Sunsets & Other Dangerous Things: A Sapphic Vampire Romance by Dani Frank

Author:Dani Frank [Frank, Dani]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

18

Ashley

Everything was exactly as Ashley remembered and also fit like a sweater that shrank two sizes in the wash. The black, empty cornfields passed by the window of the rental car as she drove, navigating by muscle memory. If someone had asked her how to get from the airport to her parents’ house, she would have had no way of telling them. Twelve years had flown by, but the second she got into the car and Esther buckled in next to her, she pulled out of the parking lot, turned a confident left, and kept driving.

They drove in silence, Esther keeping to herself and Ashley fiddling with the radio, which never kept a station out on the country roads. It hadn’t snowed yet, or at least not enough to stick, so driving wasn’t difficult. The dark and barren fields kept bringing her back to her first few years post-transformation when she was all on her own and scared of her own shadow. She couldn’t help hitting the accelerator to hurry their trip along.

“Did you want a break?” Esther asked after an hour of driving. “I could take a turn.”

“No, we’re almost there.” Ashley kept her eyes glued to the road, the headlights giving her tunnel vision.

“Ashley.” Esther’s voice was cautious, as though she sensed something was wrong.

But nothing was wrong. She was just driving. They would be there any minute. Just a few more miles to go.

“Ashley, can you pull over?”

“No.” The last thing Ashley wanted to do was stop out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Ashl—”

“I said no!” she yelled and cringed at how her voice took up the whole car.

She was fine. She was fine. She was fine.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong!” Ashley didn’t know how to stop yelling.

“Sorry, that was the wrong question.” Esther kept her voice low.

The road blurred in front of her as her eyes watered. She was being managed. Esther thought she was out of control. And maybe she was, but she couldn’t stop the car. Not here. Not in this infinite black.

“What I meant was, what are you thinking about?”

Ashley wiped her eyes on her sleeve, clearing her vision again. “I’m thinking I’m a terrible travel companion.”

“Hush.”

Ashley snuck glances at her but kept her eyes mostly to the road.

“Going home is hard,” Esther continued, “and most people aren’t vampires on top of it.”

“It’s not going home,” said Ashley. “Well, it is going home. But right now, it’s the nothing on the way there.”

“The nothing?”

As counterintuitive as it seemed, discussing her lonely years took away the sting of seeing the darkness creep up around her, so she kept going. “When I changed, I wasn’t exactly alone. Not at first at least.”

She paused, not sure how much of this story to tell. But Esther wasn’t her girlfriend. Not for real. She wasn’t even gay. There was no reason to try to impress her or keep parts hidden.

“In the beginning, there was Konstantine.” Ashley blushed, hearing the reverent way she still said her name. “She was my first crush in high school.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.