Chapter Eleven: Vampire Allergy

Two hours and several bags of chips later, Adriel and Kieran came tumbling through the front door empty-handed, each breathing heavily. Teddy and Snow jumped up excitedly, darting over to their owners and welcoming them home. I popped the last of the chips into my mouth and turned to face them.

“Got your supplies?” I asked, voice heavy with sarcasm. Adriel cleared his throat simultaneously with Kieran, straightening up from stroking their dogs.

“We forgot,” Kieran said, the same time Adriel uttered, “Nope.” Both of them turned to look at each other, both sporting the 'you idiot' look. I smirked dryly, delighted that I’d managed to catch them off-guard. Something other than drugs and a petty grudge was going on here. I picked it up when talking to Tommy.

Brushing the little pieces of chips off my shirt, I crumpled the empty chip packet and stood up.

“Look,” I said with a sigh. “As far as kidnapping goes, this is like staying in a luxury hotel, the torture and the threat of me getting killed aside. But I’m not dumb and Tommy looks like he’s been thrown through a mincer – “

“He’s seen worse,” Adriel cut in.

I shot him a glare which made him look elsewhere.

“I want to know what’s going on here,” I demanded, patience running thin. “You guys are doing more than drug dealing or kidnapping or whatever. I can feel it so you either tell me or I’ll do something we’re all going to regret.”

They both stared at me blankly, processing my words.

“Oh, yeah?” Kieran challenged after a moment of stunned silence. “What are you going to do?”

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out,” I said, folding my arms across my chest defiantly, hoping my voice and face didn’t betray how I was really feeling about all this: uneasy. On one hand, if they did decide to tell me, I could drop this tough-guy façade. On the other, I was considering running up to Tommy’s room with a kitchen knife and holding it to his throat to bargain for my freedom that way. No guarantee I could carry out my threat, if it came to that.

“Did Tommy say anything?” Adriel asked.

“He woke up when you were out,” I informed them.

Again, they looked at each other. Were they telepathic? Were they lovers? Kieran shrugged.

“I guess you have a right to know,” he started slowly. “But we’ll only tell you with Tommy’s consent.”

“Provided he doesn’t kill you first,” Adriel added. Kieran smacked him on the back of his head.

“He won’t have a reason to,” Kieran said as Adriel rubbed the sore spot with the cutest pout on his face. My irritation at the situation was quickly dissolving like sugar in hot water and I was starting to hate myself for letting these idiots grow on me. “We’ll wait till Tommy is well enough then we’ll tell you.”

I nodded, satisfied.

“Good. Now that we’re all done here, how about we finish that puzzle that Kieran so nicely ruined for us?” Adriel said, already making his way across the living room to the couch. I cocked my head at him then turned back to Kieran.

“I’m going to check on Tommy,” he declared.

Fast forward a few hours later and it was almost midnight. Kieran had gone out again, taking Teddy with him, leaving Adriel with me. We had lasagna for dinner, courtesy of Kieranbefore he left. I tried to get him to tell me where he was going by stooping to dirty tactics. Sadly, he knew what I was up to and wouldn’t say a word.

Adriel and I were at a game of Scrabble, a random vampire movie playing on the TV. I never liked vampires. Didn’t fancy the idea of hundred-year-old undead bloodsuckers prowling the night, looking for potential victims. My friends were into vampires and I couldn’t quite grasp why. They were impossibly pale, for one. They became flaky under the sun. They had weird teeth and they look the same all throughout their lives. And blood? Do they also get their water from blood? Do they even need water?

I shuddered. Adriel looked up, his brow knitted in consternation. Snow was snoozing under the coffee table.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just disliking vampires here.”

His eyes widened, momentarily forgetting that he didn’t have a single vowel in his word rack. I also had more points than he did.

Peeping in itself wasn't a crime.

“Might I have some insight as to why?”

“They’re creepy.”

"Does this mean you have yet to watch Twilight?”

The light question was not supposed to have such a weighty answer, one that brought an abrupt halt to our game. I protested vehemently, bent on finishing all the tiles in the bag yet even that depended on the answer to a question.

"Dracula?"

I shook my head.

"Not even the 1931, 1958, 1979, 1992 versions?" He uttered each year with a rising pitch, almost as if he were afraid of my answer and I was committing an atrocity should my answer be in the negative.

Already guessing my reply, he took out his phone and started typing away furiously. I leaned over the table to see what it was that he was doing.

“Are you telling the whole world that you know someone who doesn’t like vampires?” I queried.

“I’m downloading Dracula so we can watch it on TV.” He set his device down and picked the remote up, changing the flat screen’s settings to connect it to his phone. I made a face.

“I’m not watching that,” I said, twisting in my seat.

“You are.”

“No!” I launched myself over the back of the couch and made a beeline for the stairs. My room was the only safe place now that I was the hunted. I had to make it there before Adriel caught up to me.

“Get back here, young lady!” Adriel hollered. I heard a bark and picked up my speed. Animals were much faster than my human behind. Snow had already pounced on me, sending me crashing to the ground just before the stairs. He barked once more, sharp and growling, his front paws on my back, pinning me down.

“I thought we were friends,” I wailed, pressing my cheek to the floor, not even attempting to escape. Snow made a snorting noise, leaning down to lick my hand as if to say “I had no choice”. Adriel walked up to us, scratching his dog behind the ears with an affectionate smile.

“Good boy.” He turned to me with a wicked smile.

“You need to be educated!” he insisted, reaching down to pick me up.

“I do not!” I responded indignantly, trying to wrestle my way out of his hold. But, akin to Kieran and Tommy, Adriel was well-built and therefore, had the advantage in strength.

“I’m introducing the vampire genre to you if it’s the last thing I do!”

I was about to shout back a remark when we heard a sound that definitely didn’t come from us.

“Did you hear that?” Adriel asked in a hushed voice.

“It sounded like something fell,” I whispered back. There was a low bark from upstairs. Snow reacted faster than we did, dashing up before we could make assumptions. Bloodthirsty suckers forgotten, we scrambled to our feet and rushed to Tommy’s room. Adriel pushed open the door to find the wounded leader on the floor by his bed, struggling to sit up and coughing. Bruce was licking at his arm anxiously.

“Did you fall?” Adriel asked, looking around.

“No, my bed kicked me out,” Tommy replied dryly. He coughed again and his friend went over to his side.

“It’s bleeding again. Up on the bed, Tommy. Come on.” Adriel wrapped an arm around him and pulled him up easily with all the gentleness of a mother handling her baby. I watched as Adriel slowly lowered him onto the edge of the bed. Tommy’s mien betrayed nothing but I could see the effort it took him to keep his features like that. He patted the space beside him and Bruce leapt up, settling down beside his master while Tommy stroked his head fondly. I found myself unable to look away from that little display. Witnessing Tommy show affection to his dog was something I could watch all day. It was surprisingly wholesome.

Adriel cut open Tommy’s bandages, peeling them away from his skin. I glimpsed the rest of Tommy’s body as the blood-stained bandages came away but before I could drool over him, the blood trickling out from a stitched up wound on his shoulder distracted me. Snow sat back on the floor, jaws parted, drinking in the new scent.

“Is that a . . . bullet hole?”

I guess the guys had completely forgotten that I was there because Tommy’s head snapped to the side, his dark eyes settling on me.

“What is she doing here?” he asked, voice having lost none of its menacing strictness.

“Ask the jerk who planned my kidnapping then decided to let me roam free in his house,” I snapped back automatically. Tommy’s eyes narrowed at me and I swallowed my sudden fear. He was injured but his dog wasn’t. He’d set Bruce on me if Adriel wasn’t here. I was 99% sure of it.

“Never mind that,” Adriel said dismissively. He set the bloody bandages on Tommy’s bedside table and reached for more gauze. “Why the hell did you get out of bed?”

“Got tired of the view,” he said, gesturing to the ceiling. Adriel snorted then poured water over some cotton and wiped the area around the bullet hole. Once the blood was gone he quickly pressed a fresh piece of gauze to the wound.

“Hold this,” he said distractedly. Tommy’s hand replaced Adriel’s as the latter rummaged around in the drawer for more bandages. I caught the look on Adriel’s face as he worked on Tommy. It was lightyears away from his usual easy expression, somehow more matured. Imagine progressing from class clown to law professor within seconds. His mouth and jaw were set, his eyes focused. Oh, this dude knew what he was doing.

“Move this arm and I'll stitch it to your torso." Adriel smiled coyly as he wrapped Tommy’s shoulder and chest again, giving the bandages a sharp tug to emphasize his seriousness. Tommy didn’t respond. Instead, he closed his eyes and let Adriel do his work. I squinted, wondering if I was seeing a brief glimpse of respect on his face for Adriel.

I was curious before; I was dying to know now.

My job wasn’t what kids aspired to be when they grew up. I knew the risks, especially since people these days were worse off than they were ten years ago. The job came with a lot of liability, too. I was well aware that people died working like this. They would be talking to me one day and gone the next, never to be heard from again. It was hard to live knowing that, even harder since it specifically happens in this particular line of work.

Oh, sweet Neptune, was human life always this precious? I mean, of course it is but having seen an actual wound from an actual weapon on an actual person seemed to place a lot of emphasis on that fact.

Unfortunately, dealing was also a form of killing. I hated myself for it sometimes, kept telling myself that in two years, I would graduate and I’d be able to leave this life behind.

“I want to know what’s going on,” I blurted out. Adriel shot me a warning look. Tommy merely shifted to get more comfortable. His reaction fueled me to go on.

“I want to know what you want with Danny and I want to know why, specifically, you took me,” I went on, twisting my fingers nervously. “I over-heard what you and Adriel were talking about the other day. About how he was getting attached to me.”

Said ‘he’ stiffened. I knew I’d hit a nerve.

After minutes of torturous silence where I tried to gauge Tommy’s expressionless expression, he finally spoke up.

“Where’s Kieran?” he asked, sounding tired yet not quite so.

“Out,” came Adriel’s curt reply.

Tommy gave him a nod. “Leave us.”

I was petrified beyond words right then. Catatonic when Adriel sighed and obeyed his leader’s orders. He gave me a crooked little smile as he left, calling Snow to follow, shutting the door behind him, leaving me alone in the room with a psychotic albeit injured, maniac and his dog who could kill me if he was given the order. I couldn’t understand the fear I felt whenever I was alone with him or whenever he came close to me. Now it was only enhanced by Bruce’s presence.

“Sit.”

One word. One word from him was all it took for me to be able to move again. In a frenzied state, I moved to his bed and perched myself on the edge, careful to not get too close to him. In my nervous state, all idiotic quips had been banished and locked away from my mind so I kept my lips pursed and tried in vain to keep my hands from shaking.