Chapter 7 Mind

FRIDAY

My mind had been frantic throughout out the night. I had done something unforgivable not to mention killing clan blood in the process. Wasn't I supposed to not be able to feel love or to care? Wasn't I supposed to be unfeeling, unnerving? Then why did I save her? I thought I didn't have a heart since the night of my impurification but now, the thought of a vampire and a human falling in love had been pasted on my mind and nothing that I did could pry my thoughts from her beautiful face. I quickly pushed the thoughts away and locked them up in the deepest darkest corner of my mind.

I could still hear her echoing screams, and the image of her pale, terrified face was smeared on the front of my vision. My palms were sweaty, in fact; I had been in a nervous state since last night… I put my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out the hard rectangular card; it was a student ID card. It had fallen out of her purse when I saved her from her nigh death. Dawn, her name was Dawn. The face on the ID looked much younger than the girl I had saved but I could see the evident resemblance.

One question still troubled my mind though, it was like an ache in my head that wouldn't go away no matter how hard I tried not to think about it; would she love me if she knew what I was, a demon, a monster, a vampire?

I was alone, good! If I looked any of them in the eye I was sure they'll see the guilt and fear that was swirling in me. The only thing that troubled me more than the fact that I had violated a general clan hunt was the fact that she knew about our existence now, and only God knows how long it will be before the others found out. And killed her along with me.

It was evening the next day. I stayed in my room thinking about what I had done the night before. I needed to clear my head and nothing worked better than a good old walk down the block—that sounds familiar. The only problem was how to shake off Tia. She wouldn't let me out of her sight for up to five minutes. It was almost six in the evening and Leya wasn't back from school. The others didn't seem to care, she was stronger than a fully grown man—and I was sure stronger than seven put together—so we had nothing to worry about. She could take care of herself.

I glanced at the window. It was getting dark and Jhan wasn't at home and whenever Jhan wasn't at home, mostly, Jereum wouldn't be at home either so I could be a bit freer. I hadn't eaten in a long time and normal food tasted and smelt like mud and spice, something I had actually eaten to compare. I went down to the parlour, Tia's attention seemed to be swallowed up by the book she held in front of her face but I could see her glance at me from the corner of her eye. My plan to sneak away could wait a little longer but not too long.

The main door opened and Jereum stepped in. He wore identical silver boots to the ones the adjudicator was wearing, and I could see smears of blood on his jacket. He looked at me, I carefully looked at the crimson stains on his clothing. Then he looked at Tia, she put down the book and looked at him carefully.

"Tyrants?" She asked.

"Yeah, one of them almost got away though, good thing Jhan was there to take 'em out," He said, "they had an unauthorized clam hunt yesterday night"—a knot tied in my stomach—"but we rounded them up."

"Where is Jhan?" I asked.

"None of your business," He snapped.

"You have to stop Jereum,' Tia said, "it's not fair the way you treat him."

She probably felt guilty for the way she had treated me yesterday.

"Yeah, he'll get used to it." And he tramped up the stairs without another word.

So the clan hunt was illegal after all, and that means that saving that girl may not have been a violation. I felt a slight relief at that but the images of the burning skeleton of that vampire crept into my mind and it froze me on the spot for just a moment.

"Is Leya back from school?" Jereum shouted over the distance, snapping me out from my reminiscence.

"No, not yet," Tia said.

Silence fell in the room and the only sound that could be heard was the clocking of the vintage grandfather clock that stood at the corner of the room.

After a few minutes. "You didn't need to that Tia," I said.

"I just... He shouldn't treat you like that. It's not fair to you," She said, looking at me amorously and she leaned in closer.

I let a few seconds pass by.

"Thank you," I said, and she nodded. I looked at the open window. It was getting darker now. 'A walk around the block won't hurt,' I thought.

"I want to go out Tia," I said, still looking at the window.

"Okay, where to?" She asked. As if yesterday hadn't happened, she was just ready to forget all about it.

"Let's just take a walk, maybe just down the street," I said.

She looked sceptic, but I knew I wasn't asking for too much.

"Okay, just down the streets alright." She said.

"Deal," I agreed.

We left the house and got to the roads. A few people walked pass us, probably heading to the other parts of town because this street was scarcely occupied by both human and vampire.

We walked slowly, and I used the time to take in the view of the environment. It was a peaceful area, although I knew that was because of the vampires that secretly dominated this town. Vampires lived in perfect peace, except for some tyrants. We didn't need to rob or kill each other. We coexisted together without violence.

We walked down the streets. From the corner of my eyes, I could see Tia nervously glancing at me.

"So... About the higher court," I said, "they said something about a squad of elites."

"Oh, yes, about that... It's like a team of vampires, Supreme, ordinary and Abnormals that have exceptional battle skills and training. Supreme vampires are easily adopted into their team because of their increased strength, speed, agility, tolerance to wood and all those other abilities you have. Same goes for vampires who possess the mind's-eyes—"

"So is Jhan amongst them?" I asked her.

"Yes. Jhan, Jereum and I are all elites."

We were turning a corner and I didn't even notice until I had bumped into someone. I was startled, put on high alert. Everything around slowed down, this was my dialled up speed in action, just like the time I fought the tyrants. I looked at who I had hit, it was a girl. She looked to be about Tia's age. She was falling backwards, slowly.

I spotted the mp3 music player she had plugged in her ears, falling in-between us. She must have dropped it when we hit. Not wasting any more time, I grabbed her mp3 player and then grabbed her by the waist. Everything returned back to normal and the girl wore a mixed expression of shock and surprise on her face.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. She didn't answer me, just looked at me straight in the eyes. Her hands were around my neck; she must have flung them out in a vague attempt to balance herself and caught hold of me.

I recognized her; it was the girl I had saved yesterday night. Her breathing was heavy and I could hear her quickened pulse. She straightened herself and that's when I noticed the grey turtle neck sweater she wore, probably to hide the slashes on her neck.

Like Tia, she had blue eyes. I looked into her eyes, those same eyes that had been heavy and laden with tears and dread yesterday now looked at me with perplexity.

Her blonde hair was packed to a point tail that fell to her shoulder length. Above all, she looked nervous and disoriented, like as if she had just survived a hundred meter fall.

"Here's your…err…device." I handed the mp3 to her; she still held eye contact and seemed to be heavily dazed. With a shaky hand, she took the mp3 from me and muttered, "thank you."

Something filled the air around me, a nice smell. I thought it was her perfume but then I realized what it was. The metallic smell of blood immediately clouded my nostrils. Something inside, some beastly crave came alive. I began to hear her pulse clearly and my vision seemed to blur so I blinked back severally, pressing my palms to my eyes. When I opened my eyes again I saw, blurrily, a red throbbing artery along her neck.

At that point I wanted something, something I wasn't quite sure about. I perceived her blood and the smell awoke an urge in me. An urge to rip away her neck and drink the blood that will gush out of he body as she bled and died.

"Kaldar!" Tia said firmly. Snapping me out of the trance as I had been staring at her neck all this while.

"Are you okay?" The girl asked, not taking her eyes off mine. I felt a strange warmth work it's through me. I begun to sweat and drool uncontrollably.

The urge was getting stronger with every second I stood close to her. My eyes started to water and my chest felt like a heavy load had been placed upon it. My throat ran painfully dry and the urge to quench my thirst with her blood was consuming me.

I stepped back. I could still perceive her delicious blood, so I took more steps back but the smell of blood was still in the air. The smell seemed to be following me, clouding thickly around me.

"Are you okay?" She asked again.

I nodded frantically, holding my breath so I do not perceive her blood anymore. Tia walked to me, she produced a small cloth from the pocket of her joggers pants and pressed it onto my nose. The cloth had no smell exactly, but as I breathed it in, a stinging sensation filled my nose that immediately started to die down the aroma that had filled my nostrils.

"Step back and don't take that off your nose," She whispered it so low a normal person would not be able to hear her.

"Okay." I said through the cloth and nodded.

I took a few more steps back I tried to take the image of ripping her throat away out of my mind. I could still hear them talk from where I stood.

"Hey," Tia said. The girl smiled at Tia who was smiling as always.

"Is he your friend?" She asked Tia, staring at me from where she stood.

"Err... Yeah, he's my friend. He'll be staying with us from now on," Tia said.

"Oh, okay," The girl said.

"Is he okay?" She asked, keeping her voice low.

"Err… Yeah he is, he has slight asthma," Tia lied.

"Oh," She said, looking at me. At this point I was sweating so much beads of sweat dropped from my chin and onto my jacket. I was getting weaker with every breath I took in from the cloth, getting too weak to even feel the urge for blood anymore.

"Anything wrong with your car?"

"Oh, that. I had an accident yesterday. Though I don't really remember it, my heads still a bit fuzzy after all."

"Sorry. It's good to see you didn't get hurt."

"Yeah. I suppose." She was still looking at me but I averted my eyes. Didn't want to spark any form of recognition to her.

"I'll see you around Tia." She said and started to walk away. She walked past me and I watched her walk a distance away before she glanced back over her shoulders, looking at where I stood.

Once she was gone I took the cloth away from my nose but I could still perceive her unique scent. Her scent was strong, I could follow trace.

Tia heaved out a breath in relief as she to me. "Let's get you inside Kaldar." She slung my arm over her shoulder, leading me back to the house.

"What happened to me Tia?" I asked.

"Kaldar this is why we kept you locked up in that attic for two months. You cannot control your urge for human blood yet—I guess two months wasn't long enough."

"Tia, you won't tell Jhan will you?" I asked her.

"No, nothing bad happened anyway. It will be our little secret," She said.

"Tia?"

"Yeah."

"What was that girl's name?" I had already recognized her, her name was Dawn but I just wanted confirmation. There was mistaking that frightened beautiful face anyway.

She paused, allowing some minutes of calm silence to fall between us.

"Dawn… Her name is Dawn…"