Double Trouble

A soft yellow ambient glow shone over four pairs of feet as they strolled through the New York streets. The one to the far left kept a close watch on the other three, making sure that nothing happened to them. He was under orders to protect them with his life and that was exactly what he intended on doing. Nothing in the world was ever going to prevent the fourteen year-old teenager from watching his three charges. Years ago, he made a solemn promise to protect these three young kids and see to it that nothing happened to them.

The quartet strolled down Fifth Avenue leisurely when two more feet appeared. A struggle ensued and the end result was not one that should ever have occurred. The fourteen year-old boy was left alone, his charges taken; kidnapped. He collapsed to his knees. “No!” he yelled, his shaggy blond blowing lightly in the wind. “How could that have happened? I knew what would have happened. I knew and I should have stopped it” His fist slammed to the ground, causing scratches to appear on his fists. “I have to go tell her. She needs to know of what has come to pass because I wasn’t watching them closely enough.”

“No!”

Savannah Meadowbrook shot straight up in bed, panting heavily. There was no way she could allow her dream to come to pass, not with what she knew. After all that she had been through, all that she almost lost, there was no way she would ever permit this dream to come to pass. Carefully, Savannah slid out of bed, seeing to it that Toby was remained asleep. As she wrapped her fluffy yellow robe around her, Savannah looked down at her sleeping husband. In the past thirteen years, he had been through so much. With everything that happened, Savannah refused to allow anything that might ruin what they had come to acquire over the past thirteen years. “Don’t worry, Toby; I am not about to let anything happen that would ruin this life we’ve led. I refuse to allow my dream to pass.”

Leaving her husband to sleep for the time being, Savannah brushed her light brown hair back and headed downstairs to her brother’s coffee shop. Even after all these years, Savannah lived with her older brother. The minute she turned eighteen, Savannah was offered the choice of moving into her own place with Toby or staying at the coffee shop; Savannah chose option B and it was a choice she had yet to regret. Given all that she had been through a year prior to that, her choice was easy. Savannah stepped lightly into her brother’s coffee shop and noticed a shadowy figure already seated at the counter. She flipped a dim light on and saw that it was a blond-haired boy sitting there, his head in his hands. “Eli?” Savannah inquired of her nephew. “What are you doing up? You have school in the morning.”

Eli looked up and nodded. “Hey, Aunt Savannah. I know. It’s just something’s bothering me. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that something weird may be happening. Am I crazy to be thinking that?”

Taking a seat to her nephew’s left, Savannah sighed. In the thirteen years since she went to Romania, Savannah had hoped that Eli might be spared from dealing with all of this. Her dream on her seventeenth birthday was not something Savannah ever wished to deal with. Even with this future looming for her nephew—as Eli was now the age he was meant to be in said dream—Savannah had her nephew keep watch over Reuben, Keith, and Dawn. Her children needed to be protected, even if there was no chance of her dream coming true; Jason and Justin were gone; Calarasi eliminated; there was nothing that could threaten the Evermore/Meadowbrook children. Despite the fact that no threat existed, Toby and Savannah agreed that their children would not have their father’s name; it was too risky after seeing what happened. The vampire curse that Toby suffered through for all those years could come back to haunt him and neither one wished to see that happen. So, even through they were Evermores by blood, Reuben, Keith, and Dawn were Meadowbrooks in name.

“Eli, I can promise you you’re not crazy. I have the same feeling everyday. Every day since you were a year-old, I’ve felt that something going to happen. You have no idea as to how much I don’t want this to happen, especially considering your uncle’s past.”

Her nephew looked at her in confusion. “What does Uncle Toby’s vampire past have to do with this?” Eli inquired. “I don’t recall ever hearing about any of this, not ever.”

Savannah bit her lip. Despite having told her nephew about her husband’s vampire past—against Toby’s wishes—she felt no need to tell him of the dream. With Jason, Justin, and Calarasi no longer of this world, there was no need to tell him. She still had Eli protect his cousins, but never told him the reason for his babysitting duties. It was something she wished to avoid. Only Toby, Savannah, and Thomas—Eli’s father—were to know of the real reason for the babysitting duties the fourteen year-old had been tasked with. “I can’t tell you, Eli. Your father, uncle, and I are the only ones who can know the reason behind some of the choices that have been made. But, should the need ever arise, which I doubt will ever occur, I promise you’ll be made aware of the situation we must face.”

“Aunt Savannah!” Eli exclaimed. “Don’t keep this from me. You told me everything else. Why wouldn’t you tell me about this as well? So long as I know of Uncle Toby and the fact that he was once a vampire, I think it best if you tell me about this as well.”

“No, Eli. I simply cannot do that,” Savannah argued. “I wasn’t even supposed to tell you of your uncle’s secret, but I felt you had the right to know, given that you must protect your cousins. Please trust that I am doing what I feel is in your best interest in regards to what has transpired during my own adolescence.” Savannah understood that her nephew hated that she couldn’t tell him, but it had to be done. Eli could never know that there was a very slim chance of her nephew having to deal with two vicious vampire brothers and a sorcerer bent on ruling the world. “I know you want to know about this, but I think it best if you didn’t. You’re fourteen and, though there are times where you’re forced to act older than you are, I don’t want you deal with this; neither does your father. It’s much too dangerous.”

As she sat there talking with her nephew, Savannah was reminded of seventeen years ago when Jason and Justin basically murdered her parents. Eli, Reuben, Keith, and Dawn lost their grandparents because of the Evermore twins. And, the worst part was that for all save Eli, it was their uncles. It would devastate them to find out that their grandparents—all of them—were killed by two very violent vampires. It was positively infuriating to know that her children and nephew would never know their grandparents because of the vampire tendencies Toby’s brothers had. How the hell am I going to deal with this if it ever gets out? Savannah wondered. I’ve spent fifteen years—since Thomas and Iyana were married—concealing the truth about vampires. Can it continue? Savannah could only speculate; she had no way of knowing what might happen in the coming years.

“I just don’t know, Auntie V,” Eli mumbled, using his childhood nickname for her. When Eli was first learning how to talk, he couldn’t really say Savannah. It became Auntie V until he was four and learned to say Savannah. “With me protecting Rueben, Keith, and Dawn, a part of me thinks that I need to know what’s been going on. What if something happens?”

Savannah’s thought turned to her most recent dream, the one that woke her and brought her down here. “I’ll do what I can to keep that from happening,” Savannah assured her nephew. “I’ve done so in the past and will continue to do so. Just as you are protecting your cousins, so will I ensure that no one harms you, your parents, or Toby. Ever since I was your age, I protected the people I cared about. I spent several years destroying my social life thanks to what I suffered when I was thirteen. I lost my parents and almost lost my best friend,” Savannah explained, remembering the incident thirteen years ago while in Romania dealing with Calarasi, “because of what happened. I won’t let it happen again.”

Thankfully, Brie was no longer in danger. She moved to Africa after college to help in third-world countries. But, while Brie was safe, Savannah still had her family to worry about. Toby, her children, Thomas, and Eli were the most important people in her life and Savannah wasn’t about to lose any of them. With Iyana however, she couldn’t give two shits about, even though she was Eli’s mother and Thomas’s wife. There was something that Savannah didn’t like about Iyana, something very strange; Savannah spent thirteen years trying to figure out what it was about Iyana that she didn’t like. And, though she had yet to find something, Savannah continued to hate that Iyana was her sister-in-law.

Eli shrugged. “I’m going to bed.”

Savannah nodded. “Go ahead.”

After her nephew left, Savannah spent a few more minutes sitting there. When she heard heavy breathing coming from behind her, Savannah spun around and saw Toby leaning up against the wall. “You told Eli about me having once been a vampire?” he asked.

“I had to,” Savannah explained. “If he’s protecting his cousins, he needed to know why. Eli knows of you, Jason, Justin, and Calarasi, but I never told him about the dream I had thirteen years ago. There was no way I could do that. I won’t risk Eli’s life merely because of a dream I had thirteen years ago. Plus, Thomas would kill me if that ever happened to his son. “

Toby nodded. “Too true.” He walked over and put his arms around Savannah, kissing her temple. “But, telling Eli, I think, was a mistake. Yes, the boy is your nephew and you wish to protect him, but I think hiding the truth from him would have been for the best. In your heart, I’m sure your know that. You, Thomas, and I could have protected them just as well and you know it. There was no need to pull Eli into this, no matter what your dream from long ago suggests. My brothers and Calarasi were defeated long before the kids were ever born and I don’t see anyway for someone to bring any of them back to life.”

“You may not, but I do,” Savannah argued. “I spent years having to protect those I cared about, you included, as I’m sure you remember. Well, I am not about to lose my kids to this. So, I’m going to keep Eli on this; you may not want him to know, but I do. I need someone to help me watch over the kids, and Eli has always been that solution. He can help me watch over our sons and daughter. Now, can we please drop this? I need to sleep.”

Toby nodded. “Let’s go then.”