2.
“Ow.” I mumbled into his hair.
“You’re fine.” He said, reaching up to kiss me on my lips before moving to my neck again.
I felt the pain again, this time sharper.
“Ow!”
Nero looked up at my apologetically, “Sorry, but I’m hungry.”
I stared at him –he was still mouthing my neck (with the sharp pain persisting) - , confused. He was hungry? Oh, well it was almost breakfast time but…
I pulled up his head and noticed blood –my blood- on his mouth.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, horrified.
“Drinking. Your blood tastes wonderful.” He grinned wickedly and went back to… sucking my blood I guess.
Wait, he was drinking my blood? What kind of person did that? What kind of thing did that?
I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t breathe my head felt dizzy, but it wasn’t from his kissing it was from the blood being drained form my body.
What kinds of things did this? Bats? Yes, but he was a person. I was getting dizzier. Monsters? Yes, but monsters were mythical. A cloud settled over my vision. He wasn’t a monster right? No. I started falling into the place between sleep and consciousness.
Was he a vampire?
I leaned away from Nero.
“Stop.” I said weakly.
“Why?” He murmured in my ear.
“You’re going to kill me.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do. Now leave me alone.”
“No.” He went back to my neck.
I felt drowsier, how was I going to make it through this?
I let out a hoarse squeak.
“What?” Asked Nero.
“Go away or I’ll scream.”
Nero looked at me, no concern in his, now, light red eyes.
“But you taste so good…”
“Please…” Now I was begging him, wow, I’m pathetic.
“Oh, all right, you could be useful for further use…”
Nero pulled himself away from me and started quickly down the rock climbing wall. When he got to the bottom he looked up and smiled, his lips blood red, his teeth pink.
“For the trouble you gave me I think I’ll cut your line.” He pulled out a knife and swiftly sliced the line attaching me to the ground.
Now I was stuck up here, half dead and scared that he might come back to finish me off.
When I looked back down Nero was gone.
I was alone.
● ● ●
When I regained my consciousness I heard voices, Mr. Krobus, and a woman’s voice.
I didn’t know there were women here, I thought this was a private school for boys. Oh, well I guess there had to be some women, just as staff though.
“I can’t believe she would do that.” Said Mr. Krobus.
“Sometimes teenagers get so depressed they do. But, as I’ve told you before, she might have just been wanting sympathy and attention,” said the woman’s voice. “I still think you should send her to an asylum.”
Oh my god. They wanted to send me to an asylum! I wasn’t crazy –well maybe crazily scared that Nero would come back for more- I was a perfectly healthy person. I had to protest against this!
“No.” I managed my throat feeling like a baked piece of paper.
Their heads turned towards me.
“You don’t want to stay at the school?” Asked Mr. Krobus, his left eyebrow raised, but his face otherwise blank.
Obviously I’d missed part of the conversation.
“No,” I croaked. “I want to stay.”
The nurse and Mr. Krobus exchanged looks.
“We’ve still got to figure that part out for you dear.” Said the nurse in a forced patient tone.
“And you are…?” I asked her.
“Lara Etta”
“Well go to hell Lara because I don’t give a crap about what you say I ain’t going to no freaking asylum.”
Lara gasped and hurried away.
I smiled smugly to myself for freaking out an adult like that. It was fun, I’d have to try it more often.
Mr. Krobus looked at me, “well if you’re going to use that sort of language you’re not going to be staying.”
I sighed.
“So what happened up there?”
“I was attacked by Nero.”
Mr. Krobus kept his face blank and waited for me to continue.
“He’s a vampire.”
Mr. Krobus turned and walked away quickly. I stared after him. Why did I just tell him that? Now I was definitely going to the asylum. Maybe I still had a chance though if I just pretended it all didn’t happen, if I could forget about it maybe they could to. If I begged enough maybe they’d let me stay out of the asylum. If they didn’t anyone who wanted me to go there would probably be suffocated because I hated them so much.
I wish I had more control over my life. Oh well. I would probably just live the rest of my life in an asylum. I’d better prepare.
The next time I woke up I noticed it was dark out. I looked around for a clock and saw that it was around two thirty A.M.
“Hello?” I called, hoping for someone to tell me that I was actually going back to the Westmore School for Boys and not an asylum, but no one answered.
So I’d decided to try and forget all about the Nero episode, how was I supposed to do that? I imagined that he had never been at the front of the school when we pulled in, that some other boy had greeted us. That I had gone straight to breakfast that one day and now I was in this place because I had choked on something. It didn’t work, I couldn’t push him from my mind, his bloody face kept on popping up in my head.
I wanted to scream and beat the picture out of my head but I knew it wouldn’t do anything for me, they’d just think I was even crazier than before. How was I going to get out of this?
“Ms. Echoes?”
I looked up. Mr. Korbus was looking down at me, one eyebrow raised.
I wiped the frustrated look off my face, “Hmm…?”
“I wanted to know if you felt… Better.”
“Oh…”
I thought about that, was I better? Not really. Did I want to go to the asylum? No freaking way.
I pasted a small smile on my face, “I feel much better.”
“Good.”
“Yeah.”
“Well…”
“What?”
“After breakfast I will bring you back to the school.”
I sat up and punched my fist into the air, “Yay!”
Instantly I regretted sitting up so fast, pins and needles flooded into my abs, back, and butt.
“Ow.”
“Lay back down, we don’t want you hurting yourself.” Mr. Krobus pushed me back onto my hospital bed.
As he pushed me back down I realized I was wearing one of those terrible baggy hospital dresses. Yuck.
So after I had breakfast in bed (fruit, oatmeal, and some disgusting whole grain cereal, which tasted like cardboard) Mr. Krobus came back with the clothes I’d been wearing before I went into the hospital. He let me change in privacy then brought me back to the dorm (apparently the “hospital” I’d been in was actually the infirmary).
“So,” Said Mr. Krobus once I was safely back in my room. “Be ready for class tomorrow because we’re not cutting you any slack just because you got attack- I mean, just because you’re crazy. See you then.”
Attacked? Did he just say attacked? Did he know something?
Mr. Krobus walked out the door and I stood in the middle of my room for a minute before deciding to check out the place on my neck where Nero bit me.
There was only two small pink spots on my neck, you could barely see them. I touched them and nothing happened. I didn’t turn into an Instant Vampire or anything so I decided I was fine and went to lunch.
After lunch I went back to my room and did nothing. Let me tell you, it was very boring.
The next day I started classes, all of the teachers were men, they smelled bad. That day at lunch I sat by myself at a table near the doors to the cafeteria building. A boy came over and sat on the other side of the table. He didn’t look up, just ate his salad quietly. Apparently he was a vegetarian, or maybe he just ate his meat really fast.
He was average sized, thin, and had chin length, dark brown hair. His eyes were intense light green, and he was dressed in only earthy colors. Very strange.
“Um… Hi?” I said cautiously.
“Hello.”
He went back to eating.
“My name’s Ara.”
“Nice to meet you Ara.”
Silence.
“What’s your name?”
“Seoc Frazier.”
“Hi.”
“Hello again.”
Silence.
“So…”
“What is the point of this conversation?” Seoc asked.
“Um…” I was stumped. How was I supposed to know the point of the conversation? He was the one being all polite and mysterious.
“Well then, it’s a waste of energy, right?”
“I guess you could put it that way…”
“Good. I will. Good bye now.”
“Bye.”
Seoc rose and walked away.
Well I learned two things about him, he’s briskly polite and eats food abnormally fast. Why did I even bother with the people at this school?
After lunch I went back to the main school building and finished up my classes for the day. All the stuff was easy, as were the subjects in the last school. When I went back into my dorm room I did my homework, then I took a cold shower and walked onto the campus.
I walked down to Lake Willoughby, totally forgetting me and Nero’s conversation about the private school kids not being allowed.
I sat down on the rickety dock and looked out across the water.
“Hey.”
I looked up, there was a boy looking down at me, he had green streaks in his greasy, longish, blonde hair and a big nose.
“Um… Hi.”
He sat down next to me.
“I’m Elliot Blythe, what’s your name?”
“Ara Echoes.”
“Oh. So you’re the new girl?”
“Yep.”
“You’re the one who had the climbing wall accident?”
“Yep.”
“Nice to meet you.”
I stared at him, wondering if he was just playing with me.
“Uh… Ok…”
“You like machines?”
That was a random question.
“Um… They’re ok.”
“They’re really interesting to me.”
“Good for you.”
“Wanna know something about them?”
“Nah.”
“Oh. Ok.”
Silence.
“Did you know that we’re not supposed to be out here?” He asked.
“Oh, yeah, I guess.”
“Why you here then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cool.”
I looked at him. He seemed like the regular big nosed type, strange, trying to be cool with girls, that kind of thing. I guessed I could cut him some slack just because I felt bad for him.
“You usually come down here?” I asked him.
“Nope.”
“Why are you here then?”
“I followed you.” He turned his head and grinned at me.
