Beautiful Monster 2(75)

 
“This is permanent, right?” Liam spoke at last, standing up. He seemed taller than he normally did, and no longer in pain. “As long as Sarah’s close, I’m forever immune to anything?”
 
“Anything supernatural,” Arianna said, looking at her watch like she was ending a casual coffee date. “I really should go.”
 
“Thank you.” Liam nodded to her, looking down at his hands, and then up at the stars, as if taking the world in for the first time. “The money will be in your bank account within twenty four hours.”
 
“Good. Nice to meet you all,” Arianna said, and then headed off towards the school parking lot.
 
I guess for her, this was an everyday occurrence, changing people into toads and re-arranging the laws of nature. I knew that the binding spell was forbidden by witches who worked in a coven, but it was clear from her attitude that Arianna worked alone.
 
I looked to Liam, who was rooted to the spot.
 
He gave me a slight smile. “It’s ok, Amy. Your blood is just as tempting as ever.”
 
“Gee thanks,” I managed, but still didn’t move any closer.
 
This wasn’t the Liam I knew, full of compassion and kindness. This Liam was someone else, even if the one I knew was trapped inside.
 
But then he cocked his head in that familiar way that I found adorable, and gave me a wider grin, winking at me, and I found the man I had fallen in love with again.
 
I moved forward into his arms, feeling his body as a vampire for the first time. He felt more solid, built and I could feel the power in his muscles. He wrapped his arms around me and I knew that it was the safest place in the world to be: that nothing at all could harm me.
 
“So, we’ll see you tomorrow night, then,” Sarah said, also safe inside Connor’s arms. They were giving each other a look that told me they had other plans for the evening.#p#分页标题#e#
 
“Yes,” Liam replied, and I smiled, breathing in his familiar scent. Everything would be alright, I knew it.
 
Once the other two left, Liam reached down to take my hand.
 
“Do you want to take a walk?” he asked.
 
I looked up, surprised. “Is that… ok? Are you going to be ok?”
 
“As long as we stay around here and don’t head to the center of a crowded town.” He smirked. “Unless you want that kind of fun.”
 
“No thank you,” I replied, gulping slowly. There were still parts of this, even after a year, that frightened me.
 
“That’s ok, I’m not really hungry.” He gave me a devilish smile and we began to stroll toward the gardens at the very back of the school property.
 
I had never really spent much time there, preferring indoors and climate-controlled theaters. It was cold, and I couldn’t feel my fingertips, but I didn’t want my time with Liam to end. More than ever, I wanted to understand what was going on when he was like this; how he felt and what he thought.
 
“How’s Ranger going?” he asked, approaching a delicate subject matter.
 
I hadn’t yet retracted my plan to pull out of school after the show was over, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.
 
I loved Ranger, and I loved performing every single day, a different script within the same character. I knew Cassandra Winters almost better than I knew myself by now. If they told me to improv all the scenes from here on out, I was pretty sure I could.
 
But at the same time, I felt frustrated with the set. I hated the long breaks we took, sitting around waiting for the lighting to be moved or the director to argue with the writers. I hated being in character with a strong emotional backing and then having to be told to go back and do it again, or wait an hour for lunch to be over so we could film it from a different angle. As I expressed these thoughts to Liam, a wide grin stretched over his face.
 
“It’s like we’re the same person,” he said, stopping to pick up a flower and hand it to me.
 
“What do you mean?”
 
“Every time I was on a film set, I felt like bashing my head against a wall. You don’t know how many times I wanted to scream at them to just get going.”
 
“But you spent most of your career in film,” I protested.
 
He laughed. “You don’t have to tell me twice, I know. Every day I was itching to get back to the stage.”
 
“So what you’re saying is even full-time actors have it hard?”
 
“Oh yeah, limos and parties are terrible,” he snorted.
 
I giggled. “Did you talk to Charlie by any chance?”