The night was grueling. While I tried to maintain some sort of normality, Victor constantly paced the living room floor, seething about the vampire that I had faced head on. "I can't believe you would put yourself in such a situation, Phillip Kosier!"
"That girl would have died if I hadn't rushed in to save her!"
Victor turned, fuming, "And what about you? Are you aware of what could have happened to you?"
I sat silently, stunned by his rage.
"You could have been killed! That creature is a murderous machine, Phillip! I ran into him as I was running to come and get you!"
I shifted uncomfortably, "What happened?"
Victor sighed from where he had stopped directly in front of me, "I saw the creature running toward me, yelling and screaming about how a human boy had ruined his beautiful face!"
"You actually saw him?" My eyes opened wide.
"Yes," Victor said, raising an eyebrow at me. "I did, and he was entirely too happy to see me." He crossed his arms, pausing briefly before cradling his injured one.
I needed to ask him about that.
Victor took in a ragged breath, "At first, he grabbed me in a rush. The brute yelled at me, told me not to look at him. Of course, I didn't listen to the thing. I'd seen him from inside your head at the library. I knew exactly the manner of wound he was suffering from, having been scalded in the face by you."
I bit my lip, looking at him from where I sat on the red sofa. I sat cross-legged on the couch, one hand in my lap and the other hand reaching up to push my glasses up my nose. "Oh," I let out a puff of air.
Victor had been yelling at me telepathically when I ran into the library. He told me to get out of there. But I just couldn't let an innocent girl get killed! I had no idea at the time that I was going to run into another vampire.
I looked up at Victor, who was eyeing me seriously. He spoke, "At first the monster made to grab my throat and snap my neck. I stopped him cold. Having been wounded, he was nowhere near strong enough to stop me. He suddenly realized what I was and came up this close to my face." Victor approached me, bringing his face less than an inch from mine.
"That's intimidating," I said, swallowing the spit that had just formed in my mouth.
"For a human, yes. But for a vampire, no. You see, he was wildly upset that his face had been burned. Told me that a human boy had just done it to him. That he had stopped him from killing someone. And then, he grabbed me by my arm and slashed it open."
Victor drew back away from me, finally settling down on the couch cushions beside me.
"He did what?" I asked. I was stunned.
"He cut my arm wide open with his fingernail and then bent down and proceeded to lap the blood from me. Of course, I held still. To engage in unpleasantries while another is feeding is not the brightest idea. When he was done, he stood up, face almost as perfect as it had been right before you burned him and thanked me. He told me he'd be on his way and that the boy better watch out."
Victor sighed leaning back, face full of stress, "Oh, Phillip, this is bad news indeed."
I pulled my lower lip into my mouth. I was now on the radar of a murderous vampire. "So I've pissed off a vampire?" I didn't know if I should even tell Victor about my suspicions that the vampire was most likely a new kid on campus, Thomas Flatterly. Would it matter anyway? I stirred uncomfortably.
"Seems so," Victor said, patting me on the hand. I looked down to see his thin fingers lingering on mine. His hand moved slowly, covering my knuckles and then the tips of my fingers where he gently started to lace his fingers into mine. I twitched slightly, trying to hide the fluttering feeling in my gut that was beginning to happen. "But," Victor interrupted after a tense moment, "you have nothing to fear. I will protect you. I think it will be a while before he shows his face around the library again. Just don't walk home at night without me."
"Alright," I agreed. "Are you sure you're going to be okay? That wound looks nasty." I pointed with my free hand at his coat which was stained with blood.
"I'll be alright. Once I drink and sleep, I will be like brand new." Victor smiled dazzlingly at me, sharp white teeth exposed.
"C'mon," I said, standing up, "Let me take a look at it. It's the least I can do."
For a moment, I thought that Victor would refuse, but then he stood up, grinning. He slunk his jacket off over his shoulders. I signaled for him to come upstairs, and he followed me without hesitation.
***
Victor sat on the bathroom's toilet seat while I instructed him to take off his shirt, which he did altogether too willingly. I held in my amazement at his body's hardness, the well-defined muscles that he hid underneath his well-tailored clothing. While not quite having the body of a god, he was damn near close to being like one of those carved marble Greek statues.
I tried to keep my eyes on his face. I shifted my focus to the cut that traveled down his forearm. While it wasn't the worst thing I'd ever seen, I could tell that it hurt like hell. It was deep. I could see that Thomas barely missed an artery when he had slashed him.
"Why drink from you?" I asked.
"Vampiric blood is healing," he stated. "For the most part. Unless you run into one of us devious enough to know how to turn it sour. Then it is only a matter of time before you die of poisoning."
I drew my mouth tight, "So he knew he would be able to heal his wound from you. Does he even know you? I mean, what the hell? Who would just walk up to some stranger and start drinking their blood?"
"A vampire would," Victor replied. "It is an unspoken code."
"Huh," I huffed. "Sounds weird to me." I ran the cotton ball with peroxide down Victor's arm as I said this. It bubbled and fizzed inside of his wound. He made a hissing noise, then turned his head. I began to wonder what vampire blood even tasted like.
"You could try it sometime," he said, reading my mind.
"What?" I blinked. Maybe Victor was delirious.
"Huh?" he responded.
Ah! So we were here. In this awkward place of 'You didn't hear me say that.' I let it go, putting an antibacterial balm on his arm before wrapping it with gauze. When I was done, Victor suddenly clasped the back of my head with his hand and pulled me forward gently.
Oh god! Was he going to pretend to kiss me again? I closed my eyes hard, pulling back against him. His hand dropped as suddenly as it had grabbed me.
"Thank you, Phillip," he said. Victor stood. My nose smacked into his bare chest from the motion. I barreled backward into the bathroom door that had been installed the wrong way. I now had locked us in here. Great. I groaned.
"Uh, you're welcome. I uh, um," I twisted in the small room to try and open the door when an arm on each side of me held the door closed, preventing me from opening it. I started to die on the inside.
I turned to face him, "Not funny, Victor. C'mon. It's been a long night. Let's get out of here. I'm tired."
There was no amount of 'I'm tireds' in the world that would prevent me from noticing the look now prowling through Victor's eyes. He looked tired, and yet, there was something else in his eyes. Something that looked clearly like lust. Or maybe extreme thirst?
My skin started to crawl, "You alright, Victor? Did you go out to eat yet? Cause if you haven't, I can just open this door and let you out."
Victor looked at me, his magenta-colored eyes growing darker and darker, the light in them flickering more intensely with each second that passed.
The fluorescent bulbs in the bathroom started to dim. I looked above me. They began flickering madly. My heart fluttered as one of the bathroom lights burst, shattering glass in tiny shards all over the floor. The room went dark.
"You were a fool tonight. You know that?" Victor said softy in the pitch black of the bathroom.
"Yeah," I choked out, willing my heart to stop its heady pulsing. I could feel it pounding against Victor's bare chest.
He slid a hand down from the door to my shoulder. He palmed my neck, sliding it up to the base of my jaw. Victor's hand stopped at my bottom lip, his thumb pressing gently against the skin of it. "You're a damn fool, Phillip Kosier," he uttered, voice like satin. I felt his breath against my face. I wanted desperately to get away, but I was completely trapped against the door.
Victor moaned; his breathing heady. His thumb moved down my lower lip, opening my mouth delicately, as if he were parting a single petal of a rose. I felt the faintest brush of flesh against my mouth. Soft, cold, trembling lips against my bottom lip before the tip of his teeth bit into it.
I was too stunned to move as I felt Victor draw my bottom lip into his mouth. The smallest amount of blood left me as he gently pulled my flesh between his teeth. He pressed his body into mine. Don't move, don't move! I told myself, panicking.
I didn't know if he was kissing me or feeding off me. I whimpered as I tried to quell the burning sensation in my stomach that traveled down into my groin. I'd never even so much as kissed a girl! And now I was kissing Victor Floarea! No, he was kissing me!
I closed my eyes and let Victor pull my lower lip into my mouth until he crushed the two of us against the bathroom door. He wound his hands in my hair, tugging not so gently at the base of my skull. I gasped as his tongue began to explore the confines of my mouth. At my whimpers, Victor broke from his ravenous frenzy and started feverishly kissing my neck.
Deep down, I knew what this was about. Victor was hungry. Starving.
How had it not occurred to me to stop on the side of the street so he could go feed on someone before taking him home?
The night had been too chaotic. That's why.
By the time we got back, both of us were so focused on the reality of another vampire in town that the idea of food had not occurred.
It was two am, and Victor hadn't fed. It was two am, and Victor was ravenously kissing me.
Victor began to unbutton the plaid shirt I had on. I let out a soft sound as he ripped the left side of the white shirt underneath it to shreds, exposing my shoulder to him.
In a daze, I felt Victor's teeth on my neck. Between all the mixed emotions and feelings, I pulled him to me, closing the gap between us as he hesitated, teeth scraping against my bare skin. I pushed his head down.
Victor let out a low guttural growl. The sting of his fangs as they sank into the soft space between my neck and collarbone was unbelievable. I let out a moan somewhere between pleasure and pain. He ground his body against mine, holding me to him, rocking me back and forth as the two of us ended up in a heap on the bathroom floor, my legs and arms bound around him.
Victor fed like a man gone mad, groaning, sucking the sweet nectar that was my blood into him as he satisfied his horrible thirst. I could only hold on tighter as my head fell back in agonized ecstasy, struggling to hold on to consciousness.
"Victor?"
The words left my mouth in breathless rapture. Victor pulled my flesh between his fangs further into his mouth, my blood spilled into him. I heard him moan in sexual frustration as he ground into me. I felt him hold the back of my head tenderly as he continued his frenzy. My vision blurred and the world suddenly turned completely black.