This Is Where I Want To Be

41. Stuck In The Middle

Marcus

I ran my hand over Juliet's hair. For the first time in years, I was touching her. The night before, when we were sparing in the ring. I had her in my arms. I actually smiled. Seeing her brought a smile to my face. But not like that. Not all cut up. Swollen red lashes, open flesh over her back. I took some more hair out of her face. She was sleeping. The branding sleep. Mine was fitful, but hers seems to be going okay. I wished I knew how it went after I did that to her.

The previous night, we wanted to get in the car. A man approached us. The same one that woke me up. Covered in tattoos. He didn't say much but that we had to follow him. That we couldn't take her all the way to France like that. At first, I didn't understand. I would have taken her to a hotel. He took us back into the house and into a room. Juliet dangling in my arms. I finally had her, but at what cost? He took a small device that fitted in his palm. He seemed to be pressing buttons, but also not really. It was all on a glass plate. We were in the room, and then we were not.

"Where are we?" I asked when I could make no sense of what had happened. We had moved from one place to another. The girl and boy with us were stunned and kept clinging to each other. Juliet's friends. I think she said her name was Chars? Short for...

"Technology, your father didn't tell you about. Vampires invented this. Teleportation. Instantly from one place to another."

"Charlene and Carl, will you make sure she's in Louis's bed when she wakes up." The guy said, leaving without another word.

Carl helped Charlene walk out of the bushes. I followed. There was a lane that led up to a house. A grand, massive mansion. The Alps behind it, around it. Snowy peaks. It was breathtaking.

They showed me the way through the front door. It was open, and we just walked in. Juliet was so free there. Charlene immediately climbed the stairs a little to the side of the dining room. The staircase itself was beautiful. Hand-carved wood. Nothing could have prepared me for the view the room at the top had to offer into the valley. The room was magnificent and panoramic. Even the roof was glass, with a bed on the floor. Stacked on simple pallets. Slowly, I placed her down on her stomach. Put a pillow under her head. I sat down and didn't get up for hours.

Over the next three days, Charlene and Carl would come into the room a few times. When they did, they flopped down next to her, feeling her for a fever. Cleaning her wounds. The ones my father caused. I had to help fix her up that time. Checking on the burn. Marveling at one that was already there. The first time I saw the tattoo, I stopped breathing for a moment. It wasn't an ugly mark like I had feared. Another time, when they came in, they took photos with their phones with her passed out.

"What are you doing?" I asked, a little offended.

"Oh, Juliet has an album of where she passed out from drinking too much. Carl here takes a photo every time." They both giggled, lying next to Juliet, going through his phone. I grabbed it from him. "Please don't break it." I pull my lips in annoyance. I scrolled through his photos.

My heart beat faster with every image, seeing Juliet like that. At the beginning of a party. The middle of the same evening. She does something stupid in some of the photos. The last one would be where she was lying in some awkward position. Carl guarding her like a hawk. In most pictures, Charlene was right next to her, doing whatever Juliet was doing. Juliet was always dressed in nothing but the smallest amount of fabric I had ever seen. My eyes darted to Carl. How and why did he handle it? Should I be jealous?

As if reading my mind, Carl explained, "Juliet, Charlene, and I are just friends. We met on the first day of school. We were seated together and have been together every day since." Another pang of jealousy. She had more people in her life than I had after two hundred years of living. "Liam and Cindy are coming. It's not like the teenagers were allowed to completely go off the grid alone. They stayed for Chris."