Runaway Girl - The Secrets of Avelina Chronicles 1

Chapter 4

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Maria was exhausted by the time she made it home from dropping her new find, Rob, off at the morgue. It had been a backbreaking day and all she wanted was a nice, quiet, relaxing eight hours of sleep before she had to get up and do it all again. She went straight home and slept right through Friday, her day off. She woke briefly around six o'clock to get something to eat and then retreated back to bed again. Unfortunately for her, about an hour after she fell asleep safely tucked up in bed, her new friend Rob made his way in through the kitchen window of her bungalow, as quiet and deadly as a great wild cat prowling closer to its prey with every second.

Rob wasn't one of those TV vampires that could magically move from one place to another in the speed of light, travelling great distances with practically a single thought. Rob and his people were more like the old black and white movie vampires, creeping in the shadows like Nosferatu. So it still took him just under a few minutes to go from her kitchen to her bedroom. He had deliberately waited until she had fallen asleep. Rob concentrated hard enough on her breathing from her back garden to tell when it was shallow.

Outside her bedroom door, he knocked over an ornament to make sure that it wouldn't wake her. Then he advanced toward her bed with stealth and precision. It wasn't until Rob perched himself on the edge of her bed, brushed the hair away from her neck and sank his teeth into her flesh that Maria woke with a strangled cry. It lasted barely a minute before the loss of blood drained all of the energy from her and she found herself unable to think or move. She was even surprised at how much of a struggle it was to breathe.

Rob turned her into a vampire that night, much to her reluctance. But she was simply too drained to fight back and couldn't deny the hunger that the lack of blood created within her. So when Rob tried to feed her, she was unable to refuse, desperate for some kind of sustenance. And the forceful way that he told her to either feed from him or die was enough of an incentive to make her do as she was told. She hated to let it happen, but she had no other choice. Rob was right. If she didn't do it, she would die and she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

Maria was still weak as he took her out to her own car and drove with her into the night until they reached a large mansion, shrouded in darkness that only seemed to grow. He lifted her out of the car and carried her through the front door. She slowly drifted in and out of consciousness as he passed his clan, carrying her up the winding staircase to the expansive row of bedrooms on the second floor. He laid her on a bed before leaving and shutting the door behind him, knowing she wasn't strong enough to run off.

What Rob didn't expect was the frosty reception he got when he went down to the storage room—which would have been the kitchen if they were human—in search of blood for both himself and his new girl, Maria. As he passed, a few people stared at him with disapproving looks that he knew only too well. When a young kid walked in whistling to himself, barely older than fifteen, he couldn't help but finally admit to his night's prize.

"We thought you were a gonner when Eric and James came back to say you'd been unresponsive so they'd left you. What happened? And why do you look so happy?" the kid, Karl, asked, intrigued to see how happy Rob was. After all, he should have been raging mad at Eric and James for abandoning him to save their own skins. Rob explained that he was saved by a girl and he turned her. But when he revealed that her name was Maria, the kid wasn't as open to letting him celebrate. Karl had a terrible feeling about this and ran off to find someone who knew better to get their advice.

Rob was confused, but still happy. The elders had been furious with Eric and James for abandoning him to the mob. The elders said that if anyone found Rob or if he came in, he was to be sent straight to them when he arrived, but what Karl had to tell them wasn't what they wanted to hear.