The Thirst Within (14 page)

So I can’t be angry at Thierry for killing them
when they didn’t do anything, because
I
would’ve done the same.

Having reached that conclusion, I sit back and unwind.
I start eating. Oh, yum. Either it’s really good or I just realized I’m really
hungry. I notice Thierry relax his shoulders in front of me.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Tori,” he says.

I look up and smile at him. “I’m not scared.”

“You were so thoughtful over there, and your
heart was beating so fast a minute ago.”

“I was having rather inhuman thoughts.”

“Huh?” He’s apparently very interested in my
inhuman thoughts. “What do you mean?”

I look at my plate absentmindedly. “I don’t
care that you killed those people. I feel like a bad person, heartless, because
deep down I know I should care.”

“Don’t feel bad. Who says you have to care?”

“I dunno. Church?”

“I’ve seen so many people die, Tori. By my
hand, or just with the passage of time. After a while, you stop counting. Kind
of like a house pet.”

That confuses me. “What about a house pet?”

“Say, a dog. You get one when you’re little,
then fifteen, twenty years later, it dies. You mourn it, but you move on,
because you expected it to die at some point. In a way, their lives mean less
to humans because of it.”

Hold on. I don’t like what I hear; it’s a hard
thing to accept. I had a dog, Tarzan, when I was little. When he died of some
disease I was devastated. He wasn’t even ten years old. But yet here I am, living
my life, without grieving his every day. Do I not value his life, the years he
spent with me, the love he gave me?

No
. I loved my dog like I loved my
grandparents. We got him when I was five; I practically grew up with him. “You
may be right, we move on, but their lives don’t mean
less
to us because
of it.”

He smiles sadly. “You’re amazing, Tori.”

Now I think of something else, and I’m afraid
to ask. Rather, I’m afraid of his answer, but I ask anyway. I can’t stop. “By
the way, Thierry….”

“Yes?” he asks when I don’t continue.

“Can you drink animal blood?”

“Yes, I can,” is all he says.

“Oh.” He doesn’t elaborate. “So, have you?
Eaten animals?”

“Yes, I’ve had deer, cows, horses, buffalo…. Mostly
large animals in the wild, when there aren’t many people around. Dogs, rabbits,
smaller mammals, when there’s nothing else. But it’s been a long time.”

I look down. I’m about to cry.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I just don’t know if I’m okay with that.”

“What?”

“Killing animals!”

“I don’t kill them!” he says, laughing. “I’m
telling you, I try not to kill anything. Except humans that don’t deserve to
live in my opinion. And you’re okay with that.”

Oh. I am, apparently. The fact that he doesn’t
kill unnecessarily is a great comfort. I feel like he passes a test I didn’t
realize I was administering.

He pauses for a second, and inspects the smile
that has crept on my face. “Tori? You’re okay with me killing people, drinking
human blood, but not animals?”

“Well, you’re saying the humans deserved it…. But
animals don’t deserve it.”

“Are you sure?” He smiles mischievously. “I
have to take you camping.”

That’s actually something I’ve always wanted to
do at some point in my life. So I smile. “Sure. I’d love to.”

“Okay, but when you get chased by bears for no
apparent reason, don’t make me rescue you.”

“No! You rescue me, and shoo the bear away.
That’s what I did with spiders at Nana’s house. I’d sweep them outside.”

He inspects my plate, possibly looking for some
animal to accuse me of eating, but I ordered pesto sauce. He looks up and has
an amused expression on his face. “You’re an odd one, Tori.”

***

As he drives me home, I grill him about his
superpowers. He argues that they’re not superpowers; they’re just enhanced
versions of what he was able to do as a human.

“Bulllllshit. Humans can’t read minds,” I
remind him.

“Some can,” he counters.

“What! Where are these people?”

“They’re all around us, Tori. There are people
who can connect with spirits, people who can feel the elements and interact
with them. There are people who can see things that not everyone can see….”

I’m just sitting on my seat with my mouth
hanging open.

“Don’t look so surprised, now,” he says. “You
know how some people are smarter than others? Much better at math? Some even
have been called human calculators?”

“Yeah?”

“Human calculators really exist. People
are
smarter than others. Well, why do you think that is? They have a brain much
like everyone else; they just use it differently. There are people who are
naturally faster, stronger, or hear better, see better, than the average human.
I think when our cells mutate into vampirism, everything is enhanced.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain telepathy.”

“The brain emits waves when you think; some of
us can pick those up. Much like some blind people can hear reflected waves and
determine location. Humans can be pretty amazing.”

“When you found me in the back alley that one
time….” I begin, but I don’t mention the dead dudes, “how did you find me?
Smell? Hearing?” I didn’t say a word then, I remember.

“Ah, that would be hearing. I was hanging out
in my car, listening to you go on inside the theater.”

“What! You could hear from your car?”

“I can hear some noises for
miles
. I
just have to focus on what I want to listen, much like you do when you hear a
lot of things at once.”

“Doesn’t it hurt, when I talk in normal
volume?”

“Nah. It’s hard to describe. You just hear, and
focus what you want to listen.”

“So you could hear me going out the back door?
But no one made a threatening sound. Did you know they were going to attack
me?”

“I would’ve, eventually, heard three sets of
footsteps, and gone see if you needed help. But as it was, when you left the
theater I left my car. I went there to keep an eye out for you….” He looks at
me, and there’s a hint of mortification in his eyes. “I’m sort of like an
escort that you don’t realize you have. I always look after you, every day.”

“Aww?” It’s a little creepy but it makes me
smile. I didn’t know I had a personal bodyguard. “Have there been other
possible assailants that I haven’t heard of?”

“No. Just those guys, which you saw, and that
jerk in Mardi Gras.”

Mardi Gras. That was later, though. A month
after the guys in the alley. When he wasn’t talking to me, presumably on his
brother’s orders.

“Wait. Did you—did you follow me around every
night?” I remember something embarrassing.

“Yeah?” he asks. I can tell he doesn’t know
where I’m going with this.

“What about the month before last week, when we
didn’t talk?”

“
Every
night, Tori. You take that bus at
night and you have to walk a few blocks alone. These aren’t the safest streets.
When you go in the morning it’s not so bad, or after school, if you go with
your friend. Admittedly, nothing ever happened, but….” He pauses, because I
probably look like I’m choking. Which is what I feel like. Suffocating. “What’s
wrong? You okay? I’m sorry if that freaks you out. But I had to make sure you
were safe.”

I think of that bus ride when John and I kissed,
and I groan internally. My brain desperately tries to convince me that maybe Thierry
didn’t follow me the whole trip, just saw me get on and off the bus, walk to
work, etcetera.

He pulls up to my neighbor’s house, as usual,
and looks at me.

“Are you okay?” he asks again.

“Yeah. I was just wondering…. Did you notice
anything, oh, about two weeks ago….” I can’t finish the sentence.

“Oh. You’re referring to John Schmidt kissing
you?”

Ah! I cringe. It was more like, John Schmidt
and
I
, kissing. “Yes,” I say in a small voice.

He surprises me by laughing. “Don’t feel bad.
There’s nothing wrong with you kissing a boy. Especially before… um, after… well,
during
that
time.”

The Time That Shall Not be Named.

“How embarrassing!” I say, turning to face the
window.

“Now, Tori, come here. Come
here
,” he
insists when I don’t answer him, unbuckling me and pulling me into his arms. I
turn to face him, the guilt clouding my vision, making everything else blurry
but him. And him, he looks so gorgeous, inhumanely so.

“Tori. I had to look after you. It’s my job.
Especially
to and from work, since you almost got attacked that time. I won’t deny that it
was a little hard to watch. Not because you did anything wrong”—he holds me
down because I’m protesting, trying to squirm away—“but because it reminded me
that what I did was my own doing. I had no right to… to make you suffer, not even
for a minute, however long it took you to forget me.”

A minute! If he only knew. I just look up at
him, dazed, still cradled in his arms.

“And when I saw you that day, it made me see
the severity of my actions. It made me realize what I wanted. And all I wanted
was you.”

“You want me…?” I ask, under his spell.

“God, Tor…” he whispers against my mouth, his
breath intoxicating. It’s the first time he’s called me
Tor
since I
found out about him. His arms tighten around me. “I’ve wanted you since the day
I first saw you.”

And with that, he brings his lips to mine. My
lips part, and I quiver with the feelings that rush my body. His arms caress my
back, and my hands find the hard line of his jaw. Love and desire flutter up
and down my extremities, pooling somewhere in my belly, where I feel every
organ crumble away. This kiss is more intense than any other kiss he’s given
me, and knowing that he’s a vampire makes no damn difference.

I am kissing Thierry, the vampire.

Finally
.

The week goes by, and I’m still very much in
love with my vampire. I know Thierry loves me, too, although I’m not exactly convinced.
Because after Mardi Gras he hasn’t said it again. Not when I thought he was
human, nor after. However, the words he said are soldered in my mind.
“I
love you, Tori. You’ve no idea.”

I loved hearing those words, and I so want to
hear them again. However, if he won’t repeat them, I’ll replay them in my head until
I firmly believe them, and have no reason to doubt anymore. And even when I
don’t doubt, I strive to
feel
them. Every chance I get, I burrow against
his cool form, kissing his neck softly without saying a word, running my
fingers through his hair as if every strand belonged to me. When I do this, he
pulls me firmly to him, and runs his hands down my back, calling out my name
like I’m his savior.

Unfortunately I haven’t had too many
opportunities to cuddle. This week I had to work a four-hour shift on two days,
which cut my time with Thierry down to only about half an hour. And when I
didn’t work I had to go straight home after school and to catch up with homework.

But on Friday I exit the front of the theater
after work almost jumping in the air with excitement. I only worked two hours,
so that means I have
hours
to spend with Thierry before my family grows
suspicious that I’m not home. Not that I’m convinced they would ever miss me. The
Harrises never ask for my schedule; they only know if I’m working or not
working. When I don’t work, I’m home. When I work, I get in late. I never
shatter their expectations, so they assume everything is the way it should be.

It’s still early when Thierry pulls up in front
of the theater. All week I’ve been dreaming of Friday night. I’m clingy. I need
him. He exits the car and walks around to greet me. He flashes a dazzling smile
before he wraps me in a tight hug that melts my every bone.

“Oh! Hey, you,” I say laughing.

“Hey, Tor,” he says, and gives me a quick kiss
on the forehead. “How was your day?”

“It was great! Thanks for picking me up.”

“My pleasure. Here,” he says, opening the
passenger door for me. He closes the door behind me and as he walks around to
his side I notice the backseat full of stacks of papers and manila folders.

He catches me looking when he sits. “
Argh
.
Don’t remind me. I have to just take you home tonight; is that okay?”

What?
No, of course it’s not okay. Love me!
“Yeah, sure, what’s up?” I ask lightly.

“I’m leaving town—really leaving this time—going
to Illinois to see Corben. But I’ll be back tomorrow, so I’ll see you then.”

I hope he didn’t see my slight cowering when he
said his brother’s name. “Oh, okay.” Where are you going? What is Corben doing with
you? Do you still love me? Questions I want to ask, but don’t.

“Anything you want me to get you while I’m
there?” he asks me.

I think about it for a second. “Snow, if they
have any.”

“Snow! Why? Don’t tell me you miss it,” he says
dubiously.

“I do. A little. I miss making snow angels with
Grandpa John and Nana….”

“Aw, Tori. I got a vision of you playing in the
snow.” He grins, and it takes a chunk of my disappointment away. “Don’t make me
feel all human.”

“What? You don’t miss your parents?”

He laughs. “Tori, my parents have been dead for
almost two centuries. Trust me, I don’t miss them that much.”

I blink and look down, and my hands move to my
belly, feeling something amiss. Thierry misinterprets my gesture. “Oh, hey, do
you want me to take you to dinner? I should leave soon, but I can spare about
an hour.”

“Oh, no,” I say, dropping my hands. “Don’t worry;
I’ll grab food at the house.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, June’s cooking is not bad at all.” I
even throw in a convincing chuckle.

“Okay. Sorry that I’m being boring. Can I bring
you to my apartment tomorrow night? I’m going to miss you all day, and I’m
going to need some affection post-Corben. He’s
so
depressing.”

“Sure,” I say brightly, but inside I’m
thinking,
Corben
is depressing
?

“Great, can’t wait,” he says.

I’m still thinking about what he said about his
dead parents, and now I have to wonder what he means about his brother. And,
unexpectedly, I’m almost glad that he’s leaving tonight, that I have the whole
evening to lie in bed and figure out the countless thoughts that are going
through my head.

The rest of the ride to the Garden District,
Thierry tells me how dull his next day will be. He tries to explain the type of
work he has to do with Corben. They own a large fortune divided over multiple
accounts. Every so many years the owner of one of the accounts “dies” and the
other one inherits the contents. Then, that account will be good for another fifty
years or so.

“So how come you told me you were out of town
with your brother last week?” I ask. “I can understand that you needed privacy
to kill that guy—”

“Tori,” he says, recoiling a little from my
flippant attitude towards the guy I caught him draining to death.

“—but you didn’t have to disappear
all
Saturday and Sunday.”

“Well, that weekend I really did business stuff
with Corben, but we did it
here
. I just told you I was going to be out
of town so you wouldn’t grow suspicious when I didn’t invite you over, since
Corben’s such a bore. He left Sunday, but then I had to get rid of that guy,
and all.”

I briefly wonder about the connection between
Corben and the dead guy, but what I’m mainly thinking of is something else. “Corben
was here? In New Orleans?”

“Yeah. He comes down here all the time. He’ll
drop by for an hour, ask me about my day, sign some paper, and then leave. He’s
been here a few times since, uh, that time you met him. And once, since Mardi
Gras.”

“Oh. And how is he…?”
Handling our
relationship
, I want to ask. In other words,
Is he still being an
asshole about it
.

“He’s okay. I guess. Or so he says.” Thierry
sighs. “I really don’t know. He’s a weird one. Even for a vampire.”

“At least he says he’s okay,” I say, and look
down at my hands.

It bothers me a little that Corben came by and
didn’t care to meet me. Hold on—no. It should make me
happy
that he came
by and I didn’t see him. I force myself to remember that before, I was upset
that he showed up here out of the blue and somehow kept Thierry away from me.
Yet now I’m hurt because he came again and had zero interaction with me, didn’t
make Thierry act weird, and in fact, is so removed from my life that I didn’t
even know he was here, and… somehow that bothers me.

I guess it bothers me because he has so little
interest in me, when he should be more actively involved with his brother’s—if
that’s what he is—girlfriend. He should at least talk to me, interact with me,
and pretend he likes me, like most civilized people do. I don’t know what’s
wrong with him.

Add to the list of things that trouble me.

***

After Thierry drops me off I head to the
kitchen. I reheat a plate of the baked mac and cheese that June made for dinner,
moving about the kitchen in automatic mode. I’m thinking about Thierry and
getting more and more depressed.
Like Corben
, I think absentmindedly.

Of all the things we talked about today, I’m
stuck with what Thierry said about not missing his parents. His excuse was
they’ve been dead for almost two hundred years. Really? Well guess what. One
day, I’ll die too, and two hundred years later some other girlfriend will ask
him, “
Do you ever miss that girl, Tori
?” and he’ll laugh and say, “
Are
you kidding me? That girl was so two centuries ago!
”

Time for vampires must be so different than for
a human. My seventeen years seem like a mere trip to the mall. I mean, the guy
is two hundred and eight years old.

“Gross,” I say, making a slightly repulsed
expression.

“You don’t like my mac and cheese?” I hear June
behind me, her voice sounding a little surprised. Whether surprised that I’m
complaining about her food, or surprised to hear me talk to myself, who knows.

I turn around and laugh embarrassedly, my mouth
full of food. I swallow hastily. “No, I do. This is… great.”

She raises her eyebrow and shifts the laundry
basket she’s carrying, presumably full of Jack’s or her laundry, since everyone
else does their own laundry around here. Even Fiona. “Good. Don’t want to hear
another person complaining about food they didn’t make.” Her eyes narrow and
she looks up the stairs.

I’m about to apologize before I realize she
probably means one or more of the other three people in this house. Instead I
say, “I can’t believe anyone would complain about this,” and take another
forkful.

June sort of smiles, that bitchy smile of hers,
and moves as if to turn around. But she changes her mind and faces me again.
“So what’s gross?”

“Really old people,” I say.

She laughs. She actually laughs. The sound is
downright unnerving. She turns around to climb the stairs and mumbles as she
walks away, “Damn right they are.”

***

As promised, Thierry comes back the next day,
which is Saturday, and texts me that he’ll call me in the evening to take me to
his apartment.

I had the early afternoon shift. After work I went
to the mall to wait for Thierry’s call, accompanied by a willing John. John
said he needed to buy a new shirt, so he just invited himself when I told him I
was going to the mall after work. We loitered for about an hour before Thierry
finally called. In the meantime, while John was busy buying his shirt, I bought
a bikini, my very first one. Before this one I only owned one swimsuit, a forest
green one-piece I used in school for swim lessons when I went to North Scott,
the high school in Eldridge. This one isn’t anything fancy, but it’s solid red,
which I thought was very forward of me, with a halter top and simple bikini
bottom. It was on sale.

Thierry says he’ll pick me up in ten minutes,
so I have five minutes to get rid of John. I tell him that “my friend Thierry”
is picking me up. I’m embarrassed for some reason, but I don’t lie because I’m
pretty sure John has seen me getting in Thierry’s car after work. John just
shrugs okay and says he’ll see me the next day, since we’re working together
again. Ah, friendships with guys you’ve kissed. Always so awkward.

The sun is lowering on the horizon but hasn’t
set when Thierry pulls up to the curb outside the food court. Aha, the sun
question. I never asked him if he indeed has a weakness to the sun, the whole vampire
night creature thing. I tend to hang out with him at night, but I think I’ve
seen him awake during the day as well.
Pfff
. Myths.

“Hey,” he says, coming out of his car to greet
me. He hugs me warmly.

“Hey you,” I reply, melting as usual in his
presence.

“Did you have to wait long for me?” he asks.

“Nah. I went shopping,” I say. “With John,” I
add, in case he already knows with his vampire senses, so that he doesn’t think
I’m trying to hide it from him.

He opens the door for me. “John Schmidt? How
nice of him to accompany you,” he says with mock disinterest, closing the door
behind me. As he walks around to his side I see him moving his lips as if he
were mumbling, and making childish faces. He gets in the car and looks at me
with an innocent face. “Did you have a good time? Oh, I see you got something.”

“Yeah, I got a swimsuit,” I say, fighting a
smile.

“A swimsuit!” He snatches the garment from the
bag and holds it up. “John Schmidt went with you to the mall to buy
this
?”
He shakes the bikini bottom in the air.

I finally laugh and push it down, since it probably
looks like underwear to the passerby. “No, he didn’t go with me to the store.
He doesn’t even know I bought it!”

He smiles, satisfied. “Maybe you can show
me
,”
he says wickedly.

“Sure,” I say, like it doesn’t faze me, but
inside I’ve become a sack of nerves.

We drive to his apartment and he parks in his
garage. As we exit the garage I stop at the blue-tiled hot tub, which looks
perfect as always. Thierry grabs my hand, pulls me closer and kisses my cheek.

“Do you feel like trying on your new bathing
suit?” he asks lazily against my ear, sending a light shock up my neck.

“Sure,” I repeat my one-word answer, and it’s a
miracle I can even say it without stammering.

“How about you join me in the hot tub?”

“Yeah, but I need to….” I can’t finish the
sentence because I’m staring at his lips.

“You can change in the bathroom upstairs,” he
says, smiling that perfect smile of his. I’m having a meltdown and he looks
like he just stepped out of a fashion magazine.

“Thanks,” I say.

We go upstairs and he takes me to the main
bathroom. He opens the linen closet inside and hands me an open wicker box
containing all sorts of lotions, soaps, hair products, toothpastes, even brand
new toothbrushes, razors, hair caps… even nail polish remover. Really? Why
would a vampire in a house with no girls need nail polish remover?

“Wow,” I say, examining the contents.

“Help yourself to anything you need. The towels
are here,” he says, pointing to different shelves of the linen closet, “and
there are robes up here. Pick whichever one you like.”

“Thanks,” I say, relieved to have a
mini-pharmacy at my disposal.

“Take your time. I’ll prepare the water,” he
says, and leaves with a wink, closing the door behind him.

I do take my time and stay locked in until I
feel I’m perfect, although my hair is held up with a clip, not loose about my
shoulders. With my hair down I’d probably look better but I don’t want to deal
with wet hair. When I leave the bathroom I’m wrapped in a robe and I also carry
a towel. I look around but Thierry’s nowhere to be seen, so I leave the apartment
and look down from the porch. The sun has already set, and there’s little light
left. The porch lights are on and they give off some light below, but no light
is on directly on the courtyard. It’s cloaked in the dusk, minimally lit.
Muscles tighten somewhere below my abdomen.