Protected (Book 1 in the Ariya Adams trilogy)

by Anna Applegate

  Caroline smiled, “I’ve been turned for a little over fifty years. Vampires don’t age.” As if she was reading my thoughts she said, “How about I throw these out there too. I can walk in the sun, I drink blood, I love garlic, and I don’t sleep, so there is no need for a coffin.”

  I laughed. “Can you read my mind?”

  “No, I can just tell where you were going by your facial expression when I answered the last question. Besides, I know you like those silly paranormal books.” She winked.

  “Are there a lot of vampires in the world? A lot of…” I gulped. “…things that exist? How long have you known James? When do you drink blood, because I’ve never seen you do it?”

  “Whoa, slow down! We have time to talk about all of this. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Caroline poured me hot cocoa with rum in it. I loved that combo, even though most people thought it was gross.

  “There are quite a few vampires in the world and, as James mentioned, there are other creatures out there as well. Werewolves and vampires don’t get along, so fights have killed off a lot of both groups. Most creatures just try to fit into society. When you live forever, you just try to make it work. We try to have normal lives. We aren’t all as scary as the stories make us out to be. Of course, there are scary ones, and those are the reason why we need to watch out for humans. Power can really take a hold of some people. It’s crazy to think of how far it gets taken.”

  “As far as James goes, Nick and James are best friends. James turned Nick about a hundred years ago, and the two have remained friends and have been around each other ever since.” Caroline had lost the smile and didn’t seem too pleased once she got on the subject of James.

  “Do you not like James? Why were you so keen on us being together if you knew all this?” That was a question I really wanted to know the answer to.

  “No, I do like him, I admire him a lot. He can be quite the hero and his capacity to take care of others is greater than anything I’ve ever thought possible. He has a good heart, but he also feels guilty about everything. He takes things extremely seriously and thinks he has to be perfect. He has a strong sense of what he believes is right and wrong. He doesn’t always believe those around him live up to expectations. If anything happens to someone, he takes it in as his own fault, even when it’s clear it isn’t. He can be difficult in that way.” She reached over for my hand. I was picking my cuticles. It was a nervous habit.

  “Ariya, I know you’re confused about what has happened. We all thought we were doing what’s best for you. We wanted to hide the truth from you because the truth is not normal. It doesn’t usually make sense to people. James was brought up in a different way. He is used to hiding this secret from people, we all are. As far as what’s going on with you two, I have always thought, since I met you, that there was something about you and him together that felt right. I know it’s stupid and it was wrong of me to push you, but I don’t know, it was a gut feeling.” I watched her and nodded, urging her to continue.

  “The James you were around this morning, that unemotional statuesque guy, that’s how he normally is. The few times the three of us have gotten away, he’s opened up, and I’ve seen that other side of him. That happy and fun side of him is what you brought out in him, and I knew you also felt something for him. It was amazing, and I wanted you both to be happy. James took so long to make a move in the first place because he was torn with you not knowing and how he felt, what he is and what he believes is right. I haven’t seen him around many women since I’ve known him. You have changed him in the short amount of time he’s been around you openly, opened him up to being your friend and more, and I think that threw him off.”

  “When it comes to how long James has been around, it hasn’t been a notably long time in vampire years, but long enough to shock you. He has seen a lot and experienced even more. He’s 250 years old. I believe he does care for you, Ariya, and so he did what he thought was best by waiting to get closer to you. I think he just couldn’t help himself last night. I haven’t even heard what happened with you guys, by the way.”

  I choked on my hot cocoa when she said he was 250 years old. I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around that, so I pushed it aside in my mind to try to comprehend later. I caught her up on the kiss. That was the most important thing, after all, as far as what had happened the night before – at least the part she was referring to. I gave her details, feelings, everything, and she was surprised.

  “Wow. I can hardly imagine that side of him. Ariya, you must have been freaking out! I can see exactly how his mind worked in this situation, though. You know, why he was cold this morning.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He thinks he got distracted with you and my getting staked is his fault. He thinks this whole mess is his fault. Devon even taunted him with it last night. Do you remember?”

  I did remember, but the words about “is this allowed” didn’t make sense to me at the time. Hell, they didn’t make sense to me now.

  “But, that’s crazy! How could he have known Devon would do something like this? And Caroline, I don’t even know what mess we’re in. Is it normal for werewolves to attack vampires for no reason? Is Devon mad at me for something? There are so many things you all are still not telling me. I can feel it. I’m missing something. I couldn’t even react when you told me vampires were real because it didn’t feel strange. I’m worried that will go away and I’ll start realizing how ridiculously insane all of this is. I need all the pieces to fit together and they don’t yet.” I was hoping that would be enough for her to spill the rest of what was happening. It wasn’t.

  “Ariya, let’s stick to the fun questions. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any more of the serious stuff today. I think you’ve taken in enough and we need to ease you into all of this. You’re safe though; everything is going to be fine. We’re trying to find Devon, and in the meantime, we’re watching out for you to make sure he doesn’t try anything again.”

  “Caroline, I’m not okay with you all being staked! Am I the problem, or is there something else he’s after? I refuse to let people get hurt if it’s me he’s after. What could I have done to him?”

  “Ariya, I’m sorry. This is how we’re doing things for now. Please don’t be mad. Trust us. We’ve been around longer and done this for years now. We’re not in any danger.”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant by them doing this for a long time. If that meant going around with werewolves after them or something else, she wasn’t about to fill me in. I played it off like I was satisfied with her answer. This game would play itself out sooner or later. This situation was just going to require patience. I didn’t want to do anything that would put them in more trouble or danger. We talked a bit more about things here and there.

  “You never answered my question about the blood. “ I finally got around to asking again.

  “Oh, well, I hide it from you. Why do you think I never eat in front of you? I have bags of donated blood that we have taken. Or there are people.”

  “People?” I asked. “Do they die?” I couldn’t imagine my best friend killing someone.

  “No, no. Nothing like that. They don’t even remember it happens. We don’t kill anyone and we don’t force anyone to do anything they don't want to. Mostly we drink the blood bags, honest. There have been times when people have offered. We don’t hurt anyone, we protect people. Ariya, don’t look at me like that.”

  “Have you had my blood?”

  “No! Geez, you think I would do that to my best friend without her knowing? I thought you trusted me.” She was offended.

  “Sorry, I’m just curious. Riley?”

  “No, Ariya. No one I’m a friend of. That’s a gross betrayal.”

  “Is the reason you’re cold all the time because you’re a vampire, too?”

  She laughed at this, seeming to have calmed down from the offensive state I had her in earlier with my blood comments.

 
“I don’t actually feel cold, but you always touched me and thought I was going into some hypothermic state, so I just started saying I was cold-blooded and wore sweats around you. We don’t get cold, but we are cold to the touch. You seem not to notice as much as others do, which I always thought was interesting.”

  “Great, more weird things about me, huh?” I said it semi-seriously, but ended up just brushing it off. “You said you can go out in the sun. Why are all the stories about vampires only being awake at night?” I questioned.

  “The sun does make us weaker. We’re stronger at night. You know I’m not a morning person. Most of the more monstrous of the species tend to attack at night simply because they are stronger during that time. That’s where the stories come from. During the day, we’re out, but not at 100%. Don’t you think humans would notice a whole species of people coming out only at nighttime? Come on.” She laughed.

  We kept going back and forth with tiny questions like where she had lived, family, etc., but nothing came close to what I wanted to know - who Devon was, why he seemed to be after me, why things were being hidden, and why some part of me thought any of this made sense. I don’t know when I fell asleep again, but it was late in the day before I knew it. I stretched out, and immediately my brain started churning. I must have fallen asleep on the couch while we were talking.

  What had we been talking about? Vampire questions, that’s right. Vampires. My friends were vampires. Suddenly, the feeling of everything having made sense last night seemed to have started disappearing, just like I thought it would. Caroline was a vampire. Nick was a vampire. James was a vampire. Devon was a werewolf. Devon attacked me. Nick broke Devon’s leg. Devon killed Caroline. James bit me. I fed Caroline my blood. Vampires and werewolves are real. My breathing picked up. No, I wouldn’t freak out. I would take this in and deal with it.

  But the normal Ariya, the one who thought vampires and werewolves were scary, wanted to feel normal again, and thought this brave Ariya who understood the paranormal was nutty. I needed to feel normal again or I was going to break down.

  What would be normal? Running. That would work. Everyone in my life was no longer normal, I thought to myself. Then another thought hit me. Riley was normal and I knew instantly how to feel better. An evening with Riley would be normal and it would be just the thing I needed to feel refreshed. Plus, we hadn’t got to hang out together this semester, like we used to. It would be fun.

  I texted him, knowing that he wouldn’t be awake yet even though it was a little after lunch, but I was hoping he’d get it first thing when he did wake up. ‘Hey! Let’s do something today. Call me when you wake up.’ There.

  I decided I’d have time to run and shower before he even woke up. Caroline wasn’t in the apartment, so I guessed she had something to do. At least I didn’t hear her moving around. I went to my room and put on my running clothes. I slipped on my sneakers and opened the front door to head out when I almost ran into James. He was standing there outside my door.

  “James?” I closed the door behind me. “What’s wrong? Is Caroline okay?”

  “Yes. She had to go, so I was keeping watch.”

  “Keeping watch?”

  Clearly, Devon was a big issue, or why would I need someone to watch me? I made a mental note. James just nodded once.

  “Sorry to be a bother.” There was no need for my sarcasm, but he hurt me, and this is how I lashed out.

  I was going to play it cool. The best thing to do would be to just start running, but I couldn’t. I had to say something. I needed to know what was going on with us.

  “Did I do something wrong?” It came out whinier than I had wanted it to.

  He hadn’t spoken to me much since the kiss last night, and when he had, it had been cold and short. I know Caroline said he felt guilty. In my mind, that was wrong of him. With everything else going on, a silly thing like if James liked me or not seemed like something that should be dropped, but I just couldn’t. I wanted him to comfort me and be there for me and thought he would be, at least as my friend, but so far, he was still just cold.

  “No, Ariya. Of course not. You’ve done everything right. More than right. I’m sorry. I know you’re confused, but I don’t know what is going to happen, and that means going back to how I know to act. This is all sort of unprecedented.” His voice softened at first, but he finished with a stony gaze. The man I was falling for was suddenly nowhere to be found. I wasn’t giving up that easily on this, though.

  “What does that mean? You kissed me, remember? Why did you do it? Does that mean we aren’t even going to be friends anymore?”

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was wrong and a mistake and it won’t happen again. I’m sorry.” Ouch. There it was. I wasn’t expecting something so mean to come out of his mouth.

  It sounded wrong, hearing him say something cruel, just as it sounded wrong to hear him speak so icily to Devon the other night. Hearing more would cause my feelings to skyrocket either towards anger or sadness and neither were reactions I wanted to feel at the moment. I wish I had started running the minute I stepped outside the door instead of giving in to my curiosity for some stupid boy.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” I turned to run.

  A long, long run was going to be the thing to bring normalcy back to me. James didn’t appear to follow, at least as far as I could tell, and for that I was glad. I knew I shouldn’t have thought he was so wonderful. He was just like the rest of them. A jerk. He didn’t care about me. He just used me.

  Okay Ariya, this is probably one of those moments that your emotions are causing you to overreact. It was just a kiss, it’s not like I got used for much, but he shouldn’t have spent all that time getting to know me and giving me the wrong idea. That much was true. The James that just had that conversation with me was not the same James that I had spent the semester getting to know.

  I had only been running for about a minute when someone jerked my arm and I flew back. My heart jumped, and I was convinced I was being attacked. I looked up and saw James again. Ugh, why couldn’t I be left alone for a minute?

  “Am I not allowed to run?”

  “By yourself? No. Ariya, listen to me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude, but Caroline was staked because of me. I can’t just be free to do whatever I want. I’m sorry I kissed you. I couldn’t help it. You’re amazing. Amazing doesn’t even begin to describe it. Ariya, I’ve never felt this way about a person before. But, I cannot be distracted right now. This is how it has to be. This is how it has always been. I’m truly sorry if I hurt you.”

  “Who made you the one in charge? Why is Caroline getting killed by some psycho your fault?” I demanded.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” His eyes hardened again, and I couldn’t help feeling the irritation from last night come rushing back.

  “More secrets then, I guess? Well fine, how about something you can answer. If you were free to do whatever you wanted, would you want me?”

  James stared at me for a long time. Did he really have to think that much about it?

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” The fury was definitely back and hitting me full force. “Why even apologize if you aren’t going to give me straight answers, James? I thought you were different. I actually thought you might care about me.”

  “You’re not listening, Ariya. I do care about you. But this…” He pointed between the two of us as if I didn’t understand what he meant by ‘this.’ “It can’t be anymore. Okay?”

  “Why, because you’re a vampire?” I inquired.

  “Among other things, yes. I am a vampire and you’re not.”

  “Caroline and Nick fell in love when she was a human. Is that so horrible of a thought? They made it work, and then they decided she would be a vampire.” I defended the thought of a human and vampire because, well, because Caroline told me it worked for her and I believed her.

  “It isn’t like that with you and me. I wouldn’t ever turn you
.”

  Realization hit me and suddenly it was clear. That was it then. He couldn’t see being with me long enough to turn me, so what was the point? Why had I thought any different? If that kiss hadn’t happened last night, I would have continued thinking he wanted to be just friends. That’s probably all he had ever wanted from this. Gosh, I was stupid. I stepped back towards the apartment.

  “I never said I would want to be turned, James.”

  I halted and turned myself back towards home. I didn’t want to talk anymore. I was done talking. If he wasn’t going to budge on his thoughts, then I was going to have to get over it; and I was going to have to get over him. Pretending not to care would be no problem. I could turn it off.

  He would be staying here, of course, and I’d have to get over that fact. From what Caroline said, Nick was his best friend. Nick would go where Caroline was and Caroline was my best friend. Therefore, he didn’t have a choice but to hang out around this college town until Devon was found. Maybe he would leave then. If that’s how it was going to be, then I would get over the nonsense of thinking this was going somewhere. I walked into the house and saw that Caroline was back. Good, that meant James didn’t have to be there.

  “Hey!” she said in a cheery voice. I looked over at her and just kept walking. She looked surprised. “Ariya? Is everything okay?”

  “No, Caroline, it’s not okay.”

  It wasn’t as if I was mad at her, but the pain of my conversation with James and the need for normalcy again was overwhelming me.

  “I don’t want to be involved in this. I don’t want to know there are vampires and werewolves. I want to be normal. I want things back to how they used to be. I thought I could handle everything, but I just don’t want to.” I knew I was being dramatic, but the mood swings were back and I couldn’t control them. I wasn’t myself.

  She just stood there. The door opened behind me and James walked in. I stormed off to my room, slamming the door behind me. I heard lowered voices and the front door shut again. Good, he was gone.