Bring Me to Life by Emma Weylin Page A

the middle of the motel bed. She hadn’t killed him after all. The pulse had probably saved her wretched life, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that either.
    She wanted to hate Vincent for not trusting her, she really did, but she couldn’t. If she’d come across him hanging all over another girl and giggly with a beer can in his hands she’d have probably come to the same conclusion he had. Not only that, but he’d come. No matter what he thought about what she’d been doing, he’d fought to the death to get her out of there.
    Was she angry with him?
    Hell yes!
    Was she going to torture him for it?
    She shifted on his lap and looked up at his horribly scarred face. His hand still stroked down her hair, and she could see the self-loathing misery in him. She knew it well. It had consumed her life for the last ten years.
    No.
    She wasn’t going to torture him. They had a week together before he was gone again, and this time she didn’t think she’d get another chance to make things right with him. They’d loved each other deeply, and she couldn’t let it go to waste. She had a lifetime to make up for, and Vincent had given his life for her.
    She shifted again and moved off him and to the other side of the bed.
    His hand paused in mid stroke before it dropped to his side. His usual liquid voice was gravelly. “I’m so sorry.”
    “Don’t,” she whispered. “We only have a week. I don’t want to make any more mistakes to regret.”
    Vincent studied her face before he slowly nodded. “We have a vampire to slay.”
    Her face crumpled, but when he reached for her, she jerked back. “I’m…” She stopped herself from apologizing. “I’ll be okay.”
    “Will you?” he demanded.
    She scooted closer and then hesitantly reached up and traced her index finger along the line on his scarred face. “I have to be. This really great guy gave up his life for me even though he thought I betrayed him. It would be kind of shitty if I screwed up my life after that, don’t you think?”
    “Don’t force yourself to accept this. You were scarred just as deeply.” The muscles under his eye twitched. “And I was bastard enough to add to it.”
    She winced. “Um, yeah, about that…don’t let it eat you. I didn’t know you—” She didn’t finish saying he hadn’t trusted her. Very softly she said, “I didn’t kill you. That’s what has to matter, right?”
    *
    A flood of emotion he realized had never really left him rushed to the surface, but he wasn’t sure he had the right to feel it anymore. She’d loved him and believed in him past the end. He’d given her distrust in return. Then he realized what he felt didn’t matter anyway. They could work everything out until they were back to the point right before she’d left him that afternoon, and it still wouldn’t matter. He was dead. She wasn’t. He’d go back to what he was before he’d been sent here. She’d…move on. His face twisted, and he got up from the bed and stalked across the room.
    “It does matter, sunshine, more than you can ever know.” He said the words for her benefit alone. It wouldn’t make his existence better. It made it worse. She’d finally get over him and move on with her life. She’d find someone else to love her, someone better, someone who deserved her faith and dedication. She’d probably have a kid or two. He was no more. He’d take what he’d done with her love into Hell with him.
    “Vincent?”
    He allowed the sound of her voice to soothe him in ways nothing else could before, or since. He turned to look at her.
    Her eyes were wide. “Why are you angry?”
    He shook his head and willed the anger back as best he could. He forced the sides of his mouth up. “I’m not. How can I be angry when I know the truth?”
    She had a lost expression on her face, almost hopeless. “Because we can’t fix this.”
    He was back across the room and next to her in a heartbeat. He sat down next to her and grabbed onto