by LM DeWalt
“What is that?” Aloysius asked.
“Pepe brought these up. He said they arrived yesterday afternoon. They are addressed to Mrs. Rexer.” She set them down side by side on the floor and went back to her post by the door.
“What could they be? I wasn’t expecting anything,” I stood and went to look at the boxes. There was no return address on them.
Christian went to the kitchen and returned with a knife. He sliced the tape across the seam of each box. My stomach sank and my eyes teared as I pulled the flap on the first box and realized what the contents were. Christian dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
“What is it?” Fiore asked from the sofa.
“Some of our things from the house in Oregon,” Christian answered as he stroked my head.
Hope returned as I started looking through the contents. One by one I searched the articles of clothing as I pulled them out and folded them, making a pile on the floor next to me.
“What are you looking for, Lily?” Aloysius asked as he approached.
“A letter, a note, something, anything personal,” I grabbed the piles I made and shoved them back into the boxes, standing to grab both. “I’ll take these upstairs.” Before anyone could reply, I hurried up the stairs with both boxes in my arms.
“Give her a minute,” I heard Aloysius say as Christian tried to follow me.
I pushed the door open with my foot and dumped the contents of both boxes on our bed. Searching through each article a second time, I succumbed to the tears that threatened downstairs, my body shaking with my sobs. As hard as I had tried to keep Aaron and Kalia from my mind lately, the inevitable was happening. Since we had not been there to claim our things from the house personally, they had taken it upon themselves to erase us from their lives, one box at a time.
“Can I come in?” Christian called from the other side of the cracked door.
“Of course,” I wiped my tears with the back of my hand. “I’m just putting these away.” I walked to the closet and yanked a handful of hangers from the rod, a piece of plastic landing on my foot as one of the hangers snapped.
Christian placed a tentative hand on my shoulder. “Please put those down. Come, sit.” He guided me to the edge of the bed, taking the hangers from my tight grasp.
“What for? I’m fine,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Lily, I know better than that. It’s ok to let it out. It’s ok to talk about it. It would probably make you feel better.”
“I could talk about it every minute of every day and it would change nothing.” I reached behind me for the hangers, determined to put the pain out of my mind.
“Stop, please. Why are you so damned stubborn? Why do you refuse to let anyone in?” He wrapped me up in his arms. “I wish you would understand you are not alone in this. I lost them too.”
He was right. He had only been with us for a short time but he had so easily let them into his heart. It was his loss too. “I know. I’m sorry,” I wrapped my arms around him. “It just hurts so much.”
“We will get them back. I don’t know when and I don’t know how but I know we will. We both want it badly enough.” He sounded so determined and I wanted to believe him.
“I wish I were more like you,” I tightened my grip.
“What do you mean?” He pushed me away enough to look at my face.
“You love and trust so easily. All I do is run when anyone tries to get close. Even if someone manages to get close enough, I manage to push them away somehow. I know it’s wrong,” I explained.
“It’s only natural, Lily. You trusted and loved Ian so fully and look what he did. It will take some time but you’re already getting better.”
“How can you say that?”
“You love me, right? Aaron, Kalia, Fiore, Aloysius, Jose Luis?” He smiled.
“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“It didn’t take you long to fall in love with me, remember?” He looked into my eyes.
“I guess you’re right, but I did try to push you away,” I reminded him.
“That you did, but not because you didn’t love me. It was because you were trying to protect me.”
“It all seems so pointless now. Here you are, a married vampire,” I laughed.
“And totally worth all the problems that led us to this,” He kissed the top of my head. “I would die for you all over again.”
A knock on the door interrupted my response. “Come in,” I called and stepped away from Christian.
“Mateo just called,” Fiore said.
“Does he have something?” I asked already trying to leave the room but unable to get past Fiore.
“No, not yet, but he wants you to meet him, Lily. He says he needs to talk to you alone,” she said and shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m going with you,” Christian replied.
“No. I can handle this on my own,” I turned to him and took his hand. “I’m not sure what he is, or even how he knows me but, I feel he’s harmless.” Or at least, that’s what I told myself.
ELEVEN
The setting sun shot forth bright oranges and purples as I glanced toward the street. People hurried past the street side tables, some alone, some laughing with their companions. I picked up my cup and inhaled the nutty aroma of the steaming coffee before taking a gulp, swishing it around in my mouth and enjoying every drop.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Mateo said pulling a chair out and taking a seat.
“It’s no big deal. You’re only five minutes late,” I said looking at the time on my cell phone, surprised Christian had not tried to call. He was worried about this meeting but I assured him I would leave if I sensed anything wrong. So far, I did not.
“Mateo picked up a menu and opened it. “You don’t mind if I order something to eat, do you? I’m starved.”
There went that theory. He was starved. Not for blood but for food, regular human food. He smiled as he continued to scan the menu. The waitress came over and he ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee. “Would you like another cup?” he asked me. I nodded.
“Thank you,” I said and straightened in my seat. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I think you already know something. I can tell you remember me.” He stirred the sugar in his cup and banged the spoon off the side before placing it on his napkin.
“I do get the feeling I know you but I have no idea how,” I admitted. “I can’t place you, no matter how hard I think.”
“Elementary school. You were friends with Elizabeth. The two of you were inseparable as I recall,” he laughed as he recalled. “You used to write those stories.”
That was impossible. His heart beat like a human’s. He needed food to survive. This made no sense at all.
“In case you were wondering, I can read your thoughts,” he thanked the waitress when she brought his sandwich.
“So what are you? How is this even possible that you sit here looking like you do?” I asked. He should be much older than he was, if not already gone and buried.
“I have a feeling you didn’t know this, but, I read some of your stories in school. I sat behind you. I used to read over your shoulder as you wrote.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, frustrated, not because he had read my stories without my permission, but because he avoided answering my question.
“Because of your stories. You started writing about vampires when we were in secondary, I think. That’s when I became fascinated with vampires, too. The more I read, the more real they became to me,” he stopped to take a bite of his sandwich.
“That still doesn’t answer my question. How is it that you look so young?”
He held a hand up and chewed a bit more before swallowing. “The point is I wanted to be one. I wanted to be like the powerful beings you described in your stories. When I graduated from high school, I left home. I traveled around for years, looking for anyone that resembled what you
described.” He sipped his coffee.
“You believed my writing was truth?” I sipped my coffee just to keep my hands busy.
“Not exactly. What I believed is that there must be some truth to the whole thing. Vampires were so popular then. So many stories and movies portrayed them in the same way that I thought, somewhere along the way, they must have existed, at least in some form.”
“Did you ever find what you were looking for?” I was intrigued now.
“Not really. I finally got tired of wandering and gave up. I settled in a small town in California and decided I needed a career so I became a cop. It was shortly after I graduated from the academy that a vampire found me.” He took another bite.
“I do remember you now. You came to our school in, what? Fourth grade?” He nodded. “I remember all the girls liked you, including Elizabeth, but you paid no attention to any of them.” He laughed and swallowed. “So, what happened when this vampire found you?”
“I didn’t know she was a vampire for quite a while. I suspected something, but I was too chicken to say anything. I thought she’d run away from me. I fell hard for her and the last thing I wanted was for her to think I was crazy. We dated for about a year and one night, we had a big fight. I tried to break if off with her.”
“I thought you loved her?” I asked.
“That’s just the thing. I loved her and I kept telling her so, but she never said it back to me. I got sick of it. The relationship was becoming too one-sided for me. I felt like I was wasting my time so, I did the only thing I could. I told her I wanted a family and if she didn’t want the same thing, she should just tell me and let me go. It didn’t quite go the way I planned.”
I had an idea where this was going but I needed to hear it from him. “She didn’t let you go, did she?”
“No,” he sipped again and pointed to his cup. The waitress hurried to take the cup and return with another. “She finally admitted what she was to me and made sure I knew a family was impossible with her.”
“Didn’t you love her enough to become a vampire?”
“I thought I did, however, she thought differently. She wanted me to take my time to decide, considering I had just told her I wanted a family. It was that same night that we exchanged blood for the first time. It was the most…”
I held a hand up to stop him. “Trust me, I know how it is. If you exchanged blood, how is it that your heart still beats?”
“Like I said, we exchanged blood, from that day on. It became a daily ritual between us. She never took enough to drain and kill me, just enough to keep me half-vampire.”
“Half-vampire? What does that even mean?” I picked up my cup, realizing it was empty.
“I stopped aging when the exchanges started. I acquired a few gifts, as you know from my mindreading. Regardless, I am still mostly human.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“She says likes the human side of me.”
“It still makes no sense to me. What happens when the exchanges stop?”
“I start aging again and the vampire part of me starts fading until it eventually dies.”
“But are there many vampire parts? You still eat.”
“That’s true. I do eat, but I also crave blood,” he explained.
“I didn’t know that.” I raised my empty cup toward the waitress. She rushed over and replaced it with a full cup.
“We share people sometimes but mostly, I eat food. I crave blood but I don’t need it. My own blood still flows through my veins.”
“What happens if she leaves you?” I asked.
“I would be without her blood. I don’t know if the aging process would be slow or if it would be speeded, kind of like catching up, but I will age and I will die, just like any other human.”
“So basically, neither of you can leave.”
“Not exactly,” He suddenly looked sad. “She can leave anytime she wants. I’m the one who is dependent on her, not the other way around. I’m the one who is stuck.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just turn you completely?”
“I’ve asked her that but the subject angers her so much I stopped asking years ago.”
It seemed selfish to me. She was keeping him totally dependent on her. If he left her, he would die. He just didn’t know how quickly or slowly. He had no other alternative.
“Maybe it is selfish of her but, I love her. I have no intention of leaving her, ever.”
“Do you still want to be a vampire?” I asked, though it was none of my business.
“I do and she said that, in time, it could happen. For now, I’m just happy to be by her side,” he explained, smiling again.
“How is it that you are working here, in Lima?” I asked. I was more curious about that than how he knew me from the beginning.
“She was in California temporarily. Mariana is Peruvian.”
“Did you say, Mariana?” It couldn’t be. Mariana was a popular name in Peru. It had to be a coincidence.
He nodded. “I did. She works for some other vampires, here in the city.”
“Did she happen to say who?” I straightened in my seat again, my back stiff against the cold metal.
“No, and I don’t ask either. I know better.”
“When is the last time you saw her?”
“Yesterday. But she should be back sometime tonight, or by morning. She won’t leave me more than a day without her blood,” he explained. “She has to come back.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will.” He seemed so sure. It broke my heart. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Uhh, no, of course not,” I made sure my mind stayed off Mariana. “I need to get back. Please call as soon as you find out something. Jose Luis needs to be found. He’s dying.”
“I know. We will find him, I promise, and, Lily…”
“Yeah?” I stood and pushed my chair in.
“Thank you for listening to me. It was good to talk to someone familiar.”
“No problem. If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know,” I added before turning to walk up the street. I didn’t know what I could do for him but, if it was the same Mariana we were dealing with, she may not be returning any time soon. What Mariana was or wasn’t doing was not his fault, after all.
As I hurried down the street, I reached into my front pocket to retrieve my phone and call home. No doubt they would be worried about Mateo’s intentions. I wanted to stop at a store and buy some coffee to make at home. I was enjoying the taste and it seemed to have a calming effect I needed more than anything right now. As I hit the button programmed to dial Christian, there was a sudden pressure on my neck. An arm grasped tightly around my waist as another hand clamped over my mouth. I kicked my legs as I was dragged backward into darkness. The smell of smoke filled my lungs as the phone fell from my fingers.
Before my eyes could adjust to the darkness and distinguish anything, a cloth that smelled of old rotted potatoes was slid over my head. While someone held me around my waist, someone else tightened a string around my neck, pulling so tightly that I could not breathe. I kicked again but made no contact. My legs slid across what felt like a dirt floor as my body was turned and flung, leaving me upside down over what I assumed was someone’s shoulder.
“Put me down,” I gasped through the tightness around my neck. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Relax, my pretty. We are going for a little ride.” With that, I was thrown against something hard and cold, my legs shoved in at an awkward bent angle, pain shooting through my knees. A door slammed and the darkness became as dark as a black hole, the smoky smell gone. I kicked and thrashed but to no avail. The space was so small I had no room to bend and straighten my knees. My stomach sank as the realization of my predicament hit me full force. I was in the trunk of a car, my cell phone on the dirt floor of whatever building they had dragged me into. I was being kidnapped and no one knew where I was. No one knew where I had met Mateo
or even that our meeting had ended. I was totally and completely alone.
TWELVE
“Can you hear me?” I called from the trunk. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” The motor roared to life, drowning out my pleas. No one had said a word as they tied me up and shoved me into a trunk. I don’t know what made me think someone would answer me now.
As the car started moving, I lay still. If I couldn’t get anyone’s attention, I could at least try to learn something from my captors. I listened until they finally started speaking.
“Where are we going?” A male voice asked in Spanish.
“We already told you, stupid. Just drive,” a female commanded.
“Where the boy is?” the male asked.
“Shut up, you imbecile! Say that again and I will have you killed. You’re useless!”
“Sorry. Of course not where the boy is. That would be a stupid move,” he said. A thump. “Damn you! Hit me again and I will stop the car!”
“And do what?” The woman chastised. “Keep driving and shut your mouth.”
Great, just what I needed. It appeared as though I was being kidnapped by a couple of morons, strong morons, but morons none the less. I moved my arms, testing the restraints binding my wrists. They were solid, probably plastic, and I had no room to move or maneuver a possible escape as I lay in the fetal position with my ankles bound by the same material. The cloth over my head stank and I was grateful my lungs didn’t need air.
“There’s a cop. What do I do?” the man said with a shaky voice. He was obviously not happy with his current task.
“What do you mean? Are we doing something wrong? No. Just keep driving and don’t look at him,” the woman barked.
Not sure how far we had actually driven at that point, I tried to call for help. Christian, Fiore, Aloysius, can anyone hear me? I waited for a response. When nothing came, I tried again. If anyone can hear me, I’ve been kidnapped. I was last at the café at the corner of the park in Miraflores. I was walking up the street after my meeting when someone grabbed me from behind. I’m in the trunk of a car. Well, that told them absolutely nothing useful; still, I had to try.