Cassandra: A True Vegetarian
Chapter 11
I told him everything. I told him about Tanya and Kate, about my incident with the truck, about my strange behavior afterwards. I also told him about the excruciating pain of transformation, before he could make his final decision. I didn't sugar-coat anything.
"Wow," Jack breathed when I had finished. "So… you're a vampire?" I nodded. "But you don't drink blood." I shook my head. "Awesome!" He coughed and I patted his arm. He was getting worse.
"You don't have much time," I reminded him. "You might want to make your decision."
"And my options are 'turn or die?'" Again I nodded. "Great." Sarcasm.
A long silence enveloped the room as he thought. I listened to his heartbeat, knowing it would soon stop one way or another, and wishing desperately that it didn't have to. Well, there was no turning back now.
"Alright," he finally whispered. "I've decided." I waited, my body tensing for the answer. "I'm not a vegetarian, so it wouldn't be too hard for me to adjust to the diet. And I would much rather live with you forever than die of food-poisoning-on-steroids." A big grin spread across my face. I hugged him and kissed him full on the lips, ignoring the burn in my throat. It wouldn't bother me much longer.
"Okay," I said. "But first we have to get you out of here. It would raise a lot of questions if your heart stops in three days, you're as cold as a corpse, and you walk out of the building at 25 mph." He smiled halfheartedly, but I could see the fear in his eyes. I could only hope he would feel better when the transformation was complete.
I whipped out my phone and called Carlisle.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Carlisle? It's Cassandra. I need a favor."
"Ah. Alice told me what happened. Don't worry, your friend will be 'transferred' within the hour." Thank you Alice!
"Thanks!" I said, giddy with relief. I hung up and turned back to Jack, smiling reassuringly.
"It's okay," I soothed, moving the hair out of his eyes. "You're going to be fine."
I stayed with him for the next hour, patting his face, trying to keep his heart rate low. I didn't want him to think about pain until it was unavoidable. In fact, I was probably even less excited than he was, since I had experienced it first hand, and I wasn't looking forward to watching him burn, too.
A male doctor came into the room, explaining that Jack was transferring to another hospital and that I should leave. It wasn't hard to convince him otherwise.
I sat next to Jack in the ambulance, stroking his face, kissing his forehead. That was bound to distract him. There was only one other human with us, a blonde woman in a green uniform, but she was courteous enough to give us our privacy. As far as she was concerned, we didn't have much time left, anyhow, which probably explained her silence.
We finally reached our destination: a hospital in Fairbanks. I knew Carlisle would be waiting out front to take their patient away, and sure enough, I soon heard him speaking with the driver. The exchange was short; Carlisle had complete custody of us within a few seconds.
The back doors opened and Carlisle helped the others get Jack down from the platform, though we both knew perfectly well that he could have easily handled the stretcher himself. I jumped down after them and helped Carlisle push it into the hospital. After looking around to ensure no one was watching, we rushed into a deserted hallway to get more organized. I lifted Jack into my arms, refusing to let Carlisle take him, and he put the stretcher away. Then we were off, running through the building, avoiding human contact, going straight out the back door. Jack was limp in my arms, passed out from weakness or fright, I didn't know. I was just glad he wasn't in pain. Yet.