Summary: continues from last chapter, pretty much. I tried to raise her from smartless land and bring back her rational thoughts. She is so not going to be another Bella/love-sick-puppy. Again, I hope I did pull it all together...
If you find a random non-italiced bit that you know is her thoughts, the italics won't work for me right now.
*His skin goes browner when he's had his fill. When he is thirsty he's as white as a sheet, and the blood makes his skin 'browner'. He has crimson eyes permanently.
---
“Oh!” I gave a small, startled gasp. His fingers grasped my shoulders and pressed me flat against the worn leather seat, softly giving way so I was padded.
“Mmm,” I moaned, feeling each deep suck like he was pulling the very blood from the ends of my toes and fingers into his mouth. A blanket of pure bliss wrapped around my body like a loose skin until it settled quietly; my chest arched forward away from the seat when he gave one last long suck, groaning as his fangs slid from my skin.
“Is that better?” I questioned, almost hoarse with surprise.
“Yes, much, much better now.” Jonah slid his finger across where he’d bitten me to –what I’d assumed – close the wound, winding his long arms around me to haul me up into his lap.
“You taste wonderful – your blood is richer than the blood I’ve drunk all my life. It is enough to send one over the edge,” he said calmly with his lips on my ear.
“Don’t get used to it, though I certainly could do with another shot of that adrenaline…”
“No, no, not for quite some time, my love.”
“But you will, won’t you?”
“If I had the strength to go without tasting your blood at least once more in my lifetime… I wouldn’t be able to call myself a vampire now, would I?”
“I guess not, though that felt wonderful.”
“You’ve read too many vampires novels, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“You can stop right now, my love, because they’re all loads of bullcrap - every single one of them! When I take blood from a human it’s a closing of a bond between human and vampire. Sometimes it’s simply to calm the beast within me that wants to drain every being in the world, and in that case it’s convenience. But other times it’s far more intimate.”
“What was mine?” I pressed my face into his neck again, ignoring the rush of exhaustion threatening to, like a creeping tide, yank me under and never let me go.
“Yours was definitely intimate – though at least I know why.”
“You love me?”
“To put it simply. For me, there is no other now. You are it.”
“That’s awfully…”
“Inclusive? Maybe, but only one person calls me like you do. Everything about you tells me to have you, yet I could never harm you without first harming myself.”
My eyelids fluttered closed purely behind my will – it was well beyond eleven o’clock.
“Which house is Kassie’s?” He glanced up out the window.
“Cream with wooden shutters on the windows.”
“Here,” he kicked open the door with one foot and leapt out, dropping me to my feet and tugging me forward. Kassie’s auto light flickered on to blanket us in a rich fluorescent orange.
“What about Milo?” I hissed before I opened the door. He lent me like a post against the door, cursed once more and disappeared, returning a mere fraction of a second later with the bewildered Rottweiler in his arms, carried as if he was a mini poodle rather than an overweight beast.
“This mutt?” He growled, shaking his head as he peered down at me.
“Yes, that mutt.”
Before he left he regarded me for a long moment, then grabbed me, pulling me into his arms and kissing me fiercely.
“I love you Ellen.”
My heart swelled and my tired arms clenched around his neck. It was sweet but then he was shoving me back hard, gone a moment later. I sighed and shoved the front door open fully.
Thinking about him that night, Kassie snoring softly in her bunk bed above me playing a gentle tune to my thoughts, I realised I had plummeted from straight-B student with wits, common sense and above all able to keep level headed in the most heated moments, to below-the-soil level, not even worthy showing my face anymore.
Irrational guilt plagued me until the morning when Kassie, still in deep slumber, rolled off the bed and slammed into the floor.
I was too tired to listen to her screams and rolled over to pretend I was sleeping. Jonah, I knew, was definitely a vampire. He had drunk my blood, yes, and was keen on doing that again, for certain.
So I was now his drink station?
I think not.
We needed to talk.
“Aw I broke a nail!”
~
Kassie had planned a huge group picnic – her ‘group’ not mine, I did not fall in any group except dumb, dumber and dumbest. The weather, unlike the normal overcast-but-rainless-and-cool October, was arid-and-hot, thick humidity curling Kassie’s hair into tight, uncontrollable golden ringlets that tumbled around her slender shoulders, and forced mine into a cloud of untameable frizz I managed to scoop into a reluctant pony.
How come the weather has changed in twelve hours? I mused to myself as I slowly dropped to her carpet, beat. Stupid sun, stupid clouds… my eyes brushed over my thick coat and warm jeans I’d worn last night.
“So how was Milo last night?” Kassie enquired as she began applying fresh nails to her bitten, chomped and non-existent naturals. The glue stunk her room and it was too sticky to open the window; I wondered why she needed glue – and why she was using normal glue. Failure from a ditz.
“He’s a beast who does not understand how to treat women.”
“Did he head butt you?”
“Mmm. Does he think he’s a wolf?”
“Usually.” While her tone suggested no interest, her eyes flashed over to the dog, now splayed on his stomach with his legs thrown out either side so he resembled a lumpy mat, with curious intrigue.
“That reminds me,” she prattled, “why were you with Jonah?”
“Jonah?” I feigned casualness, which never rubbed off on my best friend well. “He happened to be strolling along.”
“You mean he just happened to be in my street as you were walking my dog? As if,” she snorted. “He sounds like a stalker to me.”
“Men in black coats are stalkers to you, Kass.”
“Then if he isn’t stalking you, why was he in my street?”
“He was with his brother,” I added. “Maybe he is stalking you and Jonah was just a lookout..”
“A pathetic look out who failed. And I don’t see Armel strolling along my street in the dead of night.”
Her blue eyes flashed with a tiny sense of pride. I shrugged and stripped into my knickers, groaning as I had to literally peel the red shorts off. Raymond was having a completely unusual climate change this year.
“Speaking of wolves,” Kassie mumbled with a glance to her panting dog. “Does Jonah remind you of Kyros?”
“Kyros?” I mused slowly, thinking of the drop-dead-gorgeous vampire-in-human-body hunk on our favourite Vampire series, ‘Immortally Bitten’. It was our favourite show because not only was Kyros totally gorgeous, but he was blind, avoided sunlight at all costs, got pinker skin when he drank blood, was marble-cold and unusually smart. Add in sight, substitute pink for brown red-blotched skin and you produced Jonah. Uncanny.
“Sure,” I agreed.
“He could be some vampire-wannabe who loves Immortally Bitten a little too much, you know?”
My fingernails immediately clenched into my palms when she spoke. My throat closed and I forced myself to breath. Unexpected feelings of pure adrenaline seeped through into my veins as I remembered the feeling of cold pleasure with his fangs sinking into my neck.
“Jonah? I don’t take him to be the tv-watching type,” I forced as casually as I could. My best friend was too wrapped up in whatever insane idea that’d just planted itself into her head to hear my nervous gulp of air.
“You’d be surprised by boys like him. You know what, let’s make a list of all the strange things about him, then Kyros, and then compare! How awesome would that be?”
“To have a vampire-wannabe on campus? Just wonderful.”
“You never know.”
When I woke that morning the sky promised to be just another boring, slow, and uneventful Monday, followed by the same routine for the remainder of the week. I should just stay in bed and wait for my life to end. I was miserable when I boarded the bus at eight-o’clock – totally not my style, I hated the bus, but my car was out of service temporarily - my spirits soaring below the usual dimness as I crossed the relatively deserted school yard.
After all, it was only eight-fifteen.
What I never expected was the pandemonium in the crowded hallways.
“Kassie!” I screeched, my eyes flitting between red, black and navy posters. The posters themselves were offensive enough – rough edged like she’d used a ruler, some text missing on some while others had thick margins of blank space – and then, right on the top in fat, bold lettering:
JONAH SPARKS
Is this the face of a real-life Kyros?
Proof
Changing skin colour
Abnormal strength
Abnormal speed
Abnormally quiet
Incredibly intelligent
Never goes into direct sunlight
Doesn’t feel the drop/rise in temperature
+ Terrible fashion taste!
Behind me the door creaked as it was opened, and the hallway fell silent. Kassie moved to my side, brimming with delight. I heard Armel cough and I could only guess Jonah’s expression.
“Like them?” Kassie was nearly exploding with delight so much so I resisted the urge to slap her by forcing my nails into my palm in clenched fists.
“Kass! I told you to destroy the list!”
“You made a list?” Jonah was right behind me; I gasped when I spun and peered into his face. His crimson eyes flared with a deep hurt I wanted to lean up and gouge out.
No! Not my fault! No! I wanted to scream, though I couldn’t manage it with him so close.
“No,” I began, but he only looked up at one of the posters on the lockers beside us.
“Just when I was thinking you were different.”
And he was gone before I could stop him, leaving a cloud of sweet cologne behind him. Kassie laughed and Celeste glowered at me alongside Armel who, unlike his girlfriend, was laughing. I pushed through the students swarming around us and hurried down the stairs fast enough to see him getting into his car.
“Jonah!” my feeble voice made him stop, but he only rose and glared at me.
“Why would you expose me like that? Do you have any idea what this could do to my family if anybody believes that?”
“I didn’t do it!”
“You’re the only person who knows.”
“And I promised you I wouldn’t tell!”
“No, actually, you never did. I remember telling you I loved you, but you never said anything back.”
“Oh, that’s unfair! You were gone before I could with your… your … speed thing!”
”Now it’s because I’m fast?”
“No, Jonah! Kassie did the posters!”
“I’m leaving - and don’t stop me.” He slid down into his car but right before he closed the door I stuck my hand out. He managed to stop the door right before it flattened my hand between the two bits of steel, though I could see it in his eyes – he wanted to.
“Just listen Jonah. I never told Kassie a thing, but she did that in there, not me!”
“I’m leaving.” He shoved my hand away and gunned the engine. All I could do was watch him as he drove away.
“You bitch!” I screamed when I stormed back into the hall. People were still laughing but now they were staring and laughing, all poised forward, waiting for the brewing cat fight.
“You made the list remember?” She accused.
“I never put Jonah on it!”
“Got to admit he is very vampirish! And the truth deserves to be told in his case.”
“How so?”
“People deserve to know who’s prowling Raymond’s streets. He might’ve killed those people two weeks back!”
“Shut up!”
“Why?”
“He’s NOT a vampire! Are you insane?”
“You believed it,” she retorted.
“No, it was a joke! How can you do that to him? He’s been here for just a few short weeks and you do this to him!”
“Hard proof is quite nasty isn’t it? Especially when you’re in love with its centre.”
I opened my mouth, but quickly shut it, giving my head a firm shake. ”You’re a bitch!”
And with that said I hurried away, running all the way home, my tears overflowing and my feet pounding the pavement.[i][b]
