In Love With a Vampire

Chapter Twelve

Donna

Voices.

One high-pitched. The other low, quiet, anxious.

“What am I going to do? My parents are going to kill me Lucas!”

“We can get rid of it, right?”

“Jesus Lucas! Do you know how dangerous that is? Do you remember fat legs Christie? I heard she died during an abort-“

“Can you tone it down? Someone might hear us!”

“We are in a freaking bathroom stall with padded soundproof walls! Who the f**k are you afraid will hear us?”

I shuddered. I was not sure who I was rooting for in that particular argument. What was an abortion anyway? And did human parents kill their children? I had been right then. Lory had eaten her human baby.

“I think she is awake…”

My eyes fluttered open at the sound of Maria's soft voice. As my vision became clearer, I saw a human female hovering over me instead of Maria. My arm instinctively sprang towards her neck but my hand never reached its intended destination.

“What in the name…”

I angled my head to view Maria. She was leaning against the door, a knowing smirk on her lips. Next to her, was the nurse.

She was one of us.

“But how? Why? I mean? What the hell?”

“Yeah that was your friend's reaction too. You know…after she tried to knock me out so she can steal a bag of blood?”

Maria's cheeks reddened, she lowered her gaze.

“My question is…What is a vampire princess doing here at this time of the year?”

My mouth was still open. After a while, I slowly closed it, licked my lips and gathered my thoughts. I tried to recall if anyone had warned me about another vampire being in the human realm.

Nothing.

According to my father, the human realm was free of vampires, well, except for us.

“How did you know I was the next vampire leader? What do you mean by this time of the year? And who are you? How are you working here? In a human school? As what they refer to as a nurse? Are there others?”

The nurse rolled her eyes before pushing herself off the door and strutting towards what appeared to be a desk area. She sat down, grabbed a pen and began scribbling on a piece of paper.

Was she blatantly ignoring me?

“Your leader asked you a question…”

My head whipped towards Maria. Her embarrassment had dissipated. Now her hands were folded, her eyes squinted. She genuinely looked…scary.

“Yeah…she is not my leader. The president of this country is…”

“You dare renounce your Queen?”

The nurse sighed, rolled her eyes and stretched her arm, waving a piece of paper in her hand.

“Take this, use it to get into the next class, which by the way you are all late to.”

Maria and I shared a look before I nodded at her. Maria walked towards the nurse, her face etched with quiet a rage.

“I do not know who you are. But you are still one of us. You will treat my Mistress with the respect she deserves.”

The nurse slowly stood up, unintimidated by Maria. She was quite tall with long, graceful limbs. Her blonde hair sat in the middle of her head in a neat bun with, no strand of hair was out of place.

“In case you have not noticed, this is not the beast realm and I am not your typical tribe member. You cannot just waltz in my world and demand s**t from me. I saved your life, both your lives. The way I see it, you should be kissing my feet for saving your Mistress. Do you know what happens when prissy little vampires like her don’t feed for more than twenty hours? Here is the short version, their bodies go to shock and they die. Do you know what happens to Hands who don’t properly take care of their Mistresses? They die too, painfully, slowly and shamefully…Now both of you will leave my office and go back to class. Let's never cross paths again huh?"

I watched as the nurse shoved the piece of paper into Maria's chest. Maria moved a little, her feet losing balance. The nurse was strong. Did she feed on human blood? Was that why she had become some form of human physician?

“Go on…both of you.”

I slipped down from the thin, uncomfortable bed and began making my way towards the door. I felt stronger, calmer. The nurse had indeed saved my life. Maria opened the door and stepped out. When I reached the door, I paused and began playing with the rusted door knob.

“You are a noble too…You could be living well in the best realm…Why come here?”

I angled my head to view the nurse. She was now at the thin bed, arranging the bedding, whistling melodiously.

“Go to class.”

I twisted the doorknob. Each time I did, tiny metals protruded from the holes arranged at the side of the doorknob. The mechanism oddly fascinated me.

“Thank you…for saving my life. For saving our lives.”

The nurse suddenly halted her movements, straightened her back and turned to face me.

“You are definitely different. Curious, annoying but…different. Maybe the beast realm is not doomed after all. One tip though…Stop calling us humans…you know, human this, human that…Learn our names. For example, I am Diana.”

I regarded the nurse for a long time before bobbing my head. Diana had just referred to herself as human.

“Thank you…for the tip. For everything.”

I turned to leave but Diana's voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Did you…Do you…Have you ever heard of a vampire called Sorokin?”

I was about to respond when Maria tugged my shirt. I shifted my bodyweight to view what Maria was pointing towards, the English teacher was rapidly walking towards us. His face was contorted with anger and his lips were moving. I perked my ears.

“I will kill those little devils…those good for nothing motherfu…”

I stopped listening suddenly feeling the need to not bump into our clearly aggravated English teacher.

I quickly shut the door behind me, grabbed Maria's arm and began running towards our next class.

* * *

“Maria…How did we get to the nurse?”

We were at what the humans called a cafeteria. The place was filled with all sorts of human teenagers; tall, short, black, white, brown, ginger, auburn, blonde, platinum, loud, shy, bored, quirky…I felt nauseated just by looking at them. There were so many of them.

So many.

Definitely more than us.

For once, I agreed with my subconscious.

“The very angry human boy, as you call him, was the one who carried you to the nurse's office.”

Flashes of my interaction with the very angry human boy suddenly appeared in my mind. I saw us in the awfully smelling room, I saw us leaving the awfully smelling room and entering the hallway…Wait, had I mirrored his every move?

“Maria…I seem to recall something bizarre. I remember… I remember lifting my leg just like the very angry human boy…even the way I moved my hands…What was I doing then?”

Maria lowered her gaze, a smile playing on her lips. I sighed, I must have looked like an utter fool.

“Why did I do it?”

Maria gave me a slight shrug and an apologetic gaze.

“Perhaps it was because you were hungry? You did scold him as well. If I recall correctly, you refused to say thank you and kept pointing out his flaws. You even told him he had a protuberant forehead.”

I was starting at my plate, grimacing at whatever humans called food. Appearances were important so once in a while, Maria and I would take a bite of the disgusting food and force it down our throats. I was in the middle of chewing when Maria informed me that I had been quite mean to the very angry human boy.

“And he still carried me? After me treating him so poorly?”

Maria enthusiastically bobbed her head.

“What are you so excited about? You are aware that he might know what we truly are right?”

Maria chuckled before shaking her head. When she spoke, she spoke in a low voice.

“I can almost guarantee you that that particular human has no idea what we are…and that even if he did know, he is not a threat. Do you really think he would have helped us leave that that smelly room or carried you to that…nurse if he had ill intentions?”

“You really don’t like the nurse do you?”

“Who is she? What is she doing here? How does she know Sorokin? How dare she treat you so so…”

I flinched at the mention of Sorokin. That question had caught me off-guard as well. I glanced around us and noticed the next table regarding us with curiosity.

“Quiet down now Maria…We are getting a lot of attention from these human teenagers…”

Maria's breathing had become labored with anger. My heart swelled with pride, her loyalty was something to admite.

“Excuse me ladies…Can me and my boy sit here?”

I flitted my eyes towards two human boys who were hovering over us. One was bony, with a network of freckles across his face and a confident smile. The other was extremely good looking. He was taut and tall but for some reason he could not seem to stay still.

“Do you need to visit the bathroom?”

The bony human chuckled and slapped his friend on the back.

“Well dude…Do you need to go pee? Or you know…shit?”

For some reason we had attracted a lot of unwanted attention. The tables that were bordering ours filled with laughter at the bony human's comment. I was about to ask what was humorous about the whole situation when Maria's voice piped up.

“There is nothing wrong with going to the bathroom human boy.”

Normally, Maria's voice was colored with coyness, uncertainty. Today, at the nurse's office, I had heard her speak with rage and now, she was speaking with confidence. I could not help but smile even though I was certain that Sorokin would not approve of Maria's new found voice.

“Did you just call me human boy you weirdo?”

“Hey Tony…chill with the name calling okay?”

“Oh so you have balls now Seth? After your sudden growth spurt? You know you look like a gorilla right?”

The table next to is roared with laughter. Was that particularly clever? I did not think so. I was about to respond but Maria best me to it. I brought my lips together, curious to hear her response.

“I think he is rather handsome and that you are the gorilla looking one…a really tired looking, bony gorilla…”

I chuckled, amused that Maria would stick to the same line of what I assumed was an insult. It was painful to watch as the bony human boy whipped his head between Maria and his friend before stomping off muttering to himself. The moment he was far away enough, guffaws filled the air. Were they really afraid of that bony creature?

“May I sit with you?”

My attention averted back to the jittery human. His feet were no longer dancing about and he was looking at Maria as if she were a blood bag, or whatever it is humans loved to eat. It certainly could not be what were currently shoving down our throats. What kind of a name was pizza anyway?

“Yes come sit by me…This way you can see my…I mean Donna properly…”

A peal of laughter escaped my throat when I caught the confusion etched on the human boy's face.

“I do not think it is me he wants to ogle at Maria…”

Maria suddenly went still, her eyes wide, her cheeks a deep hue of red. She then lowered her gaze, grabbed her fork and violently stabbed her food. I gestured for the human boy to sit beside me. His expression had shifted from confusion to disappointment.

“So human boy…”

“It’s Seth actually…”

I bobbed my head suddenly recalling what Diana had told me about calling humans, well, humans.

“Sorry…I meant Seth…Ummmh what do you…you ummmh creatures, yes creatures do for fun?”

I looked at Seth expectantly for an answer but all he did was stare at me as if I was mad. He slowly averted his attention to Maria who was still murdering her food.

“Ummmh are you okay? Maria?”

Maria slowly lifted her gaze and for a while the two simply stared at each other. I was about to press Seth for an answer when I felt the hair behind my neck prickle.

Someone is starting at you Donna.

I know now shut up.

I was just trying to help Donna.

I scanned the cafeteria for my stalker; my eyes landed on the very angry human boy.

He was sitting on a table perched at a corner. He was alone, his eyes fixated on me. The moment our gazes interlocked, my ear waves caught the sound of his accelerating heartbeat.

Padum.

Padum.

Padum.

Wait, was that his or mine?