Page 4 of To Save a Vampire
Some people are over qualified for partners and live their lives in the inner city, working for our government. Ayden’s one of them. After our eighteenth birthdays, he’ll be over qualified and forever alone. I’ll never see him again once he leaves.
When my mother gave birth to me—without a union and without a birthing permit—we were deposited here, in the camp. But the camp provides a life for us. A long, overworked life, but a life all the same. It’s a community of family, working together to complete the lack of real family we don’t have. Ayden has all but lived at the camp to be near me—and away from his parents—since we met when we were seven.
Ripper lifts his head from his spot at the bottom of the bed. The pup knows the tradition and doesn’t make a move, but the little dog does growl in annoyance when Ayden pushes him off the bed to lies down next to me.
His arms flex as he crosses them behind his head. The familiarity of our routine warms me, and I curl in a ball on my side to face him. We both fit in my tiny bed. He’s tall, maybe six feet, but lean. My petite five-foot-six frame fits perfectly next to him, and we relax like messy puzzle pieces laying side by linking side.
“So, how was your day, sweetheart?” he asks sarcastically.
I imagine it’s his idea of what a normal partnership would be like if his parents actually liked each other.
“It was,” I pause trying to find a word to describe the weirdness that was my day, “exciting, I guess.”
He turns on his side to face me. He looks interested, but hesitant. Like he’s reading between every shadow the moon casts onto my face. Ayden spends his days with his grandmother doing homework, so, needless to say, my days are always more exciting than his.
“More interesting than that pike trying to start a rebellion last week?”
I smirk at his reply as the image of Forty-four cracking the glass flashes through my mind. Everything is so easy between us, even when our actual lives are not. Ayden applied to fill the available partnership in my union after I received the notice of Micah’s disappearance.
Thinking of Ayden as my life partner created an odd feeling between us that didn’t exist before. He’s kinder to me, if that’s possible. Once he applied, he waited every morning to walk me to school. He became hesitant, as if he was thinking through every word he spoke to me, which made me more conscious of my words and actions toward him. An awkward normalcy fell over our lives. The idea of our union seemed to strengthen our friendship, and I couldn’t help but look forward to our future.
It lasted a month.
The state isn’t quick to look further into missing persons like Micah, but our county was quick to reject someone with no future trying to make a union with a member of congress.
“More exciting than the rebellion,” I say, snapping out of my thoughts.
“Well, my grandma made me peanut butter cookies, knowing damn well I’m allergic to peanuts, so unless your story has a near death experience, I think I’ve got you beat.”
A laugh bubbles inside of me, the idea that his family knows so little about him is almost funny. Then I pause, wondering if I should tell him.
“A pike touched me today.”
He immediately sits up in my bed, looking down at me, shadows falling across his face. “Those repulsive freaks touched you?” There’s anger in his voice, and I have to shush him because I’m worried my mother will hear us. “Are you okay? I told you, you should stop going there.” He lifts my chin as if to make sure my neck is intact.
“Ayden, I’m fine.” I turn my head out of his hand. “It wasn’t like that. It was a completely contained situation,” I lie. “I was evaluating Forty-four with my mother, and I think he might have,” I pause trying to find another word for compel. “I think he tried to speak, and then he touched my hand … twice.”
Ayden’s chestnut eyes are the biggest I’ve ever seen them, and darkness settles into them. He’s furious, and I now know I shouldn’t have said anything at all. He folds his arms over his knees and stares at the wall across from us in the tiny room. He doesn’t speak for a minute. Anger rolls off of him in waves, and I sit up next to him, wondering if he even heard me.
“Are you okay?” I ask quietly.
“Twice? How did he touch youtwice?” His voice is quieter now like he’s thinking out loud. “Where were the guards? Security couldn’t prevent one of those freaks from touching you not once buttwice? How did he speak? I thought they were collared or something. Did he ask you to do something for him?” he asks in a ramble, touching the side of my face again, but softly this time. “Tell me if he tried to get you to donate blood because trust me, it’s a trap.”
I roll my eyes at his ability to find humor even when he’s angry. He’s still holding my face in his hand, and I let him. It reminds me of when he kissed me last summer, right before we got the rejection letter on our unity request. It was a soft kiss, the only kiss I’ve ever had.
He looks at my lips, possibly thinking about the very same memory. His brows pinch together as he releases a long breath, and a sad look crosses his face. He drops his hand and lies back down.
“He didn’t hurt you, though, right?” he asks in a whisper.
The bed dips slightly as I lie down next to him and rest my head on his arm once more. He reflexively brings it around my shoulder.
It’s warm and it’s calm. Everything about us is a little slice of peace.
“No, not at all.”
The quiet seeps into the room. Shadows linger heavily against the walls as the night passes slowly and my mind replays the day over and over. Ayden’s even breaths are the only noise that drifts through the room as I recall the strange tingling feeling the pike gave me. My body tries to imitate what it had felt like but I’m not able to.
It was probably just nerves. It was probably nothing.
