Darkness (6 page)

I guess the positive note here was that a panic attack about being taken from him was a sure sign I did want to be with him...bonded with him. I felt that familiar flutter in my stomach at the thought of it. I found my cell phone charging on the desk. It was just before ten in the morning. My phone had been silenced and I had several text messages. Most from Kiera about Carter and a few voicemails about the same. Something about not being able to recall exactly what had happened or how she got home. A text from Zoey that simply read, “Let me know if you need anything.” And one voicemail from Lilly. “Where are you? I’m worried.” I set my cell back down. I’d deal with all those messages after a shower and some food.

Then I quietly headed out of Oliver’s room, down the hall past the closed door where Carter was and to the bathroom. Just before I got to the bathroom door Oliver wheeled himself back from the computer desk and smiled, with just a hint of a smirk. Then he gave me that “come here” with his index finger. I put a finger up in return, as I really needed to pee and brush my teeth.

“Just a minute,” I said and rushed into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

Once I was finished in the bathroom I slid into Oliver’s lap at the computer desk and wrapped my arms around his chest, burying my face against his neck. His scent calmed me. He was perfect for me. My body, my mind and my everything felt at peace when I was with him. His arms slipped around me and he held me close against him. I sighed in relief. They had all been irrational thoughts. Every last one of them.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

I nodded against his chest. He kissed the top of my head and I looked up into his amazingness and smiled. He gently kissed my lips causing my tummy to get that good queasiness. Then he said, “Get ready and I’ll take you grocery shopping.” The thought of a fresh new box of Lucky Charms always brought a smile to my face. I slid from his lap and as I stood, I caught a glimpse of what was on the computer screen.

“What’s that about?” I asked, pointing at the screen. It was the homepage for the college and it read “Campus Closed Until Further Notice.”

He reached over and clicked the screen off. “All of our classes have been transferred to online courses until further notice. It’s just until we can make sure the town is secure. It’s protocol.” I made a face at him and he laughed. “Damage control, you know?” He stood and pulled my body against his. “We have to cover every base to make sure what happened doesn’t happen again.”

I got lost for few minutes after that. Right about the time his lips hit mine and until he whispered for me to get ready. Damn, he was amazing.

I took a shower and got ready in Oliver’s room. I had another voicemail from Kiera. This one was a concern about the school being closed. At least something was taking her mind off of Carter for a while. If only for a brief moment. I responded with a text telling her I’d call her later and that everything was fine. I’d decided I would call Lilly back later too.

We took Felix’s big black SUV. It was a much larger vehicle than I was used to and Oliver seemed so far away from me in it. I couldn’t just reach over and hold his hand without stretching my entire arm out. So I sat in the big leather front seat with my hands in my lap.

A couple pushing a red canopied stroller with a toddler in it and walking a dog that looked a lot like Lola waved at the SUV as we waited for the gate to exit the neighborhood to open.

“Most of the people in this community have some sort of vampire lineage or some sort of vampire knowledge.” I didn’t even respond with a look. For some reason I wasn’t surprised. But all the happy cozy safe feeling I always had in that neighborhood drained right out of me. And that pretty much sucked, no pun intended.

“Hey,” he said softly and reached for my hand, “don’t worry about anything. Julz is probably the most dangerous one out here and she’s just full of drama and stupidity.” I tried to give him an anxiety free smile. Not sure I succeeded but he didn’t acknowledge if I hadn’t. He squeezed my hand a little as he started talking, “I would love to create a place where we wouldn’t have to worry about being ourselves. It’s my dream to build such a place for us.” He kissed the back of my hand then, and that’s when I realized that when he said “us” he was talking about
us
. I felt that sudden flutter of my heart and my stomach felt like it dropped a mile. It was a good feeling, as uncomfortable as it was.

The store wasn’t far. We stepped inside as the doors slid open and a cold burst of air-conditioned air hit me and I shivered. Oliver got us a cart and we started down towards the aisles. I hit the cereal section first. Two happy red boxes later we were heading for the next aisle.

Once I’d loaded the cart with my typical snacks we headed for the dairy section. Oliver told me we couldn’t get too big a carton of milk because he had to stash it in his closet fridge, which wasn’t that big. So I got a few individual ones.

“That’s it,” I said with a big, happy smile. I was so excited for
my
kind of food. It felt like it had been days since I’d really eaten.

“One more thing,” Oliver said as he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his front pocket.

“What’s that?”

“A list. Felix wants me to pick up some meat for Carter. He seems to think it might be something he could keep down, since nothing else seems to be sitting right.” He unfolded the list like it was it was toxic, then we headed for the meat section. And up until that moment, he had been like anyone else. But now, in front of the meat section at the grocery store he began to act a little iffy. I took one of his hands in mine and squeezed it gently. His eyes, the pupils a little bigger than usual, focused on mine.

“You okay?”

He blinked several times. Took his hand from mine and rubbed his eyes. It didn’t help. He handed me the list and took a large step back. “Will you please do it,” he asked, almost pleading. “Apparently you’re not the only one that’s hungry.”

My eyes widened at that. I quickly skimmed the list and picked out the items on it, double bagging them before placing them in the cart. We rushed to the check-out. Paid quickly and then out to the car. I handled all the meat bags as we loaded the groceries into the back of the SUV.

As we started back to the house I could see he was still struggling. “You okay?” I asked again. I reached for his hand but he moved it from the console to the steering wheel as I did so.

“I just need to get back to the house.”

I sat back in my seat and rode quietly all the way to the house. The trip home seemed much longer than the trip to the store.

At times it was so hard to see him as something different. But as he pulled into the driveway, hitting the curb hard enough to bounce me off my seat, jumping from the SUV, and bolting for the front door, he made me realize how different he was. How fresh blood, even that of animals, would send my vampire almost into a frenzy. I’d seen his fangs as we stood there in front of all that freshly cut meat. And I’m pretty sure I was far from safe on our ride back to the house. I hadn’t moved from my seat when I noticed Felix come strolling out of the house and smiling that easy-going, sweet smile of his at me. He wouldn’t let me know I’d been in danger from the man I loved. I was pretty sure he already knew I knew.

Chapter 6 - Return of the Gothic Princess

After Felix and I brought all the groceries in, he let me see Carter. It was just a quick visit, not more than five minutes. But in that time I could see that he looked a little better, though he still awful at the same time. A deep gash was healing across his face and his lips were badly chapped. His collar bone seemed to be protruding and I could make out the lines of his ribs. His eyes flicked open as I stood beside the bed and he attempted a smile at me. I smiled back, trying my best not to look horrified.

“You get better, okay?” I said to him very softly. I was afraid of speaking too loudly. Like I’d hurt him if I did.

He whispered, “Sure,” then his eyes closed again.

Felix, who had been behind me the entire time, tucked Carter tightly into the covers and led me out of the room. I was a bit startled as I turned to leave that Oliver was leaning on the doorframe with his eyes on me.

“You okay?” I said quietly as I reached the door.

He smiled warily and nodded.

I told Felix thank you for letting me see Carter. Then I took Oliver’s hand and led him to his room. The bags that contained my groceries were sitting on his bedroom floor.

“I wanted to show you where things would be before I hid them,” he said and then began showing me all the spots in his closet and other places in his room where he hid snacks. We hadn’t yet gotten a chance to talk about what had happened at the store. It was like he wasn’t leaving an opening for us to talk about it, and I just couldn’t seem to put a sentence together for it. And it turned out I wasn’t going to get to get a chance. Because as we were hiding the groceries, the princess of drama returned.

“She’s back,” Oliver whispered and began stashing the last of the items at a rapid rate.

Felix was in the doorway a moment later. Once the last box of snacks was stored away, Oliver lightly took my hands in his and said, “Stay in here.” I nodded and he pecked me on the cheek before leaving the room. Felix looked nervous but still managed a wink at me, which made me smile, and then he closed the bedroom door after them.

I heard the front door bang against the wall as it was opened. Then the muffled sound of arguing began. My body was instantly tense, and only seconds later a scratch on the door scared me and I jumped, letting out a muffled squeak. A dark wet nose pushed its way into the room.
Oh my God! Carter changed!
Then, as the door opened wider, it revealed Hayden standing behind Lola. I laughed out loud at my ridiculous thought.

“Hey Laney,” Hayden said. And with the door open the arguing was much louder. “If you need anything or just want to visit, I’m just across the hall.” She gestured to the door behind her.

“Thanks,” I responded as she closed the door, leaving just me and Lola in the room. Lola jumped onto the bed and lay down across the comforter. The bed had been made while I was in the shower that morning. Apparently Oliver didn’t tolerate things out of order for long. He also never mentioned such things either. I unplugged my phone from the charger and took it with me to sit on the bed with my favorite dog. As I slid back across the bed to rest against the wall, Lola shifted herself so that she could rest her head in my lap. I found my usual comfort in her, running my fingers through her fur and feeling her silky soft ears. She calmed me and somehow helped block out the sounds of the raised voices coming from down the hall.

I called my Aunt Lilly first. I figured that call wouldn’t take as long. I was wrong. Lilly went on and on about staying the night with my boyfriend and about how it was morally wrong. I tried reassuring her that nothing would happen. With a house full of people, I was pretty positive nothing would. She continued to go on and on about how she felt that I needed to be home with her and how it would be easier for me to stay caught up with my studies if I was there. I saw no logic in that one. As I was debating my way out of that, there was an ear piercing screech from the other side of the bedroom wall. The wall Oliver’s bed was on, the one I had my back against at that moment, was shared with the entryway. So pretty much only his wall was muffling whatever was going on out there. The screech was so loud I actually ducked and covered my free ear. Lola even raised her head, cocked it sideways to listen, then rested it back in my lap.

Lilly was suddenly silent and I thought maybe my phone had gone dead. Then, very slowly, she said, “What was that?”

“Oh, um…the TV.” I smacked myself in the forehead.
Great! Now I’m lying?

With one last attempt to persuade me to come home, and losing, she said her good-bye and I love you, then hung up. I sighed with relief that she hadn’t questioned me anymore and that she’d let it go. Although, the taco night she tried to entice me with did sound really good right then. I had yet to eat and was afraid to pull anything out of its hiding place for fear that Julz would discover it or smell it or something.

I ran my fingers through Lola’s fur and called Kiera with my free hand. She answered immediately.

“Have you heard from Carter?” Before I could even answer she was on to the next question. “Do you think he’s mad at me?” Still no time for me to respond. “He hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts.” I waited a moment but she didn’t say anything else.

“Yes, I’ve heard from him and no I don’t think he’s mad at you.” If he’s mad at anyone, it should probably be me. I felt I was kinda the reason for all of this.

“What did he say? Did he tell you why he hasn’t called me back? I even called his house and his mom said she hasn’t heard from him. So why have you?”

Okay…Gonna have to lie my way out of this one. Great. “Actually…he’s here with us.” Crap! I seriously couldn’t think of anything better. Plus I had no idea what Felix had told her or planted in her mind. “He’s had the flu or something so he just crashed here not wanting to contaminate his family.”
Okay, not bad. She might buy that.