Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal ❯ Chapter 20

Crystal, Chapter 20:

 

 

I woke up suddenly, aware that I was no longer alone in my room. “Johnny?” I asked tentatively, spying the still figure at the foot of my bed. The shutters were closed and the curtains were drawn against the afternoon sun, but I was sure it was him! “Johnny!”

 

I sat up and held out my arms, all my doubts forgotten in the surety of his presence. He came to me, swiftly and without sound, and I clung to him as he buried his head against my shoulder.

 

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, running one hand across my cheek and down my neck.

 

I cupped his face in both my hands and kissed him. “It's daylight,” I said unnecessarily, my lips still pressed against his. I could feel the corners of his mouth turn up.

 

“I know.” He kissed me again. “Why are you in bed? Are you still—unwell?” He hesitated over that last word, glancing at my neck which, of course, was completely unblemished.

 

“You shouldn't be up,” I said. “You're all red.” I switched on the light to confirm it, although I saw him clearly enough in the dark. Johnny reached past me and flicked it back off again. I sighed. “I'm okay,” I told him, settling back into his arms. “Just tired. I was taking a nap.”

 

Johnny tightened his arms around me. “Too bad,” he said softly. His eyes were black in the darkness, but the look that smoldered in them spoke of other hungers. I held his eyes, and slowly, deliberately moved against him. This time I saw his smile.

 

“I'm not that tired,” I whispered as I reached for his clothes. When I had him where I wanted him, I gazed down at his beautiful body. Then there wasn't time for anything else, and Johnny was a whirlwind and I was the sky, and we couldn't get enough of each other. There was blood in there somewhere, too, and that was a part of it. When it was over, we both lay, exhausted, happy, and bonelessly tired. I kissed the tip of Johnny's nose. “I missed you,” I said.

 

Johnny winced. “I had to keep him away from you,” he murmured softly. “That's why I did it. I had to show him you belonged to me.”

 

“Lachlan?” I guessed. “But why did you go away?”

 

Johnny stirred against me, restless or maybe just uneasy. “I couldn't show him how much you mean to me. It's been too long, and he still follows the old ways. I thought if I claimed you in front of him, he would leave you alone, and not ask for his blood-price as the host, as he very well might have done. Then I convinced him to go with me, to find the others, so that you would remain safe.

 

“He brought me to places I barely remembered,” Johnny said. “He didn't remember much more than I did where our brothers and sisters once lived. Most of the old places were empty. Even the blood-drinkers who knew about each other kept to their own small places, different places. Of all my brothers and sisters we found only three.”

 

“Oh, Johnny.” My heart went out to him. After all this time, he finally came home only to find that nothing was as he remembered. “Did they know you?”

 

“Of course,” he said, smiling slightly. “But we had to awaken them. Except for one, all of them had been sleeping beneath their lochs for years. They kept no contact with each other. They didn't know if there were any others of us still alive. They couldn't tell me if my father was still alive. . . .” Johnny's voice dropped off. “We went all over Scotland, searching.”

 

“I know,” I whispered, thinking of my drawings. “I saw.”

 

He brushed the hair back from my face. “I should have guessed,” he said. “I'm glad. Were you very angry with me?” He tried to smile, failed.

 

I shook my head. “Not angry,” I murmured. “Sad.”

 

“I'm sorry.” He held me tightly. “I won't do that again.”

 

Lachlan knows you want to change me,” I said. “He tried to talk me out of it—for my own good, he said. I think he was trying to protect you. He still doesn't know all of what I am, does he?”

 

Johnny's brows came down in a sharp V. “What did he say to you? Did he touch you? I made it clear that you are not to be touched.”

 

I laughed softly. “He didn't touch me. We had a nice talk, that's all. He gave you permission to hunt in his village. I asked him if it would be all right, and he said yes.”

 

“What?” I had surprised Johnny. He suddenly grinned. “I can't believe you did that.”

 

“So—will you take me hunting?” I poked him in the ribs, and he responded by tickling me. Tickling led to other things, and by the time we were finished, I was well-satisfied in many ways. I yawned. “Stay with me?” I asked sleepily. Just in case, I wrapped my arms around his waist before I closed my eyes.

 

I smelled supper cooking and realized full dark had fallen. Johnny was still in my bed, his eyes closed and his face much less red after our shared blood. I turned on the light, and Johnny startled into full awareness. “Nighttime,” I said with a grin. “You promised!”

 

We left my room hand in hand and took turns in the shower. When we went downstairs, all eyes focused on Johnny. Paul had been waiting for me on the sofa. It was his turn to feed me, as I'd come to think of the daily blood-offerings. His face paled as he spotted Johnny, but he straightened up bravely and addressed Johnny. “You're back.”

 

Johnny nodded, then walked over to shake Paul's hand. “Thank you for taking care of her,” he said.

 

“Not only me, we all did,” Paul said, but he glanced significantly at his mother, who stood off to the side with Uncle Robert, clearly unsure of what to do with the foreign blood-drinker in her house. Her own blood-drinker, Lachlan, was not nearly as human.

 

“All?” Johnny asked. “Even Michael? I'm surprised, although I probably shouldn't be. Crystal has a way of bringing out the best in all of us.”

 

Rose Brown didn't know what they were talking about. I had a suspicion. So Johnny had counted on Paul giving me his blood to make up for what Johnny himself had taken? Johnny had never intended to endanger me. I wondered if he had discussed the matter with Paul ahead of time, then dismissed that thought. No, Paul hadn't known what Johnny was planning to do. He offered me his blood because he was mine. Ours, I corrected myself. More so than Lachlan's.

 

“Come on, Rose, let's take a walk,” Uncle Robert said. He realized we couldn't speak freely in front of her. She didn't know about me yet. We waited until they left, although Rose looked like she really didn't want to leave. She probably figured she was missing something important.

 

Paul held out his cupped hands for Johnny, making the offer clear. It wasn't only me he protected. Johnny took a token sip of Paul's blood, murmuring the words, and then indicated that I should drink, too. I was ravenous. I always was, these days.

 

I drank from Paul's palm because that's where Johnny had made the cut, but I made it a little wider, a little deeper, and drank until Paul made a small hissing sound, and I realized I was hurting him. “Sorry!” I said quickly, drawing back. His hand healed over almost immediately.

 

Johnny watched me, a frown on his face. “You need it that much?” he asked.

 

Paul answered. “She hasn't been eating regular food for days. Only blood. I'm glad you came back, Johnny. She needs more than what we can give her.”

 

“Yeah,” I said. “Take me hunting.”

 

Paul agreed. “Take her hunting. I'll deal with my mother. You can deal with your—brother. Lachlan. He's back, too, and comes here every night. He never used to do that.”

 

Johnny pulled me next to him and squeezed me tightly. He grinned. “I think he finally sees what he's been missing.” He kissed my forehead. “Okay, little vampire,” he quipped. “Let's go hunting.”

 

I flashed Paul a grateful grin. “See you!” I called, as I followed Johnny out the door. We didn't take Paul's car, but made off down the narrow road that followed the top of the bluff until it veered off towards the town about a mile away. I could see the lights below us, and my stomach growled in anticipation.

 

“That's Michael's house,” I whispered, pointing out the various places in the town. “The one at the end of the road has a family with none of our blood. That one over there, I think Paul told me they're related in some way.”

 

Johnny eyed me speculatively. “How do you—never mind. Well, I suppose in deference to my brother, we should take from the ones who have none of our blood, is that what you were thinking?”

 

I grinned. “Exactly.”

 

Johnny led me around to the back to an upper window which was open a crack to catch the cool night air. It was still early, and I could hear people talking in the other rooms. We probably should have waited until everybody was asleep—

 

A woman came upstairs to use the bathroom and Johnny hit her from behind, dragging her into the bedroom we had climbed into. He made the cut, on her neck near her shoulder, and had me drink first. “Enough, little vampire,” he said softly. “There's more downstairs.”

 

We left her sleeping on the bedroom floor, carefully pulling her collar up to cover the red mark our feeding had left. When she awoke, she would most likely assume she had fallen and momentarily passed out.

 

With one down, it was relatively easy to slip down the stairs and find the others, one by one, as they left their sitting room telly for various reasons—to get a snack out of the kitchen, to go to the bathroom, and finally, when there was just one left, to check on what had happened to everybody else. They were all sleeping by the time we left. I wondered how they would explain it all away in the morning. A gas leak? I sort of felt bad. We really should have waited until late at night when they all would have been in their beds. Then they wouldn't have noticed if they slept a little more deeply than usual.

 

Johnny smiled at me indulgently, helping me down the last little bit until we stood firmly on the ground again. “You did fine,” he assured me. “Next time we'll take them as they sleep.” He had caught my flash of guilt.

 

I nodded and smiled back. For the first time in a long time, I felt satisfied. “You'll bring me again, then?”

 

“I will.” Johnny took my hand and we walked down the street of the small town, like boyfriend and girlfriend. It was a good feeling. We took our time going back to Rose's house. Since I'd been taking afternoon naps, I was wide awake at night these days. Usually, I drew, but tonight I had Johnny back. It was going to be hard for me to watch him go under the water in the morning. I wished again he would let me go with him.

 

Lachlan was at the house when we returned. He sat on the sofa by the fire, and Uncle Robert and Rose sat together at the table near the other end of the room. None of them looked comfortable. “Where's Paul?” I asked.

 

“He's upstairs sleeping,” Rose said, glancing at Uncle Robert. “I asked him to stay over tonight.”

 

I raised my eyebrows. There were only two bedrooms upstairs—the one I had, and the one Uncle Robert was using, each of which had only one narrow bed. Did that mean Uncle Robert was sleeping—elsewhere—tonight? Not on the sofa, apparently. Good for them! I wondered briefly why she had asked Paul to stay—was it because Johnny had returned, or because Lachlan was here?

 

Johnny sat down next to his brother on the sofa and pulled me down next to him. “Hi, Lachlan,” I said. He still didn't know what to make of me.

 

“Er—hi,” he responded. Then he pretended like I wasn't really there and talked to his brother. “Did you find him?”

 

Johnny shook his head. “No. I left word with the others. They know I'm staying here. If he is to be found, he will come here.”

 

“So you still plan to go through with this?” Lachlan glanced at me then.

 

“I have to.” Johnny didn't explain more than that, but he and I both knew it was too late for me to change my mind now. I might not be a true vampire yet, but the need for blood was too strong for me to ignore any longer. I had to be changed, or die.

 

“Lachlan.” I pulled away from Johnny so I could see his brother more clearly. “Blood of my blood.” I held out my hands. I don't know what made me do it, and why now. Johnny had taken pains to make sure that Lachlan did not taste my blood. But I felt it was important that I do this now. I knew it, the way I sometimes knew things.

 

Johnny stiffened beside me, but he didn't move to stop me. He trusted me in this.

 

Lachlan inclined his head, then, with a swift glance at his brother, he pierced my palm with his teeth. It didn't hurt. He sipped, and his eyes widened as he finally realized exactly how potent my blood was. “She's—“ He looked to Johnny for confirmation.

 

“She's like us,” Johnny affirmed. “A born blood-drinker.”

 

Uncle Robert grabbed Rose's wrist as she moved to get up. Her face was shocked, horrified. I don't see why. I'm the same person I was before Johnny made his statement. “Does Paul know?” she asked in a strangled voice.

 

“Of course I know, Mother,” Paul said from the top of the stairs. His hair was wet from the shower, and he wore heavy flannel pajama pants with a t-shirt. “I've made the blood-offering to Crystal. So has Michael.” His eyes sought out his father's, who still held on to Rose's hand. Uncle Robert nodded. “So has Father,” Paul continued. He looked at Johnny. “So has Johnny.”

 

Now Lachlan gaped. “But you can't!” he said.

 

“Lachlan.” I took his hands in my own and looked deeply into his eyes. “We're family. All of us, blood-drinkers or not. That's why I offered you my blood. I want you to know I am a part of you.”

 

He stared at me, then at Johnny, who just leaned back with a slight smile and crossed his arms.

 

“You—you drink blood? Already?” Lachlan struggled to come to terms with the facts of my existence. “How long?”

 

“A long time,” Johnny replied for me. “Would have been since she was six, if she had gotten her way.” He glanced at me fondly, and I laughed. Was I really so bloodthirsty, even back then, before we'd known what was to happen?

 

Lachlan looked around the room. Paul had come down the stairs and now stood with his mother and father, watching the scene unfold in front of them. Only Michael, home in the village with his young wife, was missing. Family. He sighed, and it might have been with envy, he said, “Eoin, I think possibly you have been the lucky one out of all of us.”

 

Johnny didn't disagree.