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She was glad to see them leave and she was ready to be alone again. There was something about having people around that was truly exhausting to her. It was something she couldn’t quite explain, but she wanted to make sure there was something left for her to enjoy.
The process of coming out of her shell and interacting with people again was something that was exhausting to her and she was still getting used to it. It was hard to make the sudden transition and she wanted to know how to do it easier without having to suffer through everything that made her feel exhausted.
For the past nine months, she had basically invested all of her time and effort on making herself better, making her home nicer, and getting to the point where she felt financially stable and ready to deal with everything that motherhood was bringing her way.
Now that she was trying to expand beyond that, she knew she was going to need time more than anything. Adjustment was the hardest part of any life. She wanted to be a part of it, but she was going to need some time getting used to it. Everything about her life made her think that she could easily do it, just that she would need time getting into this new phase of her life.
The last phase of her life had taken her to a dark place. When she was alone, she would often think about Vincenzo and she had wondered whether or not she was going to take up the hunt to find him. There was part of her that was always going to find it interesting and necessary for her to take up arms and to chase that man down, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she probably wouldn’t.
She wasn’t going to do anything. At this point, she knew that Vincenzo was long gone and that her dreams of finding him were nothing more than fantasy that she would never actually get to see any fruit from. He had left her life and she had decided that it was time to move on.
But hearing Amanda bring him up brought all of the old feelings back to the surface. She wanted to think about him and dwell on him, but she knew it was a waste of time. The more she thought about him and the more she worried about him, the more elusive and painful everything got to her.
She wasn’t the kind of person who could just let go of a man like that so easily and to think about him only gave him more power over her. She needed to just cut him loose and she needed to give up on that chapter in her life. What was going to be so hard about that?
She picked up the empty cartons and tossed them into the garbage, washing the silverware that they had used and her chopsticks before she decided to move on and do something else. Shantal had become addicted to the idea of cleaning as she went through her house. Leaving things for later was the biggest waste of time that she had ever found in her life. It was addicting and it was destructive. She took a deep breath and looked at Blake lying in the bouncer. It was getting late and she should really start considering what she was going to do for the night.
Shantal had found herself looking at Blake and staring at him more than anything else. It was amazing how a baby could take away so much time of your life and how you could be totally fine with just letting hours and days vanish while you watched a tiny little person living their life peacefully.
She wondered if she was ever going to be able to get used to the idea that she had a small human in her life that was completely dependent upon her for keeping him alive. She thought about how unqualified she felt for the role, even after all of the reading she had done about it. She had gone to class after class about how to take care of her child, but she still felt like she wasn’t ready.
There was no getting ready to be a mother and there was no practice run. In fact, there was nothing that really got anyone ready to be a parent other than getting that child placed in their hands and realizing for the first time in their lives that they were responsible for more than just themselves. Being a parent was more than being prepared financially or emotionally for having a child, in fact, that didn’t mean anything in the end.
In the end, she was willing to put her old life behind her and rise to the occasion. She was willing to be something different and something new for the sake of the child that was inside of her. She decided that Blake was going to be ahead of his curve. He was going to have the best set up for life.
She stared at him as he slept, gently picking him up and carrying him to her bedroom where she had a bassinet waiting for him. She was going to be the only one in this fight and that meant there would be no movie scenes in her life where she would roll over and nudge her spouse to get up and take his turn with the baby. No, she was on her own and that meant she was going to be the one in charge. She wasn’t bitter about it and she didn’t have a problem with it. She would learn to adapt.
Setting down a blanket so that Blake wouldn’t roll over onto his back or stomach, she made sure that everything was perfect for him, just like the classes and the books that she had read. She wanted everything to be just right for him and she was nervous for every little thing that might happen to him. She might have been panicking too much, but she wanted to do right by him.
She watched him lying there with his little cap on and swaddled like a little burrito of love and affection, softly sleeping as he breathed quietly, so quietly that she was worried for him. She would constantly hold her fingers over his face to feel the puff of warm breath that would wash over her fingers. She was terrified that he was going to stop breathing and she instantly knew that she wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep whether he woke up crying or not. She was going to be up, worried about him anyway.
It was strange to think that the world was so huge and powerful for little babies to exist inside of it. He was so small and fragile. He wasn’t ready for any of this. She was going to have to make sure she was taking every precaution to make sure that he was safe and well cared for.
“I love you,” she said softly to him.
There was something that made her feel warm and whole inside of her chest, swelling and swirling with a warmth that made her feel as if something in her life was finally right. There was something inside of her that was complete and fulfilled.
She was ready for anything that might come their way, so long as she was going to make sure that he was there, right next to her, through all of it. She just wanted to make sure that he was safe and healthy. She didn’t want there to be any point in her life where she wasn’t aware of what was happening in his tiny, little life. She loved the sight of him, watching him breathe and the world around him moving, waiting for him.
He was going to be a magical little person and she was so excited to see what his personality was like. She was excited to see what he loved and what captivated his little mind. She wanted to know if he was going to be an athlete or if he was going to be an academic. She wanted to know what would make him laugh and what his dreams would be.
She turned and left him in her room, eager to see him when she came back to check on him. She wanted to make sure that everything was locked up and that they were ready for the night when she walked through the apartment, looking for any sign of a mess or trouble. She was paranoid since she had been left pregnant and abandoned by Vincenzo. She couldn’t help but run over images of him inside of her mind, over and over again. She replayed them and thought about how he had seemed so otherworldly and unnatural.
There was something about him that unnerved her that she still couldn’t put her finger on. There was something about him that made her nervous, like he was someone she should truly be afraid of.
Walking into the kitchen, she looked around, feeling the call of ice cream, but she resisted it. Her body had been destroyed by the pregnancy and it was something she was going to work very hard to correct over the coming months and try to avoid having some ice cream as a snack for a while. Of course, she’d done pretty well through her pregnancy, going to the gym and keeping her diet healthy, as well as her cravings would allow.
As she walked into the living room, she shivered, feeling a cold breeze rush over her and she suddenly felt like there was something wrong. She looked back at the room where she had left Blake and her heart started to pound. She rushed back across the living room and gently opened the door as quickly as possible. She had greased the hinges so that she wouldn’t wake him up when she opened the door. As the pale light was cast across the bassinet, she watched him for a moment, making sure that he was safe before she turned and walked back out into the living room, keeping the door open.
Something felt wrong. There was a cold inside of her and she didn’t like it. It was wrong and it was so sudden that she thought maybe there was a window open. She walked to the nearest window and checked it to make sure that everything was okay. It was shut and locked and there was no window open in there.
Walking over to the door, she wondered what she was feeling. What was it that was lurking inside of her that was making her feel so off and like she was in danger. It was the kind of feeling that reminded her of when she was a child and she went to live with her grandparents for a few weeks over the summer with her siblings out in Nebraska.
She had stood in front of an electric fence, sensing the danger and knowing that it was going to hurt. It was like there was this lengthy period of time where all she could feel was the lingering anticipation of the pain and the terror of what would happen before she grabbed the wire.
She opened the door and looked out into the hallway of her building. There was no sign that there was anyone in the hallway and there was nothing that was out of place. There was something about this building that had drawn her to it for the safety features. She knew she was being paranoid and completely unreasonable. All she could think about was that she needed to get a grip on herself.
There was no wire here for her to grab and there was no terror waiting for her. She was just a nervous woman who was lost and scared for the moment. She was going to be just fine and she needed to remember that there were no creatures that went bump in the night. She walked back into her bedroom and looked at Blake as he slept, knowing she needed to be braver than that for his safety. She needed to be strong and not so terrified of things that she didn’t understand.
But, as she watched him and got ready for bed silently, so that she didn’t disturb him, she knew there was something gnawing at her. There was something was bothering her. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.
As she crawled underneath the covers, staring at the bassinet, she couldn’t help but feel like the answer was staring her in the eyes, lurking in the darkness. She felt like there was someone or something watching her, but there was nothing in the room. She was being ridiculous.
* * *
NO MATTER HOW HARD she had planned for the inevitability of this day coming, there was something about the morning catching up with her that she had not been prepared for. It was a ridiculous feeling and she couldn’t help but feel like she had been completely caught off guard as she tried to get to the door as quickly as possible.
What kind of a person wasn’t ready to go back to work after a month of being home and getting ready? She tried her hardest to put her earring into her ear as she opened the door and smiled at Greta.
Greta was the miracle woman who lived in the building with Shantal. She was a bit of an ambitious and hardworking soul who had taken it upon herself to start working harder and harder at becoming someone who worked two jobs. She worked at nights and during the days, she was a babysitter that Shantal had contracted out privately for herself. The other people Greta had worked for only needed her once or twice a week. Shantal had gladly taken up the mantle of being this young girl’s patron.
“Hey Greta,” she said with a smile to the young, twenty three year old who was hoping to be an aspiring painter and wanted to be famous and known all across the planet, but right now, she was working as a babysitter and a clerk at the nearest store.
There was nothing wrong with that and there was something about it that made Shantal feel like she knew someone who would one day be famous. It was a win win situation for both of them.
“Sorry I’m running late,” she said with a placating smile on her face. “I went through the schedule a thousand times, but things are not coming back together as I hoped they would. I’m a million pounds overweight and nothing fits. I’m freaking out.”
“No worries,” Greta said with a soft smile, entering her apartment and acting like they had just met. Greta was a shy girl and Shantal had thought about having her over for dinner sometime to break the tension between them and to get to know the woman that was going to be with her son. “You look fantastic, by the way.”
“You’re sweet,” Shantal said, not buying it one bit. She knew she still looked like a pear, but she was working hard to get rid of it.
Greta was a beautiful little blonde who looked like she might weigh sixty pounds soaking wet and that made Shantal extremely envious and jealous of the beautiful, lithe girl as she sat down on one of the kitchen stools and watched as Shantal got her shoes on and tried her hardest not to look like a spaz while she did it. Greta was kindly patient and Shantal was going to remember that.
“Okay, you know where everything is,” Shantal said, pointing to the fridge and the list of directions they had gone over several times already. “All he does is sleep still, but he’s definitely getting a little more insistent about being fed when he wakes up. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but if there’s any problem, please don’t hesitate. Call me for anything. I’ll probably call you a million times and will drive you insane, but just be patient with me.”
“I will.” Greta chuckled and smiled.
She was the nicest girl to work with and it was the kind of comforting smile that made Shantal feel like she could do this. There was hope for her yet.
Greta came with all the qualifications and responsibility that Shantal knew was going to be vital for her as a babysitter who would watch over Blake while she was at work. Having a babysitter was going to be important for her and there was really no getting around it. Without Greta, her only option was going to be her mother or someone else that she was probably related to and that wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
“Okay,” Shantal grabbed her messenger bag and threw it over her shoulder. She just needed to catch a cab and get to the office. She was still going to be early, because if there was one thing that Shantal understood, it was that things were going to be a disaster in the morning and that she needed to give herself ample time to get ready and get on top of things. “I think I’m all set.”
––––––––
“KNOCK THEM DEAD, SHANTAL,” Greta said with a warm smile.
“Thanks, Greta,” she said, walking over to Blake who was fast asleep and kissing him on the forehead. “I’ll see you tonight, little Prince.”
People at the firm were kind to her, immediately bursting into smiles and congratulations as she walked through, feeling like she was a queen walking upon the land that had been denied her for so long. She couldn’t help but feel like these people were actually glad to have her back.
She was everything they wanted in an employee and she had been gone for a month now. She knew she could have taken more time off, but it was time. It was time to get back into the game and really start to get back to work. It was time for her to start getting her hands dirty again and dive in and make sure that her house was in order since she’d been gone.
Everyone was always so nice to her here and she was one of those people who really, truly enjoyed being appreciated and welcomed back into the fold. She loved her job. This was like her second home and before she’d left on maternity leave, this was everything to her.
Getting back in the saddle was something that had been gnawing away at her for the past week. She was getting paid on maternity leave, but she was paranoid that they would replace her or find ways to operate efficiently without her. She had worked too hard to become a valuable and a vital member of their company and she wasn’t going to give up on that. She wanted there to be something waiting for her and when she walked through those doors, it felt like old times.
She attended the staff meeting for the accounting department and was welcomed back, everyone eager to have another pair of hands that were actually competent and caring toward their job. She wanted to be promoted to the head of the accounting department and make sure that there was a future for her out there. She wanted to rise as high as she could go so that Blake would be able to have anything he wanted.
Back at her desk, she felt right back into the rhythm where she’d left off when she went into labor. She found herself staring at the picture that she placed in the frame on her desk and wondering if her little prince was okay and what he was doing right now. She loved him and her mind drifted to him often. There was something magical about babies that she couldn’t ignore. She called and texted Greta all throughout the day and was relieved to learn, time and time again, that her little Prince was doing just fine and that they were having a good day.
Filling out spreadsheets, reading reports, and making sure that everything was getting caught up on her end of the job, Shantal was glad to see there were people eager to have her back all throughout the day. Her boss had stopped by twice and told her that he was glad to have her back.
She smiled and thanked him, putting her nose to the grindstone and feeling the familiar and exciting motivation of actually having a purpose in the company that she was a part of. She liked having her place and being valuable. Everyone wanted to make sure they were part of a team and she felt like she was one of the stars of the team.
The day picked up and as the hours flew by, she began to realize that she had actually missed coming here and putting in her time. She missed the smell of freshly printed paper and she missed the taste of their myriad of coffee flavors that were waiting for them. She missed all of it and realized this was what she was meant to do. There was something so right about the stability and the comfort that this job offered her. She liked that feeling and she wanted to have it the rest of her life. She wanted to feel safe.
The hours slipped by and as she saw the office beginning to wind down, she saw that she needed to take a few deposits to the bank before they were done and she was eager to take them and get out for the day. She wanted to get home early and she wanted to see her little Prince so that they could sit down and have dinner with each other before he passed out after his two hours of being awake.
She stopped by the bank and made the deposits, clocking out for the day and saying goodbye to her boss who once again told her that he was glad to have her back and she was a sight for sore eyes. She wondered how much he was saying that to hit on her or if he actually missed her.
There was something about him that suggested it might be a little of both, but it was definitely leaning toward one way.
She caught a cab, and was eager to get home and see her little Prince once more. She had been thinking about him all day. It was like life was being viewed and experienced through a filter of little Blake.
As she sat in the cab, she realized nothing was going to make her feel happier than walking through that door and seeing her little man who was moving his arms and feet in the most exploratory and reckless manner that she’d ever seen. There was nothing about him that was graceful yet, but he was still so handsome.
“Why is traffic so bad?” she asked the driver, seeing that there was nothing happening in front of her, but they still weren’t moving. She didn’t understand why they were stopped. She looked out the window and watched a bicyclist roll past them and she knew that they were locked into something pretty heavy.
“I don’t know, some kind of accident probably,” the driver said in a thick accent that she couldn’t quite place. She looked over his shoulder at the back of the van in front of them and she knew that she wasn’t going to find out. Looking out the window, she realized she was only a few blocks away from her apartment building and she figured it would be easy enough to get out here and walk home rather than wait for the traffic to clear up, especially if it was an accident or something like that.
“Here,” she said, paying the driver how much she owed him. “Thanks for the ride, sir.”
“Thank you, Miss,” the driver said halfheartedly as he took her money from her.
She threw open the door to the cab and started to head down the street. It was cloudy overhead and she missed the sunshine, wishing that it would come back.
These were thick, gray clouds that promised rain if they were unlucky.
She liked going to sleep with the sound of the rain falling outside and she knew she wouldn’t be that broken up when she heard it coming down later tonight. In fact, she would probably love it. There was something about the rain that made everything magical around bedtime and she was more than eager to experience it.
As she walked down the street, she could see that there definitely was a wreck up ahead and it didn’t look like there was going to be any getting through the intersection. There was going to be a jam here for quite a while and that made her feel like she’d made the smart decision.
As she was walking, she noticed there was someone ahead of her, coming out of a building that looked like it was a coffee shop or something, that hit her like a ton of bricks. She looked at the man and felt something inside of her. It was like she was having an actual physical reaction to the sight of this man and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to contain herself.
At the sight of him, her blood began to boil and her eyes began to water as she felt a sudden explosion of pure, raw emotion inside of her, roaring and blasting through every fiber of her existence. She knew there was something inside of her that was suddenly and violently awoken as she saw the suave, handsome man wearing sunglasses and walking toward her.
She stood in front of him as he stopped; the look on his face was professional and polite but she knew that there was nothing even close to that look on her face, as the swarms of people passed all around them. She looked at Vincenzo and she knew there was something she owed him.
When her hand made contact with his face, she knew there were hundreds of witnesses who saw the slap and not a single one of them stopped to say a single word to her. She watched his head spin and the expression on his face was suddenly contorted in surprise and understanding that he had probably deserved that slap more than anything he’d ever deserved before. She knew there was something about him that made her do it. She was so furious at him and she was so angry toward him.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face,” she said to him with a disgusted look on her face.
“Now, that’s impolite,” he said to her, checking his lip for any damage that might have happened from the slap that had nearly spun his head.
She looked at him and could feel the rage inside of her, seething and seeping deep inside of her. There was more from where that came from. She was more than willing to give him a taste of what else she had for him.
“What do you want?” she demanded from him, realizing that he had probably heard through the grapevine somehow that he was a father or somehow he’d been tracking her. She began to wonder what she had gotten herself mixed up in. What kind of a man would get information like that so easily? She shuddered at the idea that she might have had a one-night-stand with someone who worked for the police or the CIA or something along those lines.
She didn’t want an all-powerful psycho in her life, watching her while she went about her business. She wanted a normal life.
“We need to talk, Shantal,” he said to her with a tone of voice that made it seem like they’d been playing up to this point and there was something very serious they needed to finally get down to. The thought of talking to him made her mad. She wasn’t going to talk to him, because there was nothing to talk about.
“You couldn’t even make an excuse?” she said to him, feeling all the pent up anger and rage boiling to the surface. “You couldn’t give me some halfhearted lie to let me know you’d had a good night or anything like that? You just had to pack up and leave? You were done with it? You were just going to wipe your hands clean and walk away without saying a thing. You’re the worst possible person that I’ve ever met.”
“Be that as it may, we have business that we need to talk about,” he said to her with a voice that was patient, like he was running out the clock on her anger.
Well, he was going to need a lot of time, because she was furious at him and she wasn’t about to let any of it go easily. She was going to rip him apart for the rest of her life and there was nothing she had to worry about right now that concerned him. She was done with him.
“I don’t care what you have to say to me,” she said to him sternly. “I’m done with you and I don’t need to have any more conversations with you in my entire life. I’m over you and you’re nothing more than a bad memory.”
“As much as that hurts my feelings,” he said with a sarcastic and playful tone, “that doesn’t negate the fact that you’re going to want to hear what I have to say to you. In fact, it’s vital that you take the time to hear what I have to tell you.”
“No,” she said strongly to him, turning away from him and making her way toward her apartment. “Don’t try to follow me or I’ll call the police. I don’t care who you are or what you have to say to me. I’m through with you, Vincenzo.”
She watched him standing there in the gloomy scene of the New York street, watching as the rain started to come down as he looked at her with sunglasses on like he was some pretentious fool who thought that he was too cool for the rest of the world. She couldn’t believe that she had wasted her time with him. What had she been thinking?
She was a block away when she heard the voice.
It sounded like it was coming from inside of her head and it terrified her at first, but the very thought of the voice was enough to make her want to scream in terror. There was something wrong with her and as she heard the voice inside of her head, she thought she had truly gone insane.
“I know about Blake,” the voice in her head said with a sort of ominous whisper, like it was drowning out everything else in the world and she couldn’t escape it.
The very thought of the voice was enough to terrify her, but there was nothing she could do. There was no escaping the voice and she thought it was hunting her.
“I know that we have a child together. I’m sorry that you feel hurt and wronged, but I had no choice. I had to leave you. I had to draw them away from you. They’re drawn to you and Blake. I can sense them coming for you. You’re in danger Shantal. You need to listen to me. We have to meet and talk about this. There is more happening here than you understand.”
Shantal looked over her shoulder and thought she would see him whispering in her ear, but there was no sign of him. He was gone. She rubbed her ear and looked around her, trying to understand where the voice had come from. She looked at everyone who was passing her, wondering if they had heard the voice as well.
It had filled her with dread and she almost thought she had screamed when she had heard it in her mind all of the sudden. She didn’t know how to describe it. She didn’t know what words would actually capture what she had felt inside of her. It was like the voice was speaking and it was completely Vincenzo.
There was no doubting it and no hiding the fact that she had heard Vincenzo. It wasn’t like she had been listening to headphones either. This was the real deal. This was the real voice inside of her and she knew there was something wrong with her. She needed to get it out of her. She needed to get it out right away.
She began to panic and hurried home, clamping her hands over her ears as the rain started to come down. What had he done to her that had made her feel like she was going insane?
She didn’t understand what was happening to her right now and it was scaring her. She thought she was going to die. This wasn’t just a case of mental trauma and it wasn’t a case of hysteria or anything like that. Vincenzo had actually done something to her and she was not physically well right now. She was not doing well at all.
Opening the door to her apartment, she smiled at Greta who took one look at her and knew there was something wrong. Her plans of having a nice, quiet night were officially shot to hell, because she knew she would be going over the events inside of her mind again and again.
“Hi, Greta,” she said with a soft smile on her lips. “Thank you so much for everything you did for me today.”
“No problem, Miss King,” she said with a soft, assuring smile. “He was perfect. I didn’t have a single problem with him.”
“Good,” Shantal looked over at the bouncer where her son was clearly having the time of his life, staring at her with his precious little face. She handed Greta her check for the day and smiled at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you for everything that you did today, Greta.”
“It was my pleasure,” Greta said kindly and walked out into the hallway, offering one more nervous glance over her shoulder before she headed on her way.
Shantal shut the door behind her and instantly knew she was not going to survive the night if she kept thinking about Vincenzo and what had just happened.
She was going to need to have some support through the night. She knew once Blake was down for the evening she was going to crack open a bottle of wine and enjoy the little bit of courage it gave her.
“How are you doing, my little Prince?” she asked him, scooping up her son and cradling him.
“He’s beautiful,” the voice returned to her mind and she instantly froze, looking at the tired face of her son, seeing that he was winding down for the evening. “He’s the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen, Shantal. I’ll come to you tonight. We should talk about his future and his safety.”
Blake didn’t last for much longer. He was awake for another hour before he was finally grumpy and ready to have his dinner. She fed him the small two ounce bottle and burped him before giving him a bath and setting him down in his bassinet, warm and snug for the night.
She didn’t want to think about letting Vincenzo into this house, but there was something inside of her that wanted answers. If he didn’t show up tonight, then she was going to know she had gone crazy, but if he did, then she knew she was in trouble.
The moment she stepped out of her room, she heard two sharp knocks on the door to her apartment and she froze. There was no way this was happening. What was he, some sort of magical creature? She slowly approached the door and looked through the peephole and saw him standing there in the hallway, carved out of marble and waiting for her. She cautiously gripped the door handle and contemplated her options.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice inside of her mind echoed, whispering as it rolled around in there, uninvited.
She slowly opened the door and looked at Vincenzo who had taken off his sunglasses and was standing in front of her as charming and as regal looking as he had ever looked. She hated that his physical presence made her ache and want him so badly. There was something wrong with her. She knew she was a glutton for emotional punishment now. There was no doubt about it.
Closing the door behind her, she looked at him and waited for some kind of natural response so this would all make make sense to her. She didn’t know what he could say to her that was going to make it any clearer or more understandable to her, but she had to find out what was happening.
“What do you want?” she asked him nervously.
“I want to clear up some things for you,” he said, looking at her. “First things first, you should know that you’re in danger. Both of you are. The night I slept with you, I was on the run from some very sinister figures and unfortunately, they have all picked up on you by now and they know Blake is my son. My attempt to protect you and draw them away has failed, but you clearly don’t want or need my help, so I’ll just keep our contact to information delivery.”
“How am I hearing your voice inside of my head?” she asked him.
She was nervous to know the answer to that particular question and it was enough to make her think that she was going insane. There was no way that you could talk to someone without using your voice, she thought. What she had just experienced was something out of a science fiction movie.
“I am vampire, Shantal,” he said with all seriousness.
She looked at the features on his handsome, pale face and she half expected him to burst out laughing at the absurdity of it, but there was no smile, no jolly delight hidden away behind his eyes, and there was no humor in his voice.
It was all completely serious and there was something inside of her that genuinely believed the man she had been sleeping with was vampire. She didn’t know what was more disturbing to her, the fact that he had just told her this or that she genuinely believed him.
“You’re a vampire?”
She took a step back from him, remembering that vampires were not something that you wanted to stick around and get to know. She didn’t like thinking that she was standing next to a living corpse, either. The thought of it was beginning to unnerve her as she looked at him and tried to figure out what she was hearing. Her mind was trying to process it.
“Allergic to sunlight,” he said with a smile. “Addicted to blood, cold to the touch, ability to read and speak to other minds, and I never age. I’m not sure what else I can tell you, but I am truly vampire. I never age and I never die. I don’t know how it’s possible, so don’t bother wasting your time asking. All I know is that for hundreds of years, I have been wandering the earth and you’re the first woman that I’ve ever been with—”
“Bullshit,” she shook her head, not sure which part of it she was calling out as a lie, but she felt like there were significant parts of this story that weren’t true.
“Who has ever gotten pregnant,” he finished, looking at her with a confused expression on his face. He furrowed his brow and looked at her as her heart began to pound faster and faster. “I can hear your heart, you need to calm down. You’re going to have a heart attack if you don’t’ start to calm down. I’m serious. What do you need?”
“Wine,” she said to him very seriously, turning away from him and grabbing a bottle of it from her wine rack and starting to open it when it all came crashing down. “I can’t believe I had a child with a vampire.”
“Really? You’re accepting it without any need for proof?” He chuckled and walked silently past her. “There are more subtle things. I don’t have a shadow, I don’t make a sound when I walk, and I don’t have a reflection in mirrors. Most of the legends are true, but they’re kind of a grab bag wherever you go. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”
“Why are you here?” she asked him. “Why would you tell me this?”
She poured herself a glass of wine and quickly took a strong drink from it and watched him, trying her hardest to convince herself that she wasn’t going to die and she was going to be completely and totally safe around him. If he wanted to kill her, he could have easily done it any time before now.
“Because you’re in danger,” he said to her very adamantly. “I’m here to offer my skills and services to you in your defense, but it doesn't sound like you’re interested in them. If you’re curious as to what’s hunting you, well, I’ll tell you that it’s other vampires. They’re the kind of vampires who don’t mind who they hurt or who gets in their way; they’re going to stop you at any cost.”
“You need to leave,” she said to him, starting to regain her senses. She wasn’t going to believe this. She suddenly realized that all of this was stupid and childish. She wasn’t going to buy into any of it. In fact, she was going to get him out of there as quickly as possible and she was never going to look back. This was the kind of childish stuff that naïve girls bought into.
“You’re kicking me out?” he asked her with a furrowed brow. “But, you’re in danger.”
“No, I’m not,” she said strongly to him. “Get out and I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Fine,” he said, nodding after a moment of silence. He thought about what she had said to him and clearly from the expression on her face, she was not going to buy into any of it. His little ruse had failed and she wasn’t going to do any of this. She wasn’t going to play foolish idiot.
She’d fallen for his tricks once before and she wasn’t going to do it again. He reached into his pocket and fished out a card.
“If you change your mind, for any reason, you can reach me at this number.” He placed the card on the counter and she knew that she was going to tear it up the moment he left.
“Please don’t do that,” she heard in that strange inner voice of hers and she flinched at the intrusion.
“Get out,” she demanded, pointing at the door and insisting that he leave her once and for all.
“I’ll go,” he said willingly, walking toward the door and opening it.
He looked back at her one last time and she knew there was something he wanted to say to her, but she wasn’t going to hear it. She wasn’t going to buy any of it. The one thing she wanted now more than anything was to get him out of there and never have to deal with him again. He was the kind of malicious presence in her life that she wasn’t going to need. In fact, she was going to be much better off without him around her.
When the door closed, she felt herself exhale and she quickly finished her glass of wine before pouring another one. As she drank it, she contemplated the pros and cons of getting rid of that card, but something inside of her stayed her hand. One day, Blake might want to know his father and even if the man was a psycho, Blake would deserve that right. This might be the only way to ever get a hold of him. She stuffed it in her purse and refused to think about it.
*