Surviving Paradise (Full Draft Version)

Chapter 27

"Ashton Black are you a pacifist like your uncle?"

"I'm not sure what you mean..."

Chapter 27

“I still don't see anything.”

“I did. I swear to you. It was a person with a flashlight. Over by the garage.”

After standing before the bedroom window for a minute or so, staring into an empty dark yard, Allisa and Will had moved down to the kitchen window. Her eyes flicked to Will, to see if he believed her, or if he thought she was hallucinating, a lump of blackness moved.

“There! They just came out of the garage!”

“What the--” Having finally seen it for himself, his favorite curse word pushed past his lips, as he protectively pushed her back from the window.

Allisa's last look at the shadow saw it turn the corner of the garage toward the farthest side from the house and their view. “I'm calling 911.” The Black House didn't have a land line, and she cursed herself for leaving her cell upstairs.

“They won't come.” Will intoned, quietly pulling open a kitchen drawer, and she knew he was right. Jane had called the authorities a few months ago, and when the police had arrived to a vampire fight, they had given fair warning that they were marking this address from their response listing. In a vampire town, many residences were blacklisted in this way over the years. “Call Ash.”

Ashton's room had been standing open and empty when they had passed it earlier in the hall, and they had debated the possibility that she had seen his car lights returning home. Allisa maintained that she knew what she had seen, and it had been a flashlight. Besides, Ashton would have no need of a light in the darkness with his scotopic vision.

Ashton's phone went to voice mail, and she did leave a short anxious message as she watched Will step into a pair of jeans from the drier. Next he began to tuck the various stakes and items from the emergency drawer into the waistband. Rooting through the drier herself, she tossed him a tee shirt and from the load, which appeared to be only his clothing, selected a pair of his shorts for herself.

“We should go out the front door, sneak around to the back...” Allisa had worn one of his tee shirts to bed, and now she pulled at it until it settled over the baggy khakis that were rolled to keep them from falling down.

“WE are not going anywhere.” Will informed her, as he crossed to the suggested door.

“You are not going out there by yourself...”

“Lissa, I mean it you have put us through enough this week, stay INSIDE.”

The heavy front door closed in her face, and she stood staring at it's panels, unsure whether she felt angry or simply taken care of. The warm feeling from earlier prevailed, and she retraced their steps back to the kitchen. Somehow it felt right, and feminine, in a good way, that her man was protecting her.

The feeling lasted for less than a minute before it turned to panic. Will's cursing from outside easily carried through the walls, and it sounded like he had met up with trouble. With no deliberation, she grabbed whatever was left in the drawer, and as she made it onto the back door, his tone went from distressed to angry. Instead of trying Ashton again, she pressed the speed dial to Jane's number, because wherever the two of them were, they were together. Throwing the phone at the counter top in aggravation when she heard Jane's voice mail, she ripped open the door that opened into the garage.

The body that slammed into her let out a screech as loud as her own, and she fumbled with her flashlight as she fell back into the house. Beyond the other person, the open garage door allowed enough light in from the street to see that Ashton's car occupied it's usual spot.

“Holy shit Ally Cat! You scared the crap out of me!” With much indignation, Jane followed her into the house.

Before either of them could recover or say another word, Ashton filled the doorway. “Jane?! You okay?!”

“Allisa?!” Will huffed into view hollering her name in a panic, and Allisa stepped around the other couple to wrap around him.

“So what the hell just happened?”

Although only one of them had voiced it, the inquiry was a reflection in each of their eyes as they stood around in the old kitchen. Their stories came out, in pieces and they eventually moved to sit, still in the dark, at the table as they spoke.

Ashton revealed that he and Jane had come home, but had remained in the car talking instead of coming straight into the house.

The same streetlight that had allowed her to make out Ashton's car, lent enough light through the small window, to see the features of Ashton and Jane, and her eyes narrowed knowingly on the pair. Jane's hair was much more mussed than it should be just from the literal run in with Allisa minutes ago. Ashton's shirt was one button off.

“I heard someone in the yard, just outside the garage, and I TOLD Jane to lock herself in the car while I had a look.” Ashton frowned at his girlfriend.

“So did I see you and you saw Will or...”

Allisa was confused as to how it could have been a misunderstanding and Ashton's next words cleared that misconception up. There had been an intruder. When Ashton left the garage to investigate, he found enough to know that someone had been there, and perhaps gotten spooked when hearing him exit the garage. A scent lingered, Allisa figured that much out, and knew that he was not saying it because of Will's aversion to vampire traits.

Then in that insane way Ashton had of flaunting some abilities, and downplaying others, he went on to say that he had heard Allisa and Will talking in the house, knew Will was coming out, and could not resist grabbing him. The prank still had Will furious, and he shoved his chair back from the table with a screech on the floor.

“Will...” Jane implored sweetly of her brother, “As long as we are all up, what about some eggs?”

“It's four in the freaking morning, I'm going back to bed.”

Although Will's words had been thrown out crossly, Allisa could feel another mood mixed in with his anger. Maybe she was learning every little inflection of his voice. Maybe she had noticed how his eyes continually strayed to his tee shirt and shorts hanging on her before they sat down. Forgotten were the questions she had been about to ask, the musings about who had been in the yard, and she was almost up out of her own chair on Wills hot heels when Jane again spoke, stopping him at the foot of the kitchen stairs.

“I wasn't asking you to cook. I was going to cook. Breakfast payback brother dear.”

Allisa almost giggled at Will's dilemma. Hesitating, his hungry gaze landed on her once more, then changed to wariness as he eyed Jane who had grabbed one his beloved pots from it's hanger.

“Fine. Sit your broken self down.” Will skirted her crutches and took the skillet from his sister. “Only eggs though.”

“And toast?”

Without answering, Will drug four pieces of bread from the bag and dropped them into the toaster, then adjusted the flame beneath the skillet.

“Are you going to put cheese in the eggs?”

Returning to the fridge, Will smacked a block of cheese down next to the egg carton, and Allisa humorously studied Jane's smug smile.

“Worked up an appetite did you?” Allisa whispered the words and punctuated them with a kick to her friend beneath the table.

Ashton's supersonic hearing picked up on the exchange and he turned from the sink where he was staring out the window, to raise sardonic brows.

Raising her hands in mock surrender, Allisa vacated her chair to play sous chef to her sexy chef. The quicker breakfast was done, the quicker they could go back to bed.

___END CHAPTER 27___