Half Bitten

The birds chirped from outside my window—the one that was left open since last night. I let my hands trace themselves through the blankets that covered my body towards the next source of heat. Lowlii. When I found his hand I wrapped my fingers around his slowly so as to not wake him, and when the snoring continued there was a part of me that was shocked his eyes didn’t open. Peaking through my eyelashes, I couldn’t help but stare.
Last night, when he kissed my lips, it did not feel the way it did before he left. After a little while of kissing, he grew to be tense, and very controlling. Not that I minded it one bit. He was Lowlii—and I was going to accept him at any cost, but a part of me still missed his gentle side. Perhaps, it was me. Perhaps the reason I was feeling this way was because I only wanted one thing last night, and was oblivious to anything else.
Perhaps what changed, was me.
Lowlii’s snoring ceased for a moment and I peaked through my eyelashes. He was about to shift his body, and this was my chance. As he turned, I angled myself into him so that he would have no choice but to hold me.
At first, the warmth of his body overwhelmed mine, and then comforted me. His bare chest, against my back, moved outwardly and steadily. All this was normal, but I still felt as if something was missing. I snuggled against him more, and still he slept, snoring with no interval.
Why didn’t he wake up? If this was four months ago, he would’ve shot his pretty blue eyes open and managed to whisper a witty remark in which would make my body laugh, and my heart flutter.
It was obvious that the manner, in which he was alert to me, had changed—or was it me?
“Good morning.” His warm voice whispered into my ear, still a bit groggy.
“Hi.” I smiled sheepishly. “Did you sleep well?”
“Are you kidding?” He chuckled lightly, and then a yawn followed. “I had no choice but to sleep. I got really tired.”
I tried not to let the heat rush to my face, even though I knew I was failing at the task. “Does anyone else know you’re in Washington again?”
Lowlii took a moment to answer. “No, at least I don’t think so. Alec seemed pretty clueless, and Rufus and Darby couldn’t find my scent.”
I nodded lightly, remembering the last time they were in my room. “How did you get past them?”
“What do you mean?” Lowlii asked slowly.
I inched myself around to face him. “Vampires can track people and things pretty well. Especially werewolves. How did they manage to not smell your scent?”
Sighing lightly, Lowlii continued to speak. “Have you noticed the bracelet?”
I tried not to blink dumbly. “The one that Becca and Sadie gave me?”
“No,” he sighed again. “Not that retched thing—how you didn’t realize why they wanted you to wear it was surprising to me.” His arms took action around me. “You see this?” he pointed to his wrist and my eyes saw it. Buckskin braided material, one that resembled what Becca and Sadie gave me, clung around his wrist.
“Well, where’s the vial?” I asked, closely examining it.
He chuckled lightly and let his lips touch my forehead. “I don’t need it. The bracelet has been charmed with a spell that is supposed to mask werewolves. Everything from scent, to the way they look in their human form.”
Finally understanding, I let my mind form another question. “Well its powers must be wearing off because I still noticed it was you.”
“Well, there’s an exception.” He cautioned lightly, and we spoke the next word together. “Imprinting.”
I raised my head up and let my lips touch his. He kissed back, but his body tensed.
“What’s wrong?” I alarmingly asked. “Did I do something wrong? Was it too soon?”
He laughed at my shocked manner. “No, no, Jackie. I’m just trying to control myself, that’s all.”
“Control yourself from doing what?”
Lowlii laughed again, this time it was to change the subject. “So, what are we doing on the first day of spring break?”
“We’re already doing it.” I remarked with a smile present to my face.
He laughed again, this time in admiration. “Come on—we can’t spend all day in your room.”
Sighing, I agreed. “Yeah, we’d kill each other.”

Ice cream never really intrigued me, until some landed on Lowlii’s nose as we walked down Main Street. It was mid-afternoon so it was growing to be warm, yet there was still a tint of brisk.
“Sheesh! Your hands are freezing.” Lowlii remarked as I tried to sneak my hand into his. “You almost get as cold as a vampire.” He jokingly bantered as he tried to lick the last of his ice cream. We walked two more steps and I couldn’t contain myself any longer.
I made Lowlii face me and smiled.
“What?” he let his blue eyes examine my face.
Laughing lightly, I tried to wipe the ice cream off the tip of his nose. “You’re like a little kid with this stuff, huh?”
After sniffling one or two times, he smiled back to me. “Actually, I was never really allowed to have ice cream. It would make my fur all sticky.”
I managed to giggle—it seemed that I was doing such a lot, lately. “Hey, I have another question for you.”
He nodded lightly, and then took my hand in his. We walked together for a few seconds as I let him finish off his cone. Even the way he walked around me was different. It was almost as if he forgot I couldn’t walk as slow as a normal human.
“What happened when you were gone?”
Lowlii let his eyes flicker towards mine, and with slight hesitance, he smiled. “What exactly do you mean, Jackie? Nothing happened.”
“It was four months.” I rolled my eyes, and then sighed. “Something had to have happened.”
All he did was walk faster. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“You promised you were going to answer my questions. No more beating around the bush.” I cautioned while trying to dig my feet into the merciless ground.
“Jackie, that’s easier said than done.”
I shook my head and tried to pull my hand out of his. “You’re going to tell me.”
Lowlii took an abrupt halt in pace and turned to me. “And just how exactly do you think you’re going to make me do that?” the tone in which he said those words was one I never heard before. The warmth of it was gone—it was pure anger. I tried to look into his eyes to find the source of this anger but had to turn away. They were blazing
“What happened?” I asked again, looking down to the ground.
For a moment, I could feel him do nothing but breathe heavily and glare at me. “We need to get you home. It’s going to get dark soon.”
I didn’t dare to say another word. We walked back home in silence, and with each step I took, the anger inside me started to boil.
He owed me an explanation— he left, for four months, and the cause is yet to be heard. But think of how many secrets brewed up in his period of absence.
Imagine the amount?
It wasn’t because of embarrassment, that my face turned red. It was because of rage.
As we arrived to my father’s backyard, I ripped my hand away from Lowlii’s and headed through the backdoor and into the living room where I knew my dad would be.
“Are you okay?” he asked, while letting his eyes read the expression that froze my face.
“I snuck out of my bedroom window, would you punish me?”
He studied my face once more, and thinking as quickly as he could, he patted the vacant piece of furniture next to him. I took my seat in a huff, caught in the midst of omitting low grumbles.
“So, I suppose you’re breathing?” my father remarked as a commercial braced the screen. “And that this is about a boy?”
More like a mangy mutt.
“Well,” He sighed, then shifted unevenly. “ No one is worth feeling this hurt over. I vote you stay single until you hit college, or even thirty.”
I chuckled lightly, and then went back to my pouting mood.
“Sweetie,” my father’s voice turned sincere. “I’m not going to say that it gets better, because it doesn’t.”
For a second, the anger stopped surging through my blood and confusion clouded my mind.
“Well, then.” My father sighed. “Guess we’re just going to have to call Kassie. We agreed that she’d do the girl talk.”
“No, no.” I insisted, but judging by how much it would anger Lowlii, I duly noted that as my secondary plan.
“I guess all I could say is that no one wants to be alone. Life will go on, whether or not he is in it. Whoever this “he” is is questionable.”
Chuckling lightly, I leaned to my father and wrapped my arms around him. Telling him that I loved him, I wished him a good night and rushed up the stairs to my room. I wasn’t surprised when I saw Lowlii sitting on my bed waiting for me. Out of boredom, it was clear to see that he grabbed my red journal and started to look through it.
“There’s nothing in there.” I stated while closing the door behind me.
After hearing my voice, he threw it off to the side of the bed. “Can we talk?”
I rolled my eyes and made my way to the bed while nonchalantly kicking my shoes off. “Talk about what? How you keep your whole life a secret from me?”
After filtering my words, he sighed. “You’re being a baby.”
“Me?” I scoffed, raising my head to him. “You’re the one who decided to run off after one whole night of not knowing where I was.”
A moment of silence followed as we glared at each other.
“Look, Lowlii. I think it’d be easier for the both of us if you went home tonight.”
“Fine!” he sharply spoke, and then threw his body up off the bed. I watched as his footsteps count towards the window and stopped. Within a second Lowlii’s body collapsed down to the ground.
“What are you doing?” I grumbled the question.
“Well, I don’t know if you forgot or a stroke of ignorance has just been bestowed upon you,” his voice came out sharp with a snicker, “but I don’t exactly have a home right now.”
I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Figures. I just don’t know what it is—when you’re around you don’t want to let me go, but when you decide to not be apart of my life, I might as well be dirt.”
He turned over on his stomach and raised his head towards me. “Well, what about you—you, you human.”
I gasped then raised my body up. “I don’t need to deal with this. I don’t care—you could have my room for the next week, I’ll crash on the couch.” As I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob, I felt warm fingers curl around my arm.
“Please,” Lowlii whispered into my ear. “Don’t—don’t go. I just got you back.”
“What do you mean, ‘just got me back?’” I turned slowly to face him. “You’ve always had me.”
“I just…” he let his voice trail off as he looked into my eyes. After a few seconds I felt the urge to lean in for a kiss but his absence stopped me from doing so.
“I thought you were dead.” Lowlii stood by my messy desk, across the room.
“Dead?” I questioned, “Why—why would you think that?”
“Because people said they saw you and your father drive to The Rolands’ vacation house out of state—trust me, Jackie. The last four months have been hard.”
“You thought I was bitten?” I tried not to laugh at his assumption. I considered The Rolands practically family, and the fact that they would turn me into one of them made me want to chuckle.
He looked away from me and towards my desk in an attempt to distract himself. “How do you know? Vampires are unpredictable.”
I shook my head and started to walk back to my bed. After crashing, I looked through my eyelashes towards him. “Are you jealous?”
“What?” he asked in a state of confusion.
“Well, it’s the only probable reason that explains why you’re having trouble telling me about the last four months.” I stopped blabbing for a second then let my mind wander. Caught in the midst of fear, I rose off my bed and walked towards Lowlii.
“Did you imprint on another girl?”
Feeling my fear, he shook his head. “No—god no--- … it’s complicated.”
I couldn’t understand whether to scream or throw something at Lowlii. I put my hand down on the pile of papers and pushed. They fluttered everywhere and found their way to the ground.
“I—I, can’t believe this, Lowlii!” I screamed into my hands, trying to hide the tears. “You had an affair with another girl?”
“You don’t understand.” His voice was deep and distant. I looked up from my hands and noticed that he was looking at a single paper that managed to stay put on my desk. “You’ll never understand.” He traced the words etched in the paper with his eyes in sorrow. It wasn’t long till I realized what that paper carried.
The names of the girls who were killed.
I walked a step towards him, and wrapped my hand around his. Lifting it off the paper, I looked into his sad eyes. “I’m sorry. These shouldn’t have been in here anyway. I shouldn’t have asked you about what happened--- I should’ve known.”
“I killed them.” Lowlii admitted, just at the brink of a mental breakdown.
I held his hand tighter. I had never seen him like this, and this was a side I could not deal with. “It’s okay. They must’ve been bad people,” I thought quickly on my feet. “Ones that humankind wouldn’t be able to stand in the future. It was your instinct.”
“No.” he spoke through his teeth as his sorrow slowly turned into anger. “No, no, no. It wasn’t that.” I watched as the aqua blue tone in his eyes turned into a piercing shade of gray.
“Then what’s wrong?” I tried to search his eyes for an answer so he wouldn’t have to bear himself to speak anymore.
“I was thinking of you.” He spoke again, this time bringing his eyes—silver eyes, to my careful glare. “Every time I came across those people…” his voice faded as he was lured into his own thoughts.
“Lowlii.” I whispered while kissing his chest, trying to bring him back to reality. “Lowlii, you’re here now. None of that matters.”
“Yes it does!” His voice rumbled from the hollow of his chest. “Yes it does! Every time I smelled someone like you—or saw a girl that looked like, I was taken. Consumed by a cloud of emotions. Passion, lust, care…Rage.” The way he emphasized the last word sent shivers down my spine. “ I hated you for leaving—I hated you for dying. I killed each one of those people, thinking of you.”