17

37. Plasma

I woke up in Lysander's room, lying on his bed underneath a viridian blanket that smells like pine mixed with musk. Glancing at the paintings on the walls, I ran my fingers through my hair as confusion hit me. I was dreaming. It's about to be 11 a.m. That trip from Nevada really did a number on me.

"Lysander?"

I pushed myself to leave the bed, which was as hard as fighting soldiers, to see where the wolf had wandered off to. We haven't cleaned the wolf cave. It's still as messy as we left it days ago. We also do not have food. I checked the fridge and found a whole lot of nothing but expired left overs and canned drinks.

"Lysander." I walked outside the underground house, stepping up on the rocks as stairs, and found him on the ground. "There you are! We need to - " When my sight got the full view of what is in front of me, I lost all the words. I lost all the air in my lungs and energy in my body. I must still be dreaming. Man, fighting the government has got me hallucinating.

Rami Nazari is right in front of my eyes, right next to Lysander. Both were just fighting and the one that is not the muscular, buff werewolf, is the winner, standing over his opponent confidently.

"I'm just a little weak at the moment because I haven't eaten." My wolf scoffed to defend his ego.

The figure of my imagination grinned, showing off those sharp fangs he never had before. "Oh, how the tables turned."

"I'm still stronger than you."

"Yeah, okay." I heard the soft, sarcastic laughter that had me teary-eyed. "They're right, by the way. Your scent is so strong and it's sorta not a good smell. Maybe you should take a shower before Drew also smells you and leaves you for someone who smells good, like - " His scarlet eyes wandered towards my way as his nostrils flare. "like her own self. Drew, have I ever told you that you smell kind of delicious?" From one blink of my eyes, he was standing beside Lysander and after the next, he's in front of me wearing a smile over his blood lips. His arms went around me and they pushed me in for a hug. I remained frozen. Tensed in his arms, the boy pulled away but kept his hands on my shoulders, looking at me worriedly. "Are you going to faint again? Please don't."

I almost did.

I blinked a few times, trying to get it through my head that I am not dreaming now and I was not dreaming then. Rami is alive. He died, but he came back, as a vampire. A vampire. Rami is now a vampire. Rami is now a supernatural being who drinks blood. A vampire. Rami is a vampire.

"How."

Rami, Lysander and I relaxed on a spot in the woods, sitting on the fresh grassy ground. Before he began, I studied him: he may be smiling at us right now, but it isn't his full, happy smile. It wasn't a forced smile, either. It was somewhere in between. His glasses are nowhere to be found and there is not a single scratch on him. The wolf's scratch on his stomach seemed as if it healed. I could slightly see through the cuts on his shirt that he is healed, though he is still covered in dried blood. Guilt flashed through me before he could even speak.

"Okay." He took a deep breath before continuing. "The last thing I remembered before blacking out was Idris asking for my consent, for him to bite me and turn me. He said he wouldn't do it without my consent. I almost rejected the offer because I liked being human and I couldn't imagine a life not being one. Humans have done a lot of shitty things, but I was one of them. Also, what the fuck I don't want to drink blood." Rami laughed quietly. "But, anyway. Idris, I just felt like he knew. You know, being the psychic vampire and all. When he asked me to let him save me, there was this look in his eyes and it's just weird but anyway." Rami shakes his head. "He was the last thing I saw before I died. It was like everything switched off. Like, I was in a room, seeing everything, hearing and feeling everything, and then after a heartbeat, BOOM. A blackout. All my senses are gone. I didn't see, feel, or hear anything. I felt like I was trapped in a dark room with nothing around me. Then, after what felt like forever of me just laying in empty darkness, I felt something."

I could still see the pain and fear in his eyes as he relives the moment in his mind. I held onto his hands for comfort, which he tightened with his cold ones.

"It started off like a shock. Then, more followed. The pain wasn't coming from the outside, but inside. It's like something was happening inside of my body and I was feeling everything move, snap, rewire, burn, whatever. It hurt so much and I couldn't do anything but deal with it." Lysander shot him a sad look. "The pain was the only thing I felt for so long. When it finally stopped, my senses came back to me. The first thing I felt was everything being lighter, like I didn't have any weight of worry on me like always. I also felt my throat being so dry that it hurts. When I found the strength to open my eyes, I saw Idris again. I tried to talk but I couldn't. My throat was burning. The only thing he said to me was go back to Redwoods when I'm done. Then, he disappeared and the only thing I could focus on was the scent of blood of the dead soldiers. It was like my body already knew what to do but my brain didn't. I drank human blood and I have never felt so euphoric. And I couldn't stop. Bodies after bodies, I drank blood, every drop making me feel stronger. Honestly, it's scaring me that I'm feeling that way. I should not be feeling that way. I ran all the way here and every human I saw made me hungry."

He was in the bloodlust state. Maybe he still is.

"But I know better. I'm not one of those asshole vampires. I don't want to be that." He took another deep breath before his eyes fixated on me. "Right now, I can smell you. Your blood. It smells good but also," He peered at Lysander and smirked. "it's also not that good because Lysander's scent is mixed with it. It still makes me hungry even though I had so much already. And I'm terrified."

My heart broke at his tone.

"I would be scared if you weren't." I brushed his curls away from his face. "You're very strong, Rami. The fact that you resisted taking on humans despite being just turned and have strong need of blood, that's something many vampires cannot do. You have a good heart. It may beat a little slower now, but it's the same heart and brain. It's still you and that's all that matters to me." I pulled my hands away from him and kept them to myself, feeling my chest tightening. "You deserve the best, Rami. You deserve to be happy. I'm sorry. You wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for - "

"If it wasn't for me." The werewolf cut me off using the words I've meant to use, directing them at himself instead. His grey eyes are full of remorse and guilt. "This is my fault."

Rami eyed the two of us before shaking his head. "We were all out of our minds when we were in Nevada, to be honest. It's neither of your fault. Don't blame yourselves. Lysander, you didn't know what you were doing." Lysander gazed at the ground, still feeling guilty. "Besides, I was originally going to be killed by some soldier and his gun, anyway. I would have been dead, either way. It doesn't matter now."

"I will help you in whatever way I can." I promised.

"Me too." Lysander added, making the newly turned vampire smile. "And for the record, vampires don't really have the best smell, either." Rami rolled his eyes but gave a nod of agreement.

"How does it feel, anyway?" I wondered curiously. "Like, your body. How do you feel?"

"I feel like I'm literally made out of plasma. Blood plasma or the element, both works. It feels fucking weird. I feel like I could be a plasma ball, if you put a glass dome around me." He stood up and jumped from the ground to sit on a thick tree branch that's pretty high. "I can do weird things like jump higher, run faster, I have more strength, endurance, agility, better senses. I'm basically seeing triple HD right now. Oh! By the way, I'm going to need glasses and contacts because there's no way in hell my friends and family are going to see me like this. Not yet." I nodded. "I'm still trying to get used to these supernatural powers. It's a lot harder than it looks, but I'll get the hang of it eventually. The only thing that worries me is the whole hungry for blood thing. All these cool things I can do, they might be used in wrong ways if I get hungry, or angry, or whatever. Oh, and the sun. It really does hurt."

"Oh, Rami."

"What about Idris?" Lysander questioned. "Where is he?"

Rami sighs before shrugging. "I don't really know. I guess I owe him my life. I gotta thank him for killing me. The mosquito shouldn't be hard to find though. He has friends everywhere in the east. We just need to find one and they should know about his whereabouts."

"The east coast." I smiled. "Like, at West Grove? Home?"

"Home. We got the job done, lost a few hearts and limbs while doing it but we did it. And now, we are going home. "