Take Courage, My Heart

Chapter Eleven

It started at some point in the mid-afternoon hours. I was sitting on Kei's and Ezra's bed –their room was next to mine– alongside Annerose, looking at Kei who pulled clothing pieces out of his closet and showed them off to me. He gave me free rein to take whatever I wanted for myself, assuring me that he needed to freshen up his wardrobe. I still dismissed most of them, not wanting to take his things but also not liking them stylistically to pick them. Kei loved baggy, colorful clothes and well, I had always been one to prefer more tight-fitting, dark-toned clothes. At one point, Annerose had told me that we would be going out to buy new stuff as soon as I got over the hardest part of my turn.

It was a little bit after she had commented that when I felt it. Almost as if my body was reminded of it, a weird tickling settled on my stomach. It was like rippling, moving from my stomach up to my chest and I started paying attention to it the moment it reached up to my nose. Pressure that was close to pain erupted in the middle of my face, by the bone right behind my nostrils. Kei noted it first, seeing me twitch my nose subconsciously.

"Go get Leander and Ezra," he told Annerose, dropping the knitted baby blue sweater he was holding to the floor and moving towards the bed. Annerose stood up from the bed but didn't move immediately, looking between us quizzically. "He's starting to turn," he explained urgently and smiled at me.

Immediately, Annerose bolted out of the room and I reached up to rub my nose.

"How do you... know?" I asked him. Kei kept his smile up and pushed my hand away, softly touching the area next to my nostrils and massaging my upper jaw.

"That pressure that's bothering you; your fangs are coming out," he said and his thumbs that were on my face moved higher up to my cheekbones and pressed down hard. I winced back and opened my mouth to reply, but before I could tell him to stop it, Leander, Ezra, and Annerose appeared at the door.

"Kei... I've got this," Leander said and came inside the room, eyes solely on me and moving with hesitancy in his steps. The pressure moved down from my nostrils to the roots of my upper teeth. "Hey, Jesse. Could you open your mouth for me?"

I didn't bother nodding. Instead, I let my jaw hang open, closed my eyes, and tried to distract myself from the pain that seemed ever-growing. Leander reached into my mouth carefully, the side of his fingers brushed against my lip and before I could figure out what he was doing he took one of my teeth between his thumb and index finger and shook it. It had started to come loose, but there was still some resistance. Momentary relief flitted across Leander's features. He looked over to Ezra.

"Help me," he said and looked back at me. "We need to get you as far away from the outside world as possible." For some reason, he was whispering. "Can you stand?"

"I think so," I said and at once regretted it. As it would appear, my mouth was not happy with talking.

With Leander's help, I managed to get on my own two feet but walking proved to be harder than I remembered. Ezra had to join Leander and help keep me up. My feet were heavy and my muscles refused to listen to orders. In the end, Leander and Ezra had to pick me off the ground and lead me away.

They led me to a large bathroom that was on the first floor. It wasn't attached to a bedroom and it didn't have a window, only a large shower, an enormous countertop by the sink, and a luxurious toilet. The two vampires got me inside and let me rest against the wall by the toilet. Leander disappeared for a moment and returned holding onto a towel, an empty cup, and a serrated knife.

"Out," he barked at the three vampires that were hovering by the door, looking at me with mild concern. They all listened to Leander and stepped back enough for him to close the door without hurting anyone.