Keeping Secrets
"Here," I asked incredulously. "This can't be right. How do they live here?" The town looked small, too small for a vampire. Even if they didn't kill humans, if they were in town at all they would be recognized. A small town like this rumors fly, they would be able to blend in better in a larger town like Seattle. A town like Forks would expose them much too quickly.
"Obviously they don't live here very long," Lucas blurt out, he was getting more and more irritable as we got closer to our meeting.
"You know what I meant Luc," I grumbled and headed toward the front of the trailer.
"You should really sit down. The last thing we need is a ticket," Lucas warned. I walked forward a bit more and sat down at the "breakfast nook"
"So what's the plan," I asked, trying to ignore Lucas' attitude. Yohannah and Lucas exchanged wary glances. "I know you only want to tell me what I need to know, but this is getting old, fast. We're here already, I should know something. Where are we going to meet them?"
"Well," Yohannah hesitated. "They're supposed to be able to see us coming. We were going to rent a hotel for the night and wait for them."
"Why don't we just go to see them?"
"Because that would be rude, it's just not the way things are done. It is too aggressive," she answered calmly.
"So we're just going to sit there and wait for them to come to us? How do you know they will come? Wouldn't coming to our hotel room make them seem aggressive?"
Lucas turned to face the rear view mirror and said "no, because we're the ones in their territory, we've imposed on them enough."
Yohannah shot him a warning glance and he turned to face the road, giving more attention to driving than he really needed to. "We'll spend the night and if they haven't paid us a visit in a week, we'll seek them out."
"And what exactly are we going to be doing for a full week while we wait?"
"It won't take that long"
"But if it does," I asked.
Yohannah shrugged, "we're going to sit in the hotel room, watch movies, play cards, pretty much what we normally do.
"Except that I'm going to be stuck inside the whole time," I guessed.
"Its for your own good," Lucas interjected.
"I wasn't talking to you Luc," I grumbled.
"Oh no," he mocked.
"Knock it off, both of you." Yohannah shot us both a warning glance then turned to. "This is nonnegotiable, Meri. The situation is complicated; it really is for your safety."
"Listen, I'm not stupid. I know there's something you've been keeping from me. Why is this so complicated?"
Yohannah eyed Lucas, but he shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about, Meri."
I didn't believe him for a second. "Bull—"
"I mean it, drop it," He said, raising his voice. I could always hear him, he didn't have to shout, it was obvious that he was losing his temper. "You know that meeting others of our kind is always dangerous, no matter what the stories we've been told. You're letting your paranoia get the better of you, we're only thinking of you and your safety."
"But you are keeping something from me," I accused.
"Get dressed," he ordered. I looked down at myself, still in my pajamas.
"You're just trying to change the subject," I accused.
"I'm not going to get in an argument with someone wearing Powerpuff Girl pajamas."
Yohannah laughed but then covered her mouth. Lucas smirked at me through the rear view mirror.
I sighed and walked back towards the bedroom area of the RV. I could still see that stupid grin on his face. "What's the point of having that stupid mirror there anyway? You can't see out the back window at all."
"The better to watch you get undressed with," he teased.
I paused with my hands on the bottom of my shirt, and then turned to slam the divider shut. Both he and Yohannah burst out laughing. "Jerks," I mumbled. They had obviously heard me and a new round of laughter rang out. I leaned against the side door and took a few deep breaths to calm myself down. This is stupid, I thought. I've got to figure out what they're keeping from me. Usually I could weasel information out of Lucas, but he seems to be the one pushing Yohannah to keep this from me, whatever it is. The way that she looked at him just now when I confronted them about it told me that she wasn't comfortable keeping this from me either. Yohannah would tell me, if only I could separate her from Lucas long enough to get it out of her. OK, I thought. That's the plan, divide and conquer. I smirked and then turned to the closet to get dressed for the day.
It wasn't long before we had checked into what seemed to be the only hotel in town. It was more of a motel really, and we rented it for 2 weeks. Yohannah had said that we wouldn't be here very long, but her actions told me otherwise. I decided to keep quiet about separating them the first day; it would be too obvious if I started in on them right away they would guess my reasons. We got settled in, but I didn't really see the point. The motel room wasn't much bigger than the RV. Besides running water, it wasn't much of an improvement either. The sheets were obviously bought in the 1980s. Our trailer, although used, was newer than that. It was built in this century at least. I made sure to make it clear that I was not happy with the arrangement.
"Seriously, Lucas, I'm not sleeping on that bed. You know how many people have 'made love' on that bed?" I made little quote marks in the air with my fingers when I said "make love."
"Forty-seven," he guessed. Yohannah bit her lip to stifle a giggle.
"That was a rhetorical question, but EWW."
"I assure you, I'm kidding. How would I know anyway? They washed the sheets—they're clean—so you're going to sleep on them."
"I'd rather sleep in the RV."
"That's fine. We'll all camp out in there again and play poker."
"With Yohannah," I snorted. "Good luck."
He eyed her, probably remembering how much money he lost the last time he tried to bluff her. "Yeah OK, poker's out. How about we watch a movie?"
Hmmm, a movie might work. If I pick a really girly one, he might not want to watch it with me, I could get Yohannah alone. "Yeah—a movie—what do you want to see?"
"How about a classic, Jurassic Park"
"Jurassic Park is not a classic," Yohannah corrected.
"How about a real classic," I asked. "Gone With the Wind?"
"I hate that movie," Lucas said, making a face.
"How about The Wizard of Oz," Yohannah suggested.
"No, I want to watch Gone with the Wind," I insisted.
"You have to pick a movie we all can agree on."
"Luc's not going to agree to anything I want to watch—Man on Fire is not a girly movie," I pointed out as I saw him reading the review on netflix. I hadn't even noticed him get the laptop out but he was already on the couch searching for something to watch.
"Man on Fire's a great movie," he protested, "and who said we were going to watch a girly movie?" He clicked out of the action movie genre anyway.
"I want to see Gone with the Wind."
"Just let Meri pick the movie, Lucas, if it will make her happy," Yohannah ordered. Yohannah gave in quicker than I thought she would, she didn't like the movie much either, but she was eager to give me what I wanted. She was probably feeling guilty, it was going to be easier than I thought to get information from her.
Lucas was still wearing his sun glasses, but you could almost hear him rolling his eyes, "you give her everything she wants, no wonder she's so spoiled," he accused.
"I'm a grown woman, not a child, stop treating me like one. I'm older than you are, even if you don't want to admit it." At least that made him pause.
"How old are you anyway," Yohannah asked. Lucas stiffened.
"Old," I answered dodging the question.
"No really, how much do you remember about where you came from." Lucas clenched his fists. The whole tone of the conversation suddenly got serious. Does this have something to do with what they're trying to hide from me, I wondered.
"I don't remember." It was only a half truth, Yohannah saw that. She crossed her arms in front of her. "I remember very little", I corrected. "Nothing concrete, just flashes. It's all disjointed. It's like I have a handful of puzzle pieces but can't figure out how to put them together."
"Have you tried," Yohannah prodded.
"Yes." Once again it was only a half truth. Yohannah glared at me. "I have some," I insisted, "but it's never anything important. I see all the bad things that happened, they're burned into my head, but nothing of use. I remember seeing my parents die, but I can't remember their names. I remember the trip west, but I don't remember the year. There's no point to it."
"You know, you're never going to get past it, if you don't talk about it," she pushed.
"Leave her alone," Lucas said, and in an instant, he was standing between the two of us. "She doesn't want to talk about it." Yohannah ducked her head and walked over to the computer. It was a bit disturbing; usually it was Yohannah who led us. Yohannah was like a mother, and while Lucas was her mate, he was less like a father and more like an older brother to her. He rarely took charge; I didn't understand what was so important to him that he would try to order Yohannah around. Sure, he tried to order me around all the time, but it was different.
"Don't talk to her like that." They both turned to look at me and then he flinched and looked away.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly and walked over to Yohannah, leaving me standing near the window alone. I knew the conversation was important. It was obvious by how upset they both got about it. What did my past have anything to do with this vampire coven? For the life of me, I couldn't figure it out. I walked over and sat on the couch. I fingered the embroidered flower designs while I thought. What exactly did the rumors say? Nothing about me, I'm sure. There was a hybrid child—interesting, but that had nothing to do with me, for sure. Then there was an alliance, but I didn't know anybody involved. I didn't know any more about their kind than Lucas and Yohannah did, a lot less actually. The big surprise was that newborn that could protect the others, but I couldn't think of any reason that would pertain to me. There was that vampire that could read minds though. Were they trying to get more information out of me than I would give them? I honestly couldn't tell them much more than I already had, I remembered so little of what actually happened. Anything before 1900 was nearly impossible to remember.
Yohannah had sat down in front of the lap top and pulled up a video of Gone with the wind. She set the computer down on the coffee table and we all sat on the couch together to watch it. Lucas at one end leaning against the side, and Yohannah was leaning against him. He had his hand in her short red hair, running his fingers through it absentmindedly. I laid with my head on the edge of the couch, my legs laying against Yohannah's cool skin, my feet resting on Lucas's lap. I smiled thinking of how often he complained about how much I smelled. Let him sit next to my feet then, I thought. I doubted that any of us were paying much attention to the movie, we were all lost in our own thoughts.
What else had I heard? Didn't the first reports say something about werewolves? "Werewolves that weren't werewolves," whatever that was supposed to mean. Yohannah had told us that those were just exaggerations. That there were large wolves in the area, but the stories got exaggerated. Apparently one of the vampires there could control the wolves, used them as guard dogs. It wouldn't have done a lot of good that would have done against even a single vampire, let alone an entire coven. That might be part of it though. Sometimes I had a way with animals, but Yohannah and Lucas knew very little about that.
That has to be it, I thought. They had to know about the animals. I didn't know how. I had never told them about it. It was one of the things I was able to do only while sleeping, they had no idea I was doing anything but sleep but that had to be it. Nothing else made sense. The secrecy must be because they didn't want me to know that they knew.