"Yeah, sorry, that was out of line." I hear the scrape of chairs and quickly run up the stairs, so they don't catch me eavesdropping. My room is right off the games room, Richard uses the one next to the stairs and Jason has the one next to the library. We all have our own bathrooms which is a bonus, I hate the idea of sharing a bathroom. Especially with guys, not that these two are your typical guys, they’re both neat freaks, but come on, who wants to share a bathroom with a guy?
After a quick shower, I pull on my black satin nightgown and pad on silent feet back to my room. The guys had decorated my room before I even got here, so the colour scheme is nothing like what I would have chosen, but it's not so bad. All of the furniture is a soft cream wood. The huge queen-sized bed dominates the room, especially with its white lace bedspread. But it's the matching wardrobe and drawers that I love, they are the old-fashioned type made from solid oak with brass handles and the most amazingly detailed full bloom roses etched into the facing. The huge rug that takes up almost the entire room has roses on it too, sweet little rose buds around the boarder and one huge bloom in the middle. The soft creams and bright greens complement each other so well that they almost look real.
I slip into bed and close my eyes; I'm just drifting off to sleep when I hear the slight squeak of my door. Staying perfectly still, I listen carefully. Soft footsteps make their way towards me, then a weight presses down on the side of the bed.
"Sleep well, Rose, we'll keep you safe, I promise." Richard's whispered words warm my heart, but it's what he does next that has my mind reeling. He leans over me, gently placing a soft kiss to my forehead before getting up and leaving.
I drift off to sleep with the feel of Richard's kiss and Jason's touch still on my mind.
Five
Richard
Areyna’s been starving herself, we can both see it but there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Despite our protests to the contrary, the bond she causes with her feeding is bad. Even I’m scared of what it could do to a person.
She’s getting worse though, her gorgeous body is beginning to lose its delicious curves and her lustrous black hair is getting duller by the day, the blue throughout it appears more faded and even her beautiful blue eyes don’t gleam as much as they used to. I feel like we’re failing in our duty to take care of her.
Jason and I have known about the supernatural world for years, having both been victim to vampires prior to joining the police academy. My own experiences with them would put anyone off the supernatural world, but I’m determined to keep Areyna safe and healthy. She might not realise it, but Jase and I have been crushing hard. The more time we spend with her, the more we’re both falling. The fact that we both have feelings is the only thing holding me back from making a move.
“You know it won’t take her long to figure out we lied.” Jase whispers as I pull Areyna’s bedroom door closed.
“She won’t figure it out if you keep your mouth shut.” The last thing we need is Areyna finding out we lied about being out of blood bags, but we’ve both seen what the bagged stuff is doing to her, she’s getting weaker every day and the only way to help her that we can think of is if she feeds directly from the source.
“We’re not going to tell her about the blood bags. She will feed from us and she will be going to the school with us. End of story.”
“Come on Richard, she’s already got her GED, she doesn’t need to go to this school, she can just stay home while we-.” I don’t let him finish, speaking right over the top of him I growl, “Jase, she needs to be around people her own age.”
He pauses at the top of the stairs, “You say that like she’s so much younger than we are.”
“That’s not the point.” I snap as I start to descend, “We can’t keep her sheltered forever; she needs to learn to control her hunger. What better place than the school we’ll be undercover at. We’ll be there if anything goes wrong and she can test the waters, so to speak.”
“I agreed to this, but I still think it’s an unnecessary risk.”
Urgh, why is he dragging this out, we both agreed to give Areyna a chance at a normal life, what better way than to give her every experience. Unless… “You’re just afraid she’ll meet some guy and fall-.”
“Don’t even put that out there.” His shouting makes me wince. We both pause at the bottom of the stairs to listen for any signs that he woke Areyna up, but after a few moments he adds in a quieter tone, “Fine, then how about we go over the plan one more time.”
We head downstairs to our office and both sit at our respective desks, which has me rolling my eyes as I glance over at Jase’s pigsty of a desk. He’s got papers everywhere, empty coffee cups and the wastepaper basket beside his desk is overflowing to the point the basket itself isn’t even visible anymore.
The two of us are complete opposites, he’s a slob, I’m neat and tidy, if it wasn’t for me cleaning the house from top to bottom every damn morning, we’d live in a mess. I’m fairly sure Areyna thinks the sun shines out of both our asses, but she has no idea the lengths I go through to keep this place clean. Not that she doesn’t help out or anything, she’s an absolute sweetheart and does her share around here, unlike someone else I could mention.
I glare once more at the mess across from me before sighing, “The murders in the school have been happening almost ritualistically, the coroner’s report on the last victim states that he had a symbol carved into his chest….”
It takes us hours to go over every little detail, by the time I crawl into bed, I’m so exhausted I swear I’ll sleep for a week.
Lying in the darkness, I listen to the sounds around me, I know something is wrong, but I can’t move. I can hear the screams coming from Areyna’s room, yet still I can’t get up out of my far too warm bed.
The screams begin to fade as the world around me grows lighter. Some part of me recognizes this for the dream it is, but the panic I feel is real. I can’t get to Areyna. I can’t save her. She’s suffering. She’s screaming.
After what feels like an eternity, I finally manage to make my limbs move. It’s slow going, but right now any progress is better than being trapped inside my own body unable to move.
On my hands and knees, I crawl across the dark carpet. My hands slap down into something thick and sticky. The substance is wet but far too thick and warm to be water. In the dim light of early morning I can’t make out what it is, but deep down I already know.
With a desperation I’ve never felt before, I leap to my feet, stumbling down the hall searching for the location of the screams. Jason’s door is wide open. At first I can’t wrap my head around what I’m seeing, but the longer I stand here staring, the more it sinks into my mind.
Jason’s bloody body on the floor, Areyna standing over him….
I bolt upright in bed, my heart playing out a rhythm that would put most fast beats to shame. I don’t want to admit it out loud but I’m scared. I know we need to get her feeding properly. We need to get her stable and safe. I know she needs to be more social. I know we need to let her get out more, but where’s the line? How far do we push things before we’ve gone too far?