Demon in Love (Book 3)

Chapter 3

“People fear death even more than pain. It’s strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over.”- Jim Morrison

Chapter 3

-Karen-

Shot through the heart

And you’re to blame

You give love a bad name

The Bon Jovi song blasted through my headphones while I sat motionlessly on my bed, with a book open in my lap. I was so lost in my thoughts that I wasn’t even paying attention to words in the book or the song anymore. Since the ‘accident’ had happened with those three teenagers, the headlines were all over the news.

The dumb teenagers had decided to wander around in the woods at night after coming back from some party where they had gotten pretty drunk. And what happened in the woods was still a mystery to the cops, as they claimed. The teenager who was barely alive at that moment was in a comatose state now.

But of course, the news of him saying vampire before he had passed out was the talk of the town these days. People were actually pasting crosses on the doors of their houses and purchasing a lot of garlic to keep the vampires out. Some people didn’t believe in the rumors though. They still believed that an animal had attacked the teens because, for them, vampires did not exist.

I had a vampire friend, I had kissed a vampire and I had been to a club filled with crazy vampires; which didn’t allow me to go with the second kind of people. Although I wanted to be one of them, I couldn’t.

Victor’s involvement in this was my biggest fear. Almost 80 percent of me was convinced that it was he who had killed these kids, but the remaining 20 percent was not ready to believe in these theories. I couldn’t help but replay Jon had said. Victor wouldn’t take a stupid step by leaving one of the three alive to tell the police about vampires. If the VES was hell-bent on keeping the vampires a secret, they would be obviously hunting down Victor by now.

Well, who was victor exactly hiding from?

My heart skipped a beat when the door was thrown open, and my mom emerged into the room with an angry red face. I removed my headphones, staring at her in disbelief.

“MOM!” I shouted. “You should’ve knocked before doing that. I could have been naked.”

“I’ve been knocking at your door for 30 minutes, but of course you had to listen to the song so loud that I can still hear it coming out of the headphones,” Mom narrowed her eyes as I looked down at my headphones. Damn, she was right. It was buzzing and I could clearly hear the song playing through it. “You’ll completely lose your hearing ability until you reach 40. Mark my words.”

I sighed, turning off the song on my mobile. She was overreacting, wasn’t she?

“Mom, is this why you’re here?” I asked. “To comment on my declining hearing ability?”

“You’ve been eating like a bird for more than a week. You barely leave your room and whenever you do, I see you with this long face and dark clothes to fit the mood. Karen, when you weren’t opening your door, I got scared,” She looked serious, “What is going on?”

Oh, so she thought I was depressed and I was going to hurt myself. When I wasn’t opening the door she probably thought that I was dead. Was I really eating like a bird these days? Hell, I wasn’t paying attention to my eating habits throughout the week. It was the least of my worries.

“Nothing,” I replied, avoiding the intense eye contact.

“You said your exams went fine,” She sat down on the bed. “And I believe they did. Then what are you stressed about?”

“Nothing, mom,” I shrugged. “It’s really nothing.”

“Honey, did you have a breakup?”

“What—no!” I nearly choked on my saliva. “What made you think so?”

“You’re acting all weird. You stay up in your room, listening to distressing music or reading books that you’ve already read ten times. You always space out at the dinner table and whenever we ask you something, your answers are a set of ‘umms’ and ‘ohs’,” She titled her head. “Karen, you can talk to me.”

“Mom, I told you there is nothing to talk about,” I lied. “I’m just having a hard time accepting the fact that high school is over. That’s it.”

“Is that why you don’t sleep at night?”

“Mom, please don’t misinterpret,” I groaned. “I never dated anyone in the first place, how can I have a breakup?”

Mom looked at me for a moment like she was trying to decipher me. What I said was true though. I never dated Victor, so there was no chance of a breakup. I was depressed only because of the on-going events.

“Whatever is making you sad, it’ll pass,” Mom said. “We all go through times when we feel down and useless but keep in mind that you’re strong enough to fight the urge to give up. I don’t know what’s bothering you, but I’ve never seen you like this and it scares me. I would be happy if you shared your problems with me.”

“I—I am fine,” I felt my eyes tearing and my voice shaking. I wanted to talk to someone but dragging my mom into a supernatural world was the last thing I would do. “I just want to be alone for a while until I figure out things on my own. Don’t worry about me. I’ll go out for a walk with Jon to refresh my head.”

“Did someone ask you for the graduation dance?” Mom tried changing the topic to something lighter.

I looked up at her and smiled. I was thankful to her for not pushing the matter anymore.

“No one really asked me for the dance,” I shook my head. I saw her face showing disappointment. “I’m sure I’ll find someone before the dance happens. Maybe someone who decided to go stag will finally pay attention to me. I’ll be happy that way.”

I thought mom would protest but she just nodded. “I want you to be happy, Karen. Just don’t rely on someone to make you happy. At the end of the day, it’s you who will have to make decisions for yourself. I hope you’ll choose wisely.”

She stood up from the bed and started to walk towards the door.

“Mom, what if it’s a decision that will affect everybody around me?” I asked loudly, making her stop and look back at me. “What if the moment I make the wrong choice, it’ll turn everyone’s world upside down?”

Mom furrowed her eyebrows and stared at me intently. I was hoping for her to answer my questions without asking me back any questions. I knew I won’t be able to provide answers to them. I couldn’t tell her anything without putting her in danger.

“You’ll know, honey,” Mom said in a soft voice. “When the time comes to make such an important choice, you’ll already be pretty smart to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong. Remember to analyse the situation from different angles rather than jumping to the final decision based on just one viewpoint. Things aren’t always what they seem to be.”

This is what I needed to do. I had to consider different angles of the current situation. I had to find out what was going on with Victor and what had turned him crazy. And if the VES was actively trying to hunt him down, we had to find him before they did. From what I had heard of VES, they wouldn’t give a second thought for executing him with their sadistic techniques.

I had to give it a try.

“Yeah,” I whispered to mom. “Thanks.”

“Are you coming down for lunch or do I have to bring it to you like I’ve been doing for a week?” Mom smiled, raising her eyebrows.

“I’ll be there,” I smiled back. “Since I don’t have much work to do here, I’ll come down to have lunch with you.”

Mom shook her head. Chuckling lightly, she walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.

My phone vibrated along with the message tune.

Hey, have you seen the news?

It was a message from Jon. News? I hadn’t been out of my room since I woke up.

No. What about it? I typed back.

Seconds later, my phone chimed in response.

The teen in the hospital gained his consciousness & when the cops asked him for a statement he stated that he doesn’t remember anything.

Another message followed.

Do you think someone made him forget this? I mean he did say vampire earlier. Now he doesn’t even remember what they were doing in the woods at night.

I narrowed my eyes at my phone’s screen. The teenager who had mumbled vampire when he was on the verge of death was now saying that he didn’t have the memory of what had happened to him. Well, this was taking a very confusing turn.

Jon and I exchanged several messages, discussing what on earth was going on until mom called me for lunch.

If the vampire had made the teenager forget everything after drinking his blood, it meant that he was left alive for a reason. But how could he say vampire if he didn’t remember anything? Or was it some posttraumatic thing that his memory was gone now?

As mom had advised me to think from different angles…was it possible that the vampire went to the hospital and made the guy forget whatever had happened?

Well, it wasn’t hard for a vampire to sneak into a hospital or any other place. But if Victor was the vampire we were talking about here; we were heading in the wrong direction. Let’s assume Victor is insane, so he killed those kids and didn’t mind to check if one was still alive. Would he go to the hospital to erase the memory of the boy who lived? And if he were insane, why the hell would he even bother with the damn memory?

Everything was completely off. The never-ending maze of questions seemed to get more complex with new questions. Having different views on the same situation was only making it harder to understand. If there was someone else, like Victor’s note had mentioned, we had to be cautious while dealing with the unknown person. An unknown enemy was always more dangerous than the known one.

The day passed and night fell while I sat in my room with my headphones connected to the laptop. With music player aside, I had the internet browser open to read the news once again. No matter how many times I read it; the news remained the same. The news was indicating the same vague theory of how the guy was probably out of his mind because of how horrible the attack had been. The cops were seriously considering this a deed done by some psycho serial killer.

A minute later, I saw something move from the corner of my eye. My instincts made me steal a glance in the direction of my room’s window. It was open! The cold night wind blew in, giving me goosebumps. When did I leave it open?

I removed my headphones, got up from the bed, and slowly walked towards the window. I remembered it being tightly shut, not wide open.

As every retarded person would do, I looked out of the window before closing it. You can’t be too careful, right?

“You look beautiful right now,” It wasn’t the cold breath on my neck that made me shiver; it was the voice I was extremely familiar with. “But you smell too delicious for your own good.”

Victor Devries.

My eyes grew wide with surprise and fear. I tried to turn to face him, but his arm snaked around my waist, holding me forcefully in my place. I felt him bending down his head to bring his mouth close to my ear once again.

“Don’t turn around, darling. Unless you’re ready to end up as a dead body on the floor in your own room,” He whispered. I balled my hands into tight fists. “Hurting you is the last thing I want to do, sweetheart.”

I gulped. I needed to do something to free myself.

“What are you doing here?” I found my voice at last. I was mentally prepared to fight him at all costs but physically…I wasn’t so sure.

“What does it look like?” He asked, chuckling lightly. “I told you I’ll be back for you.”

His cold fingers trailed down on the back of my neck, making me flinch.

“What do you want, Victor?” I gritted my teeth. “What the hell do you want?”

He chuckled again. I struggled to get out of his grip but it seemed nearly impossible to do so. His arm only tightened more, suffocating me.

“I promise,” He whispered in my ear. “I won’t take much.”

“Wha—”

I didn’t get a chance to react when he sunk his fangs in my neck.