Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Forty-Six

So this is it...

R E C K L E S S

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I stared blankly at the peeling white paint of the hospital wall, not quite believing what had happened in the past few hours – Dabria and Darius’s warning, Chris’s attack… the death of my parents. It all seemed like one big nightmare. A small part of me thought that if I tried hard enough I’d wake up to see that everything was perfectly okay – there would be no vampires or supernaturals, my family would all be alive, I would be perfectly safe and my only worries would be about my exams or my friends.

Why? I kept thinking. Why did he have to murder my family? Why did I have to be the obsession of a homicidal vampire? Why did it have to be me who was sitting in a dingy hospital corridor, waiting to see if my little brother was going to live or not?

It all seemed so unfair to me.

I absent-mindedly picked at the fraying, green material of my seat. I was the only one in the small alcove off the hospital corridor that served as a waiting room. The other seats stood empty beside me, emphasising how alone I was.

I’d refused to see a doctor about my injuries, choosing to stay outside my little brother’s room instead. Evan was more important than it all, and besides that the vampire blood that Chris had made me ingest was healing up my injuries quicker than any doctor could. I flexed my hand just to check, and all my fingers worked perfectly – there was only a dull ache in it compared to the agonising pain that I had felt just a few hours ago when Chris had broken it. The rips that his teeth had made on my neck were already closed up, just faint scars reminding me of the places where my skin had been cut.

I only wished that it was that easy for Evan to heal, that he could’ve been the one who’d had the vampire blood instead – but that would’ve only tipped him close to becoming a vampire, since he had so little blood in his system. And why would Chris give it to him, anyway? The vampire had made it clear that he wanted my whole family to die – and he was pretty close to his goal.

Just the thought of losing Evan was enough to keep my glued to my seat, anxiously waiting for someone to step out of the door and give me news. I needed something to keep me going, to rekindle my hope that he would survive. I couldn’t risk being away from him for too long.

Sleep was no option, either. Adrenaline was still wildly pumping through my veins, and the nagging, paranoid feeling that Chris was still near terrified me. I couldn’t shake off the fact that he might be anywhere – and there was a good chance that he was looking for my brother and I to finish what he’d started.

I wished, once again, that I’d driven a stake through his heart while he was knocked out. I hadn’t been thinking straight, and I would regret it for, perhaps, the rest of my life. He must’ve woken up while I was phoning the ambulance and taking care of Evan, because when the paramedics had showed up the vampire hadn’t been collapsed on my doorstep as I’d left him. The image of the empty space where he’d been was haunting my thoughts.

I got to my feet, and began to pace the corridor again. I stopped at the door to Evan’s room, pressing my face against the window. I was faced with a curtain, decorated with images of pastel flowers and butterflies. It all seemed far too fake for me, too out of place in a setting like this.

If I pressed my ear right against the glass I could hear the faint beeps and shouts coming from the room as the doctors fought to save Evan’s life. They hadn’t wanted me in there to interfere with their work and I couldn’t blame them. I had been a mess – covered in blood, my face desperate and gaunt, screaming about death and attacks while running after my little brother’s gurney. If I was totally honest, I was still a mess.