edited

|Adara De Clare|

On our way to Nikolai's safe house, we go so fast my eyes begin to blur and tear up. I end up putting my head in the crevice of his neck. Holding on to him tight but not so much that I'm choking him.

After a few minutes of him running, and me about to fall asleep, we reach. He stops and he carries me inside the wood-made cabin in the woods. This looks more like a place to vacation for Christmas or summer instead of a safe house. Then again this is the Vampire Prince I'm talking about here.

He closes the door and checks to make sure that all the windows and doors are closed. I carefully sit on the beautifully decorated couch. I still feel sick. I don't want to throw up but the image of all the dead people I tripped over and their bloodied faces, their brains oozing out. . .

"How are you feeling? You look drastically pale." Nikolai sits beside me, putting his arm around me.

His voice snaps me out of the visions of the dead people. I look at him, feeling as if I was going to cry. I don't. I hold it in. I don't need him to see me as a crybaby, everyone already thinks that.

I swallow, "I'm not okay." I decide to be truthful instead of pretending to be fine. Besides, I'm sure that he can tell that I'm not fine.

He rubs my arm, "I know."

I look up at him, "How are you?" I hesitate to ask him.

He doesn't really show his emotions a lot.

I don't know if he'll open up to me or not. I mean, being as old as him he must've seen dead people before. This wasn't the first time I've seen someone dead, I've been to funerals. This is my first time seeing people killed, the blood dripping down their bodies and everything. That's terrifying.

Could we have saved them? Somehow could we have checked their pulse to see if they had a chance? We didn't though. There could've been at least one person out there who wasn't dead and we could've been the people to help them but we were too busy thinking only about ourselves.

What if they saw us and were trying to call out but we couldn't hear them. Maybe they couldn't even speak because they were in so much pain. Imagine just lying there in immense pain not being able to move or speak then you hear or see two people walking out and they could save you. You try crying out for them but they walk away and don't look back. You shut your eyes tight as tears roll down your face, knowing that you're going to die.

We lived, but at what cost?

"Come here." I look at Nikolai and he's looking at me solemnly, my vision blurry.

I'm crying.

Sobs escape my lips and I fall helplessly into his arms. He wraps them around me, tight. I take ahold of his white dress-shirt that became dirty from the bombing and I grip it. My tears stream onto his shirt, and he rubs my back, kissing my head.

Minutes pass by and I've stopped crying. I'm in that stage of numbness where I won't move nor speak. All I do is blink and breathe. That's it. Nikolai holds me there until I end up falling asleep. I don't know when but I end up falling asleep, thankful that there aren't any dead bodies in my dreams.

Thankfully, I didn't dream at all. If I did I'm sure it would have something to do with the bombing or me tripping or seeing the dead bodies.

Terrifying stuff.

I wake to darkness, the entire room is engulfed in darkness. It's scary. I raise myself up onto my elbows and I look around, trying to see if I can make anything out. I can't. It's that dark.

I swing my legs off the bed and onto the floor. I flinch at the cold floor and I get off the bed. I stumble around in the dark trying to find the door.

Okay, so I found it, now I have to find the knob. I reach around and I finally find it then I turn it.

I see a dim light downstairs, I peer over the stair rails to see Nikolai sitting in the couch watching the tv. He looks. . .sad.

I've never seen him sad. I wonder if everything is alright?

I take my time going down the stairs until I've reached the bottom. I walk over to the couch and I sit beside him. I carefully observe his face before looking at the television screen.

It's a news report on what happened at the movies. Oh my gosh. It says that the youngest confirmed dead is no older than seven years old. My God. That child had so much potential but it was taken from her.

A weight falls onto my shoulders and I look at Nikolai. His eyes glisten, showing the sign of possible tears.

"We couldn't have done anything, Nick." I rest my arm on his arm in an effort to comfort him. I'm not sure I totally believe that but it's the only thing I can say right now that would make him feel better and me too honestly.

He swallows, "Yeah—" He clears his throat, "Yeah. It's not just that." He tells me.

My eyebrows crease and I look at him confused, "What do you mean?"

"I've seen her before."

My eyebrows raise, "You have?"

He nods. "It was the night I stopped that vampire from killing you."

For real?

Woah.

"Oh, what happened for you to meet her?" I ask him, my voice small.

He exhales, "I was angry and I went into a random person's house. I grabbed the first person I could find, digging my fangs into them. I heard them scream and I pulled away immediately. It was her, I accidentally fed from a child. No one is to feed on a child."

"Why? Because they're young and just kids?" I ask softly.

He shakes his head, "It's because children can't take the pain. They're too young to receive the hormone which allows for the process to be painless. The pain is unlike anything you could imagine. It feels like you're on fire from your head down to your toes, it's literally torture. Anyway, she was feeling that pain, so I took it away from her then I left. Of all the things I've done, that is the worst." He finishes, holding his head down in between his legs.

I scoot closer to him, rubbing his back and running my fingers through his hair.

"I'll be honest, I'm not totally great with giving advice all I can say right now is, 'that sucks'." I tell him and he laughs a little.

He lifts his head up, gazing his beautiful light brown eyes into mine. He looks at me vulnerably with tears running down his cheeks. He rests his head on my lap and I play in his hair, giving him a massage.

"Adara." He calls my name and I hum in response.

"Please don't tell anyone about this." He says, and I look at him surprised and sad.

Tears well up in my eyes, and I swallow, trying to stop myself from crying too, "I promise I won't." I tell him the truth, and he rests his hand over my legs, trying to get comfortable.

I doubt he is. He's lying on one arm whilst twisting his body, which can't be comfortable.

"Why don't you go lie down in the bed? It's much more comfortable." I suggest but he shakes his head.

"If I do you won't be there beside me." He mumbles. My eyes widen and my lips part a little.

I know that he has wanted me to lie beside him before but I didn't know that it was this bad.

"What happened at school yesterday?" He asks me.

I crease my eyebrows, "Yesterday?" Isn't it still today?

"It's after 2 in the morning, so it was yesterday." He explains to me and I nod.

I sigh, "It's about Via. She didn't come to the cafeteria then when I left I saw her hanging out with this group that she swore she would never hang out with. I tried to ask her about it in Art, but she was working on her project which I get. I texted her, hoping we could talk about it then but she read my message and didn't respond. I don't know if there's something going on or not." I explain to him, twirling couple of strands of his hair in between my fingers.

"I was wondering when you'd begin to notice it." He says and I look at him confused.

"What do you mean? Notice what?"

"Notice what a horrible friend she is and that she's extremely fake."

My eyebrows shoot up. "No, she's not, she just has a few problems going on right now."

Via's my best friend, it's my duty to defend her. Besides, she's not fake. Maybe that's how it looks to Nikolai but that's not how it actually is. She's an amazing friend, but things have just been strained with her family. I totally get it. I'm just a bit worried about her.

Nikolai raises his head from off my lap and he places his hand on my cheek. His eyelashes wet, he looks up at me with pursed pink lips. "If you had whatever going on as she does, would you lie to your best friend and ignore her?" He asks me and I freeze.

I wouldn't.

I shake my head and he sighs. "But she's not fake, she can't be, we've been best friends since we were freshmen," I tell him and he nods.

"Well, I hope so, for your sake." He tells me.

"When can we go back home?" I ask him.

"Soon, angel, soon." He says closing his eyes.

I bite my lip.

How soon is 'soon'?

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