Infected

Chapter 22

I thought it would be best for my sanity to go to bed, just like yesterday when the information I was taking in had been too much for my brain to handle. It would also give Galen some time to himself, away from the person he's risking his life for who shows no gratitude. I lay restlessly on top of the covers, staring up at the velvet canopy of the four-post bed, and sleep never comes. I tried for hours to meditate, to clear my head of all matters vampire, but all I could think of is someone breaching the perimeter again. It's like I could feel them, waiting on the edge for the right moment to attack, their eyes locked on my thudding heart while only sensing the man they were hired to kill.

By definition of being cured, paranoia shouldn't be something that's going through my body right now, but alas, the world has funny ways of fucking me over.

My life before the accident wasn't complex. I had family trauma, immediate and distant, but it didn't affect my daily life. I went to work, came home, spent time with my cousin, and then went to sleep. It was rinsed and repeated for three years, no ebbs and flows or dislodging things made me stray from the habit. Morbidly I planned to retire a nurse, unwed and childless, and die in my sleep with nothing to reflect on.

Now, I didn't know what was going to happen next. And I hate that.

I have no control, nothing to predict. I can't even go downstairs without something insane and deadly creeping around the corner.

The constant feeling of anxiety over having an uncertain future forced me out of the bed. I wrap a quilt around my body for security and go downstairs.

The house is dark at this hour of the night, save for a few lamps casting a yellow glow on the floors to stop me from smashing into the walls. I go down the hall opposite where the kitchen would lead, feeling the cold grooves of the floor on my barefoot warm as I continue towards the ajar door.

It's a library of sorts, nothing like you'd read about in fairy tales, but massive nonetheless. Each of the four walls is lined with built-in shelves, filled with books, tchotchkes, and picture frames. It makes me envious knowing the dinky department bookcase that held my favorite words in my bedroom could never grow to this size. In the middle of the large room, on a red and brown antique rug, is a set of dark leather couches, with blankets of various colors tossed over the edges and decorative pillows in the corners. A matching reading chair is facing away from me, occupied by someone with a bent head.

Galen's dirty blond hair glows from the roaring flames in the fireplace in front of him, damp from a recent shower and curling at the heat that surrounds us. He lifts his gaze and looks back at me, smiling, "I was wondering when you'd wander around the house and find this room."

"You've been holding out on me. If I knew there was a library in this place I would've been more complacent."

"You can't lie to me, Elle. You still would've found a way to leave."

He gets up, closes the book he'd been reading, one that's old and barely holding on to its binding, and takes an empty glass from the small table by his chair. He's wearing black sweats and a loose blue shirt, once again looking nothing like his age.

I take off the quilt I'd been using to keep warm and toss it onto the couch. I begin strolling along the walls. He has all kinds of books stored in this room, philosophy and medicine, of course, but also art, history, and biographies. I smile as I reach the section meant for classics and a particular one catches my eye. I pull it from its place.

"Dracula?"

"It's entertaining to hear the ravings of a fanatic." He says innocently.

I leaf through the pages, seeing the notes he's scrawled along the edges. He does the same thing to his readings as Quin, writing down his thoughts about what's laid before him, "Did he get anything correct?"