20. Runaways
"Sam is a werewolf?" Trevor asked when he sat back down in the chair.
"Yes. That's how Jason first got a piece of our world. Shape shifters have temper issues, though she was working on it. I don't know what got into her lately." I answered.
"Shape shifter? I thought Jason said werewolf?"
"Sam isn't a real werewolf. Or as we call it 'the children of the moon'. It's different. She could turn into anything she wanted to, but for some unknown reason she choose a wolf without really knowing." I looked at Trevor, just waiting for him to get an overload and just run out screaming or something.
"So how old are you really?" Trevor twitched in his chair for some reason and then regained control and kept still.
I laughed and smiled. "Skylar is 210, Taylor is 200, Angel is 170, Nick is 195, Syd is well 19, she's a newborn, Ben is 135, and Keith is…well he never actually told us. But he's not older than I am for sure. I'm 4,129 years old. I just had a birthday a week or so ago." I chuckled, remembering how frantic I was and how Skylar learned something new with his power.
"Jason said you had some special abilities?"
"Skylar show him what you can do." I gestured to Skylar, though it was still awkward for us because of the fight.
He smiled. "My pleasure." He vanished on sight and I couldn't even smell him. He then reappeared in the same spot. "I can turn invisible."
"Sweet." Trevor smiled widely.
"I can transport places and can sense where others are and how fast they are moving." Angel beamed. She popped right next to Trevor in the next second and then was at the top of the stairs.
Trevor nodded and looked at Nick.
"I can't do anything. I have no gift." He shrugged his shoulders.
"I thought all vampires have powers?"
"Not all. We believe some are given because of our human life. Like Skylar may have been good at hiding or being invisible." Trevor looked at me as I answered again.
"Taylor is a physical shield, Syd can read minds, our Cody can move things with his mind, and my Cody can do anything and everything."
"Can you do anything?" Trevor asked, curious. He moved again in and uncomfortable manor.
I wonder what he was thinking about. I mean Jason didn't even move that much when I told him. He was very still like me. What was Trevor so worried about?
"Yes." I sighed looking down. "You must understand that we don't get to choose our gifts. I don't really like mine though it has come in handy. I can cause death as well and life. I can inflict pain that tortures anyone I want, and the pain is worse than vampire venom, so I've heard."
"Cool! I mean how is that not cool? That's the best gift I've ever heard."
"It would be cool, though I don't like how I got it." I said it in a way that Trevor didn't ask about it again.
"So what's the deal with that Summer girl?"
Trevor jumped about 5 feet in the air and landed on the floor from fright after Cody growled at that the name so loud the house shook.
"That we will not discuss." Cody growled and showed his teeth gleaming in the light.
Trevor was confused. "I'll tell you later." I told him.
"You will not." Cody roared throwing me in the air and crashing me into the wall. He blasted me through the kitchen wall. I pounced back at him making him land on his back. I growled and bit his neck sending a pain through his skin. I jumped back and he scratched his neck and backed away.
Trevor was pushed in the corner with Jason and Skylar blocking them in a protective position. Trevor was wide eyed while Jason just stood there not surprised.
Trevor looked at him.
"I'm used to it." Jason said knowing his question.
"They do this all the time?"
"Nah, but Claire does have a temper with being thrown into a wall." Jason teased. Even Trevor cracked a smile.
"Sorry but I had to get you calmed down. It will only sting for a few minutes." I told Cody. He faked a smile and went to sit down.
"Well we can fix that later. Including your room Jason." Jason nodded and Trevor just bounced from one foot to the other looking nervous.
"Trevor you look like you just committed a murder. What's wrong with you?" I took a step closer to him and he took one back putting his hands up.
"Don't get angry with me ok?"
"What did you do?" I growled. He shrank back again into the corner and put his hands on front of his face.
"I didn't know at the time…"
I grabbed his collars on his shirt and hoisted him up into the air. Fear and panic were in his eyes. "What did you do?"
At that moment all of us looked toward the window, except Jason and Trevor, because we heard the faint sound of police sirens.
"What?" Jason said trying to get in between Trevor and I.
I couldn't believe this. Trevor must have called the police before school telling us the whereabouts of our home. He must have told them what we looked like and that we were possible suspects in the murders.
I set Trevor down and backed away to cool down the anger inside me. It was a good thing I wasn't Sam.
At that point the noise of cars got louder and Jason now realized what was going on.
"You didn't." Jason spat, curling his right hand into a fist again. He lifted it up and Trevor flinched. I ran and grabbed Jason's arm in a flash
"Blood and a fight is not what we need right now. It would just make us look guilty, which we are not." I turned to Trevor. He lowered his head into his shoulders and smiled a bit trying to say sorry.
Cars filed outside my house and we saw the lights flashing outside and there was a slight knock on the door.
"Go around back." I heard a male voice say.
I walked to the door, braced for anything, and opened it. The male officer seemed surprised that I smiled to him and motioned him to come inside.
He looked me in the eyes and I knew what he saw. Crimson red in my irises and it was not looking good for me.
"Is this the Emerson family?" the policeman asked. He looked around at the hole in the wall and then h spotted Cody's and Skylar's red eyes. He watched Nick cover Angel by standing in front of her. Then he glance at Trevor and Jason who still had his fist clenched and had a sour look on his face.
"Yes, sir, what can I do for you?" I had no hesitation for I had no reason to. I could lie but I didn't have to. I did nothing so I couldn't be blamed too much for the murders of the poor victims who fell to my enemy's trap. Enemies. I sighed.
"You are all under arrest for the murders of 20 teenage girls." The others behind him pulled out handcuffs.
"Do you have any proof that my family had anything to do with this? Any evidence?" I tilted my head to the right like everyone else seemed to do and tried to play an innocent girl.
"Well no, but you are all suspects. Would you like to come quietly or do we have to do this the hard way?" he smiled at me. He fell for it. He didn't want to do it anymore then we wanted to go, but he had to do his job, and I had to do mine.
I looked over to Skylar. He smiled. He knew what I was planning. He nodded and walked over to Jason and Trevor's side.
"Now!" I kicked up the dust on the floor and it landed in their eyes. Yelling started and I felt Skylar make all of us naked to the human eyes.
Cody made them all fall to the floor and tied each of their hands together with nothing. They cleared the way for us to leave.
"Where did they go! Why can't we move!"
"It was a trap!" someone said. We ran out the door as Angel sucked us into a vortex that took us into Seattle, Washington. As we landed on the ground all of our stuff appeared next to us, even Trevor's and Jason's.
"I let Jason's father know he is with us and there was no need to worry. As for Trevor's I told him he was with Jason. I also let his father know that if Trevor's parents called that he and Jason went camping as a surprise. I don't know how long that story will last but for now it's the one that we've got."
"What the heck? Where are we and why did we run? You guys said you didn't do it!" Trevor was panting on the ground, clearly out of breath for the shock of the attack.
"We looked too much like them. It would have been too hard to get out of." I said. "And besides it's not my fault. I didn't call the cops on us."
Trevor looked down at the ground and scuffed his shoe in the dirt on the road. "Well now you guys look like you did it."
"It was our other half. Syd, Ben, Keith, and Taylor." Skylar said, shaking the dust that I threw around the room off his shirt. He said it calmly, but I knew it hurt him inside. "They want us to run. They want us to get caught and they want us to take the blame for it. They want Claire to have to leave Jason. Keith wants to hurt her by taking you away from her." Skylar looked at Jason. "And now with Trevor here it will make it worse, but I don't think they know about him yet, so maybe we can keep it that way."
"What if we make him one of us? Then he could fight and take care of himself?" Nick questioned, making a movement towards Trevor. Trevor didn't seem disgusted by the idea, but I could tell he was a little afraid of that.
"I don't know. Taking both of Jason's friends away?" I pondered. Nick did have a point though. Jason and Trevor are still in danger and if we changed Trevor I could still watch Jason. "Even if we did we still have Jason too."
"Then we can change both." Angel suggested.
"No." I growled. Everyone took a step back from me and then Jason looked at me weird. His eyes were a little red, and his throat was tight. He was trying to hold back his feelings and act like my words didn't slice him through the heart.
"Does it hurt, Claire?" Trevor asked, still a little shaken from my outburst.
"More than you can imagine. It's like being burned alive and you can't get away from it. And then it just ends and then you're a vampire."
He looked at me and nodded, going over all of this.
"Trevor you have to understand. Even if we don't change you, you can't go home. None of us can. You're stuck with us." I hated to tell him that, but it was the truth. Of course it was his fault that we had to run in the first place.
"Then why don't you just change me? I could be with you guys and Cody and Jason could be with me. I mean you have to change Jason sometime don't you?" Trevor was literally bouncing up and down.
"It's not that simple, Trevor." Skylar said. "It takes three days and Angel brought us so close to Oregon still. We have to keep moving everyday because we can't be caught. Not that we couldn't fight them off anyway, but we just need to leave."
"I could take us to another country." Angel piped in. Skylar and I glared at her.
"Not helping." We both said too softly for the humans to hear us. I didn't want Trevor to have to live with the same guilt that I do. I don't want him to have to go through the pain just to pay the price to live forever.
Jason didn't say a word. He sat down and put his head on his knees and yawned. He picked at the grass and tried not to frown or be like he was sad or something.
"We can discuss this later." I said softly, keeping my eyes on Jason back, which was now facing towards me as soon as I started to speak. "Right now we should leave the country and then we can talk about this later. Right now we need food and shelter for the humans." I winked at Trevor who smiled, but Jason didn't move an inch.
"Where an I taking this party?" Angel laughed. She took Nick's hand and twirled on the spot. Skylar chuckled under his breath something about being a ballerina.
Angel growled and launched herself at Skylar. He was on the ground and she laughed. Skylar pushed her off and dusted himself off.
"You just got tackled by a girl." Trevor joked. Angel held out her hand for a high five and Trevor smacked her hand. He smiled and then when Angel looked away to go mess with Skylar he shook his hand and said "ow".
"Were going to France for now. If anyone were to fallow us there is wont take them like a day to get there. Then we can go to Rome for a bit for some sight seeing. And maybe even Egypt." I fake smiled and then Angel grabbed on to Skylar and Trevor. She was already holding hands with Nick.
"I'll be back for you two." She said still smiling. She knew something was wrong, but we couldn't talk about it yet.
"No that's fine. Jason and I will take the long way. Running." I smiled. Running was still my favorite part of this vampire thing. It never got old when you run faster than a plane or a racecar.
"Ok." Angel answered slowly and confused, but she shook it off and with a slight breeze and a pop, she was gone.
Jason hadn't moved an inch and I sat down behind him with my back to his. I felt his deep breathing and he stiffened at my cold touch.
"Do you wanna tell me what's wrong or do I have to beat it out of you?"
Jason laughed slightly and then his shoulders slumped in defeat. He took in three more breaths before he spoke in his soft, rough voice.
"What is it about changing me that doesn't appeal to you?" he asked. He didn't face me and I didn't face him as well. If this was the easiest way to get him to talk I would do it.
The wind blew a bit, but it was enough to kick up some dirt and toss it into our faces. Jason twitched as he rubbed the desert sand out of his eyes. The clouds blocked the sun's rays from my body, but it was still hot. I could feel the sweat starting to sink through his clothes, giving it that sticky, damp feeling.
"Well?" he asked since I didn't respond.
"Jason, it's not that I don't want to change you or that having you around for the rest of my…existence wouldn't appeal to me, it's just that I don't want to take away from you that you hold most." I took in a breath and his blood was the only think I could smell. Ever since I met him his scent had been changing. When I first tasted it, it was amazing. But now I could smell something different. Almost as if he were a werewolf, but that was impossible. It smelled rough and had an animal smell to it, like he was wild. Which would bring me back to the werewolf concept, but I knew he couldn't be one. I would be able to tell.
Wouldn't I?
"What would I be giving up? I already have everything I want from now on. And that's you."
He just didn't understand. He didn't know what pain it caused me to be who I am. Sure I have learned to live with it, but I couldn't have him living in such difference. He belonged to the human race, not my kind. He would have to leave his friends; not that he had too many, and his family. Not that he had too much of that either because of me.
"You need to understand, Jason, that being a vampire isn't that cool. You have to give up everything from your human past. Your dad, your old life, or any other thing that you held dear, and I would just be ripping it away from you. I couldn't do that to you."
He sighed and he reminded me of-no I couldn't think of them anymore. I promised myself they would no longer linger in my thoughts. I chose my way and they chose theirs, they are no longer my problem.
"You had to give up your family too didn't you? I mean it might be easier for you to say since all of yours are dead."
"And because of me so is part of yours." I had to tell him. It was the right time. I had to tell him the whole truth. I had to tell Jason about them.
How would he handle it? Would he think of me as more of a monster than I am now? Would he resent the fact that I…did something I wasn't proud of? I was a newborn, I couldn't control anything. And Cody left me alone to deal with my own problems. Thought it was no excuse for what I had done. It was the past and I couldn't change it.
Though they hadn't minded so much. They seemed perfectly fine after they finally understood what I was going through. We stayed together for a while until I decided they didn't need me. They weren't my problem anymore and they weren't newborns. They knew the rules and I left. No longer looking back, but it did leave scar. It had healed, but it never went away. They could never be forgotten, though I tried to make it that way.
I hadn't thought of them in a long time. Where were they now? Did they hate me? How was I going to tell Jason? This was just a whole tangle of lies I had been spinning for a while and now I was being caught, drowning in it.
I hadn't even told Skylar this. I never told anybody. No one in the vampire world knew of his or her existence. They never told anybody and for that I was grateful. I told Skylar everything and I had kept this one secret from him and now I had to tell someone about it. Jason would be the first one in the world to hear it.
"I haven't told you the whole truth about me. There's something that I have done that I will never be able to take back or be forgiven from. It's something that no one, not even Skylar, knows." Jason straitened up, intently listening on my story.
I breathed in and out as I watched the shadow of Jason's waiting figure, gleaming from the sun's clouded light.
"I didn't give up my family." I finally said after about five minutes of patient silence. Jason didn't say a word. "When I was a newborn I did just about the most stupid thing you could do. I went home to my family. I lied when I told you I never saw them again. I changed them into a vampire. For a newborn I was very much in control, I don't know how, I just was.
"In three days they understood what had happened. I told them everything about Cody and that they were right all along. You see they never did like him." I laughed darkly and Jason cringed at the sound. I acted like I didn't notice and moved on.
"For a century I live and traveled with them. My brother, Lukas, and my sister, Lindsay as well as my parents. That was until I found Skylar. When I saved him my parents refused to be with me after that. I was sad to see them go, but they were no longer my problem you see, so I left with him. Skylar never met my family, but they met him, while he was changing I remember. They left and I let them go. I lived with Skylar from then on, and then the rest of my family came."
Jason, again, said nothing. He just sat there taking it all in. Every few minutes I could hear him open his mouth to say something, but then he closed it, rethinking every word, revising it.
"They are still alive?" the words stumbled out of his mouth, and he turned slightly to look at me from the corner of his eyes.
"In a sense yes." I told him quietly. Jason could never understand how much this topic hurt me. "That is why I don't want to turn you into a monster. You hurt everyone else around you from the human world. It's just so complicated."
I saw his mouth twitch into the smile I loved best. "It wasn't because you didn't want me, it was because you didn't want to ruin my life?" he marveled.
I took his warm face in my hands and closed my eyes, taking in his horrid smell that made my nose hurt. Though I loved it anyway. "I will always love you. I will love you until the day I die of old age." I smiled and kissed him gently.
Jason smiled, breathing his normal deep breaths. He then leaned in closer to kiss me again, this time much more passionately. He cupped his hand around my cheek and slid the other onto my back, molding my body to his.
He pressed his forehead to mine, and he wasn't the only one breathing hard.
"You know this really isn't the most romantic spot." I whispered, out of breath. That was unusual for me.
"Shut up and kiss me."
He was against me then.
His lips moved with mine, but this kiss was different from the others. It reminded me of the scene in his room. When we were so close to…No. I couldn't let him do this. Though my body ached for me to just let him go on, because we knew if we didn't stop it would be going there.
It was also different because the smell was awful. He reeked of werewolf. I knew it this time. He smelled like one and I didn't like it. It was too sour and wild smelling for me to go on.
I pushed him off with a little too much force and ran myself into a boulder.
Jason sat there, confused and wide eyed. I picked up the boulder and threw it about a mile away. It crashed with a boom and it made the earth shake. If the rock was any bigger they could have classified it as an earthquake.
I chuckled.
"What the hell." He said, his voice shaking. I turned to see the look on his face. It was better than I expected. He wasn't scared or trembling as I thought he would be, Jason was just concerned and confused-as usual. So it was nothing new there.
"Sorry. I just didn't like the way you smelled." I grinned sheepishly and shrugged my shoulders in one quick fluid motion. Jason then starts thinking harder at my words.
I laughed.
"I don't get what you mean. You said my smell was repulsive, but that never kept you away before." His eyebrows crumbled as he squished them together with thought. He was so adorable when he tried to figure me out.
"Your scent is different now." I told him. "You didn't do anything to change, you cant really unless you get a blood transplant, but even that can't keep your scent away for long."
"What do I smell like to you that's so…" he paused looking for the right word. "Disgusting?"
"You smell like a werewolf."
"Like Sam?"
"No this is different. Sam is a shapeshifter. She can go into the form of a werewolf. She smells bad, but not as terrible as the real thing. Werewolves have a rough sour smell."
Jason laughed. It was more of a throaty laugh than his normal kind.
"Then why are you so agitated by it? I mean so I smell bad. You look so worried." His expression was happy, but it then changed as he looked at mine.
"Jason, werewolves are our enemies. I'm worried because if you smell like them. I mean if you were to be one, I don't know what I would have to do."
He still didn't seem to understand.
"So. Sam is a werewolf and you still love her."
"That's not the kind I'm talking about. I'm talking about a real werewolf. Full moon and all. It's different. If you were on of them I would have no choice but to kill you."
Jason shuddered. "Tell me more about your family." He said to change the subject.
"My mom was all alone since my dad died before I was changed. I think even Cody was responsible for that."
"Isn't funny how we keep meeting in the desert, love." Cody's voice was in my ear and It didn't take me long to find his figure only 5 feet behind Jason.
I growled sending deep vibrations into the ground.