Breathless (31 page)

Recalling the tale of Alexei’s transformation from human to vampire, I knew that, had I been completely conscious in the moments following Frost’s bite, I would have experienced an intense fever and temporary paralysis. Fortunately, that memory had been banished from my brain. However, the after affects were imminent. Shortly after I had awakened in the hospital, I became increasingly aware of my heightened senses.

“
It’s like everything is in some sort of multi-dimensional, Technicolor dream world,” I said, waving my hand back and forth in front of my face. I could see every pore, every freckle and line in immense detail. “It’s so surreal.”

“
Shhh,” warned Chaseyn. “Someone might hear you.”

“
Oh, right,” I remembered. “How long do you think it will last? It’s kind of neat.”

“
A couple of days at most. But, you mustn’t let any of the staff know. Okay?”

“
Of course. Oh, no. What’s that smell? It’s disgusting,” I said, holding my nose.

“
Bed pans. Sometimes, having an acute sense of smell can be more of a pain that it is pleasant. You’ll get used to it eventually.”

“
Just get me out of here.”

Once I was safely tucked into bed at my grandma’s house, the others descended upon me like hawks that had just spotted fresh carrion on the roadside.

“
We need a plan,” Eli said fervently.

Mina had now caught up to our group at my grandma’s house, and she had insisted on telling Hank and Eli the truth. Every detail. Now, Eli was wearing a hole in the carpet from pacing back and forth.

“
Good thinking, Sherlock,” Chaseyn said sarcastically. He and Eli had been butting heads since I had come home from the hospital. Their show of gratitude for one another was just a guise for my benefit. Now that I was showing marked signs of improvement, they felt secure revealing their true emotions. “What impressive skills of deduction you have acquired.”

“
Enough, boys,” my grandma hollered.

“
He’s hardly a boy,” Eli countered. “He should learn to act his age. You don’t see my grandfather romping around with teenage girls like he’s king of the world.”

“
If I had his genes—,” Hank began to tease.

“
Hank,” my grandma warned, cutting off his words mid sentence.

“
It’s not like that,” Mina explained. “Chaseyn may be the same age as your grandfather biologically, but he lacks the experience needed to develop mentally and emotionally beyond his early twenties.”

“
I’m standing right here,” Chaseyn reminded the group.

“
Chaseyn, it’s important for them to understand,” she continued. “Because of his physical appearance, people treat him in such a way that he has only ever been able to have the experiences and emotions of someone between the ages of 15 and 23. And, he will relieve those same emotions over and over again for all eternity. No one is ever going to talk to him like a man who has the wisdom of several decades and multiple graduate degrees. He will never have a professional career, be a father, grow old...the list is endless.”

“
Cool,” Eli broke in.

“
No. Eli, it’s not cool,” Mina said forcefully. “Don’t ever wish for this. Not for one minute.”

Mina’s command rang loudly inside my head. Despite the fact that she had spoken the words in response to Eli’s bemused comment, she was looking deep into my eyes, willing me to comprehend the authority behind her weighty words. Her message was clear.

“
Okay, mom,” Chaseyn said wryly. “I think everyone’s been educated well enough about my pathetic existence and meager emotional aspirations. Can we focus on the task at hand?”

Mina, who rarely expressed emotion, smiled at her only son. Chaseyn was always in control, determined. She had just revealed a side to him that I had not contemplated previously. Though he had spent many decades roaming the Earth, we shared a common innocence in many ways. He seemed softer in the light of this realization. Eli thought so, too. I could tell by the way he quieted and waited for Chaseyn to declare a course of action.

In the time it had taken Mina to unravel the mystery of Chaseyn’s emotional shortcomings, he had formulated a plan. Simple, though it was.

“
The next full moon is in four-and-a-half days. We just need to keep a constant vigil until then,” he told our small group.

“
I’m supposed to go home in three days. There is no way my mom will believe that I want to stay here any longer than I have to,” I reasoned.

“
You’re right,” Chaseyn agreed. “That’s why we’ll tell her that the attending physician wanted to see you one last time before you left and that he would be out of town until Monday.”

“
Will
she
come back,
” Eli asked, referring to Frost.

“
Most likely,” Mina said. “Frost has been training for this moment her entire life. She’s not likely to walk away so easily.”

“
What chance do we stand against a vampire,” Hank added.

“
She is young,” Mina told him, resting a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. “She will make mistakes. She already has.”

“
What do you mean,” Hank asked.

“
Frost was only born a few years ago. Her strength is minimal compared to decades old vampires, and her skills are not yet honed. Though she is much stronger than other girls her size, she would be no match for Eli’s brawn,” Mina stated matter of fact.

“
Seriously? That is so cool,” Eli said gleefully.

“
Bear in mind, though, her senses of sight and smell are exceptionally sharp. Regardless of the fact that she is in the infantile stages of her undead form, she can use these skills to her advantage. For this reason, Chaseyn and I will remain nearby at all times.”

“
Will you know if she’s here,” I asked.

“
Mina will have a better sense than me,” Chaseyn said, looking ashamed. “Vampires can feel each other’s presence within a certain proximity.”

“
You’re not a vampire,” I said, acknowledging the reason for his shame.

He nodded.

“
For once, I wish—“

“
No you don’t, Chaseyn,” Mina stopped him. “You’re very fortunate to remain at least partly human.”

“
You can use your special skill to track her, can’t you,” Eli asked—obviously proud of the fact that he had made such a deduction.

“
Not this time. She’s my sister—half-sister, anyway. My sixth sense is unreliable when dealing with blood relatives. Basically, I’m flying blind.”

“
So how did you know she was with me in the funhouse?”

“
The bracelet…it’s a sort of amulet, if you will,” he explained. “It’s not foolproof, but it detects minor changes in your body chemistry based on anxiety. Occasionally, I am able to
feel
these changes through heated pulses in a similar silver cuff that I wear on my left wrist.”

He lifted the sleeve of his Oxford shirt to reveal the narrow band.

“
It worked once, but it is all dependent on Cordelia’s emotional state. She had a great deal of time to contemplate her fate. She worked up a large amount of stress while she tried to understand the events unfolding around her. A surprise attack, for example, would leave her less response time.”

I shuddered, and Chaseyn wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Eli looked on enviously, and for a moment I felt badly that he was so willing to help me given his unrequited love. I wanted desperately to feel something more for him—after all, he was a beautiful, talented young man with a promising future. He could give me a normal life. Better than normal—he could give me everything that Chaseyn never could. Yet, I could not will myself to want that.

“
So what do we do now,” Eli asked Chaseyn nervously, echoing my sentiments just one day earlier as I lay in a hospital bed healing from the wounds inflicted by Frost’s first attack. This time, Mina answered, using the same simple words Chaseyn had used earlier.

“
We wait.”

Before the clock struck twelve announcing lunch hour on the first day of our stake out, I was going mad. Between Chaseyn and Eli stalking me around the house, I felt like a prisoner in my own—well, my grandma’s—home. I had all but got on my hands and knees begging for a little privacy, but they insisted it was necessary to monitor my every move. We continued in much the same fashion for the next two days.

Hank, Mina, and my grandma had settled into their own routine. Realizing Chaseyn and Eli were practically tripping over each other to cater to my every whim, they felt secure finding other ways to entertain themselves. Mostly, Hank lay sprawled across the couch watching college football on my grandma’s small-screen television. Mina took lessons in domesticity.

“
Now, darling, you must be careful to coat the countertop with only a small amount of flour. Any more, and you will ruin the dough,” I heard my grandma saying in the kitchen. “No, no. That’s much too much. Let me just dab some of it up. There you go.”

Visions of a dust-covered Mina clad in jeans and an oversized T-shirt—quite a stretch from her normally perfectly pressed designer fashions—cluttered my head. With a rolling pin in hand, I could see her moving to and fro and she struggled to make the pastry just the right thickness so she could press in the star- and heart-shaped cookies cutters. The thought made me chuckle.

“
What’s so funny,” Chaseyn asked. I was lying with my head in his lap as he stroked my head gently, being careful to avoid my wounds. It was one of the few moments Eli had left us alone together and only because he had been sent on an errand to get more milk and eggs. My grandma was determined to teach Mina how to make the most delicious sugar cookies despite the fact that not a single one of her creations would ever touch Mina’s lips.

“
Listen to them,” I said.

“
How many batches have they made?”

“
This is the third. Who is going to eat all of those cookies?”

We laughed together and kissed a little before Eli rejoined us. For his sake, I sat up straight and motioned for Chaseyn to select from a series of board games that were stashed in the corner of the room. After much thoughtful consideration, he lifted Monopoly from the center of the stack. I realized later that this was one of the few games he would not be able to anticipate our moves. For the next two hours, we competed in a high-stakes round of one of the world’s favorite pastimes.

“
I just don’t understand how you stay so thin,” my grandma said to Mina as they continued their kitchen adventures. This sent the three of us into uproarious laughter. Soon, I could hear Mina chiming in from down the hall. She rarely showed any emotion, so this was particularly amusing for Chaseyn.

“
Why are you all laughing?”

“
Grandma, you can’t be serious,” I called from the next room. “Have you really not figured it out yet?”

By now, the three of us had abandoned our game to join in ribbing my grandma about her inability to comprehend the biological workings of the undead.

“
Heaven knows what you’re talking about, Lia. I just want to know how she manages to keep so very trim,” my grandma said to me sternly before turning her attention to Mina. “You haven’t gone for a run or pretzelled yourself into a Yoga pose since you’ve been here. What
is
your secret?”

Mina paused for a moment to regain her composure before speaking. My grandma sank her teeth into one of the freshly baked cookies cooling on the countertop.

“
Etta,” she began politely. “It’s been very nice of you to show me your secret recipes. I just love spending time with you in the kitchen—and Chaseyn will love benefitting from all I have learned—but I have little need for such delicacies.”

“
Whatever do you mean, dear? Everyone can use a little sugar high every now and then.”

“
Actually, my body rejects such culinary pleasures. I, quite literally, have no way of processing this type of nourishment,” Mina explained.

“
But, Chaseyn loves my baking, don’t you?”

He nodded reassuringly.

“
Chaseyn and I are quite different,” she continued. “His body functions in a very human way. Sadly, mine no longer does.”

A look of defeat crossed my grandma’s face at the same time realization sank in.

“
Oh, I see,” she said in surprise. “Thank goodness. I thought you were some sort of freak of nature with a superhuman metabolism.”