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Chapter Nineteen
Jenna and Austin woke the next morning to find the power had gone out in the night, taking the alarm out with it. Fortunately they’d loaded their luggage before they’d gone to bed so it was only a matter of changing their clothes and they were out the door, in the car, and on the road.
They pulled into the parking garage at twenty-five after seven and ran full tilt to the check-in. Security took pity on them, maybe because their desperation was so thick it was tangible, and they were rushed through the baggage check and onto the plane without a minute to spare.
They would be flying to the International airport in Virginia first- arrival time in one hour- with a two hour layover before boarding their connecting flight to England.
Once they were in their seats, Jenna texted her sister whom she’d promised to check in with frequently, and Austin took out his own phone and turned it on. When it was loaded an electronic voice informed him he had one new voice mail. It was from an international number and he sat forward with his heart in his throat as he loaded the message.
Jenna started to tell him what Jess had texted but the words died in her throat as she took in his sudden change of posture. "What is it?" She asked fearfully.
He glanced at her as the message came on. "Hi...it's me...
"Holy shit, oh shit! It was her! Damn it! I had my phone off, she called like an hour ago…she's on her way home!"
Jenna's heart slammed against her ribcage as she processed his words. "All of a sudden," she said breathlessly, "I'm really happy about the layover." She broke into a grin and Austin returned it at full wattage, the relief that washed over him was so intense he realized just how hopeless he had thought it was.
Jenna was smiling so broadly she thought her face would crack. "Oh my God, I have never been happier about anything in my entire life!" She started to laugh, all of the tension that had built over the past week flowing out of her in great whooping bursts. Austin joined her, eliciting strange looks from all over the plane.
When they finally settled down, Jenna realized there was still the tiny issue of her being MIA for nearly a week. She asked Austin to play the message again.
"Do you think she got cut off?"
"No, it sounded more like she trailed off," Austin frowned. "I needed to let go of all that tension, but the fact of the matter is...something happened. We should be prepared to nurse her back to mental health. Either that or she is the most self-centered, thoughtless, person I have ever known, and I'm going to have to strangle her."
Jenna shook her head, "She wouldn't have neglected to call, or at least text. Even if she thought she was doing something we wouldn’t approve of, she still would've let us know she was safe."
"I know. I was just saying."
"So what do you think?"
"I have no idea. There's no point in speculating, we'll just have to wait until we see her. Speaking of which, you should call the airline and book us a flight back from Virginia."
**
Anna spent the first few hours of the flight desperately trying to ignore her ever increasing need. Aside from the fact that the hunger, or thirst-she couldn’t decide which- was like a cymbal gonging in her head, she felt weak, sick, and the fire had come back. Nowhere near as bad as it had been last night, but it was there. She felt eyes on her and turned to see a guy around her age checking her out. He was nice-looking, his skin color suggesting mixed races. She forced her gaze away as a thought entered her mind. No, not so much a thought, but an image of her leading him to the bathroom…
NO! She thought adamantly. No….but she glanced back at him and he smiled, and God she was soo thirsty, she just needed….her thoughts began to fracture and she stood up and headed toward the bathroom, telling herself she was just going to lock herself in. But as she passed his seat she paused and smiled before continuing down the aisle.
What the hell am I doing? She thought desperately, but deep down she knew and was not surprised when he followed her, his expression shouting “Mile High Club here I come.” The moment the door to the restroom was shut she put her hands in his hair and started kissing him frantically. He emitted an excited noise in the back of his throat and she vaguely noted the sound of a zipper. She broke the kiss and licked his neck, her hunger flaring unbearably, and she pushed his face against her shoulder as her fangs dropped. She sank them into his pulsing vein and pulled hard, at which point all thoughts fled.
"Oh God baby, that's good, keep doing that," the guy urged. He moaned and panted and began struggling to undo her pants, but she pressed him against the wall and slid her hand down his pants instead. After only two strokes she felt warm liquid flowing over her fingers as he groaned. With an enormous effort she forced her fangs to contract. She was shaking all over. Her body was still clamoring for more and it was only the image of him dying in her arms that gave her the willpower to stop. She stared at the trickle of blood on his skin then darted her tongue out and licked it away. Her eyes widened as she watched the punctures close and disappear.
That's how they do it, she thought, remembering that Lena hadn't had any marks. Must be something in the saliva…God this was so incredibly out there beyond anything she'd ever dreamed up. She washed her hands and backed away from the guy as he cleaned himself up. This was so not a situation in which she could have ever seen herself. But the excellent news was she hadn't hurt anyone, in fact she highly doubted “hurt” would be the way he'd describe it.
He looked at her and grinned. "Man, whatever you were doing to my neck, it drove me crazy. I'm sorry I didn't take care of you...
"No," she cut in hastily, "that's okay, see this was a bet, my friend bet I wouldn't do something like this, she thinks I'm a prude, and anyway I wouldn't have wanted it to go any further because I am a little well, prudish, so anyway, yeah. Thanks." She started to back out the door, her face flaming red with embarrassment, and he caught her wrist.
"Hey, don't be like that I'll be ready again in a minute."
Her hunger flared. "Oh no. No, once is enough, I have to go back to my seat now."
He pouted. "All right, well if you change your mind, we still have hours left to go."
"Yeah, okay, I'll let you know."
She hurried back to her seat and hastily put on the courtesy headphones, her heart beating frantically. Ready again in a few minutes…Jesus, the offer was almost too tempting to refuse. Though the fire in her blood had diminished, just thinking about drinking more had it hissing and crackling. Tears blurred her vision and she choked them back. Thoughts were racing through her mind at a million miles per second, overwhelming her to the point of panic. She turned the headphones as loud as they would go and focused on the movie screen mounted in the front. It leapt toward her and she pressed backward into the seat, hearing a loud crack. She froze.
“Um, miss, I think your chair is broken,” someone screamed in her ear.
She spun around and the source of the voice looked startled. “Are you all right?” He roared. She blinked at him. Other voices accosted her and she spun around again. Everywhere people were yelling, and above all of that was the sound of explosions, and metal scraping on metal.
Oh God, she forced her head into her lap, covering it with her arms. She gulped in air.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she shook her head violently, refusing to look up.
“Miss,” a woman’s voice shouted, “it’s all right, it’s just an anxiety attack. Here drink some water.”
She shook her head again. OFF, she yelled inwardly, TURN OFF!
Silence descended immediately.
Okay, she thought shakily, okay. She took slow, even breaths for several minutes before she could think again.
The blood must have done something, your senses have been heightened, that’s all it is. Oh yeah, that’s all it is no biggie, righhhtt. She felt tears burn the back of her eyelids and clenched her hands into fists. She felt the tapping again and put up a hand in a universal “hold on” gesture.
She took some more deep breaths and tentatively moved her arms away from her head. It was still completely silent, as if she’d pressed a mute button. Which was nice, really nice, but not practical.
She worked on the problem for several minutes and discovered what seemed to be a volume control inside her head. She was able to turn the noise back up very slowly. To human levels, she thought and a crazy giggle escaped her lips. Stop that! She commanded, No hysteria!
She lifted her head up slowly and met the concerned gaze of a flight attendant who was standing next to her, holding a glass of water. Anna reached for it and drank it down greedily.
“I’m okay now,” she told the woman. She looked around, and though people were sneaking looks at her, their expressions were mild. She must not have done anything too freaky, thank God. Her gaze landed on the bathroom guy and he started to get up. She shook her head slightly and he stopped, sinking back down.
“Your seat appears to be broken,” the flight attendant informed her gently.
She nodded. Luckily the seat beside her was empty. She felt a giggle building again but stomped it down. She moved over and nodded once more, the action making her feel grounded somehow. “I’m okay,” she repeated.
“Okay hon, but if you feel another attack coming on just push the button on the armrest.”
“I will.”
She watched the attendant move down the aisle and leaned back against her seat, closing her eyes. Tentatively she sought out the “volume” in her head and started playing with it.
She learned that in addition to the ability to mute everything, or turn it up and down, she could also be specific. If she focused on one particular voice she could hear everything they said as if they were sitting next to her. Holy shit, I’m eavesdropper extraordinaire. That made her smile a little. She opened her eyes and snuck a look at the bathroom guy and was relieved to see he appeared to be sleeping.
Remembering what had started her “panic attack” caused her thoughts to turn to her sight. The television had appeared to leap at her. Huh, she thought as she glanced around. Unlike her hearing, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She frowned, that didn’t make sense. She turned toward the window and scooted over into the broken chair. The chair that you broke, her mind butted in. She pushed the thought away. One thing at a time.
She looked out the small circular pane and at first all she could see were clouds and sky. But when she focused harder she was startled to find she now had a “zoom lens” on her eyes. That must have been why the screen had appeared to leap at her, she’d zeroed in on it in an attempt to block out her thoughts. The harder she focused, the faster the landscape rushed up at her. She closed her eyes to let the feeling of dizziness pass and tried again. After a while she figured out how to slow it down.
We’re flying over tobacco farms, she mused.
She leaned away from the window and studied her other senses. They were all more acute, though none as drastically altered as her hearing and sight...and possibly her strength, though she couldn’t test that theory right now.
Since she hadn’t noticed a difference until after she’d taken in blood, she decided it must be linked to nourishment. Taken in blood. Drank blood out of somebody’s neck. She shook that away and forced herself to continue being as logical as possible under the circumstances….okay nourishment, so how long could she go without it before she started feeling weak and sick, and especially before the pain hit?
At least she'd found she could control it. She shuddered to think she might have gone too far and hurt someone. Since she hadn't planned it out she was damn lucky that was the case. She wondered if all vampires instinctually knew when to stop so they wouldn't cause harm to the...source.
She had an inspiration and flagged down the flight attendant. "Do you have any notebooks and pens?"
"Certainly." The woman left and came back with a black marbled composition notebook, the kind you used in grade school for English.
Perfect, she thought. She stared at the blank page wondering where to start. Finally she put the pen down on the paper and let it decide for her.
I have fangs. I drink blood, though I don't harm the person I drink from. In fact, they don't know what it is I'm doing, and....it feels good to them. It’s somehow tied to sexual desire. Meaning? I am a vampire. Not sure if they are different species, and if so does that mean I'm only half? Or once you change do you change all the way? I can go out in sunlight, either myth is busted or I’m different. I still feel like me in matters of the mind and heart. So I’m not like the ones who made me this way. Also, every other person I witnessed change turned into a monster if they didn’t die. Does that mean I'm different? Or they just couldn’t control themselves?
Maybe most people are like that to begin with, then with help they learn to control it. Which would mean that I possess a strong will. Or maybe vamps are whole other species, as I questioned above, and humans normally don't make the change well. But if that's true, why me?
She hazily recalled Jake calling her different and special as well as mentioning her strong will. The memory of that monster holding her and crooning made her stomach queasy, but what had he meant? And if he really thought that, then why had he brought her to that place? Don't bother Preston, you couldn't possibly understand a mind as evil and warped as his. Besides he's dead. That brought to mind an image of the Greek god who had killed him.
Do vampires have human like emotions? (Besides me) Obviously not the ones I've seen. Except..maybe Greek god guy, at least at some point.
What is my life expectancy? Am I immortal? Jake said…"Something like that". Have to do a little experimenting, see if I heal fast. Also need to test out strength and speed.
She tapped her pen against the paper. What else? Well, she couldn’t read minds as far she could tell, and she really hoped there were no mind control aspects, she definitely wouldn't want that kind of power. She had to wonder about the whole “created to kill demons” thing. Since it had come from Jake it was probably crap, he’d just wanted her to think of him as a superhero so she would…well do what she did.
Can they destroy the shadow men/demons? Was there any truth to them being created to fight them? And how can I get answers to these questions?
She sighed and shut the book. She would wait until she at least figured out what she could on her own-such as strength, speed, agility, and healing, and go from there.
Superhero. Well obviously Jake had been a super villain, but there was a definite appeal in thinking she had super powers. I’m not a monster, she told herself. Different, yes. But I love, not a very monster-like quality. Besides, she could still feel a sense of goodness in her being, whatever else had changed the essence of her remained the same. And somehow it all seemed fated, why else would she be able to see the shadow men and then become what she was now?
She chewed her lip and stared out the window. As usual she had way more questions than answers and she felt a tension headache coming on. She decided to just lay back and think happy thoughts.
Surviving the past week, mind, body, and soul intact was a happy thought. Seeing her house again was a happy thought. Seeing the girls again, happy. Seeing Austin...she winced as she thought about her little bathroom rendezvous. Was that cheating? She hadn't been in a right state of mind, and she'd done what she did to prevent anything further from happening....What the hell am I thinking? As if that was their greatest obstacle? She was a vampire.
Happy thoughts slipped away as the enormity of what that meant slowly sunk in. If she was immortal, or at least disease and age proof, she would be living a long, long time. In this body, looking like this. All of a sudden she felt dizzy.
A scene played out in her mind of the life she might have had. She and Austin were married, then having children, then going to little league and soccer games, plays, and choral concerts. They had Christmas dinners and Easter egg hunts, and on Halloween he dressed up like the Boogie man and chased her and the children around……
As the scene faded she felt tears pushing at the back of her eyelids. Maybe this was why she had been afraid to be with him, maybe deep down she had known she could never have those things. She was reminded of a scene in the Hobbit movie where the king Elf had shown his daughter a vision of her future. She had watched her true love grow old and die, condemned to walk the earth alone through all of the ages thereafter.
She was now the elf. She would lose everyone she had ever known, ever loved. Once again she saw the face of the “Vampire of Fury”, and began to grasp the despair in his eyes. Had it been like that for him? Did her face remind him of someone he had loved and lost? A sudden and intense sorrow flooded through her and she pressed her hand against her heart. Stop this, she thought fiercely as a tear slid down her cheek. She wiped at it angrily. What good could it do to dwell on it? She didn't even know for sure she was going to live on like that, did she? No.
So much for happy thoughts, her head was splitting from the pressure of the emotion she was attempting to suppress. She closed her eyes again and concentrated on the here and now, after all, she had time to deal with these things. She didn't have to face it all at once. Or all alone.
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