Chapter Ten
Four nights later, Manouchka woke up.
Her body felt strangely warm, her surroundings kind of fuzzy. She realized that she was in a bed, and thought it was strange for a bed to be in heaven. Then the pain set in. It was a kind of burning, itching pain, just under the skin. She shifted, trying to ease the feeling, but that only made it worse. Her stomach and her joints hurt when she moved.
It was when she was wondering why she'd feel pain in heaven that she came to the conclusion she was alive. Either she was alive, or she was in hell, and Manny was at least hoping it was the first. She opened her eyes and sat up, letting her eyes adjust to her surroundings.
She was laying in the guest bedroom in Joshua's house. She reached down, touching her stomach, and then touching her neck. She couldn't feel stitches, and minus the aching soreness in those areas, she felt fine. Manny pushed off the covers. She was wearing a large Oxford shirt--Joshua's shirt. She lifted it to see her stomach, expecting to see bandages or stitches.
The skin on her stomach was whole, minus several new scars. Pale, thin scars crossed her stomach. Manny's hazy mind came up with inappropriate examples of what they looked like, all of them terribly uinny in her confusion. They looked like a waffle iron, a tic-tac-toe board, the list went on. She began to wonder just how long she'd been recuperating for her wounds to have healed.
Although not vain by most standards, Manny's hand went again to her throat, delicately searching for the rough edges of scars. Were they there, too? Were there little silver lines along her throat from where the wolf had bit into it? She was too nervous to head to the adjoining washroom and check. Someone would tell her, if there were.
Upon getting out of bed she found that her legs were a little unsteady under her. Had they not been used for awhile? They certainly didn't look atrophied. She walked experimentally and found that each step hurt. It felt like her legs were asleep. She continued to walk, knowing that movement would help the blood flow and normality would return.
She maneuvered down the stairs and into the kitchen by herself. No one was coming to her side, telling her to return the bed. For one pained moment, Manny thought maybe they had forgotten about her.. or worse. Maybe she was a ghost, and the blood bond with Joshua would keep her locked in a condition of eternal torment until Joshua himself was dead!
Oh, that was a horrible thought!
'Maybe,' she thought rationally, 'everybody is out. Or asleep. It is nighttime.'
But in the kitchen she heard movement and caught a whiff of deodorant, perfume, and shampoo. Heather. She was cooking something. Manny could hear her puttering around the kitchen and she could smell brown sugar. 'Porridge,' she thought, sniffing the air. So it was dark outside because it was really early in the morning.
Her legs still sore and weak, she stumbled into the kitchen. The lights half-blinded her. She emerged blinking, shy in her nightshirt and feigning indifference. "Morning," she said.
Heather spun around and Manny saw her eyes widen in terror. The pitcher of milk she was using for her tea shattered on the ground. Manny could smell something sour and she wrinkled her nose, eyeing the milk seeping along the floor for signs of curdling. It certainly smelled bad.
"Manny! You're up!" There was a nervous stammer in Heather's voice that she couldn't remember hearing before. She moved to keep the island between them as Manny slid into her favorite chair. "I should have expected... he told me that you'd be up soon."
There was no point in asking who 'he' was. Joshua. Manny's mouth was watering. She picked up the spoon in the porridge and began pushing it around. "Did you make more? I'm famished. Please tell me that there's more breakfast."
Heather's pale face looked frightened, and then it turned into worry as Manny's movements became more agitated. "Manny, I really don't think that you should eat anything until Joshua comes back."
"Where did he go?"
"Out hunting." She gestured with her head out the back door, indicating the woods that the house shared with the university.
"How long was I unconscious for?"
"Three days."
Manny's eyebrows shot up so far they were lost in the thickness of her bangs. "Three days?"
Heather took a step forward towards the seat across from Manny, but then seemed to reconsider. Her face and tone were gentle. "Manny, how much do you remember of that night? Do you remember the attack? Do you remember how badly you were hurt? Do you remember Joshua?" It was yes to the first and second question, but Manny could not recall Joshua being there.
"Joshua wouldnt speak of it much, but he did tell me that he fought off the wolves. You were very badly hurt--too badly hurt for even the hospital to save you. Joshua did the only thing he could think of to save you." Manny stiffened, knowing that she was about to hear something horrible. Heather was drawing it out, giving her time to prepare, but Manny just wished she'd say it.
"He gave you his blood."
Oh... was that all? Manny felt relieved. "That's right," she agreed, nodding. "You had told me before that vampire blood is very strong. It keeps you from getting colds right? So he gave me his blood, and my body was able to fix itself?"
"Yes and no." Heather sighed, rubbing her head. "This would be so much easier if Joshua were here... that bastard."
Manny was rather shocked that she had heard Professor McGugan use such language. She didn't realize that as Heather stood in the kitchen, rubbing her temple, that her lips had never moved.
"It closed your wounds, but it didn't close them enough. Your injuries were beyond what it could heal. You you died, Manny."
A chill went up her spine. "I what?"
"You died. The wounds were knitting together, but not quick enough to save you. Your heart stopped beating, and you stopped breathing, but his blood was still in ye. It kept working on healing you even after yer heart had stopped. Joshua brought you home and put you on that very kitchen table. Ach, he looked like a bloody ghost!" Her own face blanched, remembering what Manny had looked like lying on the slab of granite in the kitchen. "He wasn't sure for the first day, but when I came down the next morning, he told me that you were going to be okay. Sure enough, most of your wounds were all gone, but Bonnie Joshua looked like crap."
Manny could scarcely understand what Heather was saying from the emergence of her thick, nervous brogue, but she could imagine the scene in the kitchen table. It was beginning to dawn on her what Joshua had done, but accepting it was painful and terrifying. "Good God... His blood!"
She nodded, sadly, and slowly reached out for the first time to touch Manny's hand gently. "Aye, lass. His blood changed ye. Youre like him now. A vampire."
"No!" Manny jerked her hand away violently, leaping from her chair. "No! I'm not... I can't be!"
Heather's face softened. "Manny, go and look at yerself in the mirror. Ye kinnae undo it."
Manny tore from the room, running to the washroom wildly. When she saw her reflection in the mirror, she nearly screamed.
It wasn't her face looking back at her.
When she moved, she could see the old Manouchka there looking back at her, but otherwise the face in the mirror was not hers. The shape remained the same, but there was an innate quality in the eyes that made her look catty. They reminded her of Poppy's eyes. The eye color had changed too. She used to have light, milk chocolate-covered eyes. Now her eyes were caramel-gold. Her lips were fuller, and darker, and her skin was utterly flawless. She was beautiful in the mirror, like a statue of Nefertiti or some ancient goddess. She was predatory, graceful, and under her skin she could feel the rough edge of instinct that would allow her to survive in the Night World.
She stared at herself, fingers pressed against her cheeks. She could feel her skin, feel the pain in her skin from her hunger, and yet it didnt feel like her skin. Manny couldn't contain the scream anymore. It was building inside of her, as deep and bloody as if it had been waiting for her to realize she was no longer human. She shut her mouth, she closed her eyes, and screamed.
Her scream pierced the air and she heard the mirror crack and then shatter. She held it as long as she could and then stormed back down the hallway, all but flying to the kitchen. She was beautiful and deadly in her anger, the paintings and hangings decorating the hallway bashing against the walls as if in a maelstrom. Manny charged into the kitchen, not caring that Heather was cringing, terrified of her.
"Why did he do it? Why did he do it? Why did he change me? Why didn't he let me die!?"
"Would you prefer to be dead than alive?"
"I'd prefer being dead to being this!" She felt hot tears in her eyes, and she wanted to bawl, but the tears seemed stuck. Manny wondered if she could even manage to cry.
Heather looked away. "You'll have to ask him why he did it, but for what it's worth, I'm glad he saved you."
Her words fell on deaf ears. Manny's head shot up and whipped around to look at the back door. She could hear Joshua coming. She could hear his footfalls on the ground as he approached, the crunch of fresh snow under his feet, despite the fact that when she had been human his approach had been as silent as a ghost. Even stranger, she could feel him coming. Some extra sense she had no name for told her that he was approaching, and that he was approaching with a good mood.
Only a few seconds later, Joshua walked into the kitchen, a smile on his face. It was a broad, cheeky smile, and for a moment he actually did look as though he could only be a teenager. The heavy weight that had given him his austerity had vanished. When he spotted Manny, his smile brightened and she noticed the color of his eyes. They were the impossible blue of a lightning strike. She also realized that he was holding a bunny rabbit.
"Manny! Youre awake!"
He sounded happy. Manny didn't really care. She leapt at him, aiming to slap his face, but he managed to dodge it.
"You jerk! You jerk! You turned me into a vampire!"
Joshua held the bunny aloft, using it as a shield. Manny grimaced, bearing sharp teeth. "I see that you found out about it."
"Found out about it? Look at me!"
He slowly brought down the rabbit so that he could look at her, and she watched as his eyes changed from the brilliant lightning blue, to thundering grey, and then down deeper to sit on the edge of sapphire-amethyst. He was getting mad, but Manny was more confused by the array of colors she saw in his face. His eyes had always belied his feelings, once she knew which emotion caused each one, but she could not remember seeing so many of them. Had his eyes always changed through so many shades, or was it just that now her eyes were good enough to see them?
"Look at ye? I saw you when the werewolves were scaird away from ye! I saw ye neck cut open, ye blood on the snow, yer belly exposed! Dinnae stand there and tell me to look at ye! Yer alive, ain't ye?"
"I wish I were dead!"
She screamed the words, the window panes rattling in a gust of wind, and was shocked when he flinched, as though she had struck him. He recovered quickly. "If it weren't for me, lass, ye would be dead! Yer just hungry. We'll feed ye and then ye'll be right as rain."
Manny's stomach lurched at the idea, and she nearly gagged when she felt her mouth beginning to salivate. Blood. He was going to make her drink blood!
"I..."
"You're in pain, aren't you?" Joshua lost the thickness of his accent as his anger subdued. Manny's became inflamed as he spoke to her like she was a child who refused to eat her vegetables. "It's because you're dying, but not of starvation. You're drowning. Your blood can't carry oxygen. You need human blood for that, Manny. But I thought that since this was forced upon you, you might not be ready for human blood. I brought you this instead."
He held up the rabbit.
Manny looked at him like he was mad. "You want me to drink blood from a rabbit?"
|Would you prefer drinking blood from a human?"
She thought about it for a moment, staring at the creature he held in his arms. It was actually a large hare, and it was terrified of being in the strange room. The only reason why it wasn't still fighting to break free of Joshua's hands was because it had learned it couldn't.
"Actually," Manny admitted, I would. Joshua's eyes bulged, staring at her in surprise. Manny gently took the bunny from Joshua, feeling it's racing pulse under her hand and hearing the heart pump away furiously. "This little guy's so small compared to a human being he wouldn't have enough blood to satiate my hunger. I'd kill him."
Joshua stared at her a moment, face unreadable. He then turned to look at Heather, stretching out a hand toward her pleadingly. "Heather is..."
"No, not Heather either," Manny cut him off sternly. "Lacey. I need Lacey."
"Lacey? Your roommate?"
She nodded stubbornly. "I'm hungry. I'm real hungry, Joshua! But I don't want to kill anybodyor anything," she added, gesturing to the brown rabbit she held in her arms. "You can be really hungry and not kill Heather because she's been with you for so long. She's your friend. I don't have that, and there's nothing in me to stop me from hurting her. You might have to pull me off of her, and I don't want that. I don't want Heather to see me like that. But Lacey... Lacey is my friend. I won't do anything to hurt her, and she won't think of less of me for seeing me like this. Besides, she's probably worried sick because I doubt that either of you thought to call her and tell her that I was okay."
There was silence in the kitchen. Slowly, Heather raised her hand. "Um... I did. I just told her that you were sick and Joshua was looking after you and that he'd given you tranquilizers to keep you sedated because you were in pain."
Even Joshua looked surprised. "You did?" Heather nodded, and Joshua's response was a soft growl. "Heather, that was very stupid of you. What if Manny didnt make it? How would you explain that to Lacey?"
She didn't seem intimidated by his anger, but stood taller. "I would have thought of something. I thought it was better to let people know she wasn't missing than to have everyone organizing themselves into a search party for her. I'm sure you would have done something similar if youd have thought of something other than yourself over the last three days," Heather shot at him.
Manny didn't know how exactly how to interpret that comment, but it looked like a low blow, judging by Joshua's reaction. His eyes narrowed, but he turned away from her guiltily. Only Heather, Manny thought, could make him look chastised like that.
She reached out to him and took his hand, realizing that besides the kiss they had shared before the werewolves had attacked her, it was the first time that they had touched skin to skin. She saw his gaze lighten at the touch, and he lifted his head to see her.
"Please, Joshua. Take me to Lacey?"
He looked pained, as if her request was torturous. Joshua stared at the rabbit she held in her arms. He licked his lips slowly, nervously. "Okay," he finally agreed. "I'll take you to Lacey."
They were on the road within minutes. Manny changed into some spare clothes Heather had lent her and she let the bunny free in the kitchen. Heather seemed happy to sit with her breakfast and feed it lettuce, watching over it while Manny was away. The ride down to the school was silent, and that made it tense.
How would Lacey really react when she saw what Manouchka had become? Manny trusted her friend to accept her, but would she be willing to give Manny her blood? Her stomach churned at the thought of blood, and her whole body gave a painful sigh of longing that made her mouth water. She needed blood, and if she didn't get it soon...
That Joshua didn't talk made her nervous. What had he been like while she was unconscious for three days? Had he visited her at all? Had he shut himself away on the third floor? Then she thought of something else: she'd missed her date with Matt Aspen.
The normality of the thought, the suddenness of it, made her want to burst into tears. Matt, adorable Matt, had probably thought she had stood him up. He probably hated her now. He probably would never want to talk to her again. She had everything she'd ever wanted right there in front of her, and now it was all lost because she'd taken a turn down the wrong hallway.
Another thought followed that one, but it was fuzzy and scary. She knew that there was something about being a vampire that hadn't clicked in yet, but she didn't know what it was; only that it was something scary. Unable to deal with it while she was so hungry, Manny ignored the thought and climbed out of the car.
Joshua had rescued her knapsack and she dug her house keys out of her bag, letting them into the residence. She stepped through the doorway without a problem and looked up at Joshua. "So, I don't need to be invited into a house to enter it?"
He shook his head no.
The elevator seemed to take forever. Manny shifted her weight back and forth uneasily, feeling the river of pinpricks through her veins. God, she was hungry!
She paused at the door to the apartment. It didn't feel right, using her keys in the lock, when she was coming to drink the blood of someone in the apartment. Manny hesitated knocking, and Joshua leaned around her to open the door for her. It was unlocked. Manny felt silly.
"Thanks."
Only a stiff inclination of his head acknowledged that he'd heard her. "Hello! Are you home, Lacey?"
The roommate in question emerged from her bedroom, rubbing her eyes and yawning. "What is it? Who's there?" She stumbled to the door, staring up at Joshua and scrutinizing him. With her sour expression and tousled red hair, Manny thought that she looked a little like a grumpy witch about to turn Joshua into a toad. "Joshua, is it? Yeah, you are pretty good looking, for a jerk. What the hell do you want?"
Then she noticed Manny standing nervously behind Joshua. Her eyes widened and she suddenly shot awake. Manny hated the fear she saw on her best friends face. "Manny? You... you're..." She turned back to Joshua, and glared at him furiously, her green eyes the color of jade and just as cold. She spoke in a hiss, careful not to wake up the other two roommates. "You changed her, you bloody bastard!"
His mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. "You know, if I thought that I would have kept getting that reaction, I would have drastically reconsidered trying to save her life."
"Save her..."
"After all," he continued, ignoring her attempt to interrupt him, "it's not like I would have suffered if she had died."
"Died?" Lacey looked between them, confused. "Then this wasn't an accident? This wasn't you miscalculating bonding her to you and accidentally changing her?"
He straightened. "I think that I've done that enough times to avoid making amateur mistakes." Joshua pulled Manny forward and crowded them into the narrow hallway of the apartment. "Manny hasn't fed yet, Lacey. She was most insistent upon coming to see you for that."
Lacey looked like she perceived it as a threat, and Joshua's tone hadn't exactly helped. Manny jumped in. "I didn't mean it like that! I just look, Lace, I was worried that if I fed off of someone else, I wouldn't be able to stop feeding off of them. Joshua offered me a bunny rabbit, and then he offered me a human, but I'm... I'm so hungry that I knew I wouldn't be able to stop drinking from them without hurting them. But you can stop me if I try to take too much, and I will stop because I would never want to hurt you!"
"Manny..." The name was a strange groan-sigh. Then Lacey slowly put her arm around Manouchka's shoulders and began leading her back to her bedroom. "This is really taking advantage of me, you know that? You know I can't turn you away."
Joshua was following them, and when Lacey saw him from the corner of her vision she whirled around on him. "And just where do you think you're going?"
"Following you. I need to show her how to feed properly."
Her superior tone of voice had a cruel edge. "I think that Manny can manage to figure it out on her own. Besides, this isn't my first time doing this. I can give her pointers almost as well as you can, and if she needs to take a few tries before she does it correctly, then I'll take that too. I'm not going to let you bite me, too."
She slammed her bedroom door in his face. That kept him from coming in, and it rather gave her a sense of satisfaction. Lacey's anger flowed away when she looked at Manny's strained face. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Manny. This is harder on you, after all. Come and sit down."
Both girls sat on the bed, and Lacey began to brush Manouchka's hair for her, fixing the disarrayed mess. Manny didn't even cringe at the feeling in her hair left from lying in a bed for three days. Manny sat numbly on the bed, letting Lacey brush her hair for her, feeling too hungry to do anything. The pain paralyzed her, and everything felt strangely fuzzy.
"Here. I'll make it easy for you." She demonstrated with exaggerated movements, rolling up the hem of her pajama top and holding up her wrist.
Manny blinked, and struggled to speak while Lacey dug around in her desk. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. "Aren't we supposed to drink from the neck? Joshua always went for my neck. Everything always goes for my neck," she shuddered, remembering the werewolves.
"Only if you want to be overly affectionate with me." Lacey grinned at her friend cheekily. "The neck is a good spot to drink, but its also very intimate. No offense, I love you, but I don't want your breath down my shirt. It kind of smells. Even vampires need to brush their teeth, unless you like your breath smelling like old blood. Besides, I'm not about to risk cutting my jugular."
Finding her Swiss Army Knife, Lacey sat back on the bed and held her wrist close to her face. Manny could see, with her new sight, a faint scar across Lacey's wrist. If she was human, she doubted that she ever would have seen it... and knew she hadn't.
"This isn't really your first time, is it?"
"Nope." She glanced up at Lacey. "There's been a few times where someone I loved was going to die without some blood and they weren't alive to bite me. It's a lot easier once you know how to bite, trust me."
Manny parted her lips. "I can learn."
"I know you can," Lacey said sweetly, "but at the moment, your fangs aren't even down. A fresh scent of blood and..." As she spoke, Lacey braced herself and brought the tip of her knife down across her wrist. She grunted with the effort and her hiss was so powerful that Manny wrapped her hand around her own wrist, wincing in sympathy. "And this should at least get them down."
The scent of human blood attacked Manny's senses furiously. She watched the blood well up on Lacey's wrist and her hands gripped the comforter on her bed to keep from lunging on her best friend. It pulled to her, called to her, like nothing ever had before. It wasn't normal hunger, it was water to a drowning man.
She licked her lips and her tongue passed over her fangs. It felt like running her finger of the edge of a knife. They had looked, on Joshua, to be a little dull, but now she realized just how sharp they really were.
And sensitive. They seemed to throb when her tongue brushed over them, and lengthen a little more. Manny ran the tip of her tongue down her left fang over and over again, coaxing it out further bit by bit, as she watched the pool of blood on Lacey's wrist turn into a drop that rolled along her skin.
Lacey held her wrist out for her, and Manny took it in her hands gently, bringing the wrist to her lips. She licked the blood, and found that it didn't taste bad at all. She knew from sticking cut fingers in her mouth that blood had a watery texture and a coppery taste to it that made it rather unpleasant. This wasn't bad. It tasted good: like water and chocolate and cherries all mixed together.
She began sucking on the wound, but stopped when she realized the arm she was holding was tensing up because of pain. Manny stopped, her tongue licking gently at the wound as she thought. She had gotten enough blood that the haze was lifted from her mind so that she could think about it rationally.
The blood couldn't get out of Lacey veins fast enough to ebb her thirst. She hadn't cut her wrist, Manny realized, just scratched the surface to spill some blood from the capillaries. Why? Because the scent of it had been enough to bring down her fangs.
She needed to bite where Lacey had cut herself, to make the wounds go deeper, and reach the blood. But the bite was always what Manny had fought. She didn't want to hurt Lacey... but she already was hurting her!
In the confusion brought on by Manny's sudden moral dilemma, her body took over. Though they lacked finesse, her instincts knew that there was food just out of sight, and knew how to get at it. Her jaw bit down gently on Lacey's wrist, knowing that she could break the fragile bones therein if she bit too deeply or too hard. Lacey tensed and then shuddered with a sigh, and she felt their minds beginning to mingle.
The blood bursting into her mouth was sweeter than a breath of fresh air, cleaner than water, and she could feel Lacey's gladness at that.
"I dont taste bad?"
No! She laughed as she drank, and her laugh was no longer a husky thing, but pure and strong. It too, had been changed, but Manny was too happy to notice. It tastes delicious! Did did I just use telepathy?
"Uh-huh."
Manny remembered the way that Joshua's voice hurt her head. Does it hurt?
"Nope."
Does... does me drinking hurt?
Lacey actually laughed. "The bite hurts, but after that, it's actually quite pleasant. It would have to be for anyone to actually want to give blood, now wouldn't it? And people do, you know." Manny's thoughts drifted to Heather McGugan. She didn't seem to mind giving blood to Joshua. "Do you feel my thoughts?"
Yes. Manny shut her eyes tightly and emptied out all the thoughts from her mind. Lacey's poured into her mind in their wake. She was thinking about growing up with Manny: how they had met, their first sleepover, the relief when Manouchka found out she was a witch and through all of them there was a feeling of infinite sadness that Manny couldn't understand. It's not rude to look at them like this?
"Did you mind when Joshua looked through yours?"
Manny lifted her lips, licking them fastidiously. It didn't seem to do anything, so she used the back of her hand. Her fangs were still down, and she couldn't figure out how to retract them. Joshua's never seen my thoughts like that before. Whenever weve exchanged blood, I've been unconscious.
"What?"
"What I mean," Manny corrected, trying to calm down Lacey, "is that he's used telepathy to put my asleep. I... I was scared." She looked down at the wrist Lacey held. "Will it stop bleeding soon?"
"Yes, why? Are you still hungry?"
Manny smiled for her. "No. I think I could have kept going, but I'm satisfied now. I don't hurt anymore. I just don't want to see you hurt, and now you're walking around with a goddamn slashed wrist because I didn't know how to bite you properly." She reached out and gently touched Lacey's wrist. It was warm under her fingertips; alive.
It was that simple touch that made Manny burst into tears. Lacey was immediately holding her, asking her what was wrong, worrying she'd hurt her, but Manny was simply sobbing. When her tears managed to subside a little, she managed to get out everything off her chest, including the attacks from the werewolves.
"Look at what he did to me, Lace! Look at what he took from me! I need to drink people's blood now! I can never grow up! I'll never get any fatter, or smaller, or taller! I'll never have children! I'm... I'm goddamn Peter Pan, and I never asked for it! I'm trapped in Neverneverland and I wish I were dead! I wish that he had let me die! I never asked to be saved! I want to be human again!"
She sobbed and wailed until she had nothing left to give. Manouchka felt a little consoled by the fact that she could indeed cry tears, and by the time she'd gotten all of them out, Lacey's wound had even stopped bleeding. The girls lay together on the bed, arms and legs entwined, and Manny's tear stains dotted Lacey's pajama top like little rain drops.
"No force on earth, heaven, or hell," Lacey said gently, "can make you human again. You're just going to have to accept that, but you know that you still have me. He could have changed you into a big, glutinous blob of Jell-O and you'd still have me. I love you."
Manny hugged her friend tightly. "I love you too, Lacey."
When the two girls finally emerged from the bedroom, they found Joshua outside waiting for them. He had slumped down against the wall opposite Lacey's room, and sat with his legs folded to his chest. Joshua looked up at them, and his expression was bitter. They lingered on Manny, making her feel suddenly very sheepish.
"Come on," he growled, "let's get out of here before your other roommates wake up."
This time the silence in the car was angry as they drove back to Joshua's. Manny wasn't entirely certain how she knew that he was using silence against her, as opposed to being at a loss of what to say, except that the violet haze that covered deep blue eyes was a good indication of his anger. He had dragged her out of the apartment and she'd protested. Her home was here, but he refused to let her stay. Eventually Lacey had suggested that she go with him, and Manny consented to being led to the car. He threw in a duffle bag he hadn't had before in the back seat.
"That's my duffle bag!" Manny had exclaimed.
"I know. I packed a few things for you."
"You went through my bedroom while I was with Lacey?" He nodded stiffly. "Why?!"
That was when the initial silence had started. Joshua turned on the blinker for the driveway, and then at the last moment shut it off and pulled an illegal U-turn. Manny's head connected with the passenger seat window pane, but he didn't apologize. She rubbed her head. "Where are we going?"
"Someplace where Heather can't hear us talk." The hands that gripped the steering wheel were white-knuckled. "I feel like yelling."
Manny let Joshua drive wherever he was intent on going. There wasn't much she could think of to stop him; talking to him rationally certainly wasn't going to do any good. They drove, in silence again, for the better part of an hour, up the north highway. Manny felt like they were halfway to the next major city when Joshua pulled into a picnic area on the side of the road. With the half a meter of snow that had fallen over the last three days, the area was deserted. He climbed out of the car and motioned for Manny to do the same.
They both stood there in nothing more than heavy sweaters, immune to the cold, letting the wind whip their hair and clothes around until Joshua was ready to speak. When he was, he turned around and looked at her.
"Look, for whatever its worth, I'm sorry that youre like me now, but I can't be sorry that I changed you!"
Manny wondered where this apology was coming from. "You... you heard me in there talking with Lacey!"
"Of course I did, Manny! I'm a vampire! Better than human hearing, remember? I heard everything you sobbingly told her! I said I was sorry, but the fact of the matter is, there were worse things that would have happened to you than dying, Manny!"
She felt tears sting her eyes and turned to face into the wind. If they fell again, she could blame them on the cold. "What could possibly be worse than being this, Joshua? What's worse than being a vampire?"
He marched around the car, advancing on her slowly. Manny had to steel herself to keep from moving from that spot to try and stand up to him. His eyes were stormy grey, and only that kept her from being afraid he'd lash out at her. He was angry, but in control of himself. "Have you ever seen zombie movies, Manny? Vampires and witches aren't the only movie creature that's real. Do you know why zombies are the living dead? Why they crawl out of their graves? Because they're humans who were going to be vampires, but didn't make the transition! If the vampire blood isn't strong enough when you die, then you're body can't complete the transformation and you wake up a mindless ghoul!"
Joshua could see the news startled her. He pressed on, trying to drive his point home. He stood so close to her that when she breathed he could feel her breath, only slightly warmer than the winter chill, on his neck. "You got to wake up in a cozy bed among friends. If I had left you in the woods to die, you would have woken up mindless, alone, hungry for blood, and with your intestines hanging out of your body!"
The tears ran down her cheeks. "That's a lie!"
"Why would I have to lie to you?" he roared, arms outstretched. "I had nothing to gain from getting you turned into a zombie! I had nothing to gain from saving you! And I did, Manny! I did! I saved you!"
Manny stared at him, and then slowly lifted her hand to dry her cheeks. She sniffled. "But then why?"
Joshua froze, and the emotion fled from his face. His eyes returned to their normal color, his lips parted softly, and he once again looked nothing more than a normal teenage boy... one that was shocked and completely defenseless. He had been so busy trying to impress upon Manouchka the fact that he had no logic behind his actions, he had opened himself to the question of why he had bothered to save her in the first place.
Manny repeated the question for him, her inquisitive voice soft. "Why did you save me then, Joshua?"
"Because," he replied, just as quietly, "I couldn't risk letting you turn into a zombie. It didn't have anything to do with you being a threat to the way I live my life, but just that that you're a person, a good hearted one, and I couldn't let you be turned into a monster."
Her face flooded with warmth. She reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Joshua... that's the kindest thing you've ever said to me."
Ignoring the hand on his arm, he continued looking down at her without even seeing her. His eyes were brilliant blue, the color of lightning in the dark, and Manny found herself again wondering if the color had always been there, or if she had only begun to see it.
"I was so worried that you wouldn't wake up," he admitted, staring past her. "There's an age limit for these things. Bodies over the age of seventeen don't always make the transition. There was still a good chance that you wouldn't be able to change into a vampire, but at least then you would have been dead. You wouldn't have been a zombie, just a corpse. So I bled myself, every morning and night and noon, and gave you my blood. I think that might have helped, because you made it."
Manny recalled Heather's comment about Joshua thinking solely of himself. Her expression softened. "You... you weren't thinking of yourself, were you? Bleeding yourself like that... you might heal fast as a vampire, but you couldn't have replenished the blood fast enough."
A ghostly smile lit upon his expressions. "No, no I couldn't. Whenever I wasn't with you, I was off hunting trying to regain my strength."
"Whenever you weren't with me? How often were you with me?"
"Quite often. I was..."
He let the thought trail off, and didn't pick it up again. Manny leaned closer to him, arching an eyebrow. "Worried?" Joshua nodded stiffly, the movement so slight that the snowflakes stuck in his hair failed to fall off. "You don't usually worry much, do you?"
"No. I normally don't. Normally I don't care."
"Why was this different?"
Joshua's calm annoyance broke, his face tightening again, and his voice was a roar, even in the wind. "Why do you have to ask? Why do you care?"
Manny jumped back, surprised. "I'm just trying to understand."
"Understand what?" he snarled, lip curled to reveal a hint of fang.
"Well you, of course."
He stared at her. Then, slowly, the ghostly smile was back. He shook his head, and reached out to take Manny into his arms. He pulled her to him and she didn't resist, and his arms wrapped around her tightly. She found herself snuggling in closer, her cheek pressed against his shirt, and with her new sense of touch she could feel how thin and worn it was.
"Manny, my blood made you into a vampire. No one else could understand me like you do." He stopped talking verbally and switched to telepathy. This time, there was no pain or feeling of intrusion. His voice seemed to belong there, filling a part of her mind that had been waiting for him. No one else has the right to understand me. But I don't understand it myself. I just I saw you there, and I knew that I couldn't let you turn into a ghoul, but I couldn't let you die either. I just kept thinking that it would be a horrible waste of life, to lose someone who had barely begun to live.
Manny felt her face flush, and she was relieved. She was a vampire, but she was still human enough to blush. The words warmed her, and she snuggled deeper into the worn fleece of his sweater.
I think... well, thank you for not letting me turn into a ghoul.
But not 'thank you for saving my life'?
No... not yet,she added, trying to give him some hope, but maybe someday, when I get used to being a vampire.
Manny thought of something else then and she looked up at him, pulling away from the relaxed hug they had been sharing. His face was happy, but when he saw her expression, he became worried. Manny thought it odd, but then reminded herself: his blood beat in her veins.
He no longer scared her. He was softer, somehow. He was still prickly, but Manouchka was instantly reminded of a porcupine. Joshua was a porcupine. He was prickly and uncomfortable and enjoyed being alone, but when you were close enough to him, you realized that between all the prickly parts, there was soft fur.
She was close to him now because of their blood. There was a moment of panic in Manny, and Joshua felt it, his shoulders stiffening as he prepared to meet some threat. Manny pressed a hand to his shoulder, telling him it was okay, and he relaxed. I just realized that Professor McGugan is no longer your only weak spot. I just realized that were close now.
And that worries you?
Well, when I first met you, she said slowly, I hardly thought that I would be able to calm you down like this when you became upset. Her caramel-colored eyes lingered on the hand laying on his shoulder, and so did his. Manny gulped nervously and slipped from using telepathy. "I wouldn't be able to calm you down like this if you didn't let me. That worries me, too."
Joshua answered her with silence, before he tentatively prompted her. "And?"
"And... and I guess that it makes us friends."
"The proper term is 'sire'," he corrected stiffly, in the ice-cold voice he used when he was being defensive. Then the smallest ghost of a smile turned up one corner of his mouth. "But I think I like friend."
"Good!" Manny leaned back and folded her arms over her chest with a smug smile. "Now then, if you're done being a prickly porcupine, I would like to go back home and get ready for school. I've been missing for three days. I'll have lots of work to catch up on, and I need to find Matt. He must have been so hurt that I didn't call and cancel our date."
The life that had just softened Joshua's angular face from haunting beauty to refreshingly normal vanished, until all that remained was the frigid anger she had become accustomed to seeing from the man that had set out to scare her. "Manny, you can't go back to school."
"Why not?"
"Because."
"It's not like I'm dead, Joshua." His name came clearly from her bee-stung lips, slowly enunciated. Joshua bristled with anger. He knew the tone was meant to insinuate that he was stupid. "So I won't grow up? At the very least I can finish going to school and get my degree."
He was silent. His eyes bore into hers with the iron strength that had kept Joshua living for so long. Manny felt her knees shake a little against that determination that she not go to school.
When he saw she wasn't blabbering on about how she needed to go to school, Joshua continued. His voice had turned soothing, soft and clearly with the faint hint of his accent, and his eyes were still steely grey.
"You're part of a new world now, Manny. There are new rules that you have to learn. The first rule of the Night World is..."
"Never let the humans find out that you exist."
Joshua arched an eyebrow, and the cold November wind teased his hair. "Ah, yes. I forgot ye already knew the rules. The second rule is never fall in love with a human. Doing so tends to lead to the breaking of the first rule, ye see. And besides, humans don't like it much when others of their kind fall in love with cattle and the same goes for vampires."
"But what does that have to do with me?" She suddenly panicked, wondering if Joshua knew about her crush on Matt Aspen. Was he trying to suggest that she would reveal herself to him? He turned and stared at her, until she stopped thinking about Matt and began thinking with her head.
He was telling her the rules because she was a vampire now. These rules bound her now. Despite how she felt about Matt, she wasn't in love with him, so why would she risk anything by telling him she was a vampire? Vampire. She wasn't going to tell Matt anything, but what about her family? They would notice that she wasn't going to be aging. She lifted her head, eyes bright against her dark skin in the morning light, and Joshua nodded.
"Eventually," she slowly said, interrupting him as she caught him off guard. Manny's voice strengthened. "I'd eventually have to stop going to school, and I'd eventually have to do something about my family, but not immediately! I mean, it's not like you changed me at twelve, Joshua. I'm not going to be going to go through puberty or grow any taller. They wouldn't notice anything at all at first!"
"Yo'uve seen what you looked like in the mirror. You've changed on the outside."
"My parents haven't seen me in months. I can use contacts to change my eye color, and the skin could have easily been cleared up by going on some... new... makeup stuff."
They stared at each other. Manny put her hands on her hips and he crossed his arms sternly.
"You need to stay at home."
"I'm not going to become a prisoner in your house!"
"You're putting your life on the line!"
"It's my life to put on the line!"
His eyes bled into amethyst. "I didn't get to be this old by needlessly putting my life on the line. You're on the fast track to destroying yourself and ruining a secret we've kept for eons."
Manny held his gaze for a moment longer and then lifted her chin a half an inch higher. Turning, she walked away from him. If he wanted her to stay in the house, then he was going to have to keep her there by force. Manouchka hadn't fought to get into university to have it ruined just because of a little mishap with some werewolves.
She had classes to attend.
Joshua stared after her, watching her walk away. He knew that he should stop her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Manny was a smart girl, if stubborn. She'd soon come to realize that he was right.
At least, he hoped she realized that soon, before anything happened.
To be continued...
Sorry this took me so long to update. When I got a note to continue it, I began posting it immediately, but then getting called int work put it off for another 10 hours. Hopefully I won't get distracted by real life and I will get on updating chapter 11 soon.