Dead Before Dawn: The Vampire Curse

Chapter 9 - What is Normal?

A slow, regular beeping was the first thing that made it into Max's awareness as the world gradually came back. When he opened his eyes and saw white he almost panicked, but reality beat his fear. The room might have been white, but there were no tiles and it was a sunny cheerful room that seemed to be full of flowers. He was half propped up on what appeared to be a mountain of pillows and there was an IV in his arm. It was a perfectly normal hospital room.

"Max," said a very familiar voice and he turned his head because he couldn't quite believe it.

It was something he had been dreaming of ever since the nightmare began and for a moment his mind refused to accept it.

"Cal?" he said very quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

That was it for his sister it seemed, she instantly stood up and leaned over him, kissing him on the forehead and smoothing his hair from his face as if making sure he was real. They were twins, but Cal was the oldest and had always babied him, just a little.

"Oh, Max," his sister fussed over him, "I was so scared I was never going to see you again."

Max had been scared of the same thing, so very, very scared and he could barely make himself react as if his sister was really there. How Cal had got to Russia and where exactly he was, were questions that crowded into his head, but he pushed them aside, focusing on what was right there in front of him instead. He tried to reach back, at which point his side hurt and he remembered very distinctly why he was in the hospital in the first place.

"Now just lie still," his sister told him and he could tell she was on the verge of tears, which didn't help his own equilibrium, "Darius told me that the doctor said you're going to be sore for a while, but there's no permanent damage."

Max lay back against the pillows again while Cal slipped her hand into his, but he still didn't know what to say. His brain simply didn't seem to be working right and coherent thought was evading him.

"I have something for you," his sister said, clearly having a similar problem and then she dived into her purse.

What she pulled out was very familiar and Cal slipped it into his hand and patted his fingers: it was the necklace she had given him for luck before his first ever audition. It had fallen off or been removed some time during the attack or his captivity, he didn't know when, it hadn't exactly been at the top of his priorities. Seeing it again brought home quite how skewed his world view had become. It was a treasured possession and yet he hadn't even thought about it as he simply tried not to die.

"They found," Cal said haltingly, "they found it ..."

The raw emotion was right there on his sister's face and he couldn't hold his feelings in anymore. He burst into tears as the tension he had been unable to express for days suddenly exploded within him. Then his sister was cradling him in her arms and she was crying as well and it was all one big mess.

He didn't care that the room was too bright for his eyes or that his side hurt or that he had no idea how he had come to be where he was, all that mattered was the comfort of Cal's arms as they held each other.

They always said they were close, even when they were on different sides of the planet, and this just proved it.

He couldn't bring himself under control for a long time as all the fear and pain came pouring out of him. With Yulia and Zhanna he had had to be brave and strong, with his sister he could let it all go. Cal held him until he finally stopped shaking. Then she helped him sit back against his pillows, gave him some Kleenex to wipe his face and offered him a little drink of water. He felt as if he was about five again when his mom would look after his scuffed knees and Cal would make it all better with a kiss and a hug.