The car ride to the apartment was deadly silent. Dennis and I weren't sitting that far apart from each other in the car, but it felt like we were miles away. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but the words just didn't want to come out of my mouth.
We got to my apartment at around 1.00 am and we got out of the car as soon as the driver -who was the same as before- pulled over in front of my building. We walked into the elevator and then inside my apartment in complete silence. It was like we were both still trying to make sense of what had happened. I could feel Dennis's fear and worry, and it was like he could feel mine.
I took off my clothes and put on my pyjamas as soon as we walked in, ignoring the presence of Dennis, who just stood there in the middle of the apartment for the whole time I was getting dressed with a blank expression on his face.
"Hey!" after a while I got sick of the silence. "Snap out of it!" I exclaimed as I shook his shoulders.
I didn't know what had provoked that reaction from him, I thought it had something to do with Jacqueline, or maybe with Alexander. All I wanted to do was to ask him, but I couldn't do that if he didn't even talk to me. Dennis blinked a couple of times and then he looked at me for the first time in a while. I moved my hands from his shoulders to his face. His skin was warmer than usual, probably because he had fed and drunk alcohol earlier that night.
"I'm sorry." he said, and then he rested his forehead on mine and made our noses touch. I smiled.
"You had me worried." I whispered into his mouth. Then he kissed me.
I would've loved to have sex with him right there in the kitchen counter, but I had other things in my mind and he probably did too. I had so many questions about the evening we'd just had, and I couldn't hold them in any longer. So, I pulled away from him and I guided him to my couch.
"I think we need to talk." I said.
"Okay." he said as he touched his forehead as a sign of exasperation.
"First of all, I think it's important that you tell me what kind of relationship you had or have with Jacqueline." I said. That was the main thing I wanted to know. Dennis took a moment to think, like he was debating to tell me, which made me kind of mad. "I know Alexander was kidding when he said it, but he was right about communication being the key to a good relationship." I said it to lighten the mood. It didn't. It actually had the opposite effect, I felt him get really angry all the sudden.
"You want to talk about Alexander?" he asked, almost infuriated. I gave him a confused look.
"No! How did you get that from what I said?" I was confused as to what his mind process had been. He stood up and started walking around the apartment. Thankfully it was small, so he didn't have much room and I could still talk to him. "Well, you clearly have some unresolved issues with him you need to talk about." I didn't want to pressure him, but I had to find a way to get him to start talking.
"Remember when I told you not all vampires are like me?" he asked, and I nodded. He looked so agitated. "Well, he's the complete opposite of me." I frowned, not knowing exactly what he meant.
"What do you mean?"
"He's a bad vampire, Stella. One of the worst ones I've met." he said. I stood up and walked to him, thinking that would make him stop pacing around, but it didn't.
"Dennis..." I tried to touch his shoulder, but he dodged my hand.
"No, you don't understand Stella." he stopped pacing to look at me as he spoke. "I shouldn't have brought you with me, I shouldn't have..." he said as he grabbed his head with his hands, and his voice faded at the end. He looked and sounded really upset, and all I wanted to do was to understand him.
"Dennis, it's not your fault. I wanted to go..." he interrupted me.
"Yes, you wanted to go. What is it with you and wanting to be in dangerous situations?" he asked, and then he walked away from me again. I wasn't sure what he'd meant by that.
"I don't like dangerous situations, I just wanted to help you find the vampire that killed the people I cared about." I was starting to get agitated too, and I didn't like the direction the conversation was taking.
"Yeah, and I let you come because I love you and I can't say no to you Stella. But I should've known better, I should've known she would tell him." he stopped pacing again.
"So, this is still about Alexander?" I asked, confused. What was it with him and Alexander?
"Yes, because he saw you. He saw you and he saw that I care about you, and now I can't do anything about it, it's done." Dennis sat back on the couch, like he had given up.
"I don't understand." I was tired of feeling confused all the time.
"Remember when he said that I owed him one?" he asked, I nodded. "Well, about a hundred years ago, while I was still human, I took away something Alexander cared about." and then it made sense. I went to sit next to him on the couch.
"You're afraid he's gonna take away something you care about." I said, Dennis nodded. "Me." he nodded again. I took a deep breath.
"I can't protect you from him, Stella. He's more than ten times my age" he said. I'd underestimated how old Alexander was. I took another deep breath, trying to calm myself down and see the situation more clearly.
"So, what do we do?" I asked. I was afraid he'd say I had to move to Alaska or something.
"There's nothing we can do, he has contacts all over the world. If he wants you, he's going to get you." he said, hiding his head in between his hands again. But something didn't make sense to me.
"But he had me." Dennis looked at me. "I mean, he had me inches away from him. If he really wanted me, why not just take me?" I asked. Dennis took a moment to think.
"I'm not sure." he replied. Well, that meant there was still a little hope Alexander wouldn't kill me. "He's a vampire, we like to hunt our pray. Maybe that's why you're still alive." I didn't like to be referred to as "prey", but I'd let it go given the delicacy of the situation we were dealing with. I sighed.
"Or maybe he forgave you." I didn't know if vampires as old as Alexander still had any humanity left, but I didn't want to lose hope.
"Vampires like Alexander don't just forgive." he said.
I mean, the little I'd been around Alexander he seemed like a bit of a dick that was used to getting what he wanted, but he didn't seem that horrible. But then again, Dennis had known him for a century, so what did I know? I sighed without being sure what to say to make it all better.
"He said I was different." I said, and Dennis gave me a sad smile.
"You are."
"Maybe that means he won't kill me." perhaps it was farfetched, but I didn't care, all I wanted was to make sure Dennis knew I was safe, because I felt safe. I didn't know why, but I felt like Alexander wouldn't hurt me. Dennis sighed.
"I don't know. Maybe that makes him want you more." he said. I rested my hand on his leg, trying to comfort him.
"I'll be fine." I assured him.
"You don't know that."
"I do." and I did. I knew I would be fine, the way I just knew things sometimes. "Remember when you asked me how I knew you wouldn't hurt me?" he nodded. "I just knew it."
"But I did hurt you." he said in an apologetic tone. I frowned. "When I drank you blood I almost killed you." I shook my head.
"But you didn't." he looked at me with incredulity, like he wasn't so convinced with my argument. "When I was around Alexander I felt intimidated and a bit scared, but I didn't feel like the time with that vampire that almost killed me. I mean, I didn't feel safe and at home like I do with you, but I also didn't fear for my life." I explained to him.
"You're lying." well, that caught me by surprise. "I felt your emotions when we were in that room with them, and you were scared."
"Yes, but I was scared of the whole situation, not of one vampire in particular. Not of Alexander, he was just intimidating, that's all." I said, and then he took a moment to process my words. Then I realised he'd said something I didn't get. "Wait, did you just say you felt my emotions?" so, I wasn't the only one that had that ability.
"Yeah, I'd forgotten to tell you about that." he said, like 'I can feel what you're feeling for some reason' was something that he would just forget to mention.
"Since when can you feel what I'm feeling?" I asked. I thought for a second that maybe it was a vampire thing, like maybe he could always sense what I was feeling.
"Since we drank each other's blood." he said. "I can feel your emotions whenever I want to, and you can feel mine whenever you want to." he said without giving it much importance. I didn't know if I liked the idea of someone knowing how I felt anytime they wanted to, but because it was Dennis, it felt like we had a special connexion and that made me smile. Despite this news, we still had a situation in our hands.
"So, what do we do?" I asked again.
"We go back to Santa Mon and wait for news from them." he said.
I was still curious about so many things, especially about his relationship with Jacqueline and Alexander. I wanted to know why he hated Alexander so much and I also wanted to know if what Alexander had said about Jacqueline turning Dennis was true, but Dennis seemed so agitated that I didn't want to pressure him anymore.
"I'm sorry I exposed you to that, Stella." he said. I held his face with my hands and kissed him.
"Don't apologize." I whispered into his mouth.
Despite everything, I didn't regret going with him. It helped me realise I didn't know much about Dennis and about his past, and that I wanted to know more. But it also made me uneasy, because if a vampire like Alexander was worried about the vampire that had killed the people of Santa Mon, then that meant we all had to be worried.
"You should get some sleep." he whispered against my lips.
I didn't feel sleepy in the slightest. But who could possibly feel sleepy after seeing what I'd seen? There was so much to process, and so many questions to ask that even if I laid down and tried to sleep, I couldn't possibly.
"I'm not sleepy." I said, and he smiled.
"I have an idea for what we could do." he said and then he kissed me.
His kiss was deep and passionate, but it was also sad. He was afraid to lose me, I could feel it, and he also felt incredibly guilty. I didn't know how to let him know I was okay, and that I didn't blame him if something happened to me. The only thing I thought of doing was to kiss him back.
I kissed him all over. I tried with every kiss to show him how much I loved him, and he did the same for me. He removed both of our clothes in a second and we started making love as soon as we were naked on the couch. This time it felt different. Somehow it felt better. It felt like he needed me, and I needed him. It lasted less than usual, because we were in such need of each other, but it was even more ecstatic as all the other times.
Somehow in the middle of having sex we moved to my bed, so as soon as we were done, I collapsed on in and tried to regulate my breathing and heartbeat. I wondered if I'd ever get used to how amazing it felt to have sex with him, if it would ever get old. I couldn't imagine it happening anytime soon. He fell next to me and I covered myself up with my blankets because the New York City nights were colder than the ones in Santa Mon.
"She turned me." Dennis spoke out of nowhere, while I was still trying to regulate my breathing. I didn't get what he meant right away, but then I did. "Jacqueline." if I would've known that he would open up to me after sex, I would've done it the second we walked into the apartment.
"Were you in love with her?" I turned to my side to look at him. His perfect naked body was facing the ceiling as he talked, and the moonlight hit him in all the perfect ways. I had to stop myself from jumping on him again. He was like a drug.
"Not when I turned." he turned to face me. "But later I did fall in love with her." he confessed, and my heart took a turn.
I didn't know what kind of connection a vampire developed for their maker, but I couldn't think of a stronger bond. I mean, it was literally forged with blood. I knew Dennis and I also had a blood connexion now, but I couldn't help but feel that maybe it wasn't as strong as the one he had with her. Dennis read the expression of my face, or maybe he sensed my jealousy, because he caressed my cheek with his hand in a comforting way.
"It's over. I hadn't seen her in almost a century and that's why she wanted to talk to me, she just wanted to catch up." he said, and I nodded. I hated being the insecure jealous type, but sometimes I was, and I couldn't control it. What was important was that I trusted him completely, so I didn't have anything to worry about.
"Did you want to be turned?" it came to me that I'd never asked Dennis if he liked being a vampire.
"No, I just happened to die with Jacqueline's blood in my system." he said.
"What happened next?"
"She helped me." he said, almost like he was reliving the moment. "The first couple of years of being a vampire are almost pure agony." he said. I immediately felt bad for him. "Jacqueline was there for me. Without her I would've died." he confessed. Yeah, they're bond was probably something I could never begin to understand, and that frustrated me.
"Well, I like her then." I said, and he smiled. "If you're alive thanks to her, then I owe her everything." I thought that was the only way I could see the situation without feeling jealous.
"I love you so much." he said, and then he kissed me on the lips.
"I love you too."
And now that we could feel each other's feelings, our words felt so much more powerful and real. I didn't have to wonder whether he loved me as much as I loved him, because now I was sure, I could feel it.
"Will this last forever?" I asked him. He immediately knew what I was talking about.
"The bond that we've created is held through blood, but also though love." it sounded like it was out of a fairy tale, I gave him an incredulous look. "I'm serious," he said smiling. "the only way to break it is if we change blood, or one of us falls out of love with the other." he said. Something didn't sound right.
"Change blood?" I asked, without being sure what he'd meant.
"Yes, like if you were to turn into a vampire." he said. I couldn't imagine myself as a vampire, so I just kept looking at him and listening. "Then your blood would be different, so our bond would break."
"Really?"
"Yes, but if it was my blood that turned you, we'd have a different bond." he said. Then a I remembered something that I wanted to ask Dennis since we'd left the enchanted building.
"Do you know why Alexander and Jacqueline got so worried when you mentioned that the victims were beheaded?" Dennis turned to his back again and he faced the ceiling. He looked like he was thinking about what I'd just asked.
"I have no idea." he said. A chill ran down my spine as I imagined all the possibilities we could be dealing with. There were too many to imagine them all, but the ones I imagined scared the hell out of me.
I didn't feel like thinking about all the horrible things we could be up against, and also I was getting sleepy, so I decided it was time to shut down. I kissed Dennis on the cheek and turned around to see if I could conciliate sleep. His arms surrounded me from behind and they made me feel safe, and that's why it didn't take too long for me to drift away.