Close Your Eyes, Remember Me (TBF Book 1)

Elijah

A few days passed with little incident. Elijah and Sariyah watched Lucia on shifts, she was the only one he trusted to not be her attacker. Well, she and Dr Farris and his staff. And on that front he had yet to uncover a culprit or any real leads besides what the shifty little servant man had confessed to him by Lucia's bedside. It was incredibly depressing, not that he let Lucia see how he felt.

His family had all shown suitable dismay at her 'accident', all enquired after the state of her health and every single one had offered some form of comforting words to him.

The only strangeness he had taken note of since the day of the accident was the miraculous change in personality from the Lucia he had met when she was first bundled into his home to the Lucia who clung to his hand and who slept in the bed in his room. She was soft and affectionate and almost timid. If anyone had ever used those words to describe his bride-to-be a week earlier he would never have believed them, in fact he probably would have sent them to Dr Farris for a check-up.

He brought this up with Sariyah as they sat at her bedside, watching her snooze in the early hours of the morning.

"Well, she was pretty furious when they brought her here. This is probably her neutral mode." She offered without dragging her eyes from the book balancing in her lap as she teetered on her chair.

"You think this is what she was like before she was dragged here?"

"I'm, like, ninety-nine percent sure that everything she was throwing at you from the moment she arrived was a tough act."

"Why did she need to be tough?"

Sariyah finally looked up at him, "Strange place, strange people," she said with a shrug, "I guess it was just her natural instincts, like an animal baring its fangs when it's cornered."

"I didn't mean to make her feel cornered." Elijah mumbled.

And with that he had lost her attention again, she turned back to her book.

"You were just a cog in the machine, kid." She said simply.

"I still feel guilty."

"Good, feelings are good."

She stood, tossed her well-worn book to one side and announced she was leaving to feed. Elijah nodded his understanding and watched her leave.

She wouldn't be gone long, they always had a supply of blood bags in the cellar. His family offered a very generous reward for blood donation, although the do-gooders who donated were often under the misguided impression that their pints of plasma and platelets was being used to aid the sick and injured. It's not that they explicitly lied to the humans, they just weren't very forthcoming with the truth.

Elijah would be in need of a feed by the end of the day too, often feeding was the only way he truly noticed time passing. When you are awake all the time you tend to forget to count how many times you see the sun rise and fall.

He could nap, although it wasn't like true sleep and he didn't gain anything from it. It was more like an induced coma or a trance, he would simply lie very still and shut his body off for a bit, taking a break from the outside world. He had heard that vampires who had been human first often found this quite therapeutic as they adjusted to life as a vampire and some would nap regularly as a way to stay connected to their human selves. Elijah was born a vampire but those who hadn't been fascinated him.

Maybe when he had found the thug lurking in the mansion, when he knew Lucia was undoubtedly safe, he could nap beside her as she slept. That sounded nice. Maybe he would hold her hand...

~

Lucia had a habit of blinking herself awake with her long, dark, camel-like lashes, then pouting with a confused expression until she was fully conscious. It had become the highlight of Elijah's mornings to watch over the last week.