Mateless and Home Bound

Chapter 34: Love is Confusing

This was all so confusing. He didn't know what to think about waking up that morning. It was nice feeling those arms around him, and he still couldn't get over the tingles that flew all through his body. But there was so much chaos that happened that day that there really wasn't much time to talk about it.

Some of that day was Max coming in and asking him what he knew about vampires and their history in the forest. Sage really didn't know too much about them. His grandma always warned him about them but there weren't too many stories she told him of vampires.

"I wouldn't worry too much about them, though," Sage said. "They were a part of the ones that were banned from getting into the forest. They shouldn't be allowed in the forest ever again."

"That's what your grandmother said?" Max asked him.

"Yeah," Sage told him. "They wound up double-crossing the others in the forest. For betraying the innocent, they repay with never stepping foot in the forest again. While the others only had a set time before they could come back to live in the trees, the vampires could never do so again."

"Were there any exceptions?"

"Not that I was told," he shook his head. "Why?"

That was when he was told that there was one in the forest. It was another thing that confused him, because it went against everything that he was taught. There had to be something else to it, but that book that his grandmother wrote all of her stories in was all the way in her hut, and there was no way that he was going to venture out there anytime soon.

The last couple of days were different than when he first came. The happiness had turned into worry as everyone spread the news about the newest enemy and what happened to Charlie. He couldn't imagine anyone doing something like that to him. Charlie was the happiest person he had ever met, even with all of the pack worrying about him. It just didn't make sense why anyone would hate him enough to kill him. And the vampire didn't even bite him, which was a miracle.

"It was really strange," Charlie told him. He had told everyone who asked the story, just so there wouldn't be any misinterpretation. "But I still don't think he was the one who hurt me."

"What do you mean?" Sage asked.

"Well, I can't remember much because my vision was really blurry," he furrowed his eyes and looked down. "But I remember something that was red right above me."

"Something red?" Sage stopped him right there. Reggie must have thought that there was something wrong, because his back immediately went straighter.

"Yeah," he sighed. "I've been trying to remember what it looked like for the past few days."

"You shouldn't try and force it," Eric said. He had been following Charlie around recently. Charlie was never seen by himself now, even though he was just walking around the house. There was always someone who followed him everywhere he went. It seemed a little much, but it was cute seeing just how many people cared for the man.

"I feel like if I stop thinking about it, I'll forget entirely," Charlie put his hand on his head. "I thought it was going to go into my stomach. Then it just disappeared."

Sage remembered something like that. It was a memory that he had been shoving to the back of his head ever since he got here. He didn't want to think about it, but it was too similar to what Charlie had to go through.

"Could it have been a knife?" he asked. All of them looked at him. While Charlie still looked a bit confused, Reggie seemed to pick up on what Sage was thinking.

"I guess it could have been," Charlie said. "I don't know for sure, though. That's the problem."

"Those hunters," Sage told him. "One of them tried to stab me with a red knife. They were trying to stab me in the stomach before Reggie came and tackled them."