She sounds crazy, even to herself.
Sophia has never been the superstitious kind, nor is she the kind to readily believe anything she is told. But Demetri's words, no matter how outlandish and fantastical, sound honest.
"I'm in a vampire's apartment - a vampire who just saved me from a werewolf and doesn't want to kill me, even though I'm his primary food source." Every time she says that makes her sound even crazier. "Who am I kidding - he's probably right outside the goddamn door, waiting to drink my blood because I was dumb enough to trust him." She thinks of going and peeping through the keyhole to see if he's there, but she's not sure if that invisibility myth about them is true or not. Because if it is, her peeping around for him will be fruitless.
Still, she takes a chance and slowly moves towards the door, squinting to get a better look of the corridor. There's no one there, and while the paranoid part of her insists he's invisible and is waiting to finish her, her gut tells her that he kept his word and truly left.
"I'm either the world's biggest fool, or the world's most trusting person," she mutters to herself, running a hand through her hair as she paces the room. "Neither of those are good things."
She paces around the room for a good thirty or so minutes, and after nervously darting her eyes to the door every two minutes, her head is beginning to hurt. She picks up her phone and begins to scroll through tumblr, hoping that this might be able to distract her just as much as she needs. That only makes her head hurt more, and she curls up on the couch, shutting her eyes and wishing the pain might go away. Pain killers.
She hasn't taken one in what feels like ages - it's definitely been more than eight hours, so it should be fine - and she goes back to the bedroom, taking out an ibuprofen from the black kit rolled up on the nightstand. It takes another twenty or so minutes, but the pain subsides, and she goes back to the couch, tucking her feet amongst the throw pillows.
So far, Demetri has had ample opportunities to kill her - right from the first time he met her. If he really wanted to use her for food, he had a very good shot that night at the tennis courts. Yet he talked her out of her shitty situation and was all around helpful and considerate for someone she had barely known for less than a week. Besides, her instincts have always guided her well, and as cliche and dumb as it sounds, her gut tells her this guy means no harm.
"Sure, he drinks human blood for sustenance, is built out of whatever the fuck vampires come made out of, has venom in his system that could dissolve my skin in hours and took on that wolf looking abomination on his own. But sure, he doesn't want to kill me, someone who is basically just a sentient sandwich to him." If someone said those words to her, she'd definitely call 911.
Her intuition still insists he's not a threat to her.
Besides, he hasn't broken his word as far as she knows. Sophia walks over to the window just to check and sure enough, his car is there but she can't see anyone in it. Nor is he anywhere in the house. There are several thoughts racing around her mind but right now, she doesn't want to think at all. Trying not to think gives way to boredom, and boredom gives way to sleep. When she wakes up from her nap, she's in the bedroom. Which was not the last place I was at.
She rushes out to the living room and finds that her undead friend has changed out of his last night's clothes, wearing a comfy-looking sweatshirt as he reads the newspaper, feet propped up on the coffee table.
"What happened to not returning until I asked you to?" She crosses her arms, standing in the doorway with an irritated expression.
"Well, dawn has broken, and it is supposed to be sunny for the rest of the day. I can't risk being outside in that."
"Because you'll burn?"
At that, he chuckles, setting the paper down. "No, but the effect is pretty obvious." Unbidden, an idea pops into her head.
"I would like to run some experiments."
Demetri raises an eyebrow. "What kind?"
"Just measuring speed and stuff - there's a bunch of sensors kept in one of the lab sections that I'm teaching this semester. We don't start class until this Monday, so it would be easy for me to go and get the equipment."
"And where do you propose to conduct these tests?" Well, the idea just came into her head - she hasn't exactly thought it all out.
"I was thinking we could drive a decent distance away to a spot where we won't be spotted. Just to make sure." He seems to be considering this, a smug smile covering his face.
"Lucky for you, I have a fast car, a ton of money and even more charm."
"Perfect! One thing though - I need to go home and change into a new pair of clothes."
"Alright then." He's got the keys in his hand and is on his feet - why?
"Why are you coming along? I can go by myself, you know." At that, she gets a confused look from him.
"You have a concussion," he says each word deliberately. "You can't drive in this condition, nor can you be left alone." Oh, yeah - her injury. Now that the pain isn't there, she pretty much forgot about her head hitting the base of a tree.
"Yeah, true. Cool cool cool, let's go."
Once home, she makes her way to the bedroom, pulling out a fresh change of clothes as she heads for the bathroom. The shower is a nice warm pressure on her back, soothing her tense knotted muscles. Applying shampoo proves not so pleasant an experience, because there are still some spots on her head that ache when touched. Once washed and dried, Sophia quickly heads for the kitchen, pulling out a pan, two eggs and some cheese. Two pieces of bread are quickly popped into the toaster while the omelet cooks, and both are wolfed down at record speed. She spots her backpack on one of the counters - I didn't bring it with me .
"Figured you'd need it," a voice calls out from the living room, and she smiles as she checks the bag for granola bars, water, chargers and other necessities for the trip. Whatever is missing is quickly shoved into the many pockets the bag has.
"Okay, let's go." The sun is up in the sky now, yellow beams filtering through the blinds. As they make their way out of the door, Demetri pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and puts on a pair of leather gloves , flipping out a pair of shades.
She hadn't noticed that before, but his car has tinted windows.
"We're going to an off-season hiking trail in the woods," he begins, the car subtly purring as its engine is fired up. "No people are expected to be there during this specific two-month period, so we should be good. It is, however, a one-hour drive away. I also took the liberty of packing a first aid kit in your bag and put one in the car, because I'm pretty sure you have absolutely forgotten that you hit your head." Well… I had.
"Thanks a ton." She directs him towards the backdoor of the Physics lab building, swiping in with her card while she enters the spare equipment room, picking up one of the radar guns, a collapsible tripod and some connecting wires. When she emerges, the car is still running, the passenger door open. "To the hiking trail."
Twenty minutes in, their journey has gone so far without incident, but there is a palpable tension in the air. Last night's revelations seem to have put him even more on his guard, and it doesn't seem like they'll be talking as openly as they were three days back. She turns her focus back to the scenery outside, headphones playing some old 80's pop track she hasn't listened to much recently.
An hour into their ride, the daily mix has bored her, so she switches over to a podcast, letting the voices wash over her. Sophia goes through two full episodes by the time the car begins to slow down, and they pull up in front of the beginning of a hiking trail.
"Here we are."
She hauls the now-heavy backpack onto her shoulders and lets him make the final checks with the car, admiring the light filtering through the almost uniform canopy above their heads. Sophia notices that he's put up his hood and shades again and his hands are the hoodie's pockets, and he hands her the gloves, inclining his head towards her bag. She stuffs the soft leather pair in one of the front pockets and they begin their trek. Ten minutes into the forest and they stop near a large fallen trunk. "So, what's the huge deal with your skin that you need to keep hidden?" He answers that by moving straight into one of the beams of light, lifting a hand to remove his hood, tossing his shades at her with the other.
Long story short, his hands sparkle.
They sparkle with the intensity of diamonds, and the twinkling takes her aback. Once the hood is off, his face glitters with the same brightness; she steps closer, putting on his shades to not be blinded.
Up close, the texture of his skin is pretty much diamond-like, but it's more like a collection of small crystals than one large monolith. "The camera won't be able to capture that," she mutters to herself. "All I'm going to get is a burst of brightness."
"We've tried doing that for research purposes," he replies to her almost mute musing. "Didn't pan out. Also, I have heightened senses of hearing and smell like most predators."
"How heightened?"
"I can hear the nearby waterfalls as clear as day. I can also smell the blood in the veins of every deer within a good 3 mile radius."
"And how many deer are here as of now?" He takes a minute.
"Judging by the number of heartbeats that fall within the range and excluding yours and that of three park rangers, ten." If only there was a way she could verify the data - unfortunately, state parks don't usually keep track of how many game and prey animals roam the forest. Onto to the first experiment, then. Still marveling over these new developments, she takes out the sensor, tripod and her laptop, the latter still miraculously having over 70% battery.
"I'll be setting up this radar gun on a tripod here and hooking it up to my laptop - this will give us an accurate measure of your speed. I want to measure both your average and top speed; we'll first go for your average running speed over a 500-metre range."
"Whenever you say." Once the setup on this end is complete, she goes over to a tree over 500 metres away and clears away some of the bark to mark a spot on it, firmly planting a radar gun near its base.
"Could you go stand over here, please?" She directs him towards the tree stump her laptop is kept near, returning to pull up one of the older models from her aerodynamics classes. It takes some more time to alter the equations accordingly, but she eventually gets it. "All right - do you usually run with your hoodie or coat on?"
"Yes."
"Alright." She quickly does one final check of all the equipment, then sits back on the log. "Okay, three, two, one, go!"
Her hair hits her straight in the face as he takes off, and the tripod comes flying towards her stomach, knocking her off her seat on the mossy log. When he returns, she's just picking herself up from the ground, a few twigs and dirt in her hair. "So?"
"Well, your speed knocked the gun and the tripod off," she grumbles, "so we'll have to redo this."
"Okay!" Comes the enthusiastic response. This time, she firmly holds the radar gun in one hand, the other poised on the keyboard.
"All right - three, two, one, go!" Once again her hair goes flying, and once again he's back not long after. Once she hits stop, the program takes a minute or so to analyse the data, coming back with a graph. With air drag and all other factors taken in account, it chalks up his regular running speed to just over 144 kilometres per hour.
"So?"
"Your average speed is about 90 miles per hour, which is far above the top speed of a cheetah. I want to see how much your top speed differs from your regular running speed." He returns to the starting point, positioning himself. "Okay - three, two, one, go!"
I should have tied my hair.
When he returns, she waits for the data to be analysed on a new plot - this time, his speed is closer to 198 kilometres per hour.
"Well?"
"Your top speed is close to 200 kilometres per hour, which is way faster than many cars in the market, and definitely faster than any land animal currently alive." Saying those words out loud makes her realise just exactly what she's talking about - speedwise, he can comfortably outrace an Audi at full speed. "What the fuck," the words escape her in a soft whisper.
"There's more, if you're interested to find out."
"... Why are you being so forthcoming? Aren't you scared I'll tell someone?" He sits down beside her on the log, hands brushing off some of the leaves and dirt on his pants.
"For the same reason as to why you're here - I trust you." The sunlight has died down a bit and she can see the sincere smile on Demetri's face - the awkwardness that was there earlier has gone, and she feels an ease hanging around him that she didn't at all before. "Now, want to see how easily I crush that rock?"
Her face breaks into a grin. "Hell yes."