The Sokolov Family (Completed)

Chapter 20

20

The next day, mum stopped me at the door. 'If you have to go see your friend in the hospital, after school, ring me first', she placed a mobile phone in my hand. It was a basic one and mum knew they weren't allowed at school, but she didn't want me turning up late again, without her knowledge.

In school, students I didn't know existed passed me by providing sympathies for what had happened to Patrick. I tracked Maureen down to gain some knowledge of how Patrick was doing, she wasn't happy with me.

'You didn't even ring me at home afterwards to find out how he was'

'I know, I'm sorry. But how is he?'

She looked at me wondering whether I wanted to hear the truth or to hear that everything was fine. She decided on the truth.

'Physically he'll heal although there's some internal bleeding. But he's scared, scared to say anything to the police, scared to say anything to me', she looked as though she was going to shed a tear. Maureen never cried, or at least, that's what I had decided in my mind. She was the strongest, stubbornest, belligerent girl I had ever met and sometimes this caused people to steer away from her, whilst others like me and Patrick gravitated to her. 'They must have really done a number on him'

For the rest of the day, she was different, she was quiet, deep in her own thoughts. I wanted to shake her out of it, so she could be the person I was used to seeing, but I needed to remember she was human, just like me.

It's strange when you're a human living amongst vampires and humans alike, you start to notice subtle differences between them. In this case, when a vampire is emotionally hurt, they get this deep sorrow which last a few minutes, no longer than an hour, depending on the circumstance, then it hardens and is replaced by anger and vengeance. This vengeance never goes, but over time, lingers under the surface, to allow them to get on with their lives. However, when an opportunity comes to enact revenge, it resurfaces as rage and once that rage is satisfied, it dissipates. From what I can gather about humanity and it seems to be a far more difficult process to explain and rarely takes on an obvious pattern, but it seems to be pain and sorrow, followed by helplessness, which eventually fades over time, which is dependent on how close you are to that person.

I'm still unsure as to where I stand. After all, I don't tend to lose people who are close to me.

It was during the last lesson in class when a message came out over the loudspeaker from Mr Lewis, asking for any information about what had happened to Patrick, that I felt rage and wondered if I was feeling it because I was born of a vampire.

Let me explain that it wasn't what Mr Lewis had said, it was what followed that had my blood pulsating and my teeth grinding.

Brian sat near Duke, leaned over to him and whispered 'good, he deserves everything he got'.