Surviving Paradise (Full Draft Version)

CHAPTER 17

"Yeah Willy just go, Whisper we will see you inside sweetie pie."

"The hell, you won't be seeing or talking to either of them!"

CHAPTER 17

“Allisa, it's ok, just me.”  Ashton, as always finely attuned to every thought and emotion.  He was sprawled on the french duvet across from her bed, and he gave a rub of his eyes as if he also had just waked.  Will restlessly changed positions and his breathing evened again. 

       Allisa realized the room was dark because the blackout shades had been drawn.  The old house had been a vampire house through the centuries.  The downstairs windows had some special tint, along with blackout shades.  The upstairs rooms all had only the shades.  In her own room she had never used them, letting the sun chasing away every shadow during the day.  Since Ashton had been turned, she always made sure to leave the door closed.  Obviously Ashton had closed the room up while she had slept, so he could stay. 

      Modestly, pulling the sheet up, she was suddenly glad for the dimness.  “Ashton?  What’s going on?”

      An unusual circumstance, a danger, an emergency, were just a few of the things that would not make his unwarranted presence in her room while she slept, cause this to be one of the creepiest mornings ever.  And she wasn’t wrong.

      “This is creepy I know,” he apologized, again reading her thoughts better than she ever felt comfortable with.  “It’s the car wreck, Jane said–“

      The blasted phone began to ring anew, and with part curse, part sigh Allisa grabbed it and gentled her impatient voice to greet her mother.  In less than five minutes, she had related Jane’s car wreck, and the silent understanding that she and Will would not be joining her parents for lunch, and said her goodbyes, with her mother’s well wishes for Jane.

      “Okay.”  Allisa folded her hand around the ended call, and stared expectantly at Ashton’s shadowy silhouette..

      “It was your car, it was supposed to be your wreck.”  Ashton leveled his eyes on hers.  Although she couldn’t see the stare, she knew he had the ability to see her features perfectly, and she could feel the deadpan lock of his gaze.

      With a thunk, Allisa’s heart pounded out her disappointment and distress.  Was he actually going to blame her because Jane had been in her car?  Allisa still did not know the details of the wreck, but surely Ashton wasn’t insinuating wrong place, wrong time, wrong person.  They all knew Jane always drove faster than she should, and yes, well, Allisa had left a library of 5000 songs in the car, which could be distracting if the driver did not know the voice commands to the device.  She knew how much Ashton loved Jane, but was he actually voicing aloud that he wished it had been Allisa and not Jane? That it should have been??

      “No, listen,” Ashton’s voice gentled.  “That’s not it.  Don’t do that.”

      And DON’T DO THAT.  Allisa wanted to shout back.  Vampires could not read minds, she reminded herself for the third time this morning, but he had honed in on her vital signs, and knew her exact emotional response to his every word.  Really, she was sick of it.  How could Jane stand it, Ashton’s supernatural perception? 

      “Do you know anything about how the wreck happened?”  Ashton asked, and surrendering to his abilities, knowing he could see her easily in the dark, she simply shook her head without answering.  Ashton began to explain that after finishing her shift at The Smoothie Shoppe, Jane had driven back here to the house, and since the sun had set, she had used the garage.