Chapter 21: The Apartment
Randy's POV
It only takes us a half hour to travel down the freeway and into eastern St. Louis to the city's warehouse district. Amanda and Monica lived in the more livable section of the district where the warehouses were converted into lofts for potential homebuyers. Dad turned onto a street filled with a mixture of residential homes and warehouses-turned-lofts till he reached a small warehouse at the end of the second block that took up at least a third of the block. It had a small awning above the front door, a garage door next to it, and a few potted plants on either side of the doors.
"Here's your place Amanda." replies Dad as he parks the car right in front of her garage gate.
"I'll be just a minute." she tells us as she unbuckles her seatbelt and opens the door to free herself from the car. Dad and I watch her take out her house keys from her purse and unlock her front door. She quickly enters her place, leaving me and Dad alone outside.
"Son, can I ask you a question?"
I turn to look at my dad, who has a very curious (and very worried) look on his face as he continues to stare at the garage door.
"Sure thing Dad; you can ask me anything." I tell him with a wave of my hand.
"Do you have this bad feeling in your stomach like something bad may happen soon?" he asks me with a stoic look in his eyes as he turns to me.
I turn to him with the exact same look. "Yeah Dad; I have had that same gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's been around since after my first match with Sergei and it's still with me now. I don't think I'll be able to get rid of it as long as Sergei is after Amanda."
"That's good to know," he tells me with a small smile. "Have you told Amanda yet?"
"How's is that good and why are you smiling?" I ask him as I begin to tap my fingers on the dashboard. "And no I haven't told Amanda about my bad feeling. I don't want her to worry."
"I'm just relieved to know that you're acting like any good mate should in these types of situations." he tells me with a slight chuckle, which slightly rubs me the wrong way.
"What do you mean by that statement Dad?' I ask him a little too angrily as I narrow my eyes at him.
"It means that your relationship with Amanda is starting to grow. You know? It's starting to go from being best friends to something more between the two of you." he tells me with a wink.
"Dad, don't start this again!" I tell him tiredly as I look down the street.
"Okay, okay. I'll get off your case," he tells me as he raises his hands in defeat. "This is just me being a father and all."
"Thank you." I tell him as I turn around to see Amanda locking her house door while juggling a garment bag and a shoe box in the other hand. Her laptop bag was slung across her shoulders and hanging idly at her side.
"That was quick. Usually women are slow to come out the house." mumbles Dad as he starts back up the engine.
"That's a very stereotypical thing to say," cries Amanda as she opens up the back door and climbs inside. "Not all women are slow Bob."
"Uh huh, whatever you say." says Dad as he pulls out the garage and starts us back on our way to my place.
It's a 20 minute drive to my place from Amanda's. I live in an apartment complex less than 10 blocks away from Sam and Josh's house so that I would stay close to my daughter. Unlike the typical high rise apartment building, the apartment complex was spread out among eight smaller and similar buildings. The buildings were each four stories tall and there was a large parking lot right in the middle of them. Dad drove around the parking lot until he reached Building 7. He stopped his car right next to my Hummer, which was in the last parking spot in the row.
"Time to disembark you two." says Dad as he turns to us.
"Hal always says that when we reach a stop," says Amanda as a thoughtful look spread across her face. "It's not the same when you say it Bob." she tells him bluntly as she unbuckles her seatbelt and opens the backdoor.
"That was cold Amanda, yet so true." I say as I unbuckle my seatbelt and follow her outside, shooting dad an apologetic grimace before landing me feet on the concrete.
"Kids" is all I hear Dad mutter to himself as I slam the passenger door closed.
We walk over to the truck bed to retrieve our luggage. We quickly say our goodbyes to Dad and make our way into the building, up the elevator, and down the fourth floor hallway to my apartment, the last one on the right side of the hall.
"Give me a second" I mumble to the psychic as I fish out my keys from my pocket. I quickly undo the locks and open the door, letting Amanda enter first before I do.
"I love what you did with the place." she tells me as she walks into the small living room."
"It's the same as when I first moved in here. I haven't had the time to do any redecorating though." I tell her as I drop my things near the kitchen entrance.
"Well at least the place is clean." she tells me as she takes a seat on the black leather couch.
"I've hired a cleaning lady. She comes every Friday to clean this place up." I tell her as I walk over to her.
"Did she steal anything of yours during your times away from here?" she asks me as she raises an eyebrow.
"Nope, humans wouldn't dare to steal anything from me." I tell her as I take a seat on my Laz-y-Boy.
"That's true. I'll be right back. I'm going to put all this stuff in the guest bedroom." I watch as Amanda stands right back up to her full height and grabs her stuff.
"Last door on your right!" I call to her as she walks down the hallway to the bedrooms.
"I know! I've been here before!" I hear her call back to me as I hear the door slam.
I decide to follow her lead. I get up, grab my suitcases, and make my way down the hall to my room, which is right across from the guest bedroom. My room looks like the rest of the apartment, clean and orderly. My bed looks like it hasn't been used in months (which is actually true) as I walk up to it and drop my duffle bag on top. I walk over to my closet and open it to see a black garment bag hanging idly in the left far corner with a blue Post-It note next to the zipper.
Hope you like it,
Sam
I let out a small sigh as I put the note into my pocket.
"Hopefully this fits" I mumble to myself as I take the garment bag off the rack and walk over to the bathroom.
Amanda's POV
"This dress is absolutely beautiful." I whisper to myself as I look at myself in the mirror.
As soon as I walked into the guest bedroom, I decided to try on the dress that Sam bought me for tomorrow night's anniversary gala. She even took the liberty of buying me a pair of heels that matched with the dress. The dress is made of this dark blue fabric that helps to make my own blue eyes pop. It fits my body perfectly and is completely covered in the front, but I can't say the same for the back. It's entirely backless, which helps to showcase my tattoos if I keep my hair up. Good thing this dress has a built-in bra. I quickly go back to the bathroom and change out of my regular clothes just as I hear a loud knock on the door.
"Hey Amanda, I need your opinion on something!" yells Randy as he continues to pound away at the door.
"Coming!" I tell him as I yank on my jeans and walk out the bathroom. I cross over to the front door and open it, going wide-eyed at the sight in front of me.
"What do you think? How do I look?" asks Randy with a small smirk as he turns around once so that I can get the full effect of his outfit. He looks like he just stepped off of a magazine cover basically. The tuxedo couldn't be any more perfect for him; it's perfectly tailored to his body.
"All I can say it two things. One: Sam seriously knows how to dress people and two: you may not like suits, but you make them look goooood." I tell him as I draw out the o in good.
"I do don't I?" he asks me as his smirk turns into a full blown smile as he leans against the doorframe. I don't answer him verbally, but I shake my head instead for a response.
"So? Don't I get to see you in your dress for the gala tomorrow?" he asks me with an expectant smirk.
"Nope; I've already tried it on and you won't see me wear it until tomorrow." I tell him as I peck his lips with my own.
"Don't I at least get a hint?" he asks me as I can feel his hands gently touch my waist.
"All I am saying is that one certain body party will be the star of the show. That is all." I tell him as I peck his lips again. I walk out of his hold and down the hall back to the living room, leaving Randy to think about what my dress could probably look like.
I settle myself back down on the couch and grab the remote to the plasma screen TV mounted on the wall from the coffee table in front of me. I turn the TV on and flip through the channels till I wind up on a Cardinals game.
"Cardinals are playing an afternoon game huh?" I hear Randy ask me from his room.
"Yep; it just the bottom of the first inning though." I tell him as I cross my legs.
"Which team?" he asks me as I notice that his voice is nearer than it was before. I turn my head around to see him walking down the hall over to me already dressed in his regular clothes.
"You vampires and your speed," I grumble in slight annoyance as Randy takes a seat opposite of me at the right side of the couch. I don't even answer his earlier question.
"Our speed, our strength, our reflexes, that's just how we vampires roll." he tells me with a small smirk.
"That just sounded really typical," I mumble as I cross my arms.
"And what about you and your fellow psychics? All you have going for you are your mental powers." responds Randy as he turns to face me.
"And what's wrong with that?" I ask him as I turn to face him, inclining my head in a curious manner.
"Nothing, it's just that when it comes to a fight between a psychic and a vampire, the psychic would be at a disadvantage." he tells me as he turns his attention back to the TV screen.
"I don't think so," I tell him as I scoot over on the couch so that I was right next to him. "You're not giving psychics enough credit Snake Boy."
"I'm not?" he asks me innocently as I let him wrap an arm around my waist, bringing me closer to his body.
"No you're not. We psychics have a variety of mental abilities that can help us in a fight. Some of us have quick visions that allow us to see what happens next. Some psychics can use telepathy to read their opponents' minds. Some can even use telekinesis to push away their opponents." I tell him as I rest my head on his chest.
"What can you do? What kind of psychic powers do you possess because I've heard that their many types of powers that psychics can use." he asks me as he begins to stroke my side.
"I don't know really. I've mainly used telekinesis, telepathy, and unfortunately, precognition in all my life." I tell him as I listed them with my fingers.
"Precognition?" he asks me completely baffled as he looks down at my face.
"Precognition is the ability of perceiving events before they happen. Specifically, this psychic ability usually pertains to seers like Ted." I explain to him as I look him in the eyes.
"So that nightmare of you being in the woods outside of St. Louis was a kind of precognition?" he asks me as he scratches the top of his shaven head.
"Exactly, the thing is though I have no idea whether it will happen sometime in the near future or in the next couple of months. It can even happen years away for all I care." I tell him as I turn my gaze to the screen.
"I see. Hopefully, that vision doesn't come true soon. What other kind of psychic powers are there?"
"I thought you knew about them already." I say to him as I move my head to his shoulder.
"Refresh my memory please?" he asks me with a small mischievous glint in his eyes, which makes me slightly nervous.
"First of all, there's pyrokinesis, which is the ability to control fire." I tell him as I feel Randy's left hand weave together with my right hand.
"Like Alicia?" he asks me a little unsurely.
"Indeed; there is also transvection, the ability to move your body by making it fly, dowsing, the ability to locate an object with your mind, and apportation, the ability to make an object disappear, teleport, and/or materialize." I tell him, but before I could say anything else, Randy's lips were already on top of mine.
Randy? I ask with my mind as I close my eyes while Randy tightened his hold on my waist.
Thought I make things a little interesting. You can explain the rest later. He tells me with his thoughts as I feel the tip of his tongue touch my bottom lip.
I inwardly smirk as I let his tongue slip into my mouth. Our tongues instantly fight for dominance as I feel Randy's body start to lean against mine, pushing me back first into the leather sofa cushions. I wrap my arms around his neck, bringing his body closer to mine as I feel his hand rub up and down the outside of my leg while the other arm was still securely wrapped around my waist.
May I? He asks me with a slight urgent edge to his thoughts as he starts to rescind his tongue from my mouth after we've been making out for who knows how long.
"Do what?" I whisper to him as I open my eyes to see him staring straight at me, but that's when I started to see it. The slight feverish look in his eyes that only came when he was feeling something.
The feeling of hunger.
After a few seconds of careful consideration and weighing the pros and cons, I nod my head once for a yes. A small smile instantly appears on his face as he leans down to kiss me once again, but this time the kiss felt gratifying and a little anxious, which he probably feels after every feeding he has to go through in his life. His kisses move from my lips, to my jaw line, to finally the top of the right side of my neck. I let out a small moan of anticipation as I feel his lips move around the side of my neck, slowly and deliberately, trying to find the right spot to sink his fangs into my flesh. He stops right at the middle of my neck, right where my right jugular vein is, not even bothering to check the left side before settling for the spot on the right. I can hear his fangs lengthen to their full form as I fell them touch my skin. I can sense the slight nervousness coming from his body as he hesitates to sink in his teeth, probably wondering if he can feed from me without draining me by accident.
I trust you Randy. I know you can control yourself. I tell him with my thoughts as I start to idly rub my hands along his chiseled back.
I let out a sharp gasp as I can feel his fangs finally breach the vein in my neck, his nervousness completely gone. I let out another small lingering moan as he starts to feed, moving his hand from my waist to the other side of my neck to keep me steady.
A strange sensation starts to come over me as the seconds pass by. I can feel my life force flowing from me to Randy, strengthening him with each passing second. It was like we were becoming one; like my soul was mixing with his. It's definitely something that I will remember for the rest of my life.
As a drowsy feeling starts to come over me, I finally feel Randy's fangs dislodge from my neck. His cool lips kiss the puncture marks in my skin, closing them instantly.
"Amanda?"
I open my half lidded eyes wider to see Randy's concerned face look down at mine.
"Are you alright? . . . How are you feeling?"" he asks me worriedly as he places a hand on my right cheek.
"Don't worry; I only feel a little sleepy, that's all." I tell him as I lean my face into his hand, never realizing that his hands were so soft despite all those years in the ring. Randy looks like he's about to say something, but his doorbell rings before he gets a chance to speak.
"Now who the hell could that be?" I ask sleepily as I take a peek at the door.
"I don't know, but I'm going to found out," replies Randy as he lets go of me and moves off of me. "Stay here and take it easy okay?"
"Sure" I mumble in response as I manage to rise up into a sitting position. I watch as Randy gets up off the couch and walks over to the front door. He checks the key hole and lets out a small grunt as he opens the door, revealing an elderly woman that was half his height with a hawkish face and a pixie haircut dressed in a dark gray pantsuit.
"Constance, long time, no see." replies Randy as he beckons for the visitor to enter the apartment.
"It's been a while Randal," replies Constance, using Randy's full first name in the process. She then turns her attention to me. "Amanda Genevieve Evans, I presume?"
"Yes, that's me," I mumble in response as I try to wipe the drowsiness from my eyes. "May I help you?"
"I hope I wasn't interrupting anything important, but I was just passing through the neighborhood when I smelled Orton's and your scent. So I decided to pay him a visit. You are officially Randal's mate are you not?" she asks me with the scrutinizing stare of a British school teacher. I can pretty much guess that she knew what me and Randy were doing before she arrived.
"Um . . . yeah," I tell her as I straighten up in my seat. "Why do you ask?"
"I just wanted to look into the eyes of the girl that has helped to break the tradition of vampire only events that we've had ever since St. Louis was founded." she tells me as she narrows her eyes.
"Constance, if you only came here to be rude to my mate, then why don't you just leave?" snaps Randy as he holds the door out for her to leave.
"My apologies Randal, but I just wanted to see what your little mate is made of that's all." the old woman tells him instantly as she whips her head around to face him, but that's when I start to feel it.
The slight intrusion in my mind. The feeling of my memories beings looked through. I could feel the presence of another being within my mind searching through it like they had a search warrant and could search freely without needing my permission.
Like hell I was going to let that happened.
As Constance and Randy started to bicker near the door, I closed my eyes and concentrated on the foreign presence in my mind. I sent, not a small push, but a big old shove right at the presence in my thoughts.
I hear a sharp gasp just as the presence instantly disappears from my mind after the shove and open my eyes to see Constance staggering. She quickly grabs the doorframe to help balance herself and looks at me with a sharp look.
"Looks like I misjudged you Amanda. I heard about you being a psychic-elemental hybrid and originally, I thought your psychic powers would be much weaker than I originally expected, but you proved me wrong my dear. You are much stronger than I originally anticipated. Tomorrow's gala should be interesting event with you around. I bid you two farewell." she tells me as her sharp look begins to soften. She nods her head in goodbye to me and then to Randy, who has a puzzled expression on his face, before walking out the door. Randy closes the door and quickly walks over to me, still with that puzzled expression on his face.
"What the hell just happened between you two?" the Viper asks me as he retakes his seat next to me on the couch.
"Let me ask you this first: Constance is a psychic vampire?!" I ask him as I hear my voice go up an octave.
"Yeah . . . she is." he mumbles to me for an answer as he awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. "Constance Masterson is one of the eldest vampires in the St. Louis coven. Even though she's been living in New York City for the past 50 year of her long, and I mean very long, life, she still represents her family on the Coven council. She's been around since the very first day of St. Louis' founding and has seen a lot."
"Of course she has. From what you just said, Constance is a vampire who's over 200 years old." I tell him a little snarky as I lay back in my seat.
"That's true, but that's not what I meant." says Randy as he pulls me over to his side. "What I meant to say is that Constance has seen a lot visually and mentally."
"She can look through minds?" I ask him as I continued to look up at the ceiling.
"That's her psychic power. She's a very powerful telepath who can go as far as looking through all of a person's memory, from now all the way back to the day they were born. In some cases, she was even able to go through memories when the people were just fetuses." he tells me as he begins to tap his fingers on my leg.
"That powerful huh? What about her other powers huh?" I ask curiously as I turn to him.
"That's it. Her only power is telepathy." he tells me as he puts a strand of my hair behind my ear.
"I see," I mumble to myself as I bite my bottom lip. "What do you think she meant by tomorrow's gala should be interesting with me around?"
"She probably must have been thinking about what the other vampires' reactions would be when they see you there," he tells me with a stoic glare. "Some may welcome the fact that an outsider like you is there, but others may think it's a travesty for a non-vampire to be present at the event." he tells me with a shrug.
"That's amazing." I tell him as I lean my head on his shoulder
"That the vampires may have varying views on your appearance at the gala?" he asks me curiously as he wraps his arms around me once again.
"No, that you know what the word travesty actually meant." I tell him with a small chuckle.
"Ha, very funny," he tells me condescendingly as he kisses my forehead. "Now shut up and enjoy the game."
"Yes sir." I say in mock defeat as I turn my attention to the flat screen, where lucky for us, the Cardinals are winning.