Grasp Heart

Chapter 8: Mutual Dislike? I smell a Romance!

Dr. Warde's call never came. I'd kept my own and fake-father's phones on my all day, but neither rang. The police officer I'd been expecting to write up a report hadn't reached out either.

But scouring the local parks websites, I discovered why: it had been a busy weekend for local wildlife. Perhaps, in the wake of the other animal attack that had occurred a few hours after my own incident, I'd been put on the back burner. With two hikers found dead, mauled, I couldn't blame them.

With humans nowadays so-far removed from their wild origins, their instinctual common sense was lost. I sighed, turning a page in Pride and Prejudice without really reading. There wasn't much I could do against grizzly bears; my family only took action against supernatural threats.

Throughout the day Sunday, my body ached and burned, protesting the re-assimilation of venom. It couldn't be helped; I felt itchy and uneasy without heightened senses. Granted, they weren't to the level of a true vampire's senses, but were enough to give me an edge.

When Monday morning came about, pain-free, I was relieved. Sniffing at the air, I relished in the fact that I could once again smell the crisp, rounded scent of morning-dew. As for my wound; the stitches sloughed like dirt under a faucet as the seam underneath melted-smooth. With a healthy coat of gauze, I hid the spot from view. Not that it mattered. Prying eyes weren't present as Monday proved to be another sunny day.

It wasn't until overcast-Tuesday that the vampiric stink returned. When I leaned against the trunk of my Jeep with the others, as had become our ritual on non-rainy days, I wrinkled my nose.

"What's the matter?" Trevor asked, tilting his head to examine my expression.

Catalina and Alissa looked about.

"The air is especially cold today," I said with a shrug, watching the familiar powder-blue prius and a dark BMW park side-by-side just across the way.

From inside of each emerged the ticks. Five of them. The three so-called highschoolers and the two others. They gathered together between the two cars in a loose circle, much like us, and engaged in some idle chatter.

I couldn't quite make it out without a sense-augmentation glyph. It was a certainty, however, that they could hear us. Every so often, I felt a set of predatory eyes flick my way and was grateful I'd parked close to the entrance where a significant number of other students idled.

"It's starting to get chilly in the mornings; speaking of, are you thinking about who you'd like to get to know?" Trevor probed, "You know, for the winter formal?"

With a last minute turn, I managed to hide my flinch but I caught Alissa rolling her eyes instead. She grimaced at me.

"Maybe," I said carefully, then a small smirk formed on my lips.

The blond female leech parted from her group, moving past us in order to throw out a crumpled receipt from her car-door.

"Really?" Catalina wondered, leaning in excitedly toward me, "Who?"

"Oh... well I was thinking of getting to know Leo Warde better," I pondered with mock-disinterest.

The blond female seized slightly as she passed. Ah, so that one was her mate. Allie raised a skeptical eyebrow at me, her disapproval redirecting but the nasal warning-bell rang.

"Oh, he's dating Anne,"Cat cautioned me, anxiously glancing at the blond woman as she returned to the car. "And Kira's dating Samuel."

"All the good looking people seem magnetized to each other or something, "Allie rolled her eyes.

"Oh, then maybe I'll ask Mason."

Allie and Cat stared as if I'd grown a second head.

"Don't you think you've bothered him enough?" Trevor asked, frowning.