Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Forty-One

It was times like this where I wished I had a pad of paper that was larger than a Post-It. The night after the funeral I'd woken up and started making a list-a habit I'd developed when I was worried out of my mind over something. In this case, that something was Damon.

Under the Cons column I scrawled-we're not even the same species. That was certainly a reason why what happened last night (or didn't happen I should say) was a terrible event not to be repeated. Vampires drank blood, humans were full of that stuff and it certainly didn't take Einstein to figure out why that could be problematic. And that was when I wasn't factoring in other things such as his frigid temperature, others of his kind frowning on relationships with humans in general and the whole immortal versus mortal thing.

I tore off the yellow bit of paper, angry that I'd already lost too much space to write the second column and started anew. Pros, I jotted. He's a decent guy.  Hell, decent barely covered it. Damon was smart, educated, had a work ethic, good looks and a sense of humor. I'd already admitted that I'd even forgotten what he was before, he never acted like a vampire, or at least, not like how I assumed vampires were like. He'd saved my life three times already and...ugh! I tossed away my stubby pencil and Post-Its and hit my head against the back of the couch.

I hadn't been able to come up with much more than one item for each list. Of course there were tons of external factors around us, like the target we had on our backs, Richard, the mole, his father's passing and his mother's dislike of me, but I couldn't add those. Those were external factors, they certainly effected us, but we weren't the direct root of those problems. Then there were things that weren't exactly problems. Like how he treated me like an equal, cared about what I had to say even though I was certainly the youngest person here. My own respect of him and what he was trying to do, taking on roles and responsibilities that were heavy for someone who was young. (Or at least, young in his world.) Wanting to perform that role well and prove that his dad hadn't been mistaken in his appointment.

Oh if Stacy could see me now, I thought, slamming my fist into a pillow. I'd read somewhere it was supposed to help relieve negative feelings and thought to give it a try. I'd come to the conclusion that it was crap. They were too soft to do anything. I'd never been the sort of girl who stressed out over guys. School, work, my mother's health and the ever mounting pile of bills on my kitchen counter-yes, that had stressed me out often. But a possible romance? Never.

I'd been on a grand total of five dates in my high school career before I decide that it was not a distraction worth my time. Granted some of the guys had been fun to hang out with and nice, but they always seemed to want more than what I was willing to give. They didn't understand, or couldn't understand why I wasn't willing to take a night off and hang out. My future career choice intimated them, whether it was my ambition or the fact that I'd make more money than they would I didn't know, but either way I hadn't been willing to deal with it. I'd always had too much to do, too much I wanted or needed to accomplish to give it much thought.

But with Damon, things were different. I had to put some of those things on hold given where we were right now. I didn't have to study like hell to make the grade because I couldn't even think about attending college right now. Until we caught Richard, I was stuck here. I didn't have my job anymore and any need I had was provided to me quickly and without much regard for expenses. And even without that, when Damon had seen my drive to succeed, when I'd done some steam-rolling over obstacles while planning Cruor Luna, he hadn't been turned off by that. In fact, according to him it was "adorable".

"Ugh," I groaned into a couch cushion. "Why when I meet a nice guy that likes my craziness does he have to be old enough to be my great-grand father and not even human?"

The couch didn't answer and I screamed into the cushion. I'd read somewhere that it helped with stress too, and this time, I found it did help, if only a little bit.

"Hello?" I head a voice outside my door and was about to answer as Ife let herself in.

"Where did you go last night?" I asked instantly, stuffing my hastily-scrawled lists out of sight. I hoped she wouldn't ask what I had been doing and that she hadn't heard what I said. After returning to the funeral with Keith and Damon I'd searched for Ife and had no success. Once again, my vampire friend had disappeared.

"I was at the funeral," she replied.

"I couldn't find you," I responded, not believing her. I'd searched every inch of that room and least twice and I didn't see any sign of her in that time.

"Maybe you were looking in the wrong places," she suggested, sitting down next to me and crossing her legs. Today was a rather unusual outfit for Ife. Ripped white skinny jeans, combat boots and a black leather jacket. At my questioning look she laughed. "Trying something new," she said with a shrug. "But that's not why I'm not here for an opinion though yours is certainly welcome." She smiled. "I'm here because Damon asked me here, he said he wants to talk to you."

I crossed my arms and tried to make my voice casual. "Really? Why?"

Ife shrugged. "Wouldn't say, just said it was urgent. Come," she hopped up and held down her hands to yank me off the couch. "I'll show you were his room is."

"His room? I repeated. "Isn't he in his office?" It was about midnight, he was normally up in the office at this time.

"Office is closed today," Ife said. "Mourning and all, it'll just last the night and be back on as usual tomorrow."

"Oh," I said dejectedly. "Makes sense." Why did Damon want to meet me? And why in his room? We'd never met there before, maybe he felt I was being watched? Maybe my surroundings wire-tapped? Wait, if the mole did that to me, they'd do it to him too. His room wouldn't be a safe place to talk either...

Well whatever the matter was, I was going to find out soon enough.

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New chapter! Had a little more internal monologue than normal, hope that didn't bore anyone! Thanks for reading!

Write on! =D