Chapter Four
JULIAN
I’m caught up in a whirlwind of darkness and confusion. I want to lift my arms, but they feel like heavy weights. It’s like someone filled my limbs with sand and my mind is caught up in a weird foggy mess.
When I manage to finally focus, I realize that there’s someone looming over me.
He’s being all creepy and loomy, and I feel like I’ve been drugged or something. “Hmm…” I mutter. “Ammm I… dead?”
“Surprisingly… you’re not,” he says. “It’s rather fascinating.”
“Fascinating,” I repeat, and then I realize I’m talking to myself.
Was there ever actually anyone there? Was I imagining a sexy vampire with a stone-cold stare?
Am I, with my dying breath, thinking about how I sold him five hundred dollars’ worth of candy bars instead of replaying the best moments of my life?
Was that one of the best moments of my life? If it was, I kind of sucked at living.
“Julian!”
I turn my head and see my mom hovering over me. She looks like a wreck. Honestly, she looks like she jumped headfirst into a tornado and was spit out the other side.
“What happened…”
She quickly tries to answer, like she’s afraid if I talk too much it might hurt me worse. “You were attacked?—”
“No… what happened to your hair,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. “You… you…” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve grieved by your bedside nonstop for two days and begged and prayed and pleaded that I wouldn’t lose you, and the first thing you comment on… is my hair ?”
“Yeah,” I say as I reach out to pet it.
And because she loves me, she sighs and lets me pet her wild hair, which fills me with some weird sense of glee.
I close my eyes for a moment as I try to figure out everything that’s happening. I remember being chased… the vampires… the silver…
Maybe I really am dead. I mean… why else would the sexy and mysterious vampire have been looming over me and breathing heavily?
“Am I dead?”
“N-No,” Mom says, getting choked up. “Sorry, it’s been a rough couple of days. When… when I was on the phone with you… and I heard… I heard them, I called your father right away and… I was afraid he didn’t get there in time. Thankfully, Casimir was nearby and saved your life.”
“Should I feel guilty that I charged him four… wait, no, five dollars a candy bar?” I mutter. “It’s a wonder he saved me at all.”
“You did what ?” Mom growls.
“Wait… oh no… I can’t hear you… the light… I’m going toward it—” I tease.
Mom sighs and sinks down in a chair. “You… just… you…”
“Me,” I concur.
She reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“How come I didn’t die?” I ask, highly confused. “Someone shot me with silver.”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “The strange thing is that there’s still traces of silver in your blood.”
I decide that I’m hearing things and close my eyes while that slowly digests. “I think you heard them wrong or they read their reports wrong.”
“Yeah…”
And with that, I drift off to sleep. It’s a fitful sleep filled with vampires hunting me and no matter how fast I run, it’s like I’m running in place as they laugh and jeer and tear me apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left.
I wake with a start, jarring my stomach, which makes pain course through me. I bite it back, and when I open my eyes, I see Mom and Dad fixated on me.
“You okay?” Mom asks.
“Fine, I just jerked my stomach. I’m really thirsty.”
Mom hands me a cup and even goes so far as to push the straw at my lips, like she’s afraid I can’t do it myself.
“How do you feel?” Dad asks.
“Like I got pummeled to the ground and my stomach was ripped open, my neck gnawed on, and then someone gave me some wonky drugs,” I say.
“Nothing else feels weird?”
Like that wasn’t enough? “No… should it? Did I lose a limb and can’t remember or something? Am I like a clone you made to replace your favorite son since your second son couldn’t fill the hole in your heart?” I ask.
“I heard that.”
I look over at the door as my brother Rhett walks in. I toss him a grin as he comes over to squeeze my hand. Gruffly, he says, “I’m glad to see you here with the living.”
“Sorry you couldn’t take my place as the favorite.”
“I didn’t want to tell you this, but when Mom told me what happened, she was like ‘I’m just glad it didn’t happen to my favorite son.’”
That makes me laugh, then I immediately cringe. “Oh god, don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
While werewolves do heal faster, they’re not like vampires who can heal immediately. A wound probably takes a quarter of the time a human would to heal, yet for me, it generally takes a little longer to heal than it would for other werewolves.
Because of weres’ ability to heal, Dad’s pack uses a specific doctor who is also a wolf. While his crew isn’t made up of all werewolves, they know about them, mostly from family members having been turned.
“Am I imagining things or did Mr. Vampire Lord Casimir himself come visit me?” I ask.
“I’ve been here nearly the whole time, and unless I was asleep when it happened, I don’t recall such a thing,” Mom says.
“And Mom would know. Last time he was on TV, I heard her go, ‘Damn, that man could suck the life out of me,’” Rhett says.
Mom slowly looks at him. “And do you remember me telling you that you were not to share that information with anyone ?”
“Huh. Did that happen?” Rhett asks.
“It did,” Mom grumbles.
Dad, who hasn’t been in a relationship with our mom for, oh… twenty years, fixates on her. “You said what about a vampire ?”
“Oh, here we go again,” Mom mutters. “Rhett, this is your fault. Do not forget this.”
Rhett seems rather proud of himself, and I find myself drifting off to the sound of my father explaining why vampires are the spawn of Satan.
It’s all very conspiracy theory, which Dad lives for, but it’s also phenomenally good at putting me to sleep.
Next time I have insomnia… I really should give him a call.
I’m absolutely thrilled to get to go home. I’m still sore as hell and my stomach is slowly improving, but the idea of getting out of the emergency center after spending four days in it is absolutely magical.
“I’m free! I’m finally free,” I whisper as I’m wheeled outside like I can’t use my own two legs.
“Settle down,” Mom barks as she tries to force me to stay seated until she can get the car door open.
“I was convinced you guys weren’t ever going to let me out,” I say as I quickly scurry into the car and slam the door shut before someone can change their mind.
“You are being dramatic,” Mom says as she gets into the car with me.
“I’ve never been dramatic in my life besides that one time Dad brought home a rabbit for me. I was so excited. I thought she was my new pet—I’d already named her Big Foot—and then Dad told me that I had to chase and kill her! Kill that sweet little fluffy thing.”
Mom sighs. “Don’t remind me. You grabbed it and hid in the treehouse with it until I picked you up on Sunday.”
“I cried a lot too.”
“And I ended up having to help you take care of the dumb thing! This is why your father and I could never work.”
“Because he got ten-year-olds live rabbits to murder?”
“Your father tried so hard to mold you into an image of himself that he ended up driving you away.”
“Right? Now when I see him, I just run.”
“He was really worried about you, though… I’ve never seen him like that. The moment… the moment he called, I knew it was bad.” She swallows hard, and for some reason, it makes me feel guilty.
“I’m sorry I made you worry.”
“Don’t be,” Mom says as she passes the road to my house and heads toward hers.
“Where… are we going?”
“I’m taking care of you.”
I glance over at her as she gives me a look that tells me I have no say in this. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“It’s me or your father. Now pick.”
“I’m looking forward to being in your care.”
She smirks at me. “That’s what I thought.”
“I’m just hoping you’ll brush your hair,” I whisper, and despite being human, she sure has some good hearing on her because her narrowed eyes lock on to mine. It makes me laugh, which hurts… but it’s worth it.
“It’s not my fault you can get mauled, spend four days in a hospital, and still have such phenomenal hair.”
“Right?” I ask as I run my fingers through it. “It’s a lot of work being this amazing.”
“I bet.”
“I’ve just always wondered where I got the hair from until I met our mailman…”
“I wish you were the mailman’s son,” she mutters.
I grin at her as she pulls into the driveway. As she parks, I push the door open, thrilled to finally escape. There’s absolutely no way she’s going to let me care for myself, but it’ll be nice to at least be semi-free.
When I stand up, she comes rushing around the car as I feel a weird burning sensation that makes me hesitate.
“See! I told you to wait for me, but you’re just so stubborn all the time! See why I know you’re not the mailman’s son? Because he knew how to listen!”
“Oh? So while I was off hiding the rabbit you were off playing hide-and-seek with the mailman?”
“I sure was,” she jokes… or at least I think she’s joking. “Take my arm.”
I really felt fine when I left the hospital, but when she offers me her arm, I don’t hesitate to take it. Instead, I wrap my fingers around her wrist while it feels like hot oil is being pushed through my veins…
Just like when the silver had rushed through me.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asks, her grip on me tightening.
“N-Nothing,” I say, not wanting to worry her because I’m sure it’s fine. “It’s just…”
Pain courses through me as I gasp and my vision darkens. If she hadn’t been holding on to me, I’m sure I’d have fallen.
“Julian? Julian, what’s wrong?” Mom asks as she tries holding me up.
“It… it feels like silver… it feels like I’ve been… injected with silver,” I whisper as pain ripples through my body. Mom tries to catch me as I’m falling and keeps me from hitting my head as I hear her quickly calling someone. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine!” she snaps, and I can tell she’s panicking. “Can you get back in the car?”
“Yeah,” I say as she grabs me and starts dragging. It’s like the world is spinning, but with her pulling me, I somehow find myself hitting the seat a moment before I pass out.