“Hard to talk to someone who has no voice,” he replied.
I looked up in horror. “Does that mean you’re playing the Phantom?”
“At least for opening night. I feel a terrible sense of déjà vu.” He swung my arm a bit, making me laugh. “You and I, together on stage again. It’ll be a show that the media will never forget.”
“At least you’ll be wearing a mask,” I realized. “So you can transform away and no one will know. What do you think Selene is planning?”
“She probably thinks we are stupid enough to fall for the same thing twice. She’ll be waiting in the wings at intermission, per usual.”
“Except she’ll be dead long before intermission,” I said with certainty.
I had never hated anyone in my life. I remembered reading about death penalty laws, and never believing that death was the answer. People can be redeemed, and death was more of a punishment for the families than the criminal. There was never a time I thought death was the answer, and there was never anything that made me wish death on a person. For me, with my mother’s image haunting us everywhere we turned, death was the worst thing possible.
Until now, with Selene. I wished her a thousand painful deaths; that her gift of immortality was ripped away from her hands and the pain of her every victim would come down upon her. And that was just for what she had done to us.
“Hopefully,” Liam replied and then laughed. “I hope Connor remembers that he isn’t supposed to kill an audience member every night.”
“Seriously?” I looked up at him
He shook his head. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. He’s smart, and Sarah’s got him wrapped around her little finger.”
“I think they are actually in love,” I replied. “Which is surprising.”
“Why?’ Liam asked, as we rounded one corner of the field and headed towards the other. I was shivering now, but I didn’t want him to know. This was a perfect moment with Liam, vampire or not, under the moonlight and alone. “She was the big squealing fan girl of our relationship. Sarah never… believed in love, for herself. There was sex and lust, and there were relationships, but she never believed in full-out love or happily ever after. She didn’t think herself capable of it. She thought it was all fairy tale stories of times gone by.”
“And now?’
“And now… I don’t know. She sings his praises every second, she tells me everything he says and does and swears she never wants to be without him.”
“Kind of the way I feel about you,” Liam said, nuzzling my neck.
I blushed, pulling away but he persisted. “Stop,” I cried, pulling away but he pulled me in closer. “Leggo!”
“Never!” He laughed, hugging me. “I will never let you go!”
There was a serious note in his voice, and I could tell he meant it.
When Sarah expressed her feelings of happily ever after not existing, I had stayed silent. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but when I was alone in the house all day long, it was hard to imagine that there was an actual Prince Charming a few miles away to sweep me off my feet. But I held out hope anyway, indulging in the romance movies which made me believe that I would have a fairy tale wedding with a dress that went on for miles.
I shook myself out of my daydream with a shiver.
“Cold?” Liam asked.
I nodded, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. “Sorry, I didn’t want to say anything. I was having too much fun out here.”
“Well, let’s get you inside,” he said, putting his arm around me. “I think it’s for the best. I need to… get something to eat.”
“Not your typical date,” I tried to joke, as we headed back towards the school. But I didn’t want it to end, vampire or not.
“Nothing about us is typical,” Liam replied. “But would you really want it to be?”
I considered that, but shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really have anything to compare it to.”
“Well, I do,” he replied, planting a kiss on my head. “And I don’t want anybody but you, atypical or not.”
I smiled, feeling his love around me like a blanket.
“So, Mr. Phantom, shall we meet for breakfast?”
“We shall,” he promised, as he held open the door for me. “Sleep in as late as you want, and text me when you wake up. I’ll have a breakfast fit for a prima donna waiting.”