Awakening (Awakening, #1)

Chapter 21

    I jolt awake with an unimaginable force I never even knew I could possess. A cold sweat has broken out all over my body, trailing frozen streaks across my dead skin. I do not even notice I'm cold, no, not until a somewhat familiar face reaches out her hand in an ill-thought out attempt to console me and remind me that I am "Safe," and "Okay," and recoils but shoots me a sad, reassuring smile. I am a corpse.

  "He's awake!" She screams at the top of her lungs. The sudden and very loud noise pierces my sensitive eardrums and I clap my hands over my ears, scared, worried, trapped, confused...hungry. She must see the look of starvation flicker across my features, but she must know that I would never hurt her. She has to. I am not quite sure why, but I have this visceral want to protect her with all that I have. Which does not seem to be much.

I am a corpse. How can I be expected to do any protecting?

  "Whoa, dude," A deeper voice says. The voice means nothing to me but it belongs to a man that appears in the doorway. "I'm so glad you're not dead; we all are." He speaks for everyone else, but I don't believe that the man next to him feels that way. He is scowling, then grumbles something under his breath before turning around and walking away.

But I am dead.

  I am a corpse.

I am unable to explain how I know this other than everything is cold. I am standing alone in the middle of the coldest place on Earth and that happens to be within myself. 

"We need to hurry and think of something, anything," the girl speaks again, she's pleading, but this time not screaming like before. As soon as she intakes a breath to speak, my head whips around to take in every one of her words as if they are my last rites. She is everything.

But I am a corpse. I could never do anything for her.

  "I don't know, Vi, I'll be honest," this man has a voice unlike the others. A foreigner, perhaps. 

"I may know a dude, but...this is some crazy shit. Like, black market drug trade or something. You need to be careful how you handle this. Word gets out that we have a baby vamp that isn't even fully turned just sitting in a werewolf Homestead...,"he trails off, lost in thought. He did say something of import.

I am a vampire, I know now.

I am...a corpse.

    "I know, I know," Vi says, a hand on her beautiful face, exasperated yet determined. When and how did I become this empty carcass and why am I such a burden to these people? They have to be kind- they have given me a place to be "safe" and "okay" while I was in whatever state I've been in for who knows how long. They do not deserve this, at least not from me.

     "If I may," I speak and everyone that has been standing and staring at everything else but me, shoot their eyes my way, startled. "What exactly is...wrong here? With me?"

Vi lets out a soft rush of air. This must be a long story. One that I would not mind hearing a thousand times over if she were the one to tell it to me. I suddenly feel embarrassed, all of these men watching, spoiling our moment.

    "I can't even begin to explain how stressful these past few hours have been. You...reset," she says this in a way that makes me feel that she doesn't quite know what's wrong or how to fix it. But, aside from the hunger, I feel fine. However, judging from everyone's worried expressions, I am not in fact, okay. 

  "For lack of a better word," Vi quickly attempts to clarify, and yet I am still at a loss. "You just dropped in the middle of the kitchen. Bam, just like that, you were completely dead to the world and I was scared for you. I didn't know how to fix you, still don't. I feel responsible."

  "Oh, stop it, Violet. I'm sick of hearing you coo over this Half-Sucker asshole," someone, a man, interjects. My body takes over and next thing I know, I have him up against the wall, held there with my newfound iron-clad grip, and my teeth millimeters from his throat.

  "Do not speak to her that way," I seethe. "Have you no manners for those other than yourself?"

"Let him go," Violet squeaks. I am suddenly afraid that I have in some way offended her, and I immediately release my grasp. His pride is wounded since he now knows that I am better than him. In every way. I listen to the hearts, so many of them, beating all around me. His, racing.

Hers, with a slight off-beat that makes her even more unique in my eyes, completely unbothered.