Children Of The Damned

Eliana

I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to go to the grill. I only ended up sitting alone at a table for two, drinking my coke and picking at my burger and fries. I suppose I didn’t want to be at home, terrified and alone. My parents weren’t back from their business trip yet. And if Damon could come in whenever he wanted to, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be there.

When Damon came into the grill though, I dropped the correct amount of money plus a tip on the table and quickly left the grill. The swiftness with which I moved to escape attracted his attention, however, and he watched me leave. I practically ran to my car, and once I was inside started the engine and locked the doors. As if that would help against a 150 year old vampire.

When I got home, I started a kettle for some tea, wanting some chamomile to help me relax. I wrung my hands together, noticing they were icy cold, and threw on a sweater, turning up the heat. It didn’t help though.

I heard a noise outside the house, and jumped, nearly dropping the mug I had been in the process of retrieving from one of the overheard cupboards.

Something flashed in front of the kitchen window, and this time I did drop the mug, shattering it on the linoleum floor.

My hands flew to my mouth, covering the scream that escaped. The face that I saw for the briefest moment there in the window was eerily familiar.

And then Damon was in the house, rushing to me at a pace just beyond human. I screamed again, and he covered my mouth.

“Shhh…I’m not here to hurt you, Ana. I would never…but someone has been watching the house.”

His body was tense against mine, alert and ready for an attack. He placed a finger to my lips; an order for my silence, and then he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed my down to the floor amongst the broken bits of mug.

He carefully brushed them aside with the sleeve of his shirt, and pointed to the stairs. I knew what to do from there, and started to crawl. A piece of mug Damon had missed sliced my palm, but I did not make a sound. Instead I curled the hand into a fist, pressing on the wound to keep it from leaving a trail of blood on the floor, and crawled out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Damon followed behind me, and soon we reached the largest bathroom upstairs, where there were no windows to look into from the outside. There were three upstairs, and this was the one most commonly used by guests other than the one downstairs since the other two upstairs you could only get to from the master bedroom and my room.

“You’re bleeding,” Damon said once he had closed the door safely behind us, locking it.

I don’t know why I wasn’t more afraid of him, but here in his presence I knew he would never purposefully hurt me. However, I was bleeding, and I didn’t know how well he would fare with that.

“It’s just a scratch,” I assured him, standing and walking over to the sink.

“Let me see,” he said. He took my curled fist in his hands, gently prying open my fingers with his impossible strength.

The small piece of ceramic was still lodged in the wound, and once there was no longer any pressure on the wound, blood seeped out onto my palm.

Damon made a face, scrunching his nose for a moment, and then his face turned back into the monster I had seen in his room. I made an audible noise and tried to pull away, but he simply grabbed onto the hand tighter and used his other hand to cover my mouth.

“No loud noises. Not until he leaves. And I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”

I watched his face as he examined my wound with fascination.

“Tweezers?” he asked.

I pointed to the correct drawer with my good hand.

He extracted the tweezers within seconds and carefully plucked out the small bit of glass. My hand bled more profusely.

Damon made a low growling sound.

“First-Aid kit?” he asked in tight voice through clenched teeth.

“Under the sink.”

He let go of my hand to retrieve the little blue box.

“Put your hand over the sink,” he said, not looking up at me. I did as he told, and watched him as he pulled gauze and bandages from the kit along with hydrogen peroxide.

He held my hand very gently in his and poured some of the peroxide over the wound. It fizzled. He did this two more times before running it under cold water and drying it with my mothers new white hand towel. I started to protest, but he shot me a look that said arguments would not be welcome.

He put some Neosporin in the would, covering it with a piece of gauze and then a wraparound bandage. He kissed my palm, the let it drop at my side.

“Thank you,” I said.

Damon remained tense, although his features had gone back to normal.

“Who’s out there?” I asked him.

“I think it’s the same vampire that’s been killing people around town. The police found another body this morning.”

“But why would he be here?” I was tired of being involved in vampire kind. It wasn’t what all the movies had it cracked up to be.

“I don’t know. All I know is that if it weren’t you he was watching, I would have already been out there, ripping his undead head off. But since it is you, I’m not letting you out of my sight for one second. Not until I know why he’s interested in you. I want you to be safe. I’ll kill him if I have to. No, I’ll kill him regardless.”

“Wait, can all vampires go out in the sun like you can?”

“Not all, but some. You need one of these to do that,” he said, tapping the large blue-stoned ring on his hand with a silver scripted “D” on it.

“And what is that exactly?”

“It’s lapis lazuli. It’s like a talisman that protects us from the sun. If we don’t have it when the sun comes up…if we’re outside, that is…it’s ashes to ashes. Deader than dead.”

“Is that the only way you can die?” I asked.

“No. You could set us on fire, or rip our heads off, or stake us-”

“Okay, stop,” I said, quietly, but he responded immediately to my request. As much as Damon scared me, as much as I thought I hated him, I couldn’t imagine all those things being done to him, or Stefan for that matter. If I was being truthful with myself, I would have to say that I didn’t truly hate him. I wasn’t sure I was capable of hating him, not after all he had done for me, not after everything I had been able to feel for him that I had never felt for another person. It was just terrifying and heartbreaking that he wasn’t the man I thought he was. No, he was something very different.

“I thought you didn’t care what happened to me. I thought you were afraid of me,” he said, his eyebrows furrowing as he watched me with uncertain eyes.

“Oh, I’m afraid. At least, I should be. But I know that you won’t hurt me. I know that’s illogical. I know you may not always be able to control yourself. And I’m still trying to deal with all of this, figure things out, what you are, and how it’s changed things. I-I just don’t want you to think I don’t care. I do care about you. I just don’t know if things can ever go back to the way they were before. I’m not sure if I can feel that way anymore.”

“This doesn’t change a thing for me, Ana. Not even if you truly hated me. I would always…I would always care about you the way I have since you first started opening up to me, treating me like I was someone worth sharing your secrets with. I won’t forget that you made me feel human for the first time in a century and a half.”

“Damon…I,” I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“I think we can go back downstairs now,” he said, cutting me off before I could get a grasp of the right words.

We walked downstairs. I went to the hall closet and retrieved a broom and dustpan, walking over to the kitchen, all the while holding the broom like a weapon, as if that would protect me. I reminded myself that if it really was a vampire, he wouldn’t be able to come in unless I invited him, which wasn’t going to happen. With this knowledge as reassurance, I let my muscles relax.

The kettle screamed on the stove, having been long since hot.

I pulled it off the burner and turned the dial to “OFF”. Then I got another mug from the cupboard and put a tea bag inside, pouring the hot water over it and setting it on the counter to brew.

“Tea?” he asked. He had never seen me drink chamomile before.

“Yeah. I guess I really need to wind down. All this vampire stuff is driving me crazy.”

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, stepping back.

________________________________________________________________

Damon

“Actually, I think if I was alone after that little incident I might just have a panic attack. I have horrible nightmares,” she said, looking at her feet as she said it. She was embarrassed. “I know that they’re not real, but just knowing that they could be no, makes me so afraid.”

“What do you dream about?”

“Well, I dream that my parents are found in the cemetery, which is a little melodramatic, right? But their throats are ripped out and they’re covered in blood. And there’s blood all over me, and then I realize it’s because I’m dead too.”

A vision flashed in front of my eyes: Ana; cold lifeless, pale, drenched in scarlet. I had seen my fair share of bodies, but this was enough to make me feel physically ill, something I shouldn’t be able to feel anymore.

“That will never happen to you,” I said harshly.

“How can you possibly know that. We’ve got a rogue vampire running around town killing people. He could have killed Matt if there hadn’t been so many people around. I was right there. It could have just as easily been me. I could be next. Especially if he’s been circling my house.”

“I will never let anything happen to you. I will keep watch of you at all times. I won’t sleep until he’s dead.”

“Don’t do that to yourself. If we’re lucky, he might not have one of those daylight rings. He probably has to go hide somewhere during the day.”

“But what if he has had contact with a witch who can give him the talisman he needs? Then he can get you whenever he wants. You’ll be totally vulnerable.”

“I can’t worry about the what-ifs all the time. I’m not going to live looking over my shoulder all the time. That’s not living.”

“Just be careful, please. If anything happened to you, I-” I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, forgive myself? What?

“I’ll be careful. But I’m not going to imprison myself to the house. I’m going to live my life like none of this craziness ever happened.”

If only she knew she could never live the way she had before.

“So…do you want me to stay with you?” I asked.

“If you don’t mind?”

“I don’t,” I said immediately.

She threw her arms around me then, whispering, “Thank you” in my ear, before going to the linen closet and grabbing some blankets from the top shelf.

She handed the blankets to me. “I’ll go get the air mattress,” she said.

“Where is it?”

“The garage,” she responded.

“I’ll go with you,” I said, not wanting to let her out of my sight for more than a few seconds. Even if the vampire couldn’t get inside, I still felt like she would be more safe with me as a bodyguard. Maybe if he saw that another vampire was with her, he would back off.

She unlocked the door to the garage and walked inside, flipping on the light. Racks lined the walls, and camping equipment was on the far end of the garage. She walked over, rummaging through one of the boxes, and found the air mattress and the air pump.

It was a fancy double-high aero bed, and she struggled with the large box, trying to keep from putting too much painful pressure on her cut hand.

In a second, I had the box in my hand.

She gasped.

“Sorry. Now that you know, it’s hard not to just do what comes naturally.”

“I guess it’s juts going to take some getting used to,” she said, raking a hand through her hair.

Up in her room, I pumped up the air mattress while she went to the bathroom with a pair of pajamas. When she returned, she was showered and dressed in sweats and a large t-shirt. She handed me a toothbrush, still in its package.

“I left the toothpaste on the counter. And there’s soap and a wash cloth for you in case you wanted it.”

“Thank you.” I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and washed my face, and came back.

She was already in bed, staring up at the ceiling, taking calming breaths.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s just been a big day. I feel a little…overloaded.”

“That’s understandable,” I told her, kicking off my boots and taking off my over-shirt.

I laid down on the air mattress and pulled the blankets up to my chest.

“Goodnight,” I called out as she turned off the lamp on her bedside table.

“Goodnight,” she said. Her voice sounded afraid, and when she moved to the edge of the bed on her stomach, dropping her arm over the side, I took her hand in mine, squeezing it lightly. It took a moment, but her hand eventually returned the pressure, squeezing back.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.