Secret Secrets

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Who was this monster?

He had kissed my lips, he had touched my cheek, he had made me feel love...he had murdered Eliza.

I staggered back in my chair, Gabriel's hand fell. "You didn't." I said in disbelief. "You couldn't have."

Gabriel bit his lip, his red eyes became watery. "Venice, It's not as it seems."

"Why?" I asked, tears beginning to cloud my vision. "Why did you kill her? You didn't even know her!"

Gabriel tried to stay calm. "I know I didn't know her, I had her mistaken for someone else."

My breathing had become rough and harsh. I couldn't control the river of tears that were falling. "Who did you think she was?"

"Della."

I used my hand to wipe away some of the tears. "Why did you want to kill Della?"

"Remember what I told you before?" He said. "She's not good company to keep-she's the bad guy."

"But you didn't kill Della." I whimpered. "You killed Eliza!"

Gabriel nodded solemnly. "And for that I will be forever sorry. She did not deserve to die."

I tried to collect myself. I still hadn't completely forgiven Gabriel for what he'd done, but I needed to hear the rest of the story. "You need to give me the back story of all of this."

He touched my hand, but I jerked it away. He sighed. "I know, I know. But it's a long story."

My sadness was still there, but most of the tears were gone. I sat up a bit straighter. "I don't care."

Gabriel rolled his shoulders. "In 2005, a few weeks before Della went missing, she met a pretty powerful vampire named Thom. Thom's been around since the early 1800's, he was changed when he was nineteen, but he's been posing as a high school student ever since."

"He's still around?" I asked.

Gabriel nodded. "Very much so. Now, Thom didn't tell Della he was a vampire of course but she figured it out pretty quickly."

"How?"

"She saw him feeding on one of her classmates."

My eyes widened. "Oh."

Gabriel continued with the story. "Once she knew what he was, Della wanted nothing more than to be a vampire. But Thom loved her so much and he didn't want to put her through that. He said no."

"But he changed his mind." I inferred.

"Exactly." Gabriel said. "She brought him to a steep cliff here in Switzdale one night and told him that if he didn't agree to change her, she was going to jump right then and there. Now, Thom didn't want his girlfriend to go and kill herself, so he agreed. But he really didn't want to."

"How does this tie into when she goes missing?" I asked.

"Hang on," Gabriel said, and then continued the story. "that night on the cliff, Thom changed her. She went through alot of pain and suffering. He hated to see her like that but it was what she wanted. Thom worried about her when she went home that night-he was worried she would hurt someone, and she almost did. See, she was left alone to babysit Eliza, and it was extremely hard for her to be around that fresh, young blood."

"Yeah, I read about her baby sitting in an old newspaper article. That was the night she went missing."

"Yes," Gabriel confirmed. "after Eliza was in bed, Della left. She couldn't stay around Eliza, she knew she would kill her. So Della went running to find Thom. Thom told her that they needed to leave or else she would kill her family. Thom promised her that someday they'd come back. They fled to a nearby town-but stayed perfectly hidden. He taught Della the differences between vampire myths and truths, such as the myth that vampires can't come out in daylight when in reality they are just more powerful at night-time and they are less powerful in the day."

"Okay..." I said, soaking all the information in.

"Things seemed to be going alright until Della brought up the subject of going back home. Thom knew she really wanted to, but he also knew that it would take alot of planning since everyone thought she had gone missing and was possibly even dead. Thom told her about all the risks but she didn't listen to him and one day she just left."

"She went back to Switzdale didn't she?"

"Yes, she did. But this was quite a while after she had left-about a year. That was the year that the Sanders family moved to Cleveland. Della kept a very low profile when she was there, and luckily no one really noticed her, but upon discovering that her family was no longer there, she went crazy. She killed many people when she was there, and when she returned, she almost killed Thom."

"How?" I asked, shocked.

Gabriel took a deep breath. "Della came back to him telling him that it was all his fault that her life was going downhill and that there was no way she could return to her family because they thought she was dead. In a fit of rage she broke the leg off a wooden table and jammed it into Thom's chest, barely missing his heart. They got in a heated argument that almost killed them both, and then he ordered her to leave."

"Where did she go?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Thom didn't know. All he knew was that that day had changed Della. She had become someone full of anger who could be capable of anything. He had alot of hatred for her. Over the years she would often contact him to tell him she was about to do something crazy, like kill a large group of people or something, and that he needed to stop her. And no matter how much he reminded himself of how much he hatred her for almost killing him, he always ended up stopping her because he didn't want her to draw that much attention to vampires.She loved the way she could control him.  Now, a couple years ago he enrolled at a high school, hoping to maintain a calmer life. But not long after school had started Della got ahold of him. She told him that she was in Cleveland at a party and that there were a bunch of kids there and that she was going to kill them all."

"That was the party Eliza and I were at...Della was there?"

Gabriel scratched his head. "She could have been, or she might have just been messing with him, ether way, he went to the party. Vampires are fast-they can get places quicker than airplanes. And when Thom got there, he was so overwhelmed by the smell of human blood that he couldn't pick out where the vampire-Della-was. As he walked around the house, he laid eyes on Della, or so he thought. Before he went up to her, he made a promise to himself-he was going to kill her. He had had enough with her manipulating him and he wanted her mass threats of killings that could expose vampires to be gone. So he walked up to her and she was acting all sweet-he figured it was an act. But once they got into a conversation, whenever he would bring up how annoyed he was with her planning to kill bunches of people she seemed confused..."

 I interrupted. "Gabriel...I'm starting to get confused. When do you come into the story?"

Gabriel didn't pause to answer me, he just continued. "Finally, Thom was fed up with her dumb girl act so he asked her if they could move their conversation to the woods. She wearily agreed. As he started to guide her into the wooded area, she pulled out her phone. Thom got mad and took it from her, throwing it on the ground..."

"I overheard that..."

"Thom could sense another human nearby, and he suspected that's why he smelt human blood so clearly. He tried not to let it get to him, though and he tied Della-er, Eliza to the tree. She tried to convince him that he had the wrong girl but he figured she was just trying to nose her way out of things like she always did..."

I was starting to piece things together. "Gabriel..."

Gabriel was getting louder. "He just wanted to get it over with, he didn't want to see her ever again. He calmly picked up a branch from the ground and drove it through her heart. He then dashed away, but not before seeing a beautiful face." He looked me in the eyes. "Your face." He jumped back into the story. "But he knew he couldn't stay, even for a beautiful girl. He left. He went back to school. But when he got there, he discovered something that would change his life-as he was walking past the attendance office the following morning he saw her. He saw Della. And she spoke her name aloud to the office woman, though she had changed her last name. Thom realized that he hadn't killed Della. And then he remembered Eliza, Della's younger sister. The girl who looked quite a bit like Della. He had killed Eliza." Tears fell from his red eyes. "And he is so sorry."

"Gabriel." I said, drawing in a breath. "You are Thom." He nodded. My body began to shake. "You're a vampire..."