper by the register, absorbed as she was in the celeb gossip mags, but the name of company caught her eye. "Mayfield Exec Found Dead" headline proclaimed.
It'd barely made the front page, dominated by overseas disasters. Despite thetwisting of her insides, she managed to pay for the paper and her soda before making a quick getaway. She leaned on the car, sipped her Coke and read the article.
LOS ANGELES- Brent Aldercott, 53, was found dead in his LA apartment early this morning. He suffered three gunshot wounds to the chest and head. Initial investigations point to robbery. Aldercott was president of the Mayfield publishing company.
Kerry folded the paper with disgust, and brought her fist down on the trunk of the car with a loud thump; knowing the occupant was oblivious to her ire. She knew Brent. Had known. Not particularly well- a few functions, meetings, the occasional lunch. If he'd died in a car accident, she doubted she'd have felt much more than the quickly passing sadness for the family and concern for the company. But she had a feeling that this was far more than a robbery gone wrong. The fact that Michel had business with her company a scant night before Brent's death was a helluva coincidence. And with Michel, coincidences were usually anything but.
But she wouldn't get a chance to confirm her suspicions until after sundown. She napped in the back of the car, or at least tried to. It was cramped and her mind was in turmoil. She didn't know she'd actually fallen asleep until she woke up again mid-afternoon. She wearily got back on the highway, this time not stoppinguntil a few minutes before sunset. She pulled the car on to a narrow dirt road, so it was out of direct line of sight After the last few rays of sun had disappeared from the sky, she popped the trunk.
"Hey," Michel said, sitting up and brushing his now shoulder-length hair out of his face, as if waking up in a car trunk was the most natural thing in the world.
"Was this you?" She demanded, shoving the paper in his face and tapping the offending article. He blinked at it a moment.
"Would you believe me if I said 'no'?"
"No."
"Then why, exactly, did you ask me at all?"
"I'm giving you a chance to come clean and start apologizing," Kerry ground out. Michel pushed past the paper and stood easily.
"Fine. Yes, I killed him and I am very sorry." His tone implied otherwise.
"God!" Kerry threw the paper at him, but he caught it, looking over the article again with the same sort of detached interest he might have used while reading the weather forecast. "Why must you be so…so…" A thousand adjectives came to mind. "So…gah!" "Yes, I get that complaint all the time." He rolled his eyes. "What are you mad about? That I killed him or that I neglected to tell you?"
"Pick one," she spat.
"Because I know how you love to hear about the ugly details." His voice was sharp with sarcasm.
"Are you protecting me- or yourself?" she asked with venom practiced over the last few years of her marriage.
"Pick one," he mimicked her tone perfectly.
This was anargument she couldn't hope to win. She really wanted to hit him, but that would probably go even worse. Instead, she sat awkwardly on the bumper, grinding her palms into her eyes. "Excuse me if I have a little trouble adjusting to the fact that my-" boyfriend? That sounded ridiculous and they weren't exactly lovers, "That you are a cold-blooded killer."
He turned from her, looking up at the stars just beginning to appear in the evening sky. She'd forgotten how bright they could be away from the city. His voice was quieter now. "I'm not going to change, Kerry. It's not just that I can't. I don't want to. I thought you understood-"
"What's the plan?" she asked. It was a clumsy change of subject and she wasn't sure if he'd let her do it, but after a moment he sat next to her.
"The plan, as much as there is one, is this: stay off the radar and keep moving. They have a lot of resources-"
"Who are 'they'?" she asked, tired of imagining some kind of vampire SWAT team.
"'They" is a group of North American vampires who I've rather pissed off, first by betraying our secrets to a human-"
"Me," she supplied.
He gave her an annoyed look, apparently unhappy about her interruptions. "-Yes, you. And then by killing one of my associates."
"You're like The Godfather."
"Not so much. Anyway. As I was saying, their resources- money, technology, information are pretty close to inexhaustible. However, personnel they lack. Humans can only be used in the most cursory of ways, which is good for us. If we can avoid leaving a discernable paper trail, stay away from big cities and other vampires, we'll wear them down. If they have to comb every town in the states they'll have to do it on foot. I doubt even they have the patience for that. Especially once our faces and stories don't appear on the front page of the National Inquirer, which is what they most fear right now."
Kerry shifted, trying to keep her backside from going numb. "So, then I can go back."
Michel hesitated. "Maybe."
She got the feeling he was avoiding her eyes. "How long will it take for them to give up?"
Make that definitely avoiding her eyes. "Hard to say. A few years, maybe a decade or so."
"Decades!" she yelped. She was exhausted from a day of running.
He squeezed her elbow. "Cheer up. It could be worse."
"How, exactly?"
He stood, pulling her up with him. "Dunno. I thought it was just a figure of speech."
She sighed heavily. "You should have just killed me."
He laughed. "I'm beginning to agree with you." She punched his arm.
"I really don't know why I put up with you."
"Well, I am devilishly good-looking." He grinned in a way that proved his words.
She let her head rest on his shoulder for a moment. "Hm. That must be it. God knows your personality sucks."
He drove while she zonked out in the back seat. She didn't wake again until 3:30 when they checked into a Motor Lodge off the highway.
"We can rest here a day or two. Do you want something to eat?"
Kerry observed the room's less than ambient pine paneling and mustard yellow bedspread. A phlegmatic AC unit hummed in the window. After twenty-four hours on the road it looked like heaven. "Yeah, food would be good. Are you hungry?" She asked automatically and then realized what she'd said, but then it was too late to take it back.
He looked at her with one eyebrow raised, considering. "Is that an offer?"
She opened her mouth, failed to think of an answer and shut it again. She hadn't meant it to be an offer, but now wasn't sure that she didn't want it to be.
He laughed and grinned toothily at her. "It's too soon anyway. Wouldn't want you anemic on my account."
They- well, she- got dinner at a late-night diner frequented by truckers, insomniacs and what Kerry was pretty sure was a serial killer. She ordered chilicheese fries, a hamburger and pie. She kind of regretted it when the food arrived and all Michel had in front of him was coffee, but her desire for greasy food quickly overwhelmed her desire to not look like a complete pig. When she was half-way through her pie and starting to lose steam, she asked, "How long did you work for them?"
Michel shrugged, adding another sugar to his coffee. "Does it matter?"
She poked her pie; it was a little more gelatinous than she normally liked pie. "I'm just curious."
"Awhile," he conceded, glancing around, but no one was within earshot.
"Why don't you like talking about your past?"
Another shrug. "I live in the moment."
"I guess you have to." He looked at her sharply, unable to judge her tone, then nodded.
"Will you at least tell me your age?" She was working hard to keep her tone light.
He was silent for a long moment and she was sure he would refuse, but then he said, "I've lost track of the particulars, but I'm in my," he hesitated again, "Fifth century."
Kerry choked on the bite she'd just put in her mouth. "Oh," she said faintly, when her esophagus was once again clear. He could be lying, she knew, but she doubted it. "And you're French? I was right about that, wasn't I."
He nodded slightly. "Oui. I was originally French."
"Mmm. Your accent's very good."
He smiled a bit wryly. "I've had a few years to practice. Why all the questions?" He sipped his coffee and made a face.
"You know everything about me and I know almost nothing about you. That's hardly fair."
"I assure you, we're both better off that way. Besides, I don't know everything about you. I didn't know you were married."
Her grip on her fork tightened. "Oh no," she objected. "You don't get to ask about my marriage when all I get is the century of your birth. You wanna know, you gotta tell."
Michel nodded. "Alright, but how 'bout if we take this conversation back to the motel? If you're done with your pie." She'd made a pudding of it, pushing it around her plate with her fork. She nodded and Michel paid the bill, tipping more than Kerry felt the service was worth.
Back at the motel she took a shower. The NY t-shirt would have to do as sleepwear, since she literally didn't have anything else, and with her hair wrapped turban-style in a towel, she emerged. Michel was securing the window; in addition to the heavy drapes he'd hung up one of the extra blankets over the window frame. He'd taken off his shoes, but was otherwise dressed.
She sat on the edge of the bed, which creaked warningly, and toweled her hair. It would dry an absolute mess but there wasn't much she could do about that.
"So?" she said.
He turned. "So, what?"
"You were going to tell me everything there is to know about you- Interview with the Vampire style."
"Right. I thought that was just if I wanted information."
"And don't you?"
"I've changed my mind."
She stuck her tongue out at him. "You'd be terrible at sleepovers."
"Eventually I'll get over my crushing disappointment." Michel threw himself down on the bed next to her, a surprisingly casual gesture, and folded his hands behind his head. "What do you want to know?"
She stretched out next to him, head propped on an elbow. "Will you really answer my question?"
"Probably not."
She pinched him; he caught her hand and brought it to his mouth as if to bite it but then kissed the tips of her fingers instead. She realized she was giggling like a giddy school girl and struggled to stop.
"You're in a good mood," she observed.
"Am I? I have no right to be."
"Maybe not, but you are." She snuggled up next to him, resting her chin on his chest, noticing how it only moved when he needed to talk.
"Do you have any siblings? Did you have?" she corrected. He remained quiet for awhile, but she was content to lie there.
"I had a little sister," he said finally. "Clarisse. She died when she was twelve." His voice was very distant.
"How?" Kerry asked, mentally begging him not to say that he'd killed her.
"Scarlet fever. The whole family caught it." She smoothed a wrinkle in his shirt with her fingers; sorry now that she'd brought the subject up.
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright, it was a long time ago. I barely remember." Now, that she doubted. "My turn. How long have you been married?"
She winced. Her marriage was not something she wanted to discuss with anyone, least of all Michel. "Nine years. We met in grad school."
"Love at first sight?" Michel hazarded.
"No, it took him six months to convince me to go out with him. I thought he was obnoxious."
"But he won you over."
"I guess. When I married him I figured that he was as good as it got, that I was never going to feel about anyone like I did about, well, you. No man can live up to romantically faded memories of girlish love."
"Do you love him?"
She shifted. "I think you're over your question limit. But yes. Or at least I thought I did. What is love, anyway? When you're young you think it's passion and undying devotion."
"And now?"
"I'm increasingly of the opinion it's the ability to tolerate a person for long periods of time."
He snorted. "You should work for Hallmark."
"I'll consider it. If this whole Bonnie and Clyde thing doesn't work out." The conversation lapsed, and Kerry found herself drowsing despite the scratchiness of the bedspread. Just as well, tomorrow didn't bear thinking about.