Sunrise at Sunset (3 page)

“My bad!” he exclaimed with embarrassment.

“Is everything okay, Ca –” she began with concern before abruptly correcting herself. “Professor Taylor?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he apologized sheepishly while feeling the heat rise in his face. “I forgot the essay handouts.” He took a quick moment to discreetly appreciate the tall woman before him. That night she wore white knit slacks, a royal blue ruffle trim blouse, and a pair of strappy white stilettos. She definitely looked amazing, again.

He glanced down at her hand, which was still firmly gripping his arm. Her eyes darted to his arm briefly before quickly releasing her hold.

“Um, you go on in, and I’ll be right back,” he stammered before heading back down the hallway. He took only seconds to retrieve the handouts from his office and made his way back to the classroom.
Fast reflexes
, he mused as he contemplated the brief hallway incident.
Strong grip, too
. He rounded the doorway and entered the classroom in a hurry, noting everyone already patiently waiting for him.

“I apologize, everybody,” he began. “I forgot the essay handouts on my way up here. And I know how much you’d hate to miss out on them.”

An assortment of groans emitted from the students, except from Ms. Rawlings and a couple of others. Caleb took roll, only this time he recognized a few of the faces, most notably Katrina’s. She smiled at him in an amused fashion from the back row of the room, but still projected a penetrating, appraising expression in her green eyes that distracted him.

“So, in the next few days, feel free to move around the room until you find a seat you feel most comfortable with, okay?” Caleb neutrally offered, although he quickly glanced at Katrina and fleetingly at two empty seats on the front row off to his left.

Having been studying him so intently, she noted the implied meaning in both his actions and words. Her slightly amused smile added to the twinkle in her eyes.
Baiting me?

He handed out an essay assignment sheet to everyone and set into his lecture on a brief review of European explorers who had visited the New World as a precursor to the westward expansion of larger scale European settlements.

“Well, can anyone tell me what primarily influenced Portugal to decline Christopher Columbus when he begged funding for an exploratory expedition to seek a western route to Asia?” Caleb asked curiously.

The room was silent as he scanned the faces. His eyes fell on Katrina’s gaze, which seemed to bore directly into his.

“Since Vasco de Gama helped initiate the profitable Portuguese control of trade routes to Asia around the Cape of Africa, Portugal believed there was little need to seek additional passageways,” Katrina’s voice broke the silence.

Caleb’s right eyebrow shot up with some surprise. “Correct, Ms. Rawlings. Very good.”

Most heads in the class turned to silently stare at Katrina. She maintained her gaze directly at Caleb with a slight smirk, and everyone’s attention returned to him. The lecture proceeded from there, and Katrina offered little more in the way of responses throughout the remainder of the class. As soon as Caleb dismissed the class, she was once again the first student to depart.

Weeks passed with Katrina sitting in the back row of the classroom, much to Caleb’s disappointment. She displayed varying degrees of interest and often smiled to herself, which Caleb found slightly unnerving. He also noted that a couple of women in the class chose to move to the forward seats in the classroom, paying more than a normal degree of attention to him, which he found flattering. Meanwhile, most of the males in the classroom seemed to gravitate further to the back rows of the room where Katrina sat. Still, she focused exclusively on Caleb, as if studying him even more than the material being discussed.

After two exams, which Katrina passed without error, Caleb wanted to interact with her outside of class. He still struggled to determine what seemed so familiar about her. But after each class, she always departed before he could approach her.

It wasn’t as if he were going to ask her out or anything. He was well aware that would be inappropriate and a violation of college policy. It could get him fired, and he’d worked hard to get on the final interview list for the job. Caleb had to be resigned to the fact that Katrina was simply the elusive type. At the very least, he looked forward to their brief interactions within the classroom.

On a particularly drizzly evening two weeks before the end of the eight-week semester, the parking lot lights fluctuated as Caleb walked from his car to the building. In passing, a maintenance worker said they were troubleshooting a systemic electrical short. With the budget cutbacks due to the poor economy, it seemed that even parking lot lighting was being piecemealed together just to remain operational. It never ceased to amaze him that during poor economic times, when the influx of students was greatest, community college funding was at its lowest levels.

Caleb went to class as usual, and once again, Katrina departed just as class was dismissed. Not being in a hurry to get home since Melanie was shopping with her friends, he chose to stay a little later to catch up on grading some essays. After an hour, he decided to leave and noticed that the parking lot lights were completely out in a large section where his car was located, giving the area an ominous feel.

As he reached the door to his blue older model Honda coupe, he thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He was immediately confronted by a large-framed individual wearing jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt. He couldn’t make out the man’s face in the darkness, but he did see the glint of a long steel blade being wielded in the person’s right hand.

“Give me your wallet, asshole!” the man demanded.

“Whoa, just take it easy,” Caleb urged, wide-eyed with his hands held up slightly. “Listen, I’m just a teacher. You’ve probably got more money in your pocket than anybody around here.”

“Shut up!” the man ordered. “Just make this easy and give me the wallet!”

Caleb couldn’t believe what was happening. He glanced around nervously, but saw no other people around, and the security car that normally patrolled the parking lots was nowhere to be seen.

“Okay, okay,” he said anxiously with his eyes focused on the guy’s knife. While reaching into his back pocket and slowly withdrawing his wallet, he considered trying to wrestle with the guy, but he had never confronted an armed person before. Despite his athletic build, Caleb abhorred violence and strove to avoid physical conflicts. He struggled with too many bad memories of abuse at his father’s hands as a child.
It’s just a wallet.

The man reached out to grab the wallet from him, when suddenly Katrina appeared at Caleb’s side. Her right leg shot out, and the heel of her knee-high boot caught the guy in the ribs with a small crunching sound. The fellow heaved a groan while bending over, and then abruptly turned to run away across the empty parking lot. He disappeared between some nearby old buildings overlooking that side of campus, still holding the knife in his hand and clutching at his midsection with his left arm.

Katrina watched the man flee and felt the strong, immediate desire to pursue the assailant. No, not pursue, but rather hunt him down and drain his blood. Instead, she turned to look at Caleb with concern.

He was speechless as he still clutched his wallet in a shaking hand. “Th-thank you” he stammered. “That’s never happened before,” he anxiously added as he glanced around the area.

Katrina reached out to gently grasp his arm with a look of concern. “Caleb, are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded and nervously ran his right hand through his hair as he gazed up into her eyes. “Yeah…fine...thanks,” he muttered.

He didn’t seem to notice that she had called him by his first name as his heart pounded away in his chest. She studied his body language and proceeded to lean him back against his car as she protectively wrapped her left arm around his shoulders.

“Listen, I don’t know how to thank you,” he said in his most grateful-sounding voice possible.

She smiled at him in a supportive, reassuring manner. “Maybe some bonus points in lieu of an out-of-class project?”

He nervously chuckled and scanned the area around them. “Yeah, as if you needed bonus points. I’d wager you’d teach the section better than I do,” he ventured as he began to feel a little better.

She smirked. “Knowledge isn’t everything. I find that a good presenter always enhances the material.”

Caleb wanly smiled while considering the dubious merits of standing in a dark parking lot immediately following an attempted robbery.
What if that guy decides to return for a second attempt?

Katrina regarded him with an intense expression as she listened to his pounding heartbeat, and an urge rose within her. At that moment, she felt the strong call of his blood. Her predatory instincts were screaming for action, and she wrestled to curtail them.

Caleb could have sworn at that moment that her green eyes seemed to emanate a slight glow, and he stared back incredulously. Then the parking lot lights abruptly snapped on, slightly startling him.

“Well, you better go now while it’s safe. I’ll see you in class,” Katrina calmly urged as she turned to head across the nearly empty parking lot.

As if snapping out of a trance, he shook his head and called after her. “Hey, wait! At least let me drive you to your car.”

But she just shook her head slightly and kept walking. “No need. Drive carefully on your way home.”

He glanced down to unlock his car door. “Maybe we should go by the security office to report this!” He looked back in Katrina’s direction to see if she had heard him, but she’d already disappeared from view. He scanned the well-lit parking lot, but could find no trace of her. There weren’t even any cars within view that she could have gotten into, and he didn’t recall hearing an engine start.
Strange
, he wondered.

He drove to the other side of campus where the security office was located so he could file a report. It occurred to him that the campus could use some of those emergency call boxes in the parking lots, and some battery-backed up security cameras. Somehow he doubted with their state’s poor economic conditions and declining budgets that either of those ideas would be coming to fruition anytime soon.

The would-be robber pulled his black hoody closer around his face against the evening’s renewed drizzle as he hurried down the neighborhood street, still clutching his left arm to his ribs. They ached furiously, and he anticipated that at least one was probably cracked.

He paid no attention to a lone sports car driven by a red-haired woman glaring out the window at him as it passed. Instead, he stared at the sidewalk and angrily kicked an empty beer can out of his way. He was furious about the failed encounter back at the parking lot.
That should’ve been fast and easy. That college guy was an easy mark for quick cash. But who the hell was that crazy woman with the boots
? he fumed. It was as if she came from nowhere. He felt embarrassed and pissed off, and his ribs badly ached where her boot heel had caught him. He cursed to himself as he abruptly turned down a trash-strewn alley between two older brick buildings.

It was a shortcut he had taken many times before. Experience had taught him that survival depended on knowing where to go and how to get there with a minimum of visibility. He tramped across papers and debris and was halfway down the alley when he heard boot heels clicking not far behind him. He stopped and palmed his knife from the sheath concealed underneath his hoody as he turned to see who it was. The lady from the college parking lot had stopped approximately thirty feet inside the alley and just stared at him with a flat expression.

He sneered back at her. “Well, if it ain’t boot lady!” he growled.
Maybe the night just got a little better
.
She has to be one crazy bitch to be following me.

“Miss me?” Katrina asked with a sadistic grin while patiently standing her ground. Her hunting instincts sang with life as she felt her fangs extend inside her mouth.

“Come here and let me show you how much,” he snarled as he stalked towards her.

She stood patiently with her hands out to her sides. He was almost to her when he lunged over the last couple of feet while bringing his knife to bear with a swipe. She deftly caught his wrist and twisted. Pain shot through his wrist as the knife harmlessly clattered to the grimy concrete.

“Bitch!” he yelled, and punched her in the face with a solid blow from his left fist.

Katrina took the blow fully on the jaw, causing her face to momentarily twist in the other direction. Her head swiveled back to stare at him, and he could have sworn that her eyes were glowing!

“What the fu --” he started before he cried out in agony as she snapped his right wrist bones with a quick twist of her hand.

She slammed him against one of the old brick buildings bracketing the alley while using her left hand to pin his face against the wall. Before he could react, she sank her fangs into his jugular vein and sealed her lips against his sweaty skin. He tried to yell, but all he heard was strangled gurgling.