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“What do you mean by that?” I ask, no louder than a whisper. I back away from him, all the way to the other side of the room. “How do you propose to clean it up?”
“Don’t sound so frightened, I have no intention of doing you harm. I could never hurt you. If only you were susceptible to my compulsion then I could make you forget any of this ever happened.”
“Compulsion? Is that what you were trying to do earlier when I suddenly felt sleepy?”
He shakes his head in frustration. “Yes, unfortunately you seem to be immune.”
“So what are you going to do then? You can hardly keep me locked in your office forever.”
“I wouldn’t mind keeping you forever,” he says, ignoring the locked up in his office part. He stands up and walks over to me where I’m cowering on the floor in the corner of the room. He offers me his hand to help me up, but I refuse to take it. He actually has the gall to look wounded.
“Please Tegan, come and sit with me and I will explain everything.”
“I’m not doing anything for you until I see that Amanda is all right.”
“She will still be heavily sedated from Lucas’ bite, but I assure you she is fine. Lucas has brought her to the staff room to lie down until she recovers.”
“Well isn’t he the perfect gentleman,” I spit. Ethan’s face grows cold and we remain silent for a moment. This allows me a minute to absorb what has just happened.
“Oh fuck! This is all my fault, if I hadn’t tried to set Lucas up with Amanda then he would never have gone for her.” I say in panic as the realisation of what I’ve done hits me.
“You tried to set them up, why?” Confusion colours him.
“Because - oh never mind, I just did okay.” I don’t want to go into the whole thing about Amanda being vampire obsessed. Jesus, she might even be happy about what happened.
Okay, so am I actually admitting to myself that Lucas is a real, honest to God vampire? That Ethan, the man I’ve become so unwillingly attached to, is one also? Ethan is still standing over me, presenting his hand to help me up. I look at it wearily, and figure if this isn’t a dream then I might as well take it. I’m already in the deep end as it is.
I ponder the idea that maybe I’m not really here at all. That after Matthew killed himself I went off the rails and was admitted to a psychiatric facility where I am now suffering from schizophrenia and imagining these characters are i
n my life. That I am living out this whole bizarre scenario inside of my own head.
I take Ethan’s hand, because honestly, what other choice do I have? He leads me to the couch where I sit down and try to take deep breaths in an effort not to faint.
Deciding to just get to the core of the situation, I say, quite blatantly, “So you’re a vampire then?” My entire scientific system of belief teeters in the balance as I await his answer.
Ethan smiles. “Have you ever heard of the saying, within every myth lies a grain of truth?”
“Well I’d hardly call this a grain,” my voice becomes increasingly shrill and panicky.
Ethan moves like a predator, and I guess he is one after all. He pulls one of the chairs up to the couch where I’m sitting and leans in close to me, his chin resting on his clasped fingers.
“It is true though,” he says, in a gentle voice. “And things would be a lot easier if you accepted it.”
“I don’t know about that, I’m still wondering if my head is fucked and playing tricks on me.”
“This is no trick of the mind, you’ve proven that yours is quite impenetrable after all.”
“Now that you’ve mentioned it, why is that?” I ask, actually curious as I push thoughts of insanity from my head.
“I have yet to discover why, but I fully intend to look into it,” he tells me, with far too much determination for comfort. I feel like a mouse in a laboratory.
“So is that the only reason you’ve been hanging around me, to figure out why I’m immune to whatever it is you can do to people?”
“It is one of the reasons.” Ethan admits, with at least some reluctance I note.
“I knew your interest in me was too good to be true.” Why did I ever think a man, or vampire, as handsome and wealthy as Ethan could be interested in a train wreck like me?
“My interest in you is genuine. True you are a mystery to be unravelled, but you are also beautiful and intriguing and intelligent, and those are the reasons why I can’t contain this need to be around you, which is wholly separate from the fact that you are an anomaly as a human.”
