Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Fifteen

What happened afterwards reminded me of CSI. People swarmed the scene afterwards, men and women dressed in all black barred people from entering the area as one of them pulled myself and Ife up from the carpet of glass.

"Thanks for that," Ife said, voice shaking as we were led away to Doc who was waiting with his briefcase. It reminded me of an old-time house call.

"No problem," I answered, amazed at how steady my voice was. I didn't think it would help me though, to remind her that she hadn't been the target.

"Let's see," Doc pushed his glasses farther up onto his nose and gestured to two folding chairs for us to sit in. "Either of you feeling faint or weak?"

"No," I replied and I saw Ife shake her head no as well.

Doc's cold finger pressed against my neck, checking my pulse. He's checking for signs of shock, I realized. "I don't think I'm going into shock," I informed him.

"I know," he answered as he secured a blood pressure cuff around my arm. "That's what's strange to me. That's a very frightening event that just occurred." He began pumping the cuff with air and it tightened around my arm like a python. "Most people would have had some sort of reaction when a moment of safety is destroyed like that."

"I have not felt safe since that vampire attacked me," I answer, voice much colder than I intended. I hated it, but despite my newfound resolve to try and make the best of my current situation, my bitterness remained. I did not want to be here at Lockwood Manor, I wanted to go out into the sun and go back to Sunview and my crappy apartment. I wanted to finish my senior year and don my ugly yellow graduation robes come spring. I wanted my old life back. I wanted my life without vampires.

"Well that might explain it," he mumbled as he removed the cuff and then began inspecting my hands which were a bloody mess. Doc extracted a tweezers from his bag and began picking the glass out of the cuts.

"What about Ife?" But even as I turned my head to look at her, all I saw was an empty chair. Where in the hell had she gone off to?

"Seemed you absorbed the brunt of that fall on your hands." Doc said. "The rest of you doesn't seem too cut up. You acted just in time," I felt a sharp plucking as he pulled a particularly long shard from my upper lip. I hadn't even been aware of the cut there until that point. "If you hadn't moved when you did..." He let the rest go unsaid, but I heard the words anyway. If I hadn't fallen when I did, I would have had a bullet in my chest.

Neither one of us said anything for a while, he just went about his work, face lined with contraction as he patched me up. "Thanks Doc," I said as he finished tying off the last gauze around my fingers. Sadly, I had far too many cuts for Band Aids to be effective.

"No thanks needed," he answered putting away all of his tools and boxes into his bag. "I'm just doing my job." I forced a smile for him and sunk back against my chair, feeling drained and heavy. Damon and his family had told me that here they could protect me. Well they were doing a hell of a job so far.

"Ember," I opened one eye and saw Damon towering above me, arms crossed and he did not looked pleased. "You alright?"

I blew some of my hair out of my eyes. "I nearly had a bullet in my heart, what do you think?"

"That you're pissed off and scared as hell?" he asked and he eyed the chair next to me before sitting down. I noticed then that we were nearly alone, those who were still in the room were absorbed in the crime scene. They weren't paying us any mind at all. He looked nervous, ashamed even and my heart sped up a little as I saw it.

My mind flashed back to my daydreams for the last two weeks, being alone with the vampire that gave me my first scar and tell him off for doing it. Adrenaline spiked my blood for the second time that day. "Nice observation," I said dryly and then I took a deep breath and made eye contact. "You said you'd be able to protect me here."