Birth of Jaiden (16 page)

She pulled even farther
away from him. “Why? Don’t you love me?”

He saw the confusion
written all over her face.

He sighed. “I cannot give
you this horrible thing called immortality which some so loosely
call a gift…I just can’t.”

When he reached out for
her, she turned away.

Crystal teardrops
glistened in the corner of each eye. “I thought you loved me,
Alex.”

Then, she turned and ran
into the darkness.

“
Wait!” he called after
her. ”Wait, Isabella, I do love you!”

The first thing Alex
noticed when he woke was that his hearing had returned. He could
hear muffled voices, although nothing was clear enough to
understand. When he tried to open his eyes, they simply would not
open. He tried to shift his body but stopped immediately. Even
without being able to see, he could tell he was burnt
badly.

Alex wasn’t used to pain
and he hurt everywhere; he had only felt like that one time
before.

Disappointed, he realized that
he and Isabella were
not
married; it had been a dream. He still wanted to
call out to her that he did, in fact, love her. But for the time
being, he decided to be content with the fact that he was alive,
and he drifted back into unconsciousness.

“
When do you think he’ll
wake up?” He could hear Danielle’s voice clearly.

“
I don’t know. He is not
like a human where you can take his vital signs and measure his
heart rate. Yes, he is alive, but we won’t know how bad the damage
is until he wakes up,” Jeremiah told her.

Excited that he could
finally hear correctly and stay awake for more than a minute, he
tried to call Danielle. A disgusting gurgling noise erupted from
his throat instead of his voice, though. Alex wanted to cry; he
felt so helpless.

“
Jeremiah, he’s awake!”
Alex heard Danielle rush to his side. “Alex, we’re
here.”

He tried to speak again.
That time, he let out more of a grunt than a gurgle.

Jeremiah’s gravelly voice
came from the other side of him. “Don’t try to speak, Alex. You
won’t be able to for a while. Use telepathy.”

How bad am I? Tell me
everything.

Jeremiah started to
explain. “You have been out for almost forty-eight hours. Alex, you
are very lucky your body is self-healing because burns covered you
from head to toe, but now they are fading away. Your eyes should
heal themselves as well. My guess would be that you won’t be able
to see for at least a couple more days. The reason you can’t talk
is because your voice was also affected by the burns.” Jeremiah
cleared his throat. “When a vampire is exposed to sunlight, it
burns them on the inside as well as on the outside. We hope it
heals itself too and you will be able to speak soon, but I can’t be
sure.”

Jaiden
? Alex asked.

Danielle grasped Alex’s
hand. “You are in your own home now, in your bedroom. Jaiden and
Isabella are both fine, although Isabella is terribly worried about
you.”

Does she know what
happened
?

“
No,” Jeremiah told him.
“It is very important that no one knows what really happened until
this project is successful. We told her, and Chris, that you simply
didn’t make it inside before the sun rose. It was an
accident.”

What did
happen
? Alex
asked.

Jeremiah sounded upset
with himself. “I need to add something; this batch didn’t have
enough. Thank God it was enough to keep you alive but it was not
enough to fully protect you in the daylight.” He paused. “You
wouldn’t have lasted as long as you did without it, though. Don’t
worry about that part. Just plan on getting better and trying
again.”

Again
? Alex wasn’t sure if he wanted to go
through that
again
.

Jeremiah heard his thoughts.
“Alex, this
will not
happen again. I promise.”

How do you
know
?

“
I just do. Don’t I always
succeed in my projects?”

He did have a point there,
but still, it was hard to be ready to get back on that horse while
he was lying there burnt and in pain. Eventually, he would do it,
though, of that he was sure.

The following few days, Alex
spent going through a painful recuperation and being fed
intravenously with blood; from
what
, he decided he would rather not know.

Isabella sat by his side
for the majority of his recuperation. While she sat in the chair
beside his bed, she would talk about things Jaiden had done or what
she had done with her day. Jaiden would usually be in her arms or
lie in the bassinet near the bed.

Alex would nod his head to
acknowledge that he understood her. He wished he could speak to her
but it was nice to simply listen to her voice rambling on without
being obligated to answer.

Frequently, she would
check under his bandages, and if one of his wounds was healed, she
would remove the bandage.

His voice finally returned
after all of his burns had healed. He could sense that Isabella was
close. He reached out and his hand grazed her leg. She was dozing
in a chair beside his bed. He could hear her light snore, as well
as Jaiden’s, who rested her little head against Isabella’s shoulder
as she slept.

“
Hi,” he
whispered.

“
Hi,” she whispered back.
“How are you feeling?”

“
I can speak.”

“
Well, don’t exert
yourself,” she ordered, then, in a gentler voice, told him, “It
might take a while for you to heal.”

“
Don’t worry,” he told
her, “it’s fine.”

“
I’m really happy you can
speak again, though.”

“
Me too.”

“
I can’t wait for you to
be able to see again. Jaiden has changed so much in just a few
days.”

“
Hopefully, it will be
soon.” Alex couldn’t hide the wistful tone of his own voice.
“Isabella, could you do me a favor?”

“
Of course,” she
answered.

“
Would you call Chris and
have him come and see me?”

“
Sure, do you need
anything else?”

He shook his
head.

“
Ok, I’ll be back in a few
minutes.”

He heard her rise and
shift Jaiden into a different position; then, he heard the door
open and shut as she left. About fifteen minutes later, she
returned and told him Chris was on his way.

“
Is everything ok?” she
asked.

Alex nodded his head.
“Yeah, I think I am going to nap until he gets here. I’m sorry,
Isabella, I’m just…so tired.”

“
That’s fine, Alex, you
get some rest. I need to make Jaiden a bottle, anyway.”

He heard the door open
again.

“
Isabella,” he called to
stop her.

“
Yes?”

“
Thank you for helping
take care of me.”

“
You’re welcome, now have
a good nap.”

He listened as she closed
the door and wished he could see her smile.

He slept with no dreams.
It felt as if he had just fallen asleep when he heard Christopher’s
voice next to him.

“
Alex.”

“
Hhmmm,” Alex
mumbled.

“
Alex!”

“
Oh…Chris, glad you’re
here.” Alex tried to sit up a bit, scooting backward against the
pile of pillows behind him.

“
Here,” Chris
said.

Alex felt Chris help lift
his upper body so he could adjust the pillows.

“
There, all
set.”

“
Thank you,” Alex told him
when he was relaxed again.

“
No prob, you wanted to
see me?”

“
Yes. It’s time to
talk.”

“
Alex, you said you
weren’t ready.”

“
It doesn’t matter now.
Ironically, I can see that I need to talk about this. There is no
reason not to tell you besides my own selfishness. My own
selfishness in wanting to keep it…to keep them to
myself.”

He knew without reading
Chris’s mind that Chris was worried about his sudden change in
attitude.

“
I don’t
understand.”

“
Me either,” Alex replied.
“It’s just…time.”

“
Ok, then.” Chris sat
back. “If you’re ready, then so am I.”

18

Perhaps it was because
Alex could not see him but he didn’t feel quite as uncomfortable as
he originally thought he would. After a deep breath, he began his
story.

“
Many years ago, before I
became a vampire, I had a wife and three children. My wife’s name
was Catherine. Oh, my Catherine was such a beautiful woman and a
good wife. She bore first my two sons and then my
daughter.

I loved my sons, who were
both good boys, but my daughter was different. There was
just…something about that little girl which made me want to spoil
her rotten. My sons were hard workers even at their young ages and
were a bit more independent than most young boys.

I lived in Russia, where I was
born. Religion was what many based their lives on. Well, really, it
was what pretty much
everyone
based their lives on. The times were really rough
for the orthodox Christians back then. Patriarch Nikon had taken
office and sought to reform our religion of orthodox
Christianity.

Those who were in favor of
the reforms assembled under Nikon, but those…who refused…were
called the old believers. My family and I were of the old
believers. We felt our religion should not be changed. Those of us
who rejected the reforms were tortured and executed, by hanging.
So, many of the old believers went into hiding in the northern
forests to avoid being found and persecuted.

Catherine and I took the
family and fled. My daughter could not even walk back then, so the
journey was very hard, but we had to leave or all of us would end
up with our necks in the noose. We went deep into the woods until
we found a small shack which I could possibly make
livable.

The shack was made of pine
logs which had already rotted quite a bit. The leaky roof looked
ready to cave in and there was no door when we found it so the
wildlife had been able to wander in and out at will.

Eventually, with a lot of
cleaning up and a few repairs to the roof as well as the log walls,
we made it very comfortable. We settled there with the hope that
God would keep us safe.

Since we had arrived with
practically nothing, I spent the rest of the chilly fall making our
furniture out of the Aspen, which had been so abundant in the area.
I surprised the children with a few toys I made from the excess
wood used for the furniture. Back then, children didn’t need as
much to keep themselves occupied as they do now.

Winter arrived soon and we
could not grow vegetables in the frozen ground. Our diet consisted
mainly of meat. I rarely went into the village because Catherine
feared I would never come back.

But, I
did
have to hunt for meat. My sons stayed with
my wife;
never
did we take a chance with the children. One very early
morning, I took my bow and went alone into the snow laden woods to
look for deer, or any other animal we could eat.

My bow was crucial to our
survival then. It was a composite bow which my father had given to
me as a young boy; I still carried it with me as an
adult.

Depressingly enough, that
morning as I trudged through the freezing cold snow, I saw nothing
but rabbits scampering about. But, meat was meat. Quickly, I lifted
the leather flap from the quiver, which sat upon my right side, and
pulled an arrow out. I knocked the arrow and drew back to make my
small kill. As always, I made the shot and went to retrieve the
rabbit and my arrow.

I remember so clearly when
I removed the arrow from the rabbit how my already numb fingers
began to feel worse. It was so cold and I wore no gloves. I had
only a hat with ear flaps and a woolen coat to keep me warm; my
boots desperately needed repair in order to keep my feet dry. It’s
funny how we were so poor and the times were so rough, yet because
we had each other, we were blissfully happy.

I killed a few more
rabbits that day and started on my way. The woods were thick with
needle leaf trees and as I walked, the falling snow settled onto
the trees. From there, the trees continuously dropped snowflakes
onto my head.

I had been hunting for
about five hours when I began to feel that something wasn’t right.
Being that I was still quite pretty far from home and couldn’t
knock the strange feeling, I quickened my pace.

It wasn’t much longer when
the smell of smoke started to filter into the air. Then, the actual
smoke filled the atmosphere around me. It was thick, strong smoke,
which was not the kind that came from a cooking fire or a
woodstove.