Forever for Rose

Chapter Nineteen.

"Which is why I was sneaking in." He explains, taking me away from my shameless ogling. "I needed some clothes."

"Oh?" I cross my arms, remembering that I'm supposed to be mad at him. "You don't keep a change of clothes in your girlfriend's room? Or is it just too hard to differentiate your clothes from the ones all her other lovers leave behind?"

He tilts his head back in frustration, the veins in his neck bulging. "You're going to start this shit again?"

"You still dating a lying cheating slut?" I fire back. When he doesn't answer I turn away from him. "Then yes, I'm starting it again. I don't understand Dalton. Why are you with her even knowing how awful she is?"

He sits down on the foot of my bed and groans. "I find Lance to be pretty insufferable, yet you are still with him. You don't have to like her, Rose. I never asked your permission on who it was ok for me to date."

"Oh my god, you're so delusional." I snap. "There is a big difference in me just not liking her, and me not being able to stand her because she is shady and goes behind your back."

"What the hell was up with you tonight anyway?" He looks up at me. "Were you really about to start a brawl in the middle of ball?"

I shrug my shoulders and look at him evenly. "It wouldn't have been much of a brawl." I tell him, working hard not to smile. "I'm sure I could have taken her. Just ask that dead guy, I've got a mean right hook."

He laughs as he shakes his head at me. "Rose," My name out of his mouth when he isn't yelling it is silky smooth. "I'm too tired to fight with you tonight, and you're clearly too wound up for me to win."

"Exactly, so stop fighting with me."

"You're the one who started it."

"No," I wiggle my finger at him. "You did when the first words out of your mouth when you walked in weren't 'hey, Rose, good to see you. Oh, by the way, I dumped my succubus of a girlfriend.'"

He moves so fast I gasp when he's suddenly right in front of me, his cool hands on both sides of my head. "Do you ever shut up?"

"Sometimes." I reply, moving my hands up to his for a second before he lets me go.

"Just not right now." He rolls his eyes, turning to sit back down on the bed. "If you're in the mood to be chatty, can it at least not be about Eyan?"

"What do you want to talk about then?" I cave just because I don't want him to leave.

He purses his lips and then shrugs. "I don't know, did you have fun tonight?"

I can't help but smile. "Yes," I twirl to add to my enthusiasm. "It was so perfect." I tell him, thinking of all of the music and dancing and food, then I stop in place. "Until it got ruined, guess by who?"

He ignores me as he stands and goes to the side of the bed. "I think I have something that might make your night better." He tells me, kneeling beside the bed and reaching under. I move over beside him out of curiosity. He slides his arms back out and passes the large canvas painting over to me. I brush away some of the dust and smile at the image of swirling red and pink roses. The brush strokes so delicate, resulting in a masterpiece. "There were dozens of them when I moved in here." He shrugs at my side. "Calvin had them brought in here for Rachel. Your grandmother, Calvin's mom, painted them. She was apparently quite the artist."

I nod, having heard the stories of her beauty and talents many times. "Yeah, she was." I whisper, running my fingers over the petals, then look up at him, our eyes lingering on each other. "Thank you for this." It feels amazing to be holding something of hers, something she created. Dad will be so happy if I bring this home for him.

I feel a tension growing between us and I'm almost grateful for the canvas separating us, keeping me from acting on my urge to touch him. As I reposition it in my hands my finger brush something tucked into the back of the canvas and I flip it over to pull out the paper.

I hardly get the photo turned over in my hands before Dalton snatches it away. But not before I catch a glimpse of the man and woman in the picture.

"Dalton, who are those people?" I gasp, heart pounding hard.

"No one." He shakes his head, trying to brush me off.

I put the canvas down and turn to grab him by the shoulders. "Dalton, tell me. I need to know who they are."

"Why?" He demands, pulling back defensively.

I don't want to remember it, but the vision is engraved on my brain.

"I had a vision about them." I tell him, my voice shaking with the fear the man's ramblings put in me. "I need to know who they are."

He turns his back to me, clutching the picture. "I don't know for sure." He says lowly. "I've had the picture since I was little. As long as I can remember actually."

It clicks then. I almost stumble backward in shock.

"Oh my god," I mutter. "You're the baby."

He spins back to me. "What?" He asks, brows knitted tightly together.

I reach for him but he flinches away again. "Dalton, they're your parents." I say gently. "They loved you so much."

Rage flashes across his already dark features. "Oh yeah?" He yells. "Is that why they threw me away at that awful place?"

"He did it to protect you." I tell him, my head in a spin. "He wanted to save you...He was like me. Your father could see..." I drop my hands to my side as a thought comes to me. "He had ability, so he was like me. And since he was your father...and your mother was a vampire too..."

"Rose?" Dalton says my name like he's trying to coax me away from a ledge. "What are you talking about?"

"Like me." I say again. "That other man called me a seer. He knew, because they're looking for people like me. Like you too." I tell him. "It isn't random."

"The missing?" Dalton shakes his head, trying to catch up to where my mind is going.

"Yes." I nod. "I bet if you look into, they're all from successions of vampire families. Think about it. I am different because of my blood, and so was Tommy. Tommy's whole family are vampires. Long lines of them. That's got to be the missing connection between them all."

"So then what are they doing with your blood?" He asks and for a second I'm a loss, but then I remember.

"In the lab, they were studying it, trying to do something with it and the woman was getting impatient." I recall aloud, then gasp. "Oh god."

"What?"

"Your father saw it coming."

"Saw what coming? I don't understand, Rose."

I cover my mouth with my hand. "He said a monster...a monster would destroy our world. He wanted to protect you from it. He must have known that they'd eventually come looking for people like you and he thought hiding you away in the human world would give you a chance. Your father saw something terrible. It terrified him."

"You think what he saw has to do with what those people are doing with our blood?"

I nod slowly, not wanting to believe it myself.

"I think they're creating a new monster out of our own blood." I cover my mouth again. "A monster that's going to end the world."