The Purity of Blood: Volume I (54 page)

My voice lacked
the emotion I felt inside and I was glad for it.
 
I immediately moved to resume jogging, but he
grabbed hold of my arm just as I started to turn.

“There’s no way
I’m letting you run off like this.
 
What’s wrong with you?”

I could hear him
in the background, but I was distracted by a familiar shadow on the other side
of the parking lot.

Daniel gently
shook my arm to get my attention.
 
I
looked over at him and then back at the shadow.
  
Something about the shadow was drawing me
towards it but Daniel’s firm grip on my arm held me back.

“Sara, why
didn’t you call me?
 
Did I do
something?
 
This isn’t just about dinner
last night, is it?
 
You have to tell
me.
 
I love you.”
 

I could hear his
voice in the background pleading, but I was only half listening.

This time he
grabbed both of my arms and forced me to stand face to face with him.
 
I looked at him, saw his lips moving, but
couldn’t hear him.
 
I was about to
explode with pain, anger, anguish, sadness, love.
 
I needed a distraction from the building
explosion and looked over my shoulder at the shadow.
 
The tall, hooded figure had moved closer.

Somewhere in the
distance, I heard Daniel say “What are you looking at?” and out of the corner
of my eye, I saw his head turn.

“I don’t know,”
I hazily said.
 
“He looks familiar, but I
can’t place him.”

I heard
footsteps in the stairwell just inside the door and then the Professor’s voice.

“What’s going
on?” he asked Daniel.

“I remember
now.”
 
My voice sounded strange in my
ears, as if it belonged to someone else.
 
“I saw him last night.
 
I didn’t remember
right away because – I was drunk, I guess. – So strange, he smelled me and said
I was stupid.”

Caught up in my
curious dream, I turned toward Daniel and the Professor.
 

“Why would he
say that?”

They both looked
past me at the shadow, forcing me to follow their gaze.

“My God, it’s
him!” the Professor exclaimed, dropping the books he was holding to the
ground.
 
“Get her out of here,
Daniel.
 
Now!”

I followed the
Professor with my eyes as he ran past us into the parking lot.
 
The shadow quickly ran off into a blur,
melting into the darkness at his approach.
 
But that was all I saw before Daniel began to drag me across the parking
lot like a rag doll to his car.
 
Quickly
tossing me in, we sped off into the night before I had a chance to realize what
was happening.

“Where are we
going?” I angrily demanded when I finally came to my senses.

“Our house.
 
You’ll be safest there, we have the advantage
in numbers.
 
Lucy, Thomas and Lily are
still here.”
 

Eyes wide with
some unknown emotion, he was staring straight ahead and gripping the steering
wheel so tightly I thought it might snap in half.

Of all places,
that
was dead last on the list of places
I wanted to go right now.
 

“I’d rather go
back to my room if it’s all the same with you,” I snapped back, thoroughly
irritated with him.

“Well, it isn’t
alright with me,” he replied angrily as he whipped his head my way.
 
Maybe it was the shadows in the car, but
under the glow from the dashboard lights, his eyes looked darker, sitting above
faint gray circles.
 

“Well, maybe I
don’t care if it is.
 
As far as I’m
concerned you no longer have a say in what happens in my life.”
 

I was yelling
now.
 
I couldn’t care less about his
anger or dark eyes.
 
Maybe I should, but
I had enough dealing with my own emotions, let alone worrying about the feelings
of a liar.

“I love
you!
 
What right do I get for that?” he
yelled back.

I looked out the
side window and mumbled “Hollow words.”

“Hollow?
 
Did you say hollow?
 
What is that supposed to mean?
 
Damn it, I love you!
 
What more do I have to do to prove that to
you, Sara?”

Still looking
out the window I rolled my eyes.
 
I
wasn’t going to fall for this again.
 
I
knew the truth now and wasn’t going to let him pry his way back into my
affections.
 
That said, it took every
ounce of strength I had not to burst into tears, throw my arms around his neck
and tell him how much I loved him with every breath I had.
 
Because I did, always and forever.
 
Unfortunately, the Daniel I loved was a lie –
just like the vampire seated next to me in the dark, lying that he loved me.

I didn’t answer him, but sat there in stony silence, my arms
crossed tightly in front of me.
 
I didn’t
even steal one glance his way the rest of the drive up the mountain.
 
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

As he pulled onto the long
driveway, I could hear the sound of gravel flying as we raced down the road and
straight into the garage where we came to a screeching halt.
 
When Daniel got out of the car, he slammed
his door so hard I thought it might fall off its hinges.
 
So this is what he looks like really angry, I
thought to myself.
 
Without a word he
yanked my door open, reached in and pulled me out by my arm then practically
dragged me into the house.
 
He didn’t let
go until he roughly flung me onto the sofa where I landed with a soft thud.

Staring down at
me, his jaw set tightly, I could tell he was at a loss for what to say to
me.
 
I looked away.
 
I didn’t want to see him.
 
I didn’t want to be here or be anywhere near
him.
 
Sitting there in something of a
state of shock, I began to wonder how hard it would be for me to sneak out of
here undetected by them.
 
It didn’t seem
likely I’d fare well with that.
 
Behind
me, I heard Daniel make a derisive
humph
and
begin to pace the length of the room.

“What’s going
on?” Thomas asked as he came around the corner.
 

“We spotted the
blood hunter on campus.
 
Randall took off
after him while I brought her up here,” Daniel shot back, storming around the
room aimlessly as if he couldn’t control some pent up rage inside himself.
 

I gently cradled
my arm where he’d yanked me out of the car.
 
It throbbed and I could feel the tears in the back of my eyes begging to
come out from the physical pain of it.
 
I
took a deep breath and tried to push them back.
  
If they came now, I knew the ones behind
them, the ones I’d buried there over Daniel would surely follow, and this was
the last place on Earth I wanted to have an emotional breakdown.

“A blood
hunter?
 
Here?” Lily asked, now in the
room as well.
 
She was about to ask why
when Thomas gestured my way.
 

“Of course,” she
said. “I’m surprised it’s the first time.”

“It’s not,”
Daniel answered.
 
“He’s been stalking
her.
 
I’m not sure for how long.
 
I’m pretty sure Randall knows though.
 
I think he wanted to kill her last night, but
decided against it because – she was tainted.”

“Tainted?” I
looked up in surprise.
 
“What’s that
supposed to mean?”
 

I was feeling a
little offended.
 
Did he know about
Ben?
 
I hope the memory of those soft,
warm lips didn’t flash in my eyes the way it hit me inside.
 

Thomas, Lily and
now Lucy stared down at me like I had a scarlet letter embroidered on my chest.

“She was drunk,”
Daniel said with thinly veiled disgust in his voice.

“Oh,” they all
said in unison as if his answer made perfect sense.

“I don’t get
it,” I said.

“You tainted his
prize,” Lucy said sarcastically. “The blood hunter didn’t want to drink your
precious pure blood if it was full of booze.”
 

Then she dropped
down into the chair opposite me.
 
I swear
she was looking at my hair again.
 
I
instinctually reached up to see if any had fallen out of my pony tail with all
the yanking that had gone on.
 

“So what now?”
Lily asked sounding genuinely concerned.

“I don’t know,” Daniel said.
 
“We wait for Randall to come back.
 
Hopefully, he’s – taken care of it.”

A few hours passed and the
Professor had yet to return.
 
Other than
leaning over on the arm of the sofa with my good side, I hadn’t moved from my
spot on the couch.
 
My shoulder joint
ached immensely, and the large black and blues forming on both my arms desperately
made me wish I had some aspirin.
 
Sitting
there alone in the living room, I rolled my eyes at myself.
 
I felt pretty sure it wouldn’t do any good to
go asking for an aspirin in a house full of vampires.
 
They’d all left the room over an hour ago and
I wasn’t going to get up anyway.
 
I
preferred the solitude I had here in front of the fire.
 
Breathing deeply, I closed my eyes and
listened to the crackle and pop of the fire Daniel had started and the voices
of the four vampires back in the kitchen.
 
If I concentrated, I could just make out what they were saying.
 
It sounded like stories of other blood
hunters they’d come across in their time.
 

Sitting there in
the dark room illuminated only by the fire, their stories horrified me.
 
Blood hunters didn’t give up – ever.
 
The thrill of the hunt, the terrifying of
their victims in their last moments of life was almost as important as the kill
itself.
 
From what I was able to overhear
if they were to keep me safe, they believed their only option was to eliminate
the hunter.
 
It seemed there was no way
to peacefully convince a blood drinker to leave someone as pure as me
unmolested.
  

Gee, what a great thing to hear …

There was also
some debate as to whether to bother to go after him at all.
  
Daniel stood his ground, explaining that
this part of Ulster County was their territory, and that my hunter had no
business hunting here to begin with.
 
If
they allowed this incursion, they might as well abandon the territory all
together.
 
He also mentioned as a side
note that because Professor Walker had left him to watch over me, he felt
personally responsible for my safety.
 

Obligation. That’s what it must have been.

In the back of
my mind, I’d always known his feelings must have stemmed from something like that.

Thomas and Lily
seemed to go along with him, but surprise-surprise, Lucy was harder to
convince.
 
In the end, Daniel flatly
stated that the Professor would never allow anything to happen to me.
 
She could either get on board or get out of
the way, because neither he nor the Professor would let her stand in their way
if she tried.
 
The serious tone in
Daniel’s voice must have convinced her of the futility of arguing, because she
finally backed down.
    
After that there
was a pervading silence in the kitchen.

In the living room the pain was getting worse, but I wasn’t
about to say anything to them about it.
 
Why point out how human I was any more than was necessary?
 
As a distraction from my shoulder I’d tried
to understand the inner dynamics of this
family
but failed.
 
Other than the fact that the
Professor was clearly the one in charge, none of the rest of them made any
sense to me.
 
I closed my eyes and
started to breathe deeply and relax.
 
As
I did, I felt a tear roll down my cheek.
 
It wasn’t from the pain in my shoulder though.
 
I closed my eyes tighter; hopefully I’d drift
off and escape them in slumber if I was lucky.

Sometime later I heard Professor
Walker come in the garage door.
 
He
walked past their greetings and inquiries, and coming into the main room, his
footsteps stopped in front of me.
 
My
eyes were closed, but even though I was almost half in and half out of sleep I
could still sense his movements in the room.
 
I felt his hand gently fall on my head and smooth out my hair.
 
Before he left, I heard him sigh and murmur
“Rest, little one.
 
Rest,” and then his
footsteps retreated into the kitchen.
 

From what I’d
managed to overhear after that, he’d chased the hunter for about thirty or
forty miles then lost him when he jumped off a cliff into the Hudson River.