Pick Your Poison Read online

  “Because you’re a meddler,” I muttered, swiping the back of my hand across my mouth.

  “You have nothing better to do.” Mary frowned, blinking owlishly as she smacked her lips.

  “You like to stir the pot.” This from Stefan as he let out a loud burp, startled he’d even done it. “Excuse me.”

  “It amuses you, little witchling,” Byron’s booming voice chimed in, his hard gaze frowning down into his glass as he scratched at his chest absently through his shirt.

  “What, nothing from either of you dears?” Throwing her hands up to slap them to her hips, Callie waited, staring at the last of the occupants of the room.

  Duncan was the first to speak. “I’m just wondering what you’re doing. The glimpse you gave me looked like that seven minutes game, but we played it differently.” Duncan glanced around, eyeing everyone’s empty glasses, pausing briefly on mine. “How does it go from here?”

  “Seven minut- Callie!” Face red, I hopped up, thinking better of it the second the room spun. “Ohhhhh, good goooodddd.” Stumbling, I gripped my stomach, groaning as I let out an ungodly belch, and went to sit back down.

  “Oooooh, looks like Genie’s going first. Flip your glass, Genie! See who you got!” Callie called, as if I wasn’t fit to be tied, or tie her ass up and stake her through her cold, thoughtless heart.

  “Flip my what?” I blurted, lurching towards my new ex-friend, my arms outstretched, hands clawed as I went to wring her scrawny neck.

  Words slurring, I called her a long string of dirty words unfit for company. My glass fell from my slack fingers then, tumbling towards the floor. It landed bottom up, humming as it rimmed the floor, the words ‘Find a way’ etched into the bottom as it whirled like a top.

  “Find a way?” The butt of the glass turned blood red, just as the edges of my vision went blurry and I heard Duncan curse.

  The room grew quiet as my ears began to ring, or maybe I was going deaf, but I could just make out a deep voice muttering, “You have got to be shitting me.”

  “Bye, guys! Have fun!” Callie shouted after me as the room shrank, then enlarged, distorting the world around me.

  I felt like a walking, wet water color painting come to life, and then it was as if I was being sucked into a giant vacuum cleaner. Pressure built, tugging at me, sucking at my arms and legs as the tension grew exponentially, pulling me back with so much force there was not else I could do but try to hold on.

  “Callie!’ I screamed, while all anyone could do was stand by and watch, horrified looks on their faces. The living room was slowly disintegrating, or was I? Red crumbles, like dust, flew around me, burning as it pricked and pecked at my skin. It hurt, almost burned, but it left as fast as it came.

  Crying out, I shrieked as I tried to swat it all off and run away, but there was no escape, and the spots it had pecked and gone left nothing behind. Nothing. Like pixels being plucked, pieces of me were gone—missing. It didn’t hurt because it was no longer there, that part of me, pieces of me, had vanished, blowing away with the red dust.

  “Help! What’s happening to me?!” Soon my shouts were drowned out by a strange buzzing.

  Bees! No! No bees! I hate bees! Help! I tried to shout, tried slapping at my face, my neck, the stinging hum zapping at me like tiny electric jolts. A weird nothingness suffused me, not quite a numbness as there was absolutely nothing, nothing at all, a deep void filling me. It consumed me, swallowing me up whole. By then I couldn’t feel anything.

  Opening my eyes, I screamed again. No sound accompanied the action, nothing but white noise, my eyes widening until they bulged from my skull. There was nothing but the rising buzzing, me, my silent screams, and red dust.

  Red dust, or blood? Molecules? I didn’t know.

  I’m nothing. Where am I? What am I? I had no choice but to see where this all went. Pick Your Poison, indeed, I thought, sucked into the nothingness as I spread amongst the mist.

  What have you done, Callie? What have I done? What the hell did I agree to?

  I had a bad feeling I’d find out soon enough.

  Find your way

  Sailing in, I tumbled to the ground with a hard plop, landing rump first onto a cold, tiled floor. Upon being hurled into a strange bathroom, the first thing I did was pop up and run to the heart-shaped commode to vomit. Throwing the lid up, I barely had time to lean over the bowl before my guts gave an emergency, unplanned evacuation.

  Stomach lurching from the wild ride and abrupt landing, I groaned as gobs of thick, black liquid and thoroughly chewed green apple tart made its great escape.

  All that just ‘found a way’, does that count? I wondered angrily. Flushing the pink glittering penis-shaped handle, I grimaced, flopping back on my ass.

  Thoroughly pissed and more than a smidgeon queasy, I swiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “Ugh. Fudge my life.”

  Taking a moment, I glanced around, scowling at my surroundings.

  Worse than Aunt Matilda’s retro sixties phase, this place was downright tacky. With red, white, and several shades of pink gracing the room, the sex theme running throughout had my back up. I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh at the insanely huge penis shaped soap dispenser.

  For a long moment I stared at it, wondering if one had to push or pump the large, flesh colored balls prominently out on display on the front of the god awful thing to make the phallic shaped container give up its ‘soap’.

  “You have got to be shitting me. This is either Hell or a brothel.”

  “I’d say Vegas. A honeymoon suite bathroom at a cheesy motel, to be exact, but your guess is as good as mine.” Standing there leaning against the fuchsia door-jamb in tight, white spandex pants, complete with gaudy silver rhinestones sparkling down the sides, small short jacket to match, and nothing else, was none other than Divit.

  “No, no, no.” Slumping against a chintzy set of lurid pink and red tiles depicting unimaginable sexual positions, I rested my cheek against the cool surface.

  “My sentiments exactly,” my unwanted companion gritted out angrily.

  I wasn’t listening. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.” Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I let out a short, pitiful whimper. “I’m stuck in a deranged, sex themed bathroom room with a vampire. I can’t... I can’t believe this shit.” Hands slapping to my face, I pressed my palms into my eyes hard enough to make them burn. “I’m going to kill you, Callie.” My voice came out low and throaty as I snarled the dead-witch-walking’s name.

  The sound of Divit moving in that horrible outfit reached my ears and I grimaced. From all that rustling, he was most likely shrugging. God, at least vampires are pretty much eunuchs, and he’s too much of a blood snob to drink from me. There is that, I tried to tell myself.

  “Believe it,” he said after a long moment, the same resigned tone to his voice matching the one grumbling at me in my head. Yep, definitely shrugging.

  “This can’t be happening to me.” It beared repeating.

  “You think I want this any more than you do, sweetheart?”

  Cracking an eye open, my cheeks twitched as I let my hand fall to glare at him. “Don’t call me sweetheart.”

  Divit’s eyes narrowed, his deep brown eyes flashing as he crossed his arms over his bare chest. The tiny, little buttonless vest did nothing to hide, well, anything.

  “For as long as we’re stuck in here, together, sweetheart, I’ll call you whatever I wish, darling.”

  “Fine, my little blood-letter, then I can, too.” Frowning as my eyes drifted down that skin tight nonsense he had on, I snorted and smirked. “That come with a tail and a headband? Feelin’ a little cat scratch fever?”

  Divit’s glower deepened and he reached down to tug at the crotch of his pants. “I think this get-up is supposed to be the King, but mock me if you must. However, I highly doubt the person to which you are inferring would be caught dead in this stupid get-up.” A mean smile lifted the corners of the vamp’s
mouth and he sniggered, cocking a lean hip. “Might want to check your own wardrobe before you go mocking mine, little Miss Muff-et, or should I say... Slut Peep?”

  “Says the dead dude,” I muttered under my breath.

  Rolling my eyes, fully expecting to see my work clothes, I glanced down at myself.

  Catching a good eyeful and choking on a mortified squeak, I sucked in a surprised breath. Face flushing bright red, I blinked down at the whorish looking, poufy, white half-a-wedding gown puffing up all around me like some strange, fluffy assed, partially torn off trampy nightmare.

  “Oh, god. Oh, no. Oh... what the... fuuuuuddddggggeee.” Horror written across my face, I stumbled to my feet, gaping at all the pale thigh exposed above my garters, almost tripping over the short, floppy train puffing up and around my ass on my sneakered feet.

  And then it clicked, really clicked, my eyes darting to Divit’s stupid outfit and back to mine.

  “Ohhhhh, no, no, no, no. No. No. No, we did not.” Picking up the voluminous, see-through under skirts—what bit there was to trip me up—I went to march past my unintended groom.

  “We didn’t,” he said helpfully, “though it would appear that way. And it won’t work,” he called over his shoulder, walking past me to the toilet to put the lid down and plop down unceremoniously. “It’s locked, I’ve tried. But, you know, feel free to give it a go.”

  Stilling, I paused. Craning my neck, I stared at him, thunderstruck. “This is insane! I’m going to kill her!” Face pinkening in anger, I screeched.

  Divit raised his free hand, the other rubbing at his temple. “Don’t worry, I’ll help.”

  “I mean it! I’m going to freaking murder that bitch! Callie, you gutless hag!” I bellowed. “Get us out of here, now!”

  Scrubbing a hand down his face, Divit grimaced, plucking at the crotch of his skin tight pants in annoyance with his left hand as he spread his thighs wide. “Don’t know how women, or anyone for that matter, can do it. This fucking shit is awful.”

  Stopping with my hand on the door knob, I turned back to the sink. “Are you always this...?” Lips pursing, I searched for a word.

  “Much of an asshole?” he finished, unaffected. “Yes. Now help me finish this,” holding up his glass, he gave the bottom a hard tap, “so I can get the hell out of here.”

  “I was going to say calm in a crisis, but sure, that too.” I noted there was no ‘we’ in his plan to get out of here, just a whole lot of implied ‘I’.

  Typical, only thinking of himself. Are all vampires self-absorbed, or just the one I’m stuck with?

  “I think you mean, so we can get out of here, babe.”

  Divit’s eyebrows rose and he tilted his chin. “I could simply bite you, enthrall you into helping me, you know.”

  Lifting my wrist to roll it about in his direction, making lazy circles as I gave him a droll stare worthy of his own, I shrugged casually. “You could try, sure, but I doubt it would work.”

  I was bluffing hardcore, but he didn’t know that. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was, too.

  “And why is that?” he asked in that carefully controlled, scary way of his he uses to freak people out.

  Tapping my lips thoughtfully, they tipped up slightly. “Hmm. Because I’m guessing you’ve played this game before, or something similar, or maybe you already know the rules, and if you force me it won’t work. Mm,” I made a soft noise in my throat, “and I think you know it.”

  Swishing noisily in my taffeta and god-knows-what-else nightmare, I made my way back to the commode and the glowering vamp camped out on it.

  The ball was in his court now—I just had to wait.

  Settling myself down on the floor by his long legs, I gave a mental shout out to whatever shit Callie’d cooked up for at least letting me keep my own underwear. Glancing over at Divit every so often as he plucked at his junk, it made me all the more thankful.

  My eyes kept drifting to his crotch, unable to help myself, but just as quickly I looked away.

  “Well, what do we do?” Gaze darting to Divit’s face for directions, he handed over his glass so I could examine the inscription.

  Scrubbing at his face again as he let out a long sigh, he looked as lost as I felt.

  “Make it count,” I read aloud, running my finger along the bottom. “Huh.”

  Divit took his glass as I handed it back, setting it carefully on the small, glittery-pink bathroom counter.

  “What did yours say?” he asked, staring at one of the tiles over the light above the mirror fixedly.

  “Hmm.” I glanced up, dropping my veil. The small, flimsy bit kept smacking me in the face and I was about ready to rip it off and tear it to bits. It was one of those headband deals with a short bit of material that was supposed to drop over my face—small, little crystal-looking plastic diamonds glittering along the top like a princess tiara. I hated it on sight, even more so after wrestling it away from my face. Thankfully, it stayed back this time. Clearly, I’m not cut out for this stuff.

  “Your glass...?” Divit prompted.

  “Uhm... Oh. Right. Mine said...” Damn, what was it? “Uh... find your way or find a way, something like that.”

  Divit’s brows pulled down and his jaw jutted slightly, his long eyelashes dipping as his eyelids lowered, shadowing his gaze. “You mean you don’t remember?”

  “Well, no, I remember, sort of.” Fingers twisting, I tangled them in the nonexistent hem of my dress nervously, biting at my lip.

  “Sort of?” he muttered, incredulous.

  Cringing, I winced, expression pinching at the sound of his voice. “Erm, kinda...”

  “Kind of?” His voice was getting deeper and angrier, his face darkening to match the pitch, the more I spoke.

  At the sight of all those blood vessels popping up in his sharp, angular face, I zipped my lips and shut up right there.

  Hopping up to pace, trampling over my train and almost me in the process, despite my protests, the glittery done up vampire looked fit to burst.

  “This is ridiculous!” he fumed. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to this! This was the last straw. That witch has lost her damned mind! And a regular human? She knew! She fucking knew, and I walked right into it! And I- Make it count?! I have no desire to make it count!” he thundered. “Why, when I’m done with her, there’ll be nothing left! I’ll make it fucking count!” Growling under his breath as he threw his hands up, he scoffed, snarling like a madman.

  “Well.” With a put-out harrumph, I’d heard enough. “Like I’d ever let you make it count, ya jerk.” Resembling that remark, and fast realizing I couldn’t exactly huff off anywhere, my eyes darted around our little impromptu prison.

  Doing the best I could, all things considered, to get away from that... that... I can’t even think of a word! I whipped the shower door open, ignoring the crinkling, crunching noises I made, and stormed inside. Chin held high, I slammed the door shut with a satisfying thwack that rattled the glass on its frame behind me.

  Once inside I felt sort of silly, but the barrier separating us was kind of nice. Swishing my way over to a groove along the wall—a step/seat type of shelf big enough for my caboose—I rustled up to it and plopped down.

  Dress crunching like muffled, crinkling paper beneath me, resting my chin on my fist, I sighed heavily. Peeking down at my sneakered feet, I tapped my feet on the drain, staring at a sexy pair of stocking clad legs—my legs.

  Hmm. All things considered, as I perused my somewhat long, shapely legs and gave a small but emphatic nod, not bad... Not bad. Go, me, getting my sexy on—whether I’d actually meant to or not.

  Well, accidently slutty, cheap-sexy, I amended. Shaking my head ruefully, I let out a short chuckle, fingering the nearly nonexistent skirt of what was supposed to be the bottom of my dress. Damn... this sucks.

  Twisting my legs this way and that, I brought two fingers to my forehead, placing gentle pressure right at that spot above my eyebrows, dead
center, and blew out a long breath. Find a way? Make it count? Oh, Cals... What the frickety-frack were you thinkin’? And a vampire? Gah.

  Not much for lingerie, I could still appreciate the snazzy silver skull head snaps on my garter belt, as well as the fancy looking garter half way up my upper thigh over it all, as I tapped one of them. A bit overkill, a garter and a garter belt, if you asked me. It just added to all the unnecessary frippery—the over the top ridiculousness of it all. What next? Is a half-naked chick going to show up and pop out of a wedding cake singing “I do, I do, I do, I do, I do,” but lo and behold, she’s actually the minister, here to hitch us up? Good gravy... I hoped not.

  Reaching out, I fiddled with the little lacy bit of femininity, finding the hot pink trim and black and white skulls patterned garter kind of cute. Cute, in a trashy, gaudy, and yet punk rock, Vegas drive thru wedding sort of way.

  Ah, Cals, you’ve outdone yourself this time. Examining the frilly bit hugging my thigh, I gave it a twist and nodded. Maybe I’ll strangle her with that first.

  Letting it go, I sighed. It’s obviously a riddle, those stupid words, not instructions, and we have to figure it out to get out of here.

  Callie and her dumb games. Crap on a stick, I hate these games.

  Truly, there is no way in hell I’m kissing that stupid, smug, I’m-better-than-you, Mr. Superior ‘cause I have no heartbeat and crap, walking-dead-ass’ lips, nor am I welcoming the gesture from him, so we have to figure something else out.

  Make it count? Hah! Like one can’t put two and two together. I haven’t been Cal’s friend this long for nothin’. Find a way? He has to kiss me and I’ll be able to open the door. I got it, first try. At least, that was my first guess, but it wasn’t happenin’, so Plan B it is.

  Now... I just have to think up a Plan B. Hm...

  Wedding theme, sex in the bathroom, Vegas wedding, slutty brides... find your way, find a way, make it count... Movies? Song themes? Lyrics?

  “Sing,” I suggested, talking aloud as the thought popped into my head.