Growing Wildflowers | WLW

Lavender

"Don't run, Gwen," Jamie orders again but my instincts are on overdrive, trying to force me as far from the threat as possible, as far from Jamie as possible. I feel like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, every muscle tight enough to snap, begging me to run into the woods where she won't be able to find me. My eyes are locked on the stake, tucked in its brown leather pouch. It's old and worn. I can't look away and the breath catches in my chest when she drops her hand to her side. I could leave, dart into the thick cover of the trees and find my way back to Sophie's by the morning but, even though my muscles are twitching in anticipation, my mind races back to my lips against Jamie's neck, my teeth at her throat so I force a breath into my lungs and swallow my fear.

Jamie takes a cautious step forward, her eyes traveling the length of my body as she does. I can't help the twitch that runs through my fingertips. She stops, her eyes focused on my hands. "You don't trust me anymore." She's not asking.

"Have you used that before?"

She purses her lips. "Typical." She tosses the stake in the car and closes the door with her foot. "Just another relationship I'm more invested in than—"

"That's not fair," I cut her off.

She closes the space between us, tears pushing at her eyelids. "How so, Gwen?" I've never heard her shout before. "Your fucking teeth were against my carotid and that didn't change anything for me."

"You've dedicated your life to murdering people like me," I shout back, motioning to the stake in her car. "I didn't choose this."

"I didn't choose this either, Gwen. You think I want to be a monster hunter? It's a family fucking business."

I flinch at her words.

Her expression softens when she realizes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

I shake my head, turn away from her to hide some of the pain in my expression. "No. Call us what we are. Don't sugarcoat it."

Jamie takes my hand in hers. "You're not a monster."

I look at her. "I killed your best friend," I state, hoping she'll get mad. I want her to hate me, to make this whole thing easier. I want her to tell me to never talk to her again so we can go our separate ways and never speak of this again.

But instead of reacting, she stares at me, her expression blank as she chews her cheek until her head drops to look at the ground and she nods. "I was wondering which of you got her."

"Gunner was going to turn her," I continue. "I finished her off."

Jamie's eyes meet mine, but this time they're ringed red as tears stream down her cheeks. "Why?"

I shake my head. "I didn't want her to go through this too." It's the first time I've admitted it out loud. I told everyone else I drained her out of lack of control, that Gunner left a bloody woman next to me and I couldn't help myself but part of me knew that was never true. "Turning hurts," I continue, my eyes finding the white scar on my wrist, the perfect imprint of John's teeth, the one scar that'll never fade. My mind races back to the day I woke up in his dark basement, my body breaking on itself. "She would have been tied to Gunner the rest of her life," I add with a shrug. "She would have had to live like this." I point at myself.

Jamie squeezes my hand. "You did the right thing." A small smile plays at the corners of her lips. "Olivia would have been pissed." She chuckles, lost in a memory of her best friend. "Becoming a..." She clears her throat. "What's the politically correct term for..."

I can't help but smile as the tension dissolves from the air, as if we weren't shouting at each other less than a minute ago. "What do you call us?"

She shakes her head, her cheeks flushing pink. "I asked first."