Darkness (5 page)

It was dark throughout the house, and outside too. And it was quiet. It felt weird that the house’s regular inhabitants weren’t home. But also really nice not having to deal with anyone else. Especially Julz. I was surprised to see that the clock on the stove read just past eleven. I’d slept the day away.

The fridge was full of mostly fruits and veggies, along with some weird looking sprouted bread. I didn’t even know what that meant. It definitely didn’t look like regular bread, and I wasn’t hungry enough to try it. We found some tortillas that looked mostly normal and located some beans (beans that I hoped wouldn’t give me gas. How embarrassing would that be?) and some left over brown rice. I scoped out the pantry that was to the left of the refrigerator and raised a skeptical eyebrow at the items inside. I was pretty sure I was going to starve.

I sighed as I closed the cabinet door and Oliver shot me a sideways grin as he assembled my burrito and heated it on the stove top. “I’ll take you to the store in the morning for some of
your
staple foods.” I smiled back, somewhat relieved.

“Wouldn’t the microwave be faster and easier?” I nodded towards the burrito now sizzling in a pan.

He covered the skillet with a lid and leaned back against the counter next to the stove. His arms folded over his chest, one ankle casually crossed over the other, no shoes, just white socks, blue jeans and an inside out dark blue T-shirt. He was the epitome of gorgeous. “I imagine it would be,” he began, “but Julz won’t have one in the house.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “She’s a freak about a lot of things,” he said with a quiet laugh. He was right about that.

There was a computer desk and chair set up against the wall that separated the living room and the kitchen. It was like a small little office area hidden around the corner from the entrance and set up right there beside the kitchen. I sat in the computer chair and stared at the dining room table. It reminded me how lucky we’d been to get out of town safely. It was amazing to me that Oliver and I had survived all that we’d encountered and it freaked me out that Carter was attacked while just walking to the car. He was in really bad shape and I feared for him. I felt terrible for Kiera. I couldn’t even imagine how I would feel in her place. She was sure to be blowing up my phone soon, if she wasn’t already.
Huh, I should probably check my phone, it’s been a while.
I shrugged mentally and decided to take care of it in the morning. I’d need to call Lilly soon, too.

I was thinking more about Carter and zoning out on the table when suddenly Oliver was standing beside me with a plate in one hand and a bowl in the other. “You’re worried about him.” It was an obvious and simple statement.

I nodded, my eyes meeting his.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly and very sincerely. Then he nodded towards the hallway and I followed him back to his room.

The lamp on his headboard was still giving off a soft glow in the room. “Julz would freak if she knew we were eating in here,” he said with a bright and almost mischievous smile as we sat cross legged, facing each other, on the thick and cushy dark blue area rug. He sat the bowl and plate between us. The plate had the small burrito he had made for me on it and the bowl was full of strawberries, blueberries and green grapes.

He took a bite of a large strawberry then said, “These are so good! Try some.” I started to reach for one in the bowl but he had his at my lips in that moment. I took a small bite and chewed approvingly. “Good, huh?” He placed the rest of the strawberry into his mouth and finished it. “Oh, just a little FYI,” he began again, “Julz will be back tomorrow and she will not be happy about the Carter situation. I tried to get her to stay longer, but I think she knew something was up. I won’t be telling her he was attacked by a werewolf.” His eyes met mine with all seriousness. I fully understood.

“Where are they?” I asked and then began taking small bites from my burrito. The tortilla had a weird texture to it and it was hard for me to get it down.

“They went to visit Julz’s grandparents’ graves.”

“Oh?” I gave him the “more details please” look and he smiled crookedly at me, then he continued, “She goes up to visit the grave site and pay her respects once a year and takes Hayden and Isaac with her. This is the first year she’s taken Lola too.”

“Was she close to her grandparents?” I don’t remember mine. Lilly told me that I’d met them when I was very young and that for unknown reasons we just didn’t have a relationship with them. She also told me that she’s rarely spoken to them since my mother died. I guess every once in a while they’d give her a call to check in. But that was it and for all I knew they were no longer around. And I knew even less about my father’s family than I did about him. Which was pretty much nothing. Only what I’d seen in pictures and his name. Draven Alexander.

“She was close to both of them, but she and her grandmother were extremely close. That was probably the hardest person for her to leave behind when she changed.” I’d never put any thought into Julz’s past, I’d been too busy being focused on what a bitch she was here in the present.

I was only picking at the burrito. I wasn’t going to be able to eat it so I started snacking on the fruit from the bowl. “Did she have a lot of family she had to leave behind?”

His eyes focused on mine, full of seriousness, “She had parents and a younger sister, along with an uncle she was close to and a few other relatives, like a couple aunts and a few cousins. But her grandparents are who she has mourned the most.”

“Are the rest of her family members still alive? Does she see any of them?”

“Her little sister is. But she doesn’t have any contact with her. And her sister, Nicolette, doesn’t know Julz is still alive.”

I stared at him blankly for a moment. I can’t imagine knowing I had family out there, especially a sibling, and not having contact with them. “I imagine there’s some sort of safety reason for this, right? And you can’t tell me more?”

He rose from the floor as gracefully as he does everything and passed me to slide open the closet door behind me. I turned my body to watch what he was doing.

The right side of his closet was filled with shelves that were stacked very neatly and he reached in behind some very nicely organized boxes, “Julz would kill me if she knew I had this stuff in here.” Then he pulled out the greatest hidden treasure: a box of Cheez-It’s.

I was so happy! I had that box opened in seconds, “Why would she kill you?” I asked over a mouthful of cheesy crackers.

“She‘s a strict nut job when it comes to food. I hide snacks in here for Isaac, he’s always asking me to sneak things into the closet for him and Hayden. She makes them eat vegan. She’s the same way with herself too, she won’t drink blood from anyone who eats any kind of animal products or any processed food. She’s pretty much starving herself because that’s a hard one to come across.”

I just cocked an eyebrow in response; it didn’t surprise me that she was crazier than I had ever suspected. I was deliriously happy to have something to eat other than fruit. Then I had a thought, “Hey wait, what about those cookies she made?”
Oh what I’d give for one of those right now.

“She’s crazy like that. She freaks over food constantly and then she has these moments of complete madness and does things like that. She’ll flip out and act like it wasn’t her that made it too. She’s a complete wackadoo.” I started laughing when he said it. He just smiled and continued. “Isaac and Hayden don’t complain or bring it to her attention, they just enjoy the junk food until her crazy switch gets flipped back on.” Crazy switch, huh? I was pretty sure that sucker was on most of the time.

After several handfuls of crackers I folded the bag down and handed the box back to Oliver, who placed it safely behind the boxes where it had been stashed.

I yawned and was surprised to still be tired. I gathered my toothbrush and toothpaste and headed to the bathroom. I stared for a short moment at the closed bedroom door that held Carter and Felix silently behind it and then continued on. I spent a few minutes in the bathroom brushing my teeth and washing my face with some face wash I found under the sink, since mine was in my bag in the bedroom and I hadn’t thought to bring it with me on this trip to the restroom. I did a couple other bathroom things and then headed back to Oliver’s room.

He’d changed into a pair of black flannel pajama bottoms and his dark blue shirt was now right-side-out, with a faint and faded white outline of a palm tree, a surf board and some hibiscus flowers across the front. He was sitting on the area rug with his back against the bed and his long legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, with his laptop propped on his lap. He had the TV that was sitting on his dresser, on and he was laughing about something he was watching. He looked no different than any other guy I’d ever seen; there was nothing about him in that moment that would lead anyone to believe he was
different
. I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. His laugh was infectious and one of the most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard, to top it off.

I sat down beside him and checked out what he was watching. It was an old re-run of The Drew Carey Show, and that alone made me laugh. To think that such a simple comedy could amuse an intelligent vampire was too funny to me. I sat beside him for a few minutes and then yawned, cringing as I did so. I was afraid of the pain in my neck returning, but thankfully it didn’t. Oliver told me he had some things he had to get done on the computer and that I should get some more sleep. Then his kissed my forehead and I felt every ounce of my body relax.

I crawled up onto the bed, shrugged off my zippered jacket and slyly took off my bra under my tank top. I wrapped it in my jacket and tossed them on top of my bag in front of the closet. My little bundle landed on the bag, bounced once, and one of my bra cups lay hanging out from under my jacket. I glared at it for a moment and then let it go. I wrapped my fleece blanket around myself and lay down on the bed with my head near the foot where Oliver was sitting. I stuck one arm out from under my blanket and gently ran my fingers through the back of his soft brown wavy curls. He reached up and took my hand, kissed the top of it and let it go. I returned my fingers to his curls and took turns focusing on him and then the TV. His attention was on his laptop, the light tapping sound of the keys barely detectible as his fingers sped across them. I couldn’t see the screen from my position on the bed, nor did I have any interest at that point in what was on it. He’d look up at the TV occasionally and laugh, sometimes a good solid laugh, but mostly just small chuckles. My fingers started to slow in his hair and my eyelids began to grow heavy until darkness and deep sleep consumed me.

Chapter 5 - Grocery Shopping with a Vampire

I’d slept a deep, peaceful, undisturbed sleep. No lingering feelings of being chased and no faint screams ringing in the back of my mind. I felt fully rested and in need of another shower and some food. Real food, not that weird crap in the kitchen.

I lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling, trying to will myself to get out of bed. I had clearly been moved. I was no longer at the foot of the bed. My head now rested on the pillows. I was warm and cozy, tucked under the flannel sheets and comforter with my fleece blanket separating me from them.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and began taking in the room. I was alone, the door was closed, the lights were off but small streams of sunlight were peeking in through the slats of the closed blinds. I also discovered, as I lay there staring around the room, that my rational senses seemed to be back online and working at maximum capacity. What the hell was I thinking? Was I seriously going to
bond
myself to a
vampire
? Lose more than just my innocence to him? Why did this matter now? Was it really my rational side talking here, or my irrational side?
Maybe I’m just hungry.
It was too late for regret.
Was this regret…?
I tried to distract my now absurd thoughts by focusing on the details of Oliver’s room. The walls were a tan color, like most of the house. White wood-like blinds with fat slats. No curtains, nothing on the walls.
I mean, really. Do I really have a clue about this world I’ve stepped into?
I shoved that thought aside with the rest of the lingering thoughts that I intended to ponder someday.
Yeah right.
I focused on the room again, my heart thumping a little harder. All the furniture––headboard, tall dresser and a desk––was oak with a thick layer of gloss making it all very shiny. A small TV sat atop his dresser and a black leather computer chair sat at the desk under the window. Everything was clean and tidy. Nothing like the way I lived. My heart felt like it kicked me in the chest as a sudden panic hit me. A thought that, for some reason, had never crossed my mind but it should have–I won’t age but I could still die, right? What good would that do? Always worried he might accidentally hurt me or kill me? Or someone else might do me harm. Would I want him to change me? Could he? I felt my chest tighten and after a few deep, steady breaths and a mental pep-talk I climbed out of bed.