Color Me Red (A Vampire Romance)

7

Just as Marcus and the doctor named Michael said, Damien got better earlier than they had expected them to be. Tyler was on bedroom arrest, unable to go out or be visited by anyone. Blasting his music was also banned. As for Gabbi, she was left alone unscathed of blame, either because she was just a mere human, a soon to be a dead one or Damien had something to do with her being spared. And so, she spent her time in silence.

"Why am I the only one punished?"

Or so she thought. She put down her book and faced him. "Aren't you supposed to be in your room?"

"I compromised..." He shrugged. "To be honest, I begged Marcus. I went on my knees and I clung to his feet. I clung tight, you know. Really tight." But his proud nod to himself disappeared just as quickly, and his shoulders slumped. "Three months, Gabbi. I can't go out for three months! And it was not even an official sanction. Marcus made it up. What should I do?"

"Rest?"

"Do I look like I need 'rest'? If only I could cuddle inside a coffin and sleep for three months. But I can't. It's lousy fiction! Vampires don't sleep in coffins, seriously." He pulled his hair, then cleared his throat. "I mean, Gabbi, help me. Please."

Her answer was a tilted head. How is she supposed to? She is powerless in different aspects.

"I couldn't even last a day with nothing. No music, no garden, no Koro. What is Marcus thinking?"

She just muttered a helpless 'I'm sorry.' Tyler turned to his loyal pet, now hanging on his usual spot, for attention.

"Unfair, isn't it, Koro? Marcus and Damien can do what they want. Well, they work, but you know what I mean. How about me? Are years of isolation not enough?"

"That's because you were punished," a voice interrupted. It was Damien's. "The Primele Finte decided it. If it's for us, we would've locked you for a century and in the dungeons."

"Tch." Tyler clicked his tongue audibly. "You know why I did it." His last sentence was just a mumble but Gabbi could still hear him. Did what? Is what she wanted to ask but held her tongue.

"Marcus wanted to talk to you," Damien relayed.

"He promised me half an hour of sunlight and freedom. I begged him!"

"Just go before I haul you back to your room."

"And you came here just to tell me that?"

"Yes."

"How inconvenient."

"I have no choice. I don't like screaming from the house."

"Man, I wish vampires had telepathy powers or something."

"Don't be greedy."

Tyler stood with a long face, and instead of speeding towards the manor, he dragged his feet in every step. "I'll come back, Gabbi, okay?"

Damien spared her a glance before he grabbed his brother and dashed to the house. Gabbi was left staring at their hazy figures still stuck in her head. After he got better, Damien had distanced himself since then and rarely spoke a word to her. He never stayed in his bedroom, and Gabbi could only take a glimpse of him at the corner of her eyes.

But her solace was interrupted in just a few minutes. A familiar force had snatched her from the garden, her book left behind. "Hang on, Gabbi!"

After seconds, she was already inside the library, sitting on the sofa with stars in her head. Tyler bounced beside her to sit. Her dizziness slowly faded, but her mind was spinning for another reason. Marcus and Damien sat across them. Damien had a polar expression to Tyler, giddy on his seat.

"So, you mean, I can go to school?" Tyler's neck extended as he could.

"As what I already told you," Marcus replied calmly. "Yes."

"Wh—You—You told me I couldn't go out for three months!"

"I did, to mess with your hard head. You don't listen to what I said. I'm glad only one of our kin saw you. After all the trouble I went to convince the council, it would've been wasted."

"Marcus..." Tyler called out his name, unable to contain happiness, "You're a god... you're a fairy... you're a hero."

"Of course, I am. Now be a good boy."

"I love you, Marcus, you know that? You're my favorite brother."

"I also know that." A small smile appeared on his lips. At the same time, Damien's face turned darker sour.

Tyler snapped to Gabbi. She had to lean back in surprise, blinded by his enthusiasm. "Gabbi, did you hear that?"

"Yes?"

"We can go to school! To a normal high school!"

"...We?" Her confusion juggled to Marcus, to Damien, and back to Tyler.

"Yes, we!"

In her lack of response, Marcus explained. "I talked to Primele Fiinte about you. Humans living with our kind is not common, but not impossible either. We have special cases like this."

"And Marcus, did you know, she was homeschooled before. She never went to school!"

"I know. You told me... many times."

"Lame, right?"

"That's why she must go to school. I don't want ignorant heads living under this roof."

Gabbi didn't know what to feel. Before she could accept or decline, Damien already decided for her.

"No. I won't allow it."

"Come again?" Tyler's excitement has long been blown to dust.

"I said no. She won't go to school."

And frustration befell him. "You, just darkness over our joy. How could you?"

"You're the only one who wants this."

"I bet Gabbi is happy too."

"Stop calling her Gabbi," Damien said with gritted teeth.

"I wanna call her Gabbi."

"Don't try me."

"What do you want me to call her then?" Tyler leaned back on the couch, but the cock of his head said he isn't backing down any moment. "She's Gabbi, and not somebody else, right?"

"Right, Damien?" he repeated, menacing than his usual harmless jester. Gabbi thought nothing between the lines, as she was shrinking away from the tension. And yet, a small window in her head pictured herself strolling through a long corridor of homecoming posters and lockers and with books in her arms, as boys and girls loiter and move along in their lives. For someone wishing to die, it was an absurd feeling.

Tyler raised the white flag and shifted to the oldest. "How did you convince the oldies?"

"I registered her as a 'Source Candidate'. That a contract between Gabbi and the Roșu has been made."

"See?" Tyler asked Damien, his hands extended to Marcus, stressing assurances can be found with him.

"No is no."

"Why?"

"Just no."

"Coward," he retaliated faster than Damien could finish. "You cage people. That's why you lose them."

She thought it would explode into a fight. The whining and familial banter had gone sour as if Tyler's words of heavy accuse cloaked them with tension. But Damien just disappeared, leaving the room in awkward silence. Tyler growled and pulled his hair. "Grow some balls, damn it!" he screamed after the closed door.

"You can't blame him," Marcus said as he rose, with an unchanging solemnity.

"I know," Tyler mumbled to almost a whisper, but Gabbi still caught the melancholy laced on them. He glanced at Gabbi but averted just as quick on his fist. "I know..."