The Winged Dare [COMPLETED]

Chapter Seventeen

1:00 PM

"Can I ask ya somethin'?" Clawd questioned. 

"If it deals with why I'm leaving, no," Laura said. 

"Nope."

"Then ask away," she said. 

"Why are we in a tree?"

"Well, you're here because you followed me," she said. 

"All right, I'll give ya that one. But why are you up here?" he asked. 

She sighed. "When I was little, like... before my dad turned me into a vampire, my mom and I were chased out of town by the village people. We had come from a bigger town, I could talk to the dead... They thought we were witches. And my mom... The villagers knocked her down, knocked my baby brother out of her hands. 

"She told me to run, to grab my brother and run. And I tried to, I really did... But they..." She inhaled sharply, a ritual she had taken on to stop herself from crying. 

"They lit my brother on fire. Two years old. Just... fire," she whispered. "And then I ran. I ran fast and hard and for as long as I could. I reached this tree, long before the town was here. The town used to just be my dad's house. That's one of the reasons it's the biggest house in town. 

"But I climbed the tree, sat on this very branch, and waited. I was up here for nine days before the villagers found me. They tried climbing, but I was too high up. There was a shout. I know now that it was my dad. He had seen the fire the  villagers were carrying. I mean, it was night, they were on his property. 

"He looked up and saw me. He realized what they were doing. That night, I watched my dad kill over thirty village people in under five minutes. He climbed up the tree, pulled me into his arms, told me it would be okay. Even with blood dripping from his fangs... I believed him. After all, I didn't have anyone else to believe. That was when I fainted from lack of food, water, and sleep. Honestly, I probably fainted from being traumatized, too. 

"When I woke up, he was sitting at the end of my bed. He explained that I would be living with him. He would take care of me... He said I had been out for a week, that I had been too sick. He had turned me into a vampire, refusing to lose a child that he had saved. He adopted me, I guess..." She sighed. 

"Ever since that night, this tree has been my safe place. It's my dad's property, so I could force people to leave if I wanted to be alone. And most monsters can't climb it. Vampires and werewolves can, but not much else. The branches are too thick to reach the high ones by flying. It's how I know Caleb can't get to me." 

"Damn," Clawd whispered. "You've got, a, uh... different background than I'm used to," he said. 

"Besides my dad, you're the only one that knows," she said quietly. 

"I'm sorry ya went through that, Laura," he said.

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter." She sighed again. "That's the second reason that I came here. I wanted to say goodbye to the place that helped me meet my dad. I'm leaving town, getting a new number... no one will be able to find me, including my dad. 

"I'll always find ya," Clawd mumbled. 

"What was that?" Laura asked. 

"Nothin'. I didn't say nothin'."

She  dropped down to the branch he was sitting on. "Seriously, what'd you say?" she asked.

Too afraid to answer with words, Clawd cupped a hand behind her neck and pressed his lips to hers.