Blood Addiction: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Aw man, what the hell, Julian?”

All I could hear was Tony panicking in my ear, pacing back and forth in Jane’s apartment. She’d been knocked out for about three hours and he was starting to worry. To be honest, I don’t know what the hell happened. The last thing I remembered was feeling a shock go down my arm when she accidentally brushed her hand against mine at the blood bank. After that, it was like everything happened in a quick blur. She got dazed, passed out, and hasn’t been up since then. I looked over to my little brother and started shaking my head.

“You would think that, from being what we are and living as long as we have lived, you would be used to things like this by now, Tony.”

Tony, my sister, and I were born vampires around 250 years ago. We have seen enough blood and gore to last a lifetime, but he still can’t handle a passed out human.

“That’s not it, Julian. This human is special; unlike any other human. She has psychic abilities. She can read other people’s minds, including mine, and on occasion, she gets visions. They normally cause her to black out for about 30 minutes but never this long. This is bad, Julian.”

I try to process everything that Tony just told me when she starts to wake up. Just seeing her light brown eyes looking up at me had my heart skipping a beat. Well, what’s left of my heart, anyway. She looked so delicate lying there with her hair laid out on the couch and her light brown skin glowing. My eyes trailed down to her lips and I felt the urge to kiss her deeply, not caring if Tony was there.

What the hell, Julian?

I tried to read her mind to see if she was in any pain and was surprised when I couldn’t read a damn thing. I tried again, even harder this time, but still, I got nothing.

“Tony, we might have a situation. I can’t read her.”

My brother looked at me with a shocked expression on his face and looked down at his best friend lying on the couch about to wake up. Shit, why the hell is this happening now?

“Damn will someone please turn the TV off or at least turn it down? It’s giving me a headache.”

I gave Jane a confused look, not knowing what she was talking about. This was one weird chick. Tony moved closer to her and sat next to her on the couch.

“Jane, sweetheart, the TV's not on. You're hearing voices again. Concentrate on blocking them.”

She closed her eyes, rubbed her face, and started taking deep breaths.

“Ugh, I swear, sometimes I hate this gift. I could hear the couple from a mile away. FYI, whatever you do, Tony, avoid the girl downstairs. She has a crush on you but also has a crazy obsessive ex-boyfriend. I don’t feel like seeing you get your ass whooped.”

She let out a small laugh as she started to get up from the couch and Tony gave her a small smack on the back of the head.

“Trust me, I can handle myself. I’m a big boy, you know.”

“Damn, how long was I out?”

“About three hours and you scared the shit out of me. Don’t you ever do that again or I will kill you.”

“Yea, right you, wouldn’t hurt a—“

She stopped in the middle of her sentence and started to stare at me.

“You know it’s rude to stare, right?”

I started to laugh as I saw her face turn beet red; damn, she looks cute when she’s blushing.

“I wasn’t staring, just got lost in thought.”

Before I could ask her what she meant by that, she walked into the kitchen as if she was talking to herself.

Julian.

Dammit, I hate when Alexandra does this. Can a man not have privacy in his own thoughts?

What do you want, Alex?

Alex was like the little sister from hell sometimes. She always overstepped her boundaries and always found a way to get into trouble. She really makes me hate the telepathic connection that we have as brother and sister.

Are you with Tony yet? You know how important it is for all of us to get together and talk about the situation. They’re getting closer. I can feel it and I don’t like it.

Alex was right, I didn’t come down here to visit Tony and catch up on old times. We had to talk about the threat against the vampires and why they were on their way here. They normally stayed overseas around Europe, which made it weird when we saw activity in New Orleans. And now Alex had a feeling that they were here in south Florida, which made no sense, because normal vampires can’t be out in the sunlight at all.

Alright, Alex, we’re on our way now.

I blocked out my connection with her and turned towards Tony. He was sitting next to Jane in the kitchen talking about movies and what actors and actresses they thought were attractive. I swear, Tony never acts his age.

“Sorry for interrupting the important debate on whether Halle Berry is more attractive than Beyoncé, but Tony, we gotta go. Alexandra is waiting for us at her place.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot that she said she needed to talk to me. You’ll be okay on your own for now, Jane?”

“I’m a grown woman, Tony. I can handle myself.”

He gave her a hug and turned to face me.

“OK, let's go, bro. I’m curious to know why Alex wants to talk to us so bad.”

You should probably ask her out. I’m sure she’ll say yeah.

I smacked Tony on the back of the head and gave him a cold look. I hate when people pry into my private thoughts, and just then I was thinking about whether I should try to find out if I really couldn’t read Jane or if she just had a block around her thoughts.

“Stay the fuck out of my head, Tony.”

She looked up from the fridge and gave me a confused look, and Tony walked off, laughing and singing “True Love” by Pink. I swear that kid has got some screws loose. Shaking my head, I turned to see Jane staring at me. She had the most beautiful golden brown eyes that I have ever seen in my life. My eyes started trailing down to her lips and I was tempted to see how they tasted. Before I could control it, I could feel myself getting excited and my fangs started to slowly come out. Shit, Julian control yourself. I cleared my throat and turned quickly towards the door.

“Nice meeting you, Jane. Hope you feel better.”

I fled the apartment before she had the chance to say anything and went off looking for Tony. Her scent was still present in my mind; the smell of coco butter and vanilla bath wash mixed with a hint of her sweet perfume. Damn it, nobody told me it was going to be this hard when it happened. When I got to the car, Tony was leaning on the passenger door, smiling at me. The bastard thought this was funny.

“Don’t say a word and just get your ass in the car.”

********

“NO! Please don’t do this. Just let us go and I won't tell anyone what I saw. Please.”

I have to save my children. I don’t care if he takes me but I must find a way to get the children to safety. Trying to come up with a plan on how to get out of the situation, I hold my children closer to my chest and hope that someone comes to save us. I could hear and feel the panic in the kids and I tried to sooth them the best that I could.

Shhhh, don’t show him that you are scared and be sure to block your thoughts. Everything will be fine.

I look down at my three beautiful children and instantly fill their minds with thoughts of happiness to ease their panic. I looked back at the man holding us captive and tried to reason with him. His eyes were blood shot red and his fangs were fully out. He looked like a monster and he might as well be called a monster after what he just did.

“So you think I’m a monster now? What an awful way of describing someone.”

He lets out a sick, creepy laugh, and snatched me up by the hair. I let out a sharp scream and pain started radiating from my head to the rest of my body. My vision started to blur and I could feel my consciousness fading as he sunk his fangs into my neck.

“NO!”

I woke up screaming and fighting with my covers as if I was being attacked. My bed was soaked with sweat and my heart was beating so fast that it looked like it was going to fly out of my chest. For the last two weeks I have been having these weird dreams that creep me out. The first dream happened the night after I met Julian. I saw him and Tony and a woman who must be their sister, Alexandra. They were running through the woods as if they were being chased by some kind of monster. In the dream, they all looked to be in their teens and were wearing some old medieval clothes similar to the ones I saw in the vision I had of that man and woman. Ever since that night, I have been getting a different dream every night. Tonight was the worst. I could sense the fear and pain in the woman this time. I could smell the dirt and mold that was around them and could hear her scream ringing in my ear. I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel like Julian plays a role in why I’m having these weird dreams and I need to get to the bottom of it. Shit, I cant even have a decent night's sleep. I’m even getting to the point where I’m scared to dream.

Later that day, I decided to go for a jog in the park to get my mind off of the craziness that was going on in my life. Halfway through my jog, I noticed that I left my phone at the house. Damn, if mom calls me and I don’t answer, she will be likely to blow up my phone, then try to slip in my mind to find out where I am. That’s one thing I hated about having a mom with telepathic powers; she could find me anywhere, and that was just creepy. I turned around to head back to the house and ended up crashing into something solid as a rock.

“What the fuck? Watch where you’re going, you ass.”

“Wow, is that how you talk to everyone that you bump into?”

I looked up to see Julian smiling and looking down at me. I could feel my face starting to flush from embarrassment. Ugh, why did he have to look so damn sexy smiling at me like that? It made me have butterflies in my stomach. I got off the ground and gave him a quick smile.

“Sorry about that. I’ve been a little cranky lately.”

I rushed past him and started walking home. Something about him makes me want to just jump his bones, and that scares me. I haven’t been in a real relationship since my bad breakup with David two years ago and the fact that I’m having intense emotions towards a total stranger is kind of freaking me out. Rushing to cross the street, I slipped on the pavement and almost fell when someone grabbed me. A shock went through my body and everything went white. All I could see was a man and a woman on the floor, bleeding out by the neck, staring at me as if they were asking for my help. I tried to reach towards them, but I was brought back into reality.

“Are you OK, Jane? You look a little flushed.”

I gave him a quick nod and tried to get up. The vision that I just had left me a little weak and I had to use him for support.

“Yeah I’m fine, just a little winded.”

“You had another vision, didn’t you? Do you get them a lot?”

“Not really. They normally come when they feel like it, but for some reason, they come every time you and I make skin contact.”

“Really? So what do these vision normally show you?”

“It depends on the person, really. Some visions show the past and some show what’s about to happen somewhere in the near future.”

Why is he asking so many questions about my visions? I feel like I’m on trial or something. I really need to try to avoid skin contact with him, though. These visions are starting to take a toll on me. My mind started to spin and I started to lose my balance walking towards my place.

“Whoa, maybe I should carry you to your house. You don’t seem like you have the strength to walk.”

I was about to tell him he didn’t have to, but my vision started to blur. The next thing I knew, I was being swept off my feet and he started carrying me. Damn, he smelled good, like axe body spray—the phoenix kind. My favorite. I snuggled my face closer to his chest and could feel his heart beat.

“Ummm, I like the way you smell.”

He let out a laugh and I just wanted to melt in his arms. I swear I could stay like that forever. He could be my night in shining armor that saves me from my miserable love life. I wrapped my arms around his neck and started to drift off as I enjoyed being carried by my dream guy.