Otherwise,
Happy Reading! as usual!
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was as though I had entered a world in absence of light. The night closed in on me from all sides and though I had lived my whole life finding solace in the midnight hour, this time my chest constricted with fear and I swallowed audibly.
Something was wrong.
I could feel it in my lungs as they filled with the icy sting of the surrounding air. My eyes burned with some unknown substance suspended in the atmosphere, invisible as if it were some poisonous gas. My nostrils blistered as I inhaled the stench of some indefinite presence. I had never smelled anything like it.
It resembled the aroma that Carmen gave off but also of decaying flesh. It both pleasured and pained and I struggled against it.
I could feel it there, just out of my line of sight. It watched me stumble through the forest I was in—I could tell for the bark that scratched my limbs as I walked. I could hear it’s labored breathing, as if it too struggled with me being there.
That’s when I saw the flash of fangs.
It was so quick that I had almost missed it. But the glimmer of white was enough to halt me in my tracks. Those fangs were curved and had a hint of golden. Those weren’t vampire fangs. They made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and I fought against my urge to flee.
But for some reason anonymous to me, I knew the creature didn’t mean me harm, though the fear was still there, curling and twisting around in my abdomen like a snake trying to break free.
I heard it speak my name, clipped with lots of pauses between syllables as if it had never spoken before.
“So… phi… a…”
It sent chills down my spine, but at the sound of its voice, the panic dissipated. I held out my hands, sightlessly moving forward again. Hands tenderly took hold of my own. But they weren’t normal hands.
Slick and velvety to the touch, it was as though I had doused my hands into a bucket of oily feathers. It had fingers and was able to hold my palms. My own hands slowly traveled up its arms, my breathing becoming labored. The velvety feel never ended, but I soon felt clothing beneath my grip.
That’s when I saw the flash of golden-white again and the clouds parted above to display a crescent moon.
The moonlight fell upon us and I was met by a pair of blue eyes tinted yellow. But it wasn’t a human face. It was feathered and the lips had transformed into a beak that opened wide to utter my name again.
“So… phi… a…”
I opened my mouth to scream—
Then I woke up.
I sat staring at my ceiling, waiting for my nails to retract back to their normal length while my breathing raged on, laborious and hot against the blankets. The image of such a grotesque and unnatural creature was enough to make my blood freeze within my veins.
I rolled onto my side and saw Elena’s serene form, mouth half-open—her signature pose when she was asleep. The light dabbled her with a ghostly sheen, enhancing her appearance as nature blessed her with its presence. I wondered for not the first time since I had arrived how Elena was able to be so gifted yet so… average, for lack of a better word. I had spent most of my life after I was Changed to be more than just a normal vampire. I wanted to be remembered; I wanted to be great. Then my downfall happened, and my reputation was shattered.
The only thing I could do now was to go forward and hopefully get back into Philip’s good graces.
Images of the dream, the feel of the enclosing darkness, swooped down upon me again and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing them away. I didn’t want to think about the creature who I had held hands with so intimately, who I had gone to in the middle of the night without question.
Was I nuts?
Sitting up, I rubbed at my eyes and rolled my shoulders, feeling the muscles contract and then relax as I loosened the knots in my back. I scratched at my chin and peered through the gloom out the window. Making up my mind, I crawled from the bed and to my feet, traversing over to the windowsill.
It was a nice night, cool and smelled of pure nature. I only opened the window a crack and watched the moonlight refract off of the snow beneath the window. That’s when I saw the moon.
It was only a sliver carving into the sky.
Was this a sign? Did this mean what I had seen in my sleep would come true? Shaking my head at my foolishness, I smiled blatantly at the moon. “You can’t scare me,” I whispered calmly into the night, the breeze carrying my words out of the room and to the heavens.
The foremost light hit the horizon with a shot of navy blue before alleviating to a honey hue. It was a slow process; one that beguiled me completely. I marveled at the color conversions; how it went from yellow in the center to pinks and purples like ones persons would see mingling together in the ocean. It wasn’t until I heard Elena stir behind me did I finally tear my eyes away from the sunrise.
“Sophia? You up already?” she asked, her voice thick with fatigue, slurring slightly at the end as she tousled her hair with a heavy hand.
“Yeah, couldn’t sleep.”
“How come?”
I shrugged. “No reason, really. Just not tired.”
Her eyes filled with the sunrise’s luminosity, making them smolder. Elena pierced me with those eyes, and I hurried towards the door.
“I’m going to take a shower, okay?”
She just nodded, still watching me with those eyes. It gave me the eerie feeling that she could read my mind.
* * * *
After a quick shower, I dressed in my favorite jeans and a fitting v-neck tee shirt. I let my hair air-dry as I took a spot upon the railing of the stairs outside the front door, leaving back against the large pillars holding up the upper floors. The wind was cold and my hair dried in thick waves down my back, dark like a pair of raven’s wings.
“Since when do you wake up so early?”
Michael was on the steps, his head level with my shoulder. His hair was disheveled with sleep, his eyes droopy. But his mouth was curved in that memorable smile, and I grinned back.
“Surprises happen every day.”
“Guess so.” His eyes strayed to the rising sun, which had almost fully made its descent into the now-blue sky. They then returned to me. “How are you?”
“Good,” I replied.
“No, I mean, how are you, really. I heard all about you in the hospital with Nate.”
“Yeah, what about it?” I tried to play it off as if I didn’t care, but I could even detect the slight tremor in my voice. I could feel the dream resurfacing in the back of my mind, tugging and tugging with a diligence that gave me exhaustion. But I wouldn’t let it free and released a sigh when it slipped back into my recesses of thought.
“Nate said you knew the human kid.”
I should have been prepared for this. They weren’t worried about Nate; they were worried that I had been associated with a human kid already within the short four days since we had arrived.
“Yeah, I knew him. He was the one that found me in the woods.”
“Oh,” was all Michael said.
“How’s Dover?”
Michael shifted his shoulders, leaning up against the railing opposite from me. “Okay. He’s just glad Nate’s back.”
“I’m glad we found him.”
“Me too.”
Silence settled around us and I relished the feel of ease that enclosed us. I saw Michael’s eyes drooping and smiled softly. “Still looks like you’re tired.”
He sat up, rigid. I was confused until Elena appeared, dressed in a pair of Spandex shorts and a body-hugging tank that did wonders for her toned figure. I barely succeeded in holding back a snort of laughter at Michael’s widened eyes. It was obvious that the boy had found a new female to ogle at, Rebecca forgotten.
“’Morning, Michael,” Elena greeted, always the polite one, though I knew she hadn’t missed Michael’s eyes lingering on her bare legs.
He, being always the charming male that he was, flashed her a cheeky smile and brushed the hair from his eyes in what I knew was an attempt to look debonair. It just made him look dorky. I could tell that Elena was struggling in keeping a straight face.
We met gazes. “Sophia, wanna go for a run?”
I glanced over at Michael and then back at Elena. “Of course. Just let me go change.”
I hurriedly threw off my jeans and replaced them with a pair of windbreaker pants. Tying up the laces of my tennis shoes, I had only been gone a total of thirty seconds by the time I was back at the front door. Elena was at the bottom of the steps, twisting her torso from side to side as she stretched out her back. Michael watched from the top steps, telling her about the time he had beat Philip in a race.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
Elena nodded and was already hitting the trails by the time I got to the bottom step. Michael looked puzzled and he sat there for a second, scratching his chin. I wasn’t so inhumane not to feel slightly bad for him.
“You okay?”
He shrugged his shoulders, shaking away whatever he had been thinking about. “Yeah, of course. I think I’ll go find Rebecca.” He left the same way he entered, leaving me shaking my head in wonder.
Males sure were a mystery to me.
