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  The day seemed to last for an eternity, probably because I was scared of what would happen this afternoon. It was finally the end of the school day and I stood in the front of the building waiting on Quinn. When he came into view, he smiled at me as he is walking over and extends his hand to me expecting me to hold it as we walk. My response was to look at him as though he had two heads. Trying to act irritated, I said, “You really annoy me, you know that.” He grinned and said, “I know, and I like you too,” and he kissed me on the cheek and took my hand in his. One corner of my mouth turned up in a slight smile even though I tried to fight it and we began to walk toward my house. We were quiet for the first part of the walk. His hand felt odd in mine…and a bit cold. It was fall though, not to mention my body temperature isn’t exactly normal. One of the things about being a wolf, you don’t get cold too often. Of course, I guess that means he isn’t a wolf if he feels cold to me, he should feel the same as me or warmer. Most of the time, when I touch someone else, they feel cool compared to me.

  Breaking the silence and my train of thought he said, “So, where do we stand now?” I stopped walking and let go of his hand, “what do you mean?” He started to speak again and I put my hand up and interrupted him. “On second thought, wait till we get to my house and talk there before you start spouting off crazy assumptions again. I don’t need people in this town thinking I’m a…well you know,” I said. He nodded and reached out and grabbed my hand again. We arrived at my house and as I was setting my backpack down he made his way into the living room and I grabbed us some drinks from the kitchen. When I came back to the living room he was standing next to the fireplace holding a picture of me with my parents from last year. His face looked solemn and nostalgic as if the picture brought up memories for him somehow. He put it down when he saw me.

  Setting our cokes down, I turned to him “Why do you think I am a werewolf?” I asked him. He nonchalantly said “Your smell…” and instead of letting him add to that, my face crinkled up and I spouted, “You’re saying that I smell like a dog? Wow you really know how to sweet talk a girl!” He walked toward me, cupped my face in his hands and said “No, your smell is not bad, it’s actually quite nice.” He leaned down and breathed me in deeply which was a little awkward, I’ve never had anyone smell me before. “It attracts me to you, but that is how it works with us,” he continued. As I turned my gaze upward, our eyes met. My breathing was rapid with his hands on my face and he was so close to me I just wanted him to kiss me, breathily I whispered, “With us?” He nodded and in a low voice he explained, “Vampires and werewolves are attracted by scent because it allows us to find one another, I am attracted to your scent which is how your lure me toward you so you can kill me.” My eyes were closed and I was so lost in fantasy of his next move that it took me a moment to realize what he had said. When it hit me at last, I backed away from him quickly, knocking his hands off my face. “You’re a… a vampire???” I screeched as I stumbled backwards. In a flash he had me in his arms and had his lips on mine. I melted for a moment and all my thoughts were gone, the taste of his lips, his arms around my waist that is all I could think of at this moment and I draped my arms around his neck and pressed myself to him. And then I regain my sanity and shoved him away. “Stay away from me!” I cried out. He looked wounded by my rejection but I didn’t care at this moment. My hand went to my mouth in disgust of what I just did, I can’t believe I kissed a dead guy.

  He stayed on the other side of the room but he said to me, “I am not going to harm you Parker; it’s the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, the moment I saw you I just wanted to know more about you.” He started pacing the room but keeping his distance. “It’s true I am a vampire but contrary to popular belief, we are not all bad. I don’t feed on humans, not anymore. I can control myself, my hunger. I trained myself how to live like a normal human being, well as normal as I can be, drinking animal blood is the only thing I do that is inhuman. I didn’t want to be this, just like you didn’t want to be a werewolf but sometimes you just have to adjust to the hand that you are dealt.” He stopped and looked at me with a face full of pleading, “I know you felt something when you kissed me, the same thing I felt, passion. It’s not a likely pairing I know that, believe me. We are supposed to be enemies, but I can’t help it, I feel different toward you and I could never hurt you. The feelings I am having scare me too.” I start to cry, I am not sure what came over me at that moment, my feelings were so muddled inside. Whether it was fear or sadness, I can’t stop crying. Quinn begins approaching me and reaches his hand toward me and I back away. I scream, “Leave, please…just go!” At first he just stands there bewildered, and then he walks past me and out the door turning back to look at me one more time before he leaves.

  When the door closed I threw my glass across the room and it smashed into a million pieces against the fireplace mantle. I screamed out loud and started pacing the floor with my hands grabbing at my hair. How could I have not known he was a vampire? It all makes sense now that I had to officially invite him in my house. Vampires are not allowed into a private residence, so they have to be invited into the house by any humans that live there. I thought he was flirting with me that day but it turns out he had to find a way to get me to say it. Also, his comment about how eating the meatloaf was a front, vampires can eat food but they don’t have to in order to survive. Oh my gosh, that means he can come in my house at any time and I put my family in danger, of course deep down I don’t think Quinn would hurt me or my parents. Now I guess I know how he was gone so fast yesterday and how he heard me talking to Jackie. Story of my life I swear, so now I am hot for a vampire. Great and I can’t even tell Jackie because she doesn’t know that vampires or werewolves exist. Yet another secret I have to keep from everyone I care about. I flopped myself down on the couch and laid my head back. *Sigh*.

  The next two hours were spent racking my brain for what I would do next, how I could stay away from Quinn, pacing the floor so much that I probably wore a hole in the carpet. Saved from my thoughts finally when the phone rings and it was Jackie. Apparently Jackie dropped in on Mitchell and Quinn studying and when Jackie asked Quinn about our afternoon he clammed up. So naturally she is curious and I told her I would have to tell her later because I didn’t feel like talking about it tonight. She sounded worried, and I felt bad, but I wasn’t sure how to deal with this yet and I didn’t know how to explain it to Jackie without telling her everything. I am just not ready to do that at this time, I know that now.

  Jackie said she would talk to me tomorrow but I asked if I could talk to Quinn before she hung up. I heard her call for him and when I heard his voice on the line, I froze. I didn’t have a clue what to say to him, I wasn’t even sure why I asked for him. “Parker, are you there?” I wish his voice didn’t affect me so much. I heard him say to Jackie, “I think she hung up.” I found my voice. “I’m here Quinn. I need to see you…not tonight though” I added hurriedly, “tomorrow, meet me at the park for lunch, the one by school. Can you do that?” Quinn said, “Of Course, I’ll be there, I’m glad you want to talk.” I ended the call without saying anything else. Now I have to sit and figure out what I am going to say to him at the park tomorrow, what questions I will ask. I still can’t process the fact that I kissed a vampire…and I liked it. What is wrong with me? That seems to be a question I ask myself a lot lately.

  My mom came home from work at some point. I was lying on the couch lost in thought and I was in a daze and I don’t know how long she was there before I realized it. “Parker, sweetie, what do you want for dinner?” my mom asked. Eating was the last thing on my mind, especially with my stomach in knots over this afternoon. “I’m not hungry mom. I am going to go to my room and read…goodnight.” Pushing myself up off the couch, I wandered into the kitchen and I gave her a kiss on the cheek and then turned around and headed toward the stairs.

  Before I reached the steps my dad walked in the door, set his briefcase down and said, “Hey Prince
ss, you ok?” I faked a yawn and said, “I’m just tired” and I hugged and kissed him goodnight too. Shutting the door, I changed into pajama pants and paired it with a red tank top, my favorite lounging attire. Flouncing down on the bed I reached over to my bookcase and picked up my copy of Twilight to read for at least the tenth time. If only vampires were sparkly and sweet like Edward, if there were any like him, I’d never met them, although at first I thought maybe Quinn was going to be the romantic love I’d been dreaming about, especially after our first kiss.

  I started reading this book shortly after I learned that vampires were real, made me hopeful that they weren’t all as bad as what I had read. I knew it was fiction, but it still helped me to get lost in the fantasy of it all. Maybe Quinn is one of those good guys…maybe he really is different. Quinn has had plenty of chances to hurt me and he has done nothing to me. We were alone in my house and he has an open invitation to come and go as he pleases yet my family and I are fine. Let’s just hope he isn’t sneaking into my room at night watching me sleep. Yeesh, I mean it’s romantic to watch someone sleep, as long as they invited you to be there. I’ve been Team Edward all the way, but even I was a bit creeped out at his stalker-ish ways at times, although waking up to Rob Pattinson standing in my room, not the worst thing that could happen. I shut the book and put it back on the shelf, my thoughts are moving way off topic, and I can’t think that Quinn is good. After all, I am a werewolf and I am supposed to want to kill him. So why is it that all I can think about is kissing him? Some werewolf I am.

  To take my mind off things I got up out of bed and got on the computer. I typed in the search, wolvesmatch.com. Just kidding, I started to search the differences of vampire and werewolves again in case I had missed something before. I guess I was looking for the vampire story of Cinderella or something to make me feel like it wasn’t completely hopeless to care for Quinn. There was the obvious, Vampires are cold natured, Werewolves are hot natured. Werewolves can kill vampires with a single bite. Once they bite a vampire it causes an infection to invade their body and causes them to disintegrate almost instantly. Werewolves can be killed by silver which is one thing the movies got right except it has to be straight to the heart though. If the silver doesn’t go straight through the heart it just makes a werewolf violently ill. If enough of it reaches the heart it will kill them in time. I can’t even wear silver jewelry because it will get into my skin and make me sick. Some of the theories I have tested, such as the silver jewelry, and it is true. It goes without saying I haven’t tried to shoot myself in the heart to test that theory, not suicidal at this point at least.

  A vampire can also be killed by a superior vampire, or a master. That would be a vampire that has been alive more than 1000 years. I have never met one that I know of, and from what I have heard I don’t want to. I’m pretty sure Quinn isn’t a master vampire; he seems a bit old fashioned at times but nothing that drastic. A stake through the heart will work to kill a vampire, it just doesn’t happen often because they are so quick and strong that no one can get that close to them. Not to mention the fact that most people don’t know they exist. Oh and that whole, creature of the night thing, a myth. They can walk in the sun but they should just limit the amount of time because their skin is so fragile, basically sunbathing is frowned upon. They are dead after all.

  Truthfully, I think most Vampires only come out at night because it is easier to prey on their victims in the dark. They also have to wear sunglasses when exposed to the sun because of their eyes, the sun causes their eyes to redden and dry out. I haven’t seen it myself but it also explains why Quinn was wearing sunglasses in the classroom on his first day. He must have needed to give his eyes time to adjust to being out of the sun. Another difference, a big one, vampires can live thousands of years, whereas werewolves only live several hundred at the most. This means that if in some crazy turn of events Quinn and I fell in love, we could never be “together forever” because our forever is much different.

  Well, so much for taking my mind off things. I turned the computer off and lay down. I couldn’t stop thinking about Quinn, I spent most of the night tossing and turning. One minute I would be dreaming about romance and love with Quinn and the next he was trying to kill me. About 2am my door opened, “Princess, you awake?” my dad said softly. I turned to face him and he came over, turned on my bedside lamp and sat beside me on the bed. “What’s wrong Princess, I can hear you tossing and turning from my room.” He started to pat my hair and brush it out of my face and I said. “I’m ok daddy, just had a hard day at school and having a little trouble sleeping. “ He offered to get me a glass of milk but I told him I was fine and he kissed my head and told me goodnight and that he loved me. He, turned the light back out and walked out shutting the door quietly.

  My dad has always been a very light sleeper, guess it’s good thing that I am not so much of a rebel that I try sneaking out or anything like that. He would catch me every time. I sneeze and he comes to make sure I don’t need medicine! He has called me Princess since I was a little girl, I know that seventeen is a bit old to still be called that, but it makes me feel special. I have always had a good relationship with my parents, which is why I don’t want to ruin that or make them look at me different. If my dad knew what I was, do you think he would still call me Princess? I doubt it. I know that eventually they are going to realize something is different about me. Werewolves don’t age very quickly, they do in time but I will still look 20 when I am turning 100. Seems nice right? Hard to keep a secret from people though when you look young like that, only so far plastic surgery can go and most people won’t believe that is why you look so young. I’ve known for a while that in about 10 or 15 years, I will have to disappear from my parent’s life, or tell them the truth, whichever I can handle. At this point, I am terrified of both choices.

  There was no way I was getting back to sleep now that my mind was racing again about facing Quinn. Finally I came to the conclusion that it may be a good thing and that I shouldn’t be freaking out so bad. Quinn being a vampire meant I was not alone in being different and that I could talk to someone about my curse. This could be the best thing that ever happened to me. How could I be sure that I could trust him though, especially around my friends, what if he hurt them? Sigh, back at square one, no clue what to do and if this was a bad thing or a good thing. Guess I will find out tomorrow. I must have finally drifted off because the next thing I know there was sun shining through my window.

  Chapter Five

  Today is the day. I am meeting Quinn for lunch to talk and I still don’t know what I am going to say. The reason I picked the park is so that we were in public and there will be lots of people around so I am safe. Truth is I am not really scared of him, just afraid to be alone with him because of my feelings clouding my judgment. Just getting dressed was a challenge, first I tried a turtleneck and decided it may scream “Don’t bite me bloodsucker!” so I go with a black V-neck and a nice pair of jeans. I grabbed my tennis shoes, always good to be prepared for a quick getaway. Of course he is a vampire who can run faster than my brain can function, but still. Once downstairs, I make some ham and cheese sandwiches and grab some chips and a couple of cokes. Neither of us will probably eat, but I’d like it to at least seem like a normal day. I won’t call it a date because it’s definitely not that. I grabbed my keys off the hook by the door and holler goodbye to my parents as I close the door behind me.

  The park is full of kids and it’s a beautiful day outside, sun shining and not a cloud in site. Since I make it to the park first I start setting up a picnic table for us. Ok, this looks like a date. I start packing stuff up and decide to just leave it in the bag. Ok, this looks awkward, like I don’t want to be here. I start unpacking again. Laughter erupts from behind me. I turn and there is Quinn smiling and gorgeous as ever. “Are you having issues?” he asks. My face reddens, a bit embarrassed that he witnessed my display, I smiled and shrugged my shoulders and he leaned in and kissed me. I stepp
ed back a little alarmed and his face fell. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have done that.” I stuttered a bit and said “It…It’s ok, I just wasn’t expecting it, but it was nice.” He smiles and looks reassured. “You packed us a lunch? It looks great, I love ham and cheese,” he said. I extended my arm to the right motioning for him to sit down so we sat across from each other and started eating our lunch. It was a bit awkward at first but he looked content and I felt calm, a lot calmer than I expected to feel.

  Straightforward seems to be my best approach lately so I just went for it. “Are you really a vampire?” I asked, already knowing the answer but I had to start somewhere, even though it was a pretty lame question. He set his sandwich down, looked at me and he smiled and I saw his incisors extend into fangs. It was not scary on him, it was almost sexy even. He was wearing sunglasses so I wanted to test the other theory now. I reached up and slowly pulled his sunglasses down his nose and his eyes were a bold green color. As the sun touched them red streaks formed and he began to blink as though it was painful so I pushed them back up on his face. Quinn looked like he was trying to read my mood. His brow was furrowed in a pensive manner, so I decided not to keep him guessing. “I’m not scared of you. I thought about it all night long and never once did I think of you as scary. I like you, and that is the only thing that does worry me. There is no doubt I am attracted to you…believe me.” That seemed to make him feel more confident, so I had to elaborate before he got his hopes too high, “I just don’t see how we could make a relationship work based on what we are. I mean, have you ever heard of a vampire dating a werewolf?” He looked at me for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and said, “There’s a first time for everything, right?” and smiled that sexy smile of his and winked at me. Oh gosh, I am in so much trouble. I am falling for a freaking vampire! So, not only do I have to worry about telling people what I am, but I would have to tell them what my boyfriend is too. Why can’t I just be a normal teenager?