Family Secrets (Young Adult Edition) (Davenport Manor (Young Adult Edition)) (14 page)

She could hear Zachariah, Vivienne,
Declan, and Daniel still conversing together downstairs, but they
had moved into the parlor. They were laughing, reminiscing, and
telling their stories to Daniel, who listened in awe. And she…was
bored.

“I’m bored Zach…” she
texted.

She heard him yell from downstairs,
“Your own fault for getting involved with a human!”

Vivienne chimed in and taunted, “Come
down and play with us, Emma!”

This was stupid, she so badly wanted
to join them downstairs, but couldn’t risk Todd waking up to her
being gone. She lightly tossed her phone down on the couch cushion
in frustration. Zachariah was going to be of no help right now. She
picked her own brain trying to figure out ways to leave her
bedroom, or an excuse she could use if Todd woke up and saw she was
gone. But, she knew her best bet was to stay put; if he stirred she
could easily slip back into the bed fast enough so that he wouldn’t
notice.

She paced around her room
a bit and stopped to stare out the window into the dark forest
ahead. What she wouldn’t give to go for a run right now! She
wandered over to her bookshelf and pulled out
Pride & Prejudice
. She curled up
on her couch and began to re-read it for the billionth time; it
always made her feel nostalgic for her younger days. She read the
entire night through with the occasional tauntings from her fellow
vampires downstairs. When the sun began to rise, she gracefully
climbed back into bed with Todd and pretended to sleep. As he began
to stir awake, she let out a fake yawn and stretch, thankful that
this prison sentence was almost over.

“Mmmm, g’morning,” Todd said with a
groggy voice and half-open eyes.

“Morning,” she said while rubbing her
eyes, thinking she was laying this on a little thick.

“Want to go down for some breakfast?”
He asked as he became more coherent.

She didn’t know how she was going to
get out of this; she didn’t plan this far ahead after spending the
night together. But, the one thing she did know was that she was
thirsty.

“Sure, that sounds good.”

Before crawling out of bed he snuck a
kiss on her lips after taking a swig of water. God forbid he hit
her full-on with wicked morning breath. He disappeared into the
bathroom for a moment and she used that opportunity to text
Vivienne. She knew she couldn’t ask Zachariah for help because he
was thoroughly enjoying her awkward situation.

Her fingers moved at lightning speed,
“Viv, Todd asked me to have breakfast with him. I’m going to fix
myself a plate of food (yuck), but when you hear me in the dining
room call my phone. I’ll say it’s an important call I need to take.
PS, I’m THIRSTY!”

After a split moment she received a
reply, “You got it. Meet you in the kitchen!”

They went into the dining room where
several platters of food were prepared. All the humans in the house
were bustling around, talking, and eating their breakfasts. They
each fixed a plate of food for themselves and sat down next to each
other at the table with Daniel, who looked at her, and then her
plate, with an amused and confused look on his face.

“Morning…what’cha got there, Emma?” He
asked, suppressing a laugh.

She smiled pertly and replied,
“Breakfast…”

“Looks delicious, doesn’t it?” He
antagonized.

She looked at him with a
forced grin and said, “Very much.” She was hesitating while waiting
for her phone to ring.
Vivienne, where are
you??

“Well…dig in!” Daniel’s
face lit up like a kid on Christmas, he
so
wasn’t on her side. Zachariah
must have gotten to him—darn them for being best
friends!

“Okay,” she answered as she picked up
a fork for the first time in at least a century.

“Are you okay, Emma?” Todd asked,
noticing her odd behavior.

She actually welcomed questions at
this point because it helped her stall. “Fine dear, why do you
ask?”

Before he could respond, her phone
began to ring in her pocket. She discreetly looked at it and
apologized for having to take the very important phone call. She
excused herself from the table, leaving her plate of food there and
disappearing into the kitchen. Vivienne stood waiting by the center
island with a glass of blood heated and ready for her. Her smile
was broad, clearly taunting her.

“You wench,” Emma shook
her head and laughed as she walked in. “Thank you for the
call
and
the
blood.” She chugged it down without savoring it since she had been
thirsty from the night before.

Emma waited until she heard Todd
finish eating and felt guilty for leaving him once again at the
dining table alone. She heard Daniel tell him that he would put her
food in the fridge so she could heat it up later after she was off
the phone. She could tell by Todd’s voice that he was disappointed
that she wasn’t there, but there was no way she was going to choke
down human food as it completely repulsed her now. When Daniel
walked into the kitchen with her plate he wrapped it up to put in
the fridge for later. It was perfectly good food that shouldn’t be
wasted, so Daniel had every intention of eating it
later.

“Thanks for covering me, Dan. I had
better go find Todd and apologize. I hope he’s not pissed after I
ditched him last night, too,” Emma said as she took her phone back
out. She put it back up to her ear and emerged from the kitchen to
the dining room, where Todd was just getting ready to walk out. She
was wrapping up a fake conversation as she approached
him.

“I’m so sorry, Todd! It was my friend
in Scotland, the one who had the family emergency a while
back.”

“That’s okay, I understand,” he
replied with a soft smile, which made her feel all the more guilty.
“Listen, are you busy tonight? I only have one scene to shoot today
and should be done early, so I was thinking maybe we could finally
go downtown.”

She had nothing planned and agreed
that it was a great idea. It was the perfect day to go since it had
been unseasonably warm in Chicago the past few days. The cold
wouldn’t bother her, but she didn’t want Todd to freeze. The wind
from Lake Michigan could make downtown Chicago feel a lot colder
than it actually was.

Today they were filming interior
scenes, which meant the parlor was now a movie set and they had
made a few décor revisions to make it authentic. The TV had been
taken down and all electronics were now carefully placed in the
foyer area. The set designers had added some antique furniture and
removed the modern-looking couches.

Emma discreetly sniffed the air to
find Zachariah, who was upstairs in her bedroom. She opened the
door to find him going over his lines one more time before being
called to set. He looked up and gave her a tight-lipped smile that
didn’t come close to reaching his eyes like it normally
did.

“
You’re mad.” She stated,
feeling it radiating off of him.

With a smug frown he shook his head.
“Just confused, I don’t understand why. Why a human?”

She had no answer because even she
didn’t know what the appeal was. “I don’t know. I’m thinking it is
because I have admired him from afar for so long…it’s kind of a
thrill!”

“
A thrill for you, but in
the meantime he is getting attached to you. Either way, this won’t
end well…”

“
Don’t you need to get
down to makeup or something?” She asked, trying to get him out of
her hair.

He rolled his eyes with a smirk, got
up from the chair, and walked over to her. He towered directly in
front of her, used a finger to tilt her chin up, and gave her a
soft kiss. “Whatever happens…I just hope I will always be your
number one.”

She reached up to put her
arms around his neck, “You should never doubt that. The reason you
are what
you are
is because I loved you too much to let go when I should
have.”

Todd and Emma were cruising south
towards Chicago in the Roadster and he could see the city lights
coming closer with each passing minute. He took pictures while she
drove, including a quick one of her profile while she laughed. Once
arriving in the city, they valeted the car and set off on a small
walking tour. Going down Michigan Avenue, they stopped into some of
the stores along the way and walked a half mile until they reached
the Chicago River. Todd stopped to take pictures of the Wrigley
Building and the Tribune Tower, while Emma suggested they catch the
water taxi right and take it over to Navy Pier.

After the short ride to Navy Pier,
they strolled along the boardwalk, checking out the little shops
and kiosks and made their way to the 150-foot high ferris
wheel.

“It’s a seven-minute ride around,
you’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Emma asked as they waiting
in line, holding hands.

“Nah, I like heights actually. We’ll
probably get a great view of the skyline from up there,
right?”

“It’s gorgeous, have your camera
ready!” She responded as they climbed into their slow-moving
gondola.

They sat next to each other; Todd had
one arm around her and the other one was taking pictures of the
beautifully lit up Chicago skyline. As they inched toward to the
top, he looked down at her and began to kiss her sweetly, slowly.
He set his camera down on his lap and used his now free hand touch
the side of her face. The crisp breeze seemed a bit stronger from
that high up and, being right on the lakefront, it gently rocked
the gondola. With the wind blowing directly onto them, her skin
felt like ice under his fingers.

He pulled her closer to him and
stated, “We’ve got to get you warm, you’re like a popsicle. Are you
okay?”

She snuggled in closer and replied,
“I’m fine, I’m used to it.”

They sat quietly for a moment before
he took in a slow breath, “I don’t know how I’m going to say
goodbye to you in January…”

This was like a fork in
her heart and she felt the pang of his dread. At that moment she
knew she should have never pursued him. “Don’t think about that,
just enjoy being in the
now
. And it will never be ‘goodbye’,
we’ll be friends for the rest of your life.”

He chuckled, “You sound pretty certain
that you’re going to outlive me.”

With amusement in her eyes, she
answered, “I’d put money on it.”

Chapter 10

Todd and Emma decided to take a walk
along the lakefront after they left Navy Pier. This time of year
you didn’t find too many people near the beach this late at night,
so it was the perfect alone time for them. It was something she
rarely got since other vampires with sonic hearing lived in the
Manor with her.

They strolled arm-in-arm
like they did the first time they spent time together touring the
outer property of the Manor. They spoke of their childhoods; his
growing up in London as an only child and she basically spoke of
her experience during Daniel’s childhood. She told him of Daniel’s
difficulty dealing with their parents’ death and that he nearly
quit showbiz when he began to spiral into a depression. But, as it
turned out, the best anti-depressant for him was getting back to
work and being surrounded by his friends from the
Ticking Through Time
films.

A short way in the distance was a
group of six young men in their early twenties walking towards
them, clearly drunk and obnoxious. Todd was speaking, but Emma had
stopped listening to him so she could eavesdrop on what the men
were saying. She snapped to attention when she over-heard one talk
about jumping and robbing them.

“Let’s turn around and head back, I
don’t like the looks of these guys coming towards us and there’s no
one else around,” she interrupted him.

They casually turned around and began
to walk the other way when she heard the men trying to quietly run
up behind them. Her natural instinct was to turn around and defend
herself, but she knew that if she did that Todd would know that she
certainly wasn’t human. She was just going to have to let things
happen as they may and try to defend herself and Todd the best as
humanly possible. This was not a good situation and for the first
time in nearly two-hundred years, she was scared. She heard the men
approaching fast and they both turned around to look behind
them.

The leader, who was shorter than Todd,
but stocky, shoved him to the ground while another guy grabbed Emma
and positioned himself behind her. He used the strength of his arms
wrapped around her to hold hers down, thinking she was defenseless.
The third man ripped her purse from her grasp and laughed. Todd
managed to get back up and fight his attacker, but he was
outnumbered as the others joined in. One threw a punch so hard it
knock him back down onto the ground and the others began to kick
him in the stomach, back, and head. Emma struggled like a lady
against the man holding her, knowing she could rip him to shreds
within a blink of an eye.

One of Todd’s attackers grabbed his
wallet out of his pocket as the others continued to kick and pound
him. His groans of pain were getting weaker and Emma could hear the
gurgling inside him—he was bleeding internally. They finally let up
on him, leaving him completely defenseless to protect
Emma.