Enlightenment

Part 13

I woke to the sound of the back door being inched slowly open. Quietly. I listened intently, instantly locating the one heartbeat in the house. Jamie.

Julia had also gone to bed and Chris was in his room with music playing loudly with his earphones in. His hearing was not as sensitive as mine, because he was younger.

            It seemed that Jamie was taking the opportunity to make an escape attempt. It didn't worry me. That was all it would be. An attempt. 

            It only took me a second to pull on my long coat over my silk pajamas, and a pair of boots. It took less than a second for me to run down the four floors worth of stairs and through the house. Then, I waited a moment to allow him to get about two meters away from the door before I appeared in front of him.

            He let out an involuntary yell of surprise as he jumped backwards away from me, and I allowed myself a small grin before I made my expression cool and distant. He was shaking his head in denial, his eyes wide.

"You- you're in the sun!" 

I glanced upwards, shielding my eyes with my hand, before making an amazed face; I hid my apprehension for talking to him well. "You're a genius!" 

But he was too shocked to be affected by my sarcasm, "But you're a vampire; you can't go in the sun!"

"Of course I can."

"No! I've seen vampires in the sun before; they screamed in pain and held their heads in agony!" I sighed,

"they must have been young and weak, as the years have passed I have grown more and more tolerant, of course, it still hurts... but I deal with it." I could tell that I had deeply unsettled him. That had been one of the constant reassurances in his life, Sunlight meant safety. Now that was ruined for him nowhere was safe. "Anyway! you didn't really think I would let you get away that easily did you?" 

His eyes narrowed. "No." 

"Although I suppose I'm not surprised... or disappointed. If you didn't at least try to escape you would be so boring... you could have made a more interesting effort though. The back door? Way too obvious." Although now it made more sense, if he thought we couldn't follow him out into the sun, he would have hoped to make a clean getaway.

"You wanted me to escape?" now he looked sceptical.

"Of course not, but if you insist on trying, you could at least be creative. Although, I would strongly advise against trying again, if Julia caught you she would not be as lenient as me."

"Why do you care?" his voice was sharp and mocking, 

I hesitated, before saying part of the truth; "I don't like to see people get hurt unnecessarily".

"You hurt enough of my friends before, that didn't seem to bother you too much."

"That was necessary, if you had left me alone, I never would have harmed them, you brought it on yourself. You should be grateful I didn't kill them."

"If we don't stop you, you will hurt other people."

"I wouldn't want to hurt other people, people like you force me to."

"That's a lie, your kind enjoy hurting people, killing people, I have seen them, laughing while they do it."

"You have had a very limited experience of vampires Jamie," he flinched, but I don't know if it was at my casual use of the word vampire, or his name, now he was shaking his head so I continued, "its true, you have only met young, rogue ones, you have seen my mind, you should know this." My voice left the careful, patient tone and turned bitter at the end. I hated that anyone; especially him, had been allowed to see my private thoughts and feelings. It felt intrusive; it made me feel exposed and almost vulnerable.