Available Darkness Season 1

awaiting him.
    He was a man without a past. The police were hunting him and at least one person had seemingly buried him alive. And of course, there was the fact that he might be a vampire, or monster of some other sort.
    The possibilities were endless and the implausibility of it all kept him sprawled on the bed instead of pacing the floor.
    Maybe she’s better off without me.
    Still, there was something else.
    There was a connection between them, drawing them together during their first brief touch, and then again this morning, when she sent one of his memories sailing straight back at and inside him. There was something bigger than the two of them at work, something that held him in place while silently instructing her to deliver the memory.
    Something was guiding them, and John knew it. It didn’t have to make sense; there was understanding in the deepest recesses of his reptilian brain, pieces of a puzzle scattered across a table. Some face up and some face down, but all his to assemble.
    To understand how the pieces fit, he needed to see them all in one place. To put the puzzle of his life together, he needed Abigail.
    He just hoped that he wasn’t endangering her in his quest.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 10 — Abigail

    Abigail craned her neck and narrowed her eyes toward the side mirror. No matter how much she wanted to deny it, the cop was pulling her over.
    She pressed her foot gingerly on the brake, but it wasn’t gentle enough. The car bucked forward then shuddered to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk.
    Abigail kept her eyes fastened on the mirror but couldn’t see into the cop’s front window.
    She tasted the familiar coppery adrenaline in her throat as her mind raced through a dozen scenarios of escape ― none remotely realistic, especially considering she lacked even a basic set of driving skills, let alone the ability to evade a police car in a high speed pursuit.
    The keys in the ignition jiggled in time to the engine’s purr, both against the backbeat of her foot tapping nervously against the floorboard.
    The cop was still in his car.
    Is it supposed to take this long? What is he doing?
    Suddenly, as if responding to her thought, the cop’s voice boomed over the speakers on top of his light bar.
    “Put your hands where I can see them and step out of the vehicle!”
    Abigail was frozen, swallowed by the ambiguity of adult procedure.
    The cop issued his command a second time, his voice deep, cold, emotionless. Authoritative.
    Abigail released a tiny shriek as her hands fumbled with the door handle, unable to open it. Panic rose like a tide in her throat as the realization that she might be shot for not obeying the cop became as real as the bruised violet sky hazing through the smear of the windshield.
    “Please don’t shoot!” she cried out, though he couldn’t possibly hear her, turning and pulling down her hood to show she was merely a child.
    “Hands in the air, step out of the car,” the voice echoed.
    Abigail’s hands found the lock, though she didn’t remember locking the door, unlocked it and stepped out of the car slowly, afraid that the cop would mistake the slightest speed in her movement and shoot her.
    “Hands up, face away from me.”
    Abigail obeyed, the world slowing to a few frames per second around her. She could feel the eyes of strangers in cars as they passed by in the middle and far lanes. She and the cop had caused the right lane traffic to stop cold.
    “Walk backwards to the sound of my voice, keep your hands in the air,” the voice commanded.
    Gravel and debris bit into her bare feet as she took a tentative step back. All those eyes on them, each driver and passenger craning to get a glimpse, if only a moment, of the drama unfolding.
    “Stop,” the voice said, “down on your knees.”
    Abigail slowly got to her knees, quivering like the last leaf clinging to a tree in the fall. She could feel the cop’s glare on her as he stepped from his car and started his approach. Tears streaked down her face, the salt stinging her lips.
    “Hands out, palms up,” the cop said.
    Abigail was confused.
    Why is he shouting at me?
    Can’t he see I’m a child?
    She desperately wanted to turn around to show that she was not whatever villain he thought her to be. To do so, she knew, would invite him to shoot her dead on the spot.
    Traffic was crawling and she could hear the angry horns from frustrated drivers, stuck a block back without a view of the action. She wondered if