To Be...

Chapter 14

"Dillon, I think you should listen to this."

I twisted the volume on the car stereo. The news from New York, received from a radio tower in a town near ours, was discussing a strange occurrence.

"...So, the boy wasn't even breathing, so they took him to a hospital. You know, do everything before proclaim him dead? And so they couldn't get a pulse, or breathing to start, so they announced the time of death. Ten minutes later, the boy was at the receptionist's desk checking himself out."

"Is this a joke?" the second announcer asked doubtfully.

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

Dillon growled something along the lines of 'I can do that for you.'

"What are we going to do?"

"We? We-" Dillon turned to me in awe. "You actually think I would take you with me? It's too dangerous. Besides, he probably collapsed from not eating. I have to go prevent a massacre."

I shrugged.

"Nothing new, is it?"

"You've never seen us feed before, Brianna, and let's hope it stays that way."

"But-"

"Harwin will watch over you, come to classes with you, etcetera."

"Oh, I am so excited," I moaned. "C'mon. Be reasonable. I've never seen New York, and I want to skip school, too!"

"New York is a lot of sopping buildings with no space to walk. That's all. And you need to go to school. I don't. I've been there way too many decades to make it unfair to miss a day. So I'll drop you off, and you will stay. Got it?"

I grumbled.

By Thursday morning I was turning into a lunatic. Leon hadn't gotten back from his 'hunting trip', yet. I was tired of Harwin's ruthless complaints, and even Dillon was annoying me. He hadn't lightened up on the warden bit, and followed me into all of my classrooms. If people hadn't known me before, they did now. He told the teacher about my mishap, and how he needed to be by my side every moment for assistance. I didn't have my preferred jacket to wear over the bandages, and all of my long sleeve shirts had been left in storage in Alabama.

Susan had introduced me to her ring of friends, at least one of which attended every class period with me. Now, I had more than just the protection of Dillon and Harwin to keep my mind from travelling to the more frightening enemies.

Susan called Dillon's cell phone every night, at precisely seven o'clock, in order to reach me. She didn't mind when he answered, in fact she preferred it. The only things she wanted to discuss were those living in the house with me. She chose to give up on Leon, and moved quickly on to Trevor, despite my urgent pleading. But just admiring him shouldn't lead him to kill her, should it?

Thursday morning I begged Dillon to take me to find Leon. He told me not to worry, that the worst he could do was lose consciousness on the street for a few hours. Vampires couldn't die, but they could live like they should be dead.

I had taken some of the free time at the house to study up on vampires. Most of the books in Dillon's room were joked. Things titled "Vampires 'R' Us" and "Honey, I Bit the Kids". He told me he collected those to remind himself that he wasn't what humans imagined him as. And he wasn't.

He was just as annoying and agitating as a human boy. We were closer, now. Like brother and sister. I almost forgave him for the kiss, but I had already made that a permanent damage. Plus, it was the only viable motive to kiss Leon. The reason I tell myself.