by Elle A. Rose
***
The day after our first date, Lance called as promised. I made sure to answer the phone. Although Christopher was not home-he left shortly after throwing his dresser off the second floor-I still wanted to be prepared for his call. Time seemed to stand still while I waited. Finally, when the phone rang and I picked up the receiver, I noticed that Lance did not sound like his normal self.
“Hello, the Harris residence.”
“Hello, may I please speak to Amber?”
“This is she. Hi, Lance, how are you?”
“I’m okay, were you busy?”
“No, I was just talking to my mother.”
“Would you like me to call you back? I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, I said I was not busy. Is there something wrong? Have you finally wised up and changed your mind about going out with me again?”
Lance gave a harsh laugh before responding.
“I don’t give up that easily. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so down. I’m just a little upset. I went outside today to take out the garbage and saw that I had two flat tires. I have no idea what happen. They were fine last night. My mother has a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning, and I don’t know how I’ll have the tires fixed by then.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps you ran something over in the road on your way back to the house, and it was a slow leak. I could come pick you and your mother up tomorrow for her appointment. I don’t mind.”
“No, that’s all right. I couldn’t impose on you like that. I was thinking about calling the doctor to see if he could do a house call. He has on occasions when she isn’t well enough to get out of bed.”
Lance paused for a moment, and then gave a flabbergasted huff of air before speaking again.
“I don’t know what I could have hit, for only the front tires to be flat and not the back two.”
That was weird. The first thing I thought about was Christopher, but I knew him too well. He would not have done something as simple as flattening car tires. “Don’t be silly. You won’t be imposing. What time is the appointment?”
I heard Lance take a deep breath. I sensed he wanted to argue about the ride, but since it was his mother who needed it, he decided not to. “It’s at eight in the morning.”
“That’s doable. I’ll be there around seven thirty. Will that be early enough to get your mom to her appointment on time?”
“Yes, thank you so much, Amber. I really wasn’t calling to ask anything of you. I was having a bad day, and knew hearing your voice would cheer me up.”
“Hearing your voice made my day too. I will see you tomorrow.”
The phone line disconnected and I realized that I had just committed myself to not only seeing Lance again, but meeting his mother. Olivia was sitting in the kitchen with me during the entire conversation. She looked as surprised as I was.
“That was one big step you took.”
I shook my head in disbelief and started to stand up. “I’ve no idea what just happen. I swear I forget who I am when talking to him. I shouldn’t be going anywhere near him, let alone his mother.”
“Amber, I think everything will be fine. Plus he needed you. You’re doing the right thing. Umm, where are you going?”
My hand was reaching up to open the back door. I stopped to stare at my mother. “I need to be prepared for tomorrow. I should feed before I’m enclosed in the car with two heart beats. Plus, I want to have a look around Lance’s place. He is right. There is no way he could have only flattened the front tires. I just want to see if I can pick up on a scent or something, although, if it was last night the scent may have faded by now.”
“I take it you’re going alone? Well, let me know if you need anything. I bet it was just a couple of kids playing a joke, though.”
I did not doubt Olivia’s theory. I just wanted an excuse to leave the house, to clear my mind. I nodded and turned to leave. I pulled the kitchen door open and I heard Christopher approaching from the backyard. Quickly, I shut the door and made my way towards the front of the house. I wanted to avoid any confrontation that was brewing in his head in regards to me seeing Lance again. On the way out the front door, I did a swift mind sweep just to make sure Christopher had nothing to do with the flat tires. As I suspected, he did not. However, I did see that he knew Isaac was none too happy with him or the wall he was in the midst of fixing.
It was not dark yet, so I decided to grab a bite to eat before heading over to the Grayson house. I was not hungry, but I did not want to get the sudden urge to munch while in the car the following morning. I like the hunt, just like every other vampire. I think that is one of the differences between humans and us. Humans are happy with having a finished product, no energy needed, just sit and eat. Vampires enjoy finding, hunting, and sometimes killing our prey. Since I was in no mood to hunt, I sat on a fallen tree and drew whatever animal that walked close enough for me to hear into my grasp. My feast was short lived, leaving a pile of dead animals for someone to find would not be good. On my way to Lance’s house, I picked up on a sour smell. I could tell it was a different species-not quite human, not quite animal. I had never smelled anything like it before. Vampires typically have a sensual scent to them. Depending on how hungry we are, a vampire’s scent will appear stronger towards our prey. It helps lure our prey to us. Werewolves generally have some kind of outdoor smell to them, like grass or tree bark. Yet, there are other species out in the world that we have run into from time to time, each having their own scent. Like vampires and werewolves, they became a new species from some mutated gene.
In my time before meeting Lance, walking among the silent world, I had come across species that turned into huge bird like creatures called Falcoraptors, giant wild pigs with human limbs called huma-verro, and overgrown chipmunks-not some of the brighter species-which from my knowledge have no real name. There are many other species out there. If an animal with some kind of disease, like rabies, bites a human or an epidemic breaks out like the bubonic plague, any human that comes in contact with said disorder that does not die or become well, will most likely transform into some mutation of that animal, or take on other unnatural traits for a human.
The scent I picked up near Lance’s house was not anything I had come across before. There was no other evidence of any creature being present, just a faint scent. I checked the road near his house to make sure there was nothing that he could have hit and then went to do a thorough check of the tires. On a closer inspection of the tires, I saw that they had very small slices in them, four on each tire to be precise. It was hard to say if the smell from the creature was on the tires or just lingering in the air. I did however, pick up Lance‘s scent, which did not help me think clearly. I could smell that he had come and placed his hands on the tires to see what was wrong. The slices were so small though; I do not think he would have noticed them. I knew I would need to talk to Isaac and Olivia to see if they had any idea as to what could have puncture the tires.
Upon my return to the house, I shared my findings with Isaac and Olivia. Olivia still passed it off as some kids playing around. Isaac presumed the possibility of some other creature being out there, but he shrugged that reason off as more of a fluke than anything else. He also offered to fix the tires while we went to the appointment. He suggested that I keep an eye on the situation just in case it happened again; otherwise, I should not worry too much about it.
I have to say that night was one of the longest nights of my life. It was one thing to meet a boy and go out with him, but we had only dated once, and I was already going to meet his mother. I was nervous and excited at the same time. I was also thrilled because I had a chance to drive my car. I kept it in storage most of the time. It was unheard of for teens to acquire their own brand new cars, especially if they were living at home. I only brought it out for long trips or special occasions. I considered this a special occasion. That following morning, I entered the stor
age unit where I kept my car and pulled the tarp off of my white Cadillac Sixty Special Fleetwood. With a simple flick of my wrist, I started the car. The purr radiating from the engine brought a huge smile to my face. I loved to hear that engine come to life. Backing out onto the road, I got a nod of approval from a man walking his dog down the street.
When I pulled up in front of the Grayson house, Lance was sitting on the porch waiting for me. I waved and placed the car into park, then got out to greet him. As usual, he was dressed in slacks and a solid collar shirt.
“Good morning, Amber. Thank you again for this. Mother is right inside. Let me get her and we can be on our way.”
“Sounds good. Do you need any help?”
He smiled and shook his head. “No, I’ll be right back.”
I did not have a chance to research his mother’s disease, so I was unaware of what to expect. I also was trying to keep my word and not read Lance’s mind. The front door opened and a lady that looked to be in her mid-forties stepped out with a cane in one hand and Lance on the other. She was very pretty. She had long blonde hair which was covered by a red hat. The hat matched her red dress that stopped just before her ankles. On closer inspection, I noticed she and Lance shared the same features. Her eyes were that same brilliant blue with a small nose, very thin lips and the same round chin.
I moved to the passenger side door and opened it for her. “Good morning, Ma’am.” Mrs. Grayson stopped in front of the passenger door and let go of Lance’s arm so we could shake hands.
“Well, hello, sweetie. You must be Amber. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Lance can’t stop talking about you.”
I could see Lance blush out the corner of my eye. I doubted he wanted his mother to tell me that.
Before I could respond to her greeting, Mrs. Grayson started talking again. “I really want to thank you for helping us out today. I hope that you can come to dinner sometime this week so we can talk more.”
“You are very welcome, Ma’am. I would love to have dinner with you soon.” With that, Lance helped her in the car, and then walking around to the other side, he held the door open for me before slipping into the back seat. Mrs. Grayson was admiring the car when I started to drive down the street.
“This is a very nice car. I would love to thank your parents as well for letting you use it today.”
I really did not have the heart to tell her that it was my car, so I smiled and agreed. Lance was rather quiet on the way to the doctor. I waited in the car while they went in. I was unsure of how long a doctor’s appointment took-seeing that doctors did not have offices when I was growing up. They strictly made house calls.
When Lance and his mother emerged from the brown building, they both looked really happy. Lance held his mother’s hand with his right while he carried a paper bag in his left. I assumed it was something the doctor gave them. On the way back to the house, I offered to make any other stops they may need, but they both said they were fine and all set for the day. The car rolled to a stop in front of the house, and I saw Isaac had already put two brand new tires on the car. Lance also noticed it. He jumped out and headed over to inspect the new tires. With Lance walking in circles in the driveway, I panicked. Was I supposed to help his mother out of the car? I did not feel comfortable with any physical aide I needed to provide his mother, but decided I had no choice, since Lance was preoccupied. She seemed much more breakable than even Lance did.
As I helped her up the stairs, she watched Lance look dumbfounded at the tires. There was no need to read his thoughts to know that he was wondering if he was losing his mind. He did not say a word until his mother was safely in the house.
I was midway down the steps when Lance stalked over from the driveway.
“Did you have something to do with this?”
“Did I have something to do with what?” I stopped two steps from the pavement and made eye contact with him. He did not sound too happy with me. I was a little confused. I thought it would please him to see the tires fixed.
“Amber, there are two new tires on this car. I know those tires were flat this morning. How did you do that? Why did you do it?”
“My father came over to replace them this morning, after we left. I just figured it would be one less thing you needed to worry about right now.”
Lance shook his head and grunted in frustration.
“I’ll pay him back for those. Please tell him thank you. This really wasn’t necessary.”
“No, you will not have to pay him back. Think of it as a gift from me to you. I don’t want to speak about it again. It needed to be done, so it is. I’m just glad I could help.”
I finished my statement and took the last two steps rather quickly. As my foot hit the ground, Lance pulled me forward, putting his arms around my waist. I did not resist. I did not want to hurt him. As I stepped into his embrace, I could hear his heart beating in his chest, and feel the warm blood flowing through his veins in his wrist, and see his jugular vein pulsating softly under his flesh. Before I gave myself away, I looked up to meet his eyes. As my gaze moved upwards I realized his lips were slowly moving toward mine. His eyes were closed so he had not noticed me staring at his neck. I stiffened. I was not ready to kiss him. At least I did not think I was. I had never kissed a human before. Until the other night when Christopher kissed me, I had not been kissed on the lips by any man before. Lance noticed that I became rigid in his arms.
He opened his eyes and gave me a puzzled look.
“What’s wrong, Amber?”
“Nothing. I umm, I was just a little surprised. I thought you were mad at me.”
The look of confusion that crossed his face soon turned into a smile.
“Amber, I don’t think I could stay mad at you for long. I guess I didn’t know how to react to the new tires. I don’t want you to feel you need to do stuff for me.”
“Like I said, ‘I did it because it needed to be done’.”
Lance seemed distracted from my response. He murmured, “Right,” as he pulled me even closer and put his lips to mine.
I had never felt so many things all at once. I loved feeling his soft warm lips on mine. I enjoyed hearing the quickened pace of his heartbeat. I hated the fact that my mouth was aching from the arousal of his closeness. Lance slowly opened his lips and I could feel his warm wet tongue leaving his mouth and gently parting my lips. I once again stiffened. I had control, but I was pushing it. I knew he would want his tongue back and if it entered my mouth, I was not confident that I would be able to maintain my control. Thinking once again he did something wrong, Lance this time backed up and gave me an uncertain look. I jerked further away from him and began to stammer. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not what you think I am.” With that, I turned to walk to my car. Lance had to run to catch up with me. By the time he made it to the car, I was seated behind the wheel.
“Amber, what is it? I know you won’t hurt me. Look, I told you, whatever it is, I don’t care. I can handle it. Please don’t run away.”
Taking a deep breath, I looked up to meet his blue eyes. “Lance…,” he brought a finger to my lips to quiet me.
“Shhh. Let’s go take a walk in the park or something.”
The way those cobalt eyes gazed at me, it was like he was trying to see into my soul-that is if I still had one. “What about your mother?”
“Let me go check on her and make sure she doesn’t need anything, and then we can go. Will you promise to wait?”
I knew I should tell him no, but something in me wanted to see where this would take me. “I promise.”
A little over ten minutes later, Lance walked back out and joined me in the car. Without speaking, I started the car and drove. I knew that he would not let this go. I also understood that he needed to know the truth. I hoped if he saw me for who I really was, he would decide it was best for us not to see each other anymore. Then I questioned, if he knew who I really was
and decided to walk away, would he keep what he knew about my family and me a secret.
After I drove around aimlessly for forty-five minutes or so, Lance spoke up.
“Amber, where are we going? I do believe we passed the park a while back.”
“Oh umm, yes, we did. I’ll turn around at the next side street.” On the way back to the park, I knew I could no longer put this off. Neither of us spoke until we were out of the car and walking through the entrance of the park. Surprisingly, Lance grabbed and held my hand as we walked. Reminding me of something Christopher would do, I lightly rubbed my thumb over the vein in Lance’s wrist.
We walked until we saw no one in sight. There was a bench off to our right hand side, Lance pointed to it. “Will it be okay to sit there and talk?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
We wandered over and sat. Still holding hands, Lance was the first to speak.
“I know whatever it is that is making you run away from me must be pretty big. I have racked my brain and have no idea what could make you feel the need to hide. So I have decided to tell you what I’ve noticed and I would like it if you tell me if I am right or wrong. Then hopefully it will make it a lot easier for you to tell me what is really going on.”
This is not how I envisioned this to go, but I figured it would work. I needed to tell him the truth and he was trying to meet me half way. “I’ll try my best. Please understand that this will be hard though.” With a nod, he started to speak again.
“I didn’t notice anything out the ordinary about you until the accident. But as I looked back, I realized there were a few differences about you. You move like no other person I have ever seen. It’s swift but very graceful. The first time we met, I thought it was a little weird that you knew the exact total of your order before the transaction was complete. I just assumed you were good at math. There aren’t many people who can do that. Yet, as you took your bag to leave, you moved much faster than a normal person would. I didn’t even realize that I had let go of the bag before you were half way out the door.”
Had I checked to see if he was watching me walk away that night, I would have known I moved to fast out the store. I sighed as he continued.
“When I had my friend look up your classes, he told me how it was a little weird when you enrolled in the college. It appeared as if one minute you didn’t exist and the next you did. He said he remembered you and your brother’s names clearly because they had to do some calling around since some of the information you provided didn’t add up.”
I shuffled my feet on the ground. That was not a good thing. I would have to talk to Isaac about that. He is the one who handles our legal paper work. My movement did not distract Lance from his speech as he carried on talking.
“At school, in the car or like right now, I’ve notice you don’t breathe often. You take very shallow breaths. It seems like you don’t need as much air as the rest of us. I can’t figure it out.”
There is nothing I could do about my breathing. My body needs less oxygen to operate.
“And that night at the store, I think you had a lot more to do with saving me and those other people than you tried to let on. I watched those workers, and there is no way they could have fallen the way they did without breaking a bone or something. Also I have no idea how you did it, but I do think you had something to do with the electricity dying in that power cord and possibly the whole store. Somehow you did all of that while getting me out of the way.”
Lance gave me a small smile before going on.
“Can I also say, for such a little thing, you are strong. I felt every muscle in your body flex as you drew me to the floor. You had an iron grip on me.”
I was speechless. How did he pick up on all of that? I kicked myself for not reading his mind. I would have known he was watching me so closely. I sat there shaking my head in disbelief. I wondered how many humans we were really fooling. I also wondered if it was only Lance who noticed since he was showing such an interest in me.
Lance tugged lightly on my hand, bringing my attention back to our current conversation.
“There are a few other things, if you would like to hear them.”
More? He had more to say. All I could do was shrug my shoulders.
“That night after everything happened; you showed back up at my job and walked me home. I have never seen a girl comfortable with walking a male home at night. Plus your parents didn’t worry about where you were or how you’d get home. In addition, you stiffen whenever I get to close. I was worried that I scared you, but I think that has something to do with whatever you are hiding from me.”
As Lance talked, I absorbed everything he said. I would not doubt I looked like a deer caught in headlights. Then he asked me the weirdest question.
“The car you picked us up in today. It smelled like you. Is it yours? That isn’t the car I saw sitting in the drive way the other night. And for your father to come and put new tires on the car that would have been a lot of walking this morning. There’s no way he could have walked to purchase the tires, walked to my house and replaced the old ones and left before we got back. There just was not enough time to do all of that without a car or something.”
He was correct. That was not the same car in the driveway the other night. In addition, there would have been no way with it being daytime for Isaac to have made it to the store, and then to the Grayson house in the amount of time we were gone, if he had to walk. I sat in silence for a while. I was not quite sure what to say. The boy had done his homework in most aspects. It was decision time. Do I tell him the truth and watch him run? Do I tell him that he was correct about most things he observed, but fill him in on the details he missed, and hope that will be good enough? Or do I tell him he is wrong and has an overactive imagination? I played each scenario out in my head. I have no clue how much time passed, but before long, I felt Lance’s soft warm hand reach up and trace my cheek. His touch was so light. It seemed like he was trying very hard not to disturb my deep thought; but on the other hand, Lance was trying to pull me gently out of my trance. I blinked a few times before my eyes could focus on Lance, who was staring at our entangled hands. We were still holding hands from entering the park. I took a deep breath, which brought his eyes back to my face. I knew then that I could trust him. There was something in his eyes that told me I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain by opening up to him. Although, I decided I would not share everything all at once. I had a huge secret to reveal, small dosages would be best.
“Amber, you can trust me.”
“Yes, Lance, I can see that. Please try to understand, it’s not that I’m worried about your trust. I’m worried I may scare you. And I’m concerned that what I have to tell you won’t be what you want to hear. It troubles me that I may hurt you.”
Lance gave my hand a light squeeze.
“Like I said, whatever it is, I can handle it and I can keep it a secret. If you can trust me enough to share it with me, I will be able to keep it between us. Well that is us and your family. I’m sure if I have noticed those few things, there is no way possible you can hide them from your family as well.”
The last part of his statement confused me, until I realized that he thought that whatever was wrong with me was just a “me” thing, and my family and I just dealt with it by keeping it a little family secret. I chuckled lightly. Disclosing my-our secret-was going to open Lance up to a whole new world.
“Let me start off by saying your observations of me are correct. I do believe most people do not pay as much attention to me or my family like you do. Most ignore the tiny differences between us and them. I should have paid closer attention to my actions around you, but there is something about you that makes me drop all barriers my family and I have worked so hard to maintain.” Lance started to speak but I held my hand up to stop him. I knew if I stopped talking now, I would not be able to finish. “Please let me say this, I’m, as I stated before, not what you
think. By you knowing this, you also need to know that though I will and have tried my best not to harm you, your life is in danger. It is part of my nature, I work, no my family and I work very hard at mingling in with humans. I need you to truly grasp the facts. By wanting to be with me, not only are you putting your life but your mother’s life or anyone close to you for that matter in danger. Before I go on, I urge you to just walk away right now. If the truth about me is not spoken, no harm will be done. I will understand. I feel it is best if you leave.”
Lance was quiet for a moment or two. I refused to look at him. I could not bring myself to see the expression on his face. I was giving him that one last chance to run, to pretend that he had never let me into his life. I could hear his breathing. It was steady. I wondered if what I was telling him really sank in. Still I refused to read his mind. We sat in silence as the park moved around us. It was not until he lightly tugged on my hand, forcing me to make eye contact with him, that I finally looked up. He was smiling at me as he pulled my hand to his mouth, lightly kissing the back of my hand.
“Amber, I know it can’t be that bad. No one who looks as beautiful as you, and is willing to put their life in danger to help someone in need could be bad. Now stop stalling and tell me.”
With a light laugh, he let go of my hand and nudged me with his elbow. It was a movement I saw coming, so instead of pretending he was able to move me with that little push, I held my body perfectly still. There were no resistances in my actions. I have learned over the years to try to respond to human contact like a human would. Though most humans do not get too close, there are a few who have done simple gestures that would or should have a human response. Lance nudging me should have been one of those times. He did notice the moment his warm body touched my cold stiff body that there was a difference, and the charade was finally over. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed hold of his hand, again-I am not sure if it was to keep him or myself from running away-and I started to tell him why I used to love the fall season so much.