Diary of a Vampeen (32 page)

“Yea?”

“Not happening. You need to eat. Then
I’ll consider it.”

“I haven’t even showered yet though,”
I whined trying to put off scarfing more food down my burning
throat.

“Lexi. What’s going on? Why are you
trying to avoid the thing that makes you stronger?” he pressed
suspiciously.

Crap. He’s onto me.
I didn’t want to add him to the list of people
I’d lied to. It’s bad enough that I’d added three new people in
three days – Mel, Mike and my mom.

“It just doesn’t taste good,” I
replied remembering the weird after-taste of the first steak I
consumed five bites of. It didn’t taste horrible, just wasn’t
appetizing in any way.

Before he could reply, I was off the
bed. I scurried grabbing my new green VS capri sweats, which
matched his eyes, and a white tank with an intricate black and grey
design on the front. I kissed him lightly on my way to the bathroom
and advised, “I’ll be out in a bit… unless you want to join me.” I
teased flashing a devilish grin.

“Tempting, but I’ll pass,” he
smiled.

“Still playing the gentleman card I
see.”

“Hurry up,” he grumbled.

“Yea, yea.”

Midway through letting the hot water
run down my back, I felt a fog cloud me; a feeling of exhaustion
and slight dizziness far stronger than the time before. I placed my
hands flat against the tiled wall feeling the color drain out of
me. My breath began to come in shorter spurts. The serum in my
throat ran over again filling my mouth, burning my tongue. I spit
the clear syrup out profusely into the running water, swallowing
the rest repeatedly.

I began to feel weak. I managed to
turn off the water and wrap myself in the towel over the glass door
before I sunk down against the wall of the shower. My head was
heavy, my body putty, and my excellent vision was beginning to blur
at the corners. I felt how I did when I was going under; I was
fighting to stay conscious. I heard a knock at the bathroom door,
but nothing was audible to me; all surrounding noises had muted in
my drowsiness.

“Lexi? Are you okay?” Kellan asked
cautiously.

“Ye...uh…” I attempted to say yes, but
could barely speak let alone annunciate. I was panting at this
point, the serum bordering over flow again. I closed my eyes and
gave up just as I heard Kellan bust through the locked
door.

“Sharon!” he called my mother
frantically scooping me into his arms. Two seconds later I was in
bed under the covers, still wrapped in my towel only half my body
dry and my hair dripping wet. Kellan and my mother were hovering
over me; they were speaking a foreign tongue, the same as the
doctor earlier. I closed my eyes and fell fast asleep, fatigue
consuming every muscle in my body.

Groggily opening my eyelids, I awoke
to Kellan pacing beside my bed. His head was sunken and hands
clasped together behind his back. Looking at his face, he appeared
angry, very disgruntled over something but not an ounce of worry
filtered in.

“Kellan?”

He looked at me briefly but continued
pacing.

“Umm. What’s wrong?” I asked sitting
up. Looking down I saw I was in the same towel untouched. I glanced
at the clock on my nightstand displaying 7:37am. When no response
came I asked a new question. “How long was I sleeping?”

“Six hours Lexi. You slept for six
hours trying to kill yourself. Why did you lie to me?!” he yelled,
his eyes piercing through me like a knife.

“What are you talking
about?”

He closed his eyes and began rubbing
his temples between deep breathes. When he spoke again, he was
calm, but the anger still resounded in his lowered voice. “Dr. H
was here. He diagnosed your problem. Your mother was hysterical
feeling at fault somehow, your father was a mess unable to cope
with it all and your aunt was, well she was just relieved to know
what was really wrong with you.”

“Where are they?” I pressed hearing
nothing or no one in the house but me and Kellan.

“They left. I told them I would stay
with you. I promised to call when you woke up,” he
replied.

I swallowed hard. It made sense now. I
fully understood why Kellan was so irate. They figured out my
secret. They now knew I’d been avoiding human blood. Worse, my
mother felt that it’s her fault, that she forced me into this
decision which wasn’t the case. I felt awful. The whole purpose in
me avoiding human blood was to not hurt anyone, to avoid inflicting
pain upon other families, yet somehow I still imposed it on my own.
I sunk back down into the covers, lifting them over my head in
shame.

He climbed on top of me over the
covers. With one swift move I was uncovered, lying in my towel. He
stared directly into my eyes, I felt like I was looking at an angry
bear disturbed during hibernation.

“I just need to know. Why did you
lie?” he asked directly in a calm, tightly controlled
voice.

“I didn’t technically lie, I just
never corrected your assumptions,” I muttered.

“Lexi, please, I’m trying to
understand,” he pleaded still rash in tone.

“I… I don’t want to kill humans for my
appetite. I know too many good ones. I don’t want to be a ruthless
murderer of mothers and fathers and brothers and daughters. I
couldn’t imagine losing my dad! I can’t selfishly inflict that on
someone else,” I explained, tears welling quickly in the well of my
eyes, imagining the pain I would suffer over the loss of my
dad.

The rage left Kellan; his muscles
relaxed and his piercing eyes turned to that of a sad puppy. “I
wish you would have told me. We can find an alternative for you,”
he said.

“Is there one?” I asked feeling
hopeful, my face lighting up at the thought despite the tears still
silently streaming down.

“I’ll help you find one,”
he smiled wiping away a few drops on my cheeks. He rolled off of me
and firmly ordered, “Now go get dressed. You need to
drink
.”

I shook my head obediently knowing I
couldn’t avoid this any longer. I changed quickly in the bathroom.
I brushed my teeth and pulled my hair into a messy bun. I walked
out to see him sitting up with a cup in his hand.

“What is that?” I asked.

“This is yours. You need to drink all
of it.”

I sat beside him and rendered the
glass from his hand. Looking in, there were a few ice cubes in a
thick red liquid. I sniffed at it, but couldn’t smell anything out
of the ordinary about it. “What is it?”

“It’s human blood. Now
drink.”

Wearily, I sucked a tiny bit of the
liquid into my mouth. I didn’t know what to expect. You think of
drinking blood as a human and you’re ready to gag, but it was
actually sweet and crisp like mint lemonade on a hot summer day,
only thicker. It didn’t bother me so much in that reference and it
didn’t smell bad. No rusty, salted metal here; I actually didn’t
smell anything at all from the cup. The liquid in my throat still
sizzling dropped in temperature the very millisecond the red liquid
trickled down. It was still very present, but not burning like
before.

Feeling more confident based off my
body’s initial reaction to the tiniest bit, I sipped a larger
amount. This time, the serum began to dwindle in levels. I looked
up at Kellan who was eagerly sitting beside me, encouraging me to
continue with his eyes and an adoring smile. I swallowed the rest
of the drink in under thirty seconds.

I handed him the empty cup. The moment
he retrieved it from me the healing serum, cold as ice now, spewed
into my mouth. My eyes widened in panic as I looked at Kellan
alarmingly.

“Swallow it. If you were feeding off a
human that’s what you would spit back into the bite wound to heal
them quickly.”

“Disgusting!” I yelled after
swallowing the liquid. This time though it actually stayed below my
esophagus. I took a deep breath inhaling through my mouth. It felt
so great that I did it a few more times. I couldn’t help but beam
at feeling the relief I did.

“You were brave.”

“With what?”

“Lexi, I got that burning feeling in
my throat once and literally attacked the next human I saw. How you
were able to put up with the pain, the stinging fire in your throat
for so long… Well, let’s just say that I couldn’t do
it.”

“Yea, but my cause was worthless. I
just drank a human’s blood. Actually… where did you get that?” I
questioned.

“My dad bought a few pints of blood
from the blood bank a week ago. Every so often he does this in case
of an emergency like today with you,” he explained.

“Wait. So humans donate the blood and
then you buy it; like how they buy their groceries at a store?” I
pressed. A light bulb went off in my head.

“Yes. It only lasts about forty-five
days though and it’s expensive,” he replied.

“Like how expensive are we
talking?”

“Each time you feed, you’re supposed
to take at least eight pints from the human. The average human has
ten to twelve pints in their body. You need to feed for strong
performance levels at least once a week but could get by with once
every other week. The average unit of blood costs between $150 -
$200. One unit is about two pints of blood. So total, you would
need at least three to four twice a month so you would be looking
at about a $1,400 per month grocery bill as you like put
it.”

I furrowed by brows and widened my
eyes in amazement. “Wow.”

“I told you,” he shrugged.

“Not the cost. You.”

“What did
I
do?” he became
defensive.

“I’m just amazed at the wealth of
knowledge you have with all this stuff.” I began fiddling with my
hands again. “That is expensive though. I can see why vampires just
take it for free with that cost attached,” I sighed feeling
frustrated.

Why is it that for humans the healthy
nutritious food like organics are more expensive? You would think
it was the preservatives that added the extra cost to it, but
apparently not. I mean you don’t spray pesticides on an organic
apple which saves you money, but yet you charge twice as much for
it. And with blood, I just don’t understand why something that is
technically free when donated would have such a high price tag. You
pay the nurse $15 for an hour of work. It doesn’t take an hour to
stick a needle in someone’s arm and extract blood. I know, I know,
there are other costs in processing, testing and storage and yada,
yada, but that is a lot of money. I will never judge the hospital
for a high transfusion bill again! Unfortunately though, this
definitely was not helping my cause.

“I have money in the bank. Why don’t
we buy the blood for now until we figure out an alternative for
you?” he offered.

“I have money in my account too. I
don’t want to use yours unless I absolutely have to. I guess just
ask your dad if he’ll buy it for me or show me how and where to buy
it,” I said. Thinking thoroughly beyond this expensive alternative,
I recalled the idea of breaking away at seventy-five percent. If I
could master it, then I wouldn’t need an alternate. I could drink
in the true vampire fashion without sacrificing my morals. I would
feel guilty for hurting a human, but as long as they lived, I’d
have protected them.

“Sure. You’re going to need more very
soon though. What you drank was only a pint.”

“It seemed like a lot more,” I noted
aloud. “I think eventually I will feed off humans but practice in
the way we spoke before, taking enough but not killing
them.”

“I know my limitations and I can’t
control myself in consumption right now. I’ll ask my dad to help
you if you want though,” he offered.

I nodded in agreement. “Umm… thanks
again for helping me with everything,” I said fidgeting with my
hands nervously.

He smiled lovingly, putting the
earphones in his ears and pressing play on his red iPod. I nestled
close to enjoy the music in the arms of my love and he willingly
embraced me.

Chapter 20

“Are you fully prepared for this?” Al
asked as we ran through the woods alongside a bike path.

It was early in the morning, 5a.m. to
be exact, and though I was about to do what I’d been dreading, I
was attempting to glue myself together mentally.

“Yea, I think so.”

It’d been over a week since my family
discovered my big secret and two days since I’d consumed human
blood from a bag. Kellan provided me with three pints of blood
which sustained me, but more was necessary for my maintenance at
full capacity.

The last ten days, both Kellan and Al
had trained me non-stop. They’d done their due diligence in attack
and feeding preparation. I’d slept merely two hours, yet I lacked
no supply of energy. Sadly, this confirmed my body’s dependence on
human blood. Al had been persistent in warning me of the
temptation. He explained that once I bite and taste the blood, a
rush of instinctual action will take over me. He said to guard my
mind during this process to avoid surrendering to my vampire
side.