Vinyl Records

Cole

I decided to make cake, since I couldn't sleep, and had been at it since two in the morning. By my eighth attempt, it was well past three pm, and the kitchen was a mess. I had Grace's cookbook open beside my bowl and I frowned at it.

Eggs. Crack. Whisk.

Sam had gone to collect Grace from her parent's home at about twelve pm. And from there Grace would come here, to take her 'cure'. The cure I'd constructed and the cure that was based on such crappy science that my hands were shaking. What happened if it didn't work and I lost Sam the one thing he lived for? Grace.

Before he'd left he could barely look at me. He didn't trust me, yet, with his girlfriend's life and I couldn't blame him. I don't know where we stood, whether we were friends or not. I was Grace's friend, but to Sam… He couldn't forget, even now, that I didn't want to be human. That I wanted the life he'd risked everything to escape.

Sugar. Pour. Mix.

I didn't want to think about it; I just wanted to push it to the back of my mind. Us finding Grace dead. The light in her eyes just… snuffed up. Surrounded in a pool of blood like the day at the hospital. But that's what I always did wasn't it? Run from the things I didn't want to see, or get a razor or get a drug that didn't exist yet- it was so new.

Flour. Baking soda. Vanilla essence.

I glanced out the window, at the brightening day, in the general direction of where we'd buried Victor. Victor was the last person you'd destroy; you promised him that didn't you? I couldn't convince Grace to not take the cure, because that would be like trying to get me to take it. I'd always risked my life, been willing to end it and valued it so poorly. Did I want to make Grace take the same risk? Grace, who was my only friend?

I beat the mixture into submission. Grace would always take the cure; she wanted humanity as much as I hated it. She wanted a lifetime of Sam. She wanted a red coffee pot.

As I poured the mixture into tins, I remembered what I'd always wanted- a vinyl record. I'd been fascinated by the one Jeremy owned. What Cole wants, Cole gets, he had said, in the lazy voice when he saw what I was drooling over. It was an odd feeling, the memory swimming in my mind, and I felt a pang in my gut. It was his voice that I missed so much. The feeling that we were invincible and that NARTOKIA would never end.

It did. One of us was dead, one was a werewolf and the other was a loose thread.

I put the tins into the oven and shut the door as I heard the front door shush open. Quiet voices, hurried whispers.

"Cole?" Grace.

"In here," my voice caught a bit. Grace, dead. Grace, empty. They both entered, bare foot, holding hands. Neither Grace nor Sam, just Grace-and-Sam. "Hey."

Grace smiled at me, the same smile I'd wanted to earn so badly, the first time we'd met. There was a short pause, a silence that said more than words ever could. "You ready?" I asked. I didn't want to know and I already knew the answer.

Grace looked at Sam. Sam looked at me.

"Yes." Another silence.

"Grace?" She looked at me. "I've always wanted an old vinyl record."

"Do they even exist anymore?"

"We can find it while we look for your coffee pot." Sam's eyes tightened and he grimaced. He didn't want to think of the possibility that there was a future without Grace.

"I'll wait for that day."