I got out of the shower and wrapped a warm towel around myself before dashing to my room. When I got in, Tori was in the middle of changing.
"Excuse me," she said rudely.
"Sorry," I kept my gaze low. "I didn't have a change of clothes with me in the bathroom."
Tori finished changing and left the room. Once she did I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and towel dried my hair. I came back downstairs and the smell of bacon and pancakes made my mouth water. I hadn't had real regular food in some time now, but with the vampire hunger satisfied; I was starving for normal food again.
"Chloe," Matt called me away from the smell.
Derek looked up curiously from his food, wondering why Matt wanted to talk to me alone.
Matt and I stepped into the basement where we couldn't be overheard.
"Let me have it," I sighed.
Matt looked surprised. "What?"
"You're going to yell at me aren't you?"
Matt shook his head.
"I'm not here to tell you what you can and can't do. You are your own person."
"Then what were you going to have a talk with me about?"
"Chloe," he sighed. "You won't be able to keep this up."
"I thought you said you won't tell me what I can't and can't do?"
"This isn't like that," Matt corrected. "I've studied vampires all my life. I'm telling you what's to come. You won't be able to keep it up with animals. They'll satisfy for now but eventually you will break and want the real thing. It's only a matter of time."
"So we find a cure while animals still do the trick for me," I said.
"You need to at least try to prepare yourself for the possibility of that not happening." Matt said. "What if we don't find a cure?"
"I don't want to think about it," I admitted.
"You should," Matt suggested. "Because you're putting your family in danger if you don't. There's a reason vampires stick around other vampires."
There were some raised voices above us. Matt and I came back upstairs. Nate and Derek were in the same room which they had been avoiding. Derek was still furious with him for hurting me. I was about to speak up when Matt put a hand on my shoulder. He shook his head, this was between them and I shouldn't get involved. He redirected me towards the plates of food.
The two continued shouting at each other until Tess had it.
"Enough," Tess stood.
Nate opened his mouth to argue with her.
"No," she cut him off. "My house my rules. One more word out of either of you and there will be consequences."
I sat down with my plate of food and ate my fill while the attention was off me for once.
Nate's phone rang and he left the room to answer it. I couldn't help but strain to listen in on it.
"...I know I know, I'll be home soon. I miss you too Sylvia."
I couldn't hear the caller's response.
"I've been trying. Its difficult to get them alone..."
Simon interrupted my focus on the phone call.
"Good to see you eating," he said.
I nodded with a little lie, "Yeah, figured it might help cover up the vampire hunger."
I ignored Matt's glance at me.
Simon smiled, "Worth a shot right?"
I nodded. Derek broke his silence.
"Good," he said. "You better not give in."
"Derek," Kit snapped from the kitchen.
The rest of breakfast was mostly silent. Liz and Kyle were still hanging around but they kept relatively quiet too, able to sense the tension in the room.
Tess sentenced Derek to helping with dishes after breakfast, trying to give him an anger check so he wouldn't change. I walked around looking for Matt, wondering if I could try some training again today. Feeding the vampire gave me a boost of energy that I wanted to burn through.
I found Nate first, he was packing up the back of a car.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"There's nothing for me here anymore," he said. "You've refused to come with me and I want nothing to do with my son."
Wow, I thought to myself, that was blatantly rude.
"You know you could teach me here," I reminded him.
Nate shook his head, "Its tradition to teach on the homeland."
"Maybe someday," I shrugged.
I felt like I could see wheels turning in Nate's head. But it was probably my imagination.
"It doesn't have to be," Nate tried one last time.
"You don't want everyone to come with," I repeated the last time we had this conversation. "And I can't just leave them."
"You're going to have to," Nate said. He adjusted the last of his stuff in the trunk and turned to me.
Before I could question him, Nate pulled something out of a cooler, "Here."
It looked like an ice pack bag that you put into lunches to keep them cool. But this one had been sitting out too long and was liquidy.
"What is it?" I asked.
"An enchanted object," Nate said honestly. "Press the middle of the bag and see what happens."
Hesitantly, I didn't.
"Oh come on," he smiled. "You'll like what happens."
I didn't trust him. Nate flipped on his alpha-ness.
"Press it," he said.
I watched as my hand did. My thumb pressed into the middle of the bag and broke through the plastic. It didn't have ice on the inside. Blood started to come out. But it didn't flow from the bag, it gripped to my hand.
"W-what did you do?" I panicked.
A smile on Nate's face, "I told you it was enchanted. Enchanted blood to be exact. Designed to get into your bloodstream and take you down."
The blood gripping my hand started to disappear, it was getting into my skin. I tried to drop the bag, throw it, anything. It wouldn't leave my hand. The world started spinning around me.
The last thing I heard was, "I was hoping you would run into me before I left."