Faith and The Vampire ✔️

Chapter Eighteen

Behind thick defensive walls, the castle revealed a maze of artistic rooms. We strode towards a dining hall in the middle of the castle. A candlelight dinner was set up in the dining hall. It was said that Vlad the Impaler dipped his bread in buckets of blood. This man was sick. So much for expanding taste buds.

It was also said that Vlad was extremely particular about his choice of glassware for meal time. He was known for inviting guests to feasts and then having them impaled. Good thing for me, I was Muslim, I wouldn't eat anything here unless they were halal.

"How was work?" he asked me, still observing the glassware on the long dinner table.

"All good."

"Aisha didn't know that you're work there, did she?"

I swallowed. How did he always know everything? I nearly stomped my feet. It seemed to me like I couldn't hide anything from him, it's the worst. I couldn't bare to see his eyes.

"Why do you ask?"

He glanced at me. "She came to me, last week, after my course." He paused. "She thought you were with me, for the course. Or either doing too much worksheet so you would come home late,every night."

Panic shot through me. "Then....what—what did you say to her?"

"I told her the truth." The shock that my face must have shown made him smile. "I told her that our course was on Tuesday and Thursday, other than that, you must be doing worksheet, or assignments for classes."

I sighed in relief. Well, he technically didn't lie, but he didn't spoil everything either.

"Thanks." I said in a small voice.

"You can thank me later. Why didn't you tell her?" he started to walk again. "She seemed worried about you."

"I can't."

He tilted his head to better look at me, making some of his shoulder-length hair blow into his face. His hair was brown. He brushed the unruly strands aside, only to have them immediately blow back into his face.

"If I told her, she'll be worried all the time, she'll feel guilty and......" I had trouble for saying what was on my mind.

He didn't say anything. He waited for me, watching me carefully. Under that gaze, I felt like I could blurt everything out to him. All the feelings I felt, the secrets I kept—and it's scary.

"Do you know how I survived last summer?"I asked, not meeting his eyes.

I could feel his gaze on me. He stared at me, waiting what I was about to say next.

"I stayed with Aisha's uncle and aunt in their house for all summer long. And somehow they managed to get me a job at a Lebanese Halal restaurant."

Scholarship beneficiaries were provided with monthly scholarship, money for our daily life and the accommodation expenses in the student dormitories, the dorm itself. These facilities were granted throughout the study period,but not during the summer vacation. If students had to stay at the faculty during the summer vacation for curricular activities or if there are specific legal provisions, the rights were maintained during the summer vacation. Since I was still a freshman, I had nothing to do with the faculty, except the fact that I pissed them off for failing my language proficiency test. My rights for those facilities was suspended during summer.

It's not that I was ungrateful or I didn't like Geckil family. I liked them, they're great. Too good to be true even. Aisha's uncle, Doctor Geckil, was a Pulmonologist. Not only that he was also a very respected Muslim cleric and an imam in Bucharest. Her aunt was a midwife. They didn't have children so Aisha was treated like their own. And she apparently found her uncle and aunt to be more like her own parents than her real ones.