Chapter 29

Ah . . . Merry Christmas?

-James

Anna and I snuck out of the restaurant. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves, successfully ditching Angela. We were like two blocks away from the restaurant when Angela was suddenly in front of us.

Both of us screamed.

Anna threw her arms around one of mine, and with my free hand, I grabbed the front of my T-shirt.

Angela stood there with her arms crossed.

"Angela!" My voice came out an octave higher and I was out of breath. "What a pleasant surprise!" I said stupidly.

"Anna and Mr. Moore, where you trying to leave without saying goodby?"

"Yes," I answered. Anna slapped me. I was under pressure!

"Oh, that makes me very sad," Angela pouted.

"We are terribly sorry," I said, moving around Angela and taking Anna with me. "We didn't mean to be mean or anything. And we will totally consider your request on killing your father in-law, but . . . wehavetogo!" Anna and I hit off at a run. I was faster then Anna so I winded up dragging her along, wacking her into people. I really didn't care. Anna would punish me for it later, but right now we had to lose Angela.

I pulled Anna into a Christmas Tree shop and we tried to mingle with the things that were in there. "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!" Anna screamed. "SHE'S GOING TO FIND US!"

"Shh!" I said.

An old woman who was shopping looked at us with a suspicious expression. I smiled and waved. She quickly looked away and left the shop.

"We'll be okay," I said calmly.

"No, WE WON'T! SHE'LL KILL YOU!" Anna sobbed, "Wait no, she won't. She still needs you."

"And she can't really kill you either."

"That's right. Okay."

"So we're cool. Is that a bobble head? I haven't seen one of those in forever!" I tapped the little dog's head and it bobbled.

"JAMES!"

"Yeah?"

"We have to be serious!"

"Okay. We need to find the truck, right? You said it wasn't far from the town."

"But Angela would know we went back to the truck!"

"Damn. You're right. We have to ditch the truck."

"Then we have to walk wherever we go!"

"I don't mind walking. It's good for you."

Anna sighed irritably.

"So we have to somehow leave the town without Angela finding us. We could go back into the woods, but we don't have a car this time."

"I can't see Angela going into the woods to look for us. She wouldn't like it."

"But where would we sleep?"

Anna was silent for a while. "Can't you like, make a house?"

"Uh . . . NO!"

"Where did you go when you left me?" asked Anna. The question felt like a guilty stab in the chest.

I left her once. I wondered how she felt when I didn't come back.

"James?"

"I was out in the woods," I said. "But Anna, most of the time I was a wolf and didn't really need a place to sleep."

"I can survive a little while outside. I really won't feel comfortable unless we're at a place that Angela would never go to."

I made a frustrated noise. "Can't we just stay at a motel?" though as I said that, I knew there would be difficulties with that. We couldn't really go to a motel, at least not one that wasn't close to the woods, because I still needed to change.

Man, this was too much thinking and not enough getting anywhere.

"Do you think it's safe to go outside?" whispered Anna.

I stuck my head out the door. I could smell out Angela easily. She was two stores over, looking at her reflection in a window, just waiting for us to come out. Crap.

"She's standing outside," I said.

"What?! SHE'S STILL OUT THERE!?"

"Calm down. We just need to get past her."

"Like we don't stick out. You're a huge man and I'm a small emo chick! We're not wearing any coats or anything!"

"We'll get something here."

"James, we're in a Christmas Tree Shop! What are we going to buy?!"

I looked around, and found a santa suit hanging up behind me. I stared at it for a while.

Anna sighed. "Well that's just great, James."

I looked underneath the suit, "Hey! There's Mrs. Clause too! This is perfect!"

Anna's eyes went wide for a fraction of a second. "What? No! No, no, no, no, no! I'm not getting into that thing!"

"But Anna!" I whined. "It's perfect! Angela would never expect Angsty-goth-little-vampire-chick to be Mrs. Clause!"

She glared at me.

"And think how warm it'll be."

She glared at me harder.

"I think you're just being stubborn, 'cause you can't admit that I'm being smart."

"James, if you were smart, WE WOULDN'T BE IN THIS MESS!"

I stared at her for a second, with a serious face. "That one, hurt Anna."

She screamed and I winced as I looked around the shop to see if we were attracting any attention. I was grinning insanely.

Why?

Why was I so happy?

I had to get serious. Serious.

"I can't believe you, James! You know when you were gone, I was crying and I kept thinking how much I missed you and that I loved you and I didn't know what to do! I kept thinking how perfect you were! And now I'm here and remembering that you're not! You're an idiot!"

I stared at her as she rambled, not paying attention to a word she was saying. Anna had the money. We could buy the suits, put them on, and walk out without Angela ever seeing us! I reached my arm around Anna, sticking my hand in her back pocket and pulling out the money.

"James!" she gasped, her hands going to her pocket, the money already gone. I grabbed the suits and made my way to the register, keeping away from the window.

Anna caught up to me and sulked beside me. "This is stupid," was all she said. I finished paying, and we went toward the back of the shop to change. I put the suit over the clothes I was wearing. The suit was too big, so I had to buy some pillows for my stomach.

Anna had yet to move. "Come on," I said. "You have to admit that this santa suit turns you on."

She gave me an unpleasant look.

I rolled my eyes and took her red pants, holding them open for her. She sighed and finally gave in, stepping into them and I pulled them up over her hips. She let out a breath in reaction to my hands touching her, and a smile tugged on my lips as I rested them on her for a second too long. Then I put the coat on her and she tried to tighten the belt; she seemed to be having difficulties.

I stood back to look at her. "You . . . don't look like Mrs. Clause," I said.

She looked up for a second from her belt. She had given up with buckling it and had just tied the leather. "No duh!" she said, and as she said that, the red pants started to fall. She was just too damn skinny. She let go of the belt to catch them and the belt untied its self.

"Okay," I said and grabbed a pillow, and before she could react, I stuffed it into her pants and buckled it. She stared out blankly, trying to decide if she should be angry or not. I grinned at her before finding two smaller pillows and holding them in each hand.

She looked at the pillows, then back at my face

I wiggled my eyebrows.

"Oh God, James!"

"You're unproportional!" I said. "You look stupid right now."

"I'm aware of that."

I opened up her coat a little, and stuck one of the pillows in, then the other. She rolled her eyes as I fussed with them, taking more time then I should and enjoying myself insanely.

I pulled my hands out and looked at her. "Oh wait, you're lopsided," I said before sticking my hands back in.

She sighed in irritation. "Are you doing this on purpose?" she asked, before she let out a little squeak, and blushed. She slapped me across the face. I deserved that.

"What?" I asked innocently, pulling my hands out.

"Don't 'what?' me!" she said, hitting me again on the shoulder.

I laughed. "Okay hair," I said changing the subject and grabbing the white wig. I gather up her black hair, brushing my fingers along her skin. Her face and neck were still pink. "You should where glasses," I whispered in her ear.

She almost gasped at my closeness, but didn't and just nodded her head. I restrained from kissing her. I had to be serious.

I put my beard, wig and hat on. "How do I look?"

"Stupid," she said. Anna herself didn't look much like Mrs. Clause still. She was tool pale and too young and she was frowning. Her eyes were yellow too, so she was like a dead young possessed Mrs. Clause. At least I had a beard.

"Great." I paid for the pillows and a little bell that I started to obnoxiously ring repeatedly. I opened the door to leave and dragged Anna along with me.

Unfortunately we almost ran into Angela. I tried to distract her by ringing the bell in her face and screaming in the lowest voice I could do, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" before walking quickly away from her, still dragging Anna, pushing my way past the crowd.

Angela shied away from me, a very displeased look on her face, but I didn't think she recognized me. I tried to keep myself in between her and Anna. She'd recognize Anna in an instant.

We got a little farther before I heard, "MOMMY! LOOK IT'S SANTA CLAUSE!"

Ah damn.

A little kid ran up to me, bouncing up and down as if his mother gave him too much caffeine "SANTA! SANTA! SANTA!SANTA!SANTA!"

"HO! HO! HO!" I said lamely. Anna crossed her arms and shifted her wait in a very non-merry way. I nudged her and she uncrossed her arms with a sigh.

"Santa!" he said again, as if he hadn't said that enough. "I have a long list this year, but it's okay because I've been very good!"

I knelt down to the kid and said, "Well then son, you should probably tell that to my elf. She'd need to know so she can tell the others to make the stuff for you."

"Really?! Where is she?"

I pointed to Angela a few blocks back. She was now looking at me strangely, as if she was starting to realize who we were. That was bad.

"Really?" said the boy. "She doesn't look like an elf. She's too tall."

"That's because she ate her vegetables. Most elves don't eat their vegetables, that's why they stay short. So . . . eat your vegetables."

I pushed the kid in the direction of Angela. "HEY ELF!" he called, and started to talk to her.

I grabbed Anna's hand and started to run.

Damn, damn, damn, damn.

I looked behind me. Far away Angela was trying to make her way through the crowd, but the kid grabbed onto her coat. She raised her hand to strike him, but stopped herself. The kid's mother was right there. I felt a smile on my lips at my cleverness.

As we ran, I could still hear Angela screaming at the mother And then I heard her start to go after us again. I couldn't see her, but I could smell and hear her and we weren't moving too fast. There were too many people, and Anna was having a problem slipping and tripping in her oversized boots.

Once there were fewer people on the sidewalk I stopped. We were going to lose Angela. I didn't care if she thought that vampires could do blady bla bla WHATEVER.

I grabbed Anna and threw her over my shoulder. She weighed like nothing as usual. She let out a cry in protest but I ignored her and sprinted. It was mush faster this way. In two minutes were out of town and on the road. I was leaving tracks in the snow, but once we were in the woods, I'd figure out how to get her off our tail permanently.

Once we were a good deal in the road, I leapt the bar that divided the road to the trees and ran into the woods. The snow was deep here. I couldn't picture Angela walking through it in her high heels. Maybe we were safe, but I kept running anyway.

I didn't stop until I was out of breath, and I collapsed into a pile of snow that had fallen from a tree branch, Anna underneath me, and I started to laugh hysterically. We must have looked so stupid, Santa Clause carrying his wife over his shoulder in a dead run out of town. What was that all about?

Anna was silent. I had a feeling she was glaring at me. I looked at her. What do you know? She was.

"You're enjoying yourself, aren't you?!" she snapped.

"You have no idea," I said with a grin.

"Get off of me!" She got her leg in between us and kicked me away. I landed on my feet, stumbling back a little then stretched. "That was fun. Okay, our next step is to wander around, making foot prints and leaving the santa suits in various locations to confuse her. Man there's another brilliant idea. I am on a roll."

Anna was already pulling off her outfit. I stopped to watch her for a second. I was repaid by one of the pillows hitting my head. I laughed and caught it.

"I don't understand why you're so angry," I said.

"It's ANGELA! I hate her! And I don't understand why you're so happy! Why?! WHY!? WHY?! You just had to say yes! We are so lucky! And I'm so pissed off with you right now!"

Why was I so happy? Why wouldn't I be happy? I didn't care.

I grabbed Anna's arm and kissed her.