Picking Up Pieces #4
“Yeah. The same day he turned me. Right after I did my first three kills. I woke up again and he told me his plans. Basically for me to become his lackey. Do his bidding. Typical vampire movie shit. I was planning to deal with it for a while and see where it led until I found out he killed my family. That changed things.” His voice was careful.
Too controlled. I couldn’t tell if he was suppressing emotions, or not feeling any at all.
“Did you kill his family, too?”
“No. Just him. You’d think he’d see it coming, but the guy was an idiot. I set him on fire and watched him burn. Then I sliced a few parts and let him bleed out.”
“You didn’t get arrested for it?”
“No.” He shrugged. “The evidence must’ve burned down.
I went home and never heard about it again.
I inherited everything from my family, plus my parents’ life insurance and a trust fund they’d apparently left me.
So I moved on with life on my own. I never stopped doing unnecessary kills. I enjoy them.”
“Is that why you’re so obsessed with burning things and that lighter?”
“No. As far as I know, I’ve always been a pyro. Fire soothes me.”
“Do you regret any of your kills?”
“No.”
“Oh.” I frowned, unsure how to take his emotionless response. It wasn’t a pleasant answer. Not that I’d expected a different one. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I’d expected.
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, I’m not a good person.”
“I can’t imagine you being a genuinely bad person,” I said, more to myself than anything. “So you said that guy bound you and you killed him the same day, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you only ever get one bind. And we’re bound. So how does that work?”
“If the vampire who bound you dies or undoes it, you can choose your own bind. But if you’re the one who did the binding and it’s undone for whatever reason, you can never choose again and no one else can bind you.”
“Huh.” I tilted my head, trying to decide how to feel about this. It seemed like there was too much human and vampire property going on.
“Because there is. I told you, you’re my property.”
“Not this again,” I groaned. “Stop calling me your property.”
“Basically,” he continued over me, “if you ever wanna choose your own bind, you can if I die.”
“Don’t say that!” I looked at him in horror.
“You’re not dying. You’re not allowed to die.
Stay alive. Undead. Stay undead, but don’t actually die.
” I giggled at my clever choice of words.
“Tell me more about yourself.” I pulled my legs from his lap to perch on my knees.
“I wanna know about you. Like really know.”
“I tell you things all the time.”
“About being a vampire, but not about you. Tell me something,” I said.
“My favorite color is red.”
“Really? I thought it would be black.”
“Nope. Blood red.”
“I should’ve known.” I playfully rolled my eyes at his mischievous smile. Blood red was so fitting. And it was the only color he owned besides black. “What’s your favorite movie?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Favorite show?” I tried again.
“Don’t have one.”
“Favorite song?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, I know. What’s your favorite book? You have to have one of those. You’re always reading.”
“My favorite book?” He paused to think. “I guess I’d have to say Dracula and Salem’s Lot. I like mysteries and thrillers, mostly.”
“You’re so predictable for someone who laughs at me for believing vampire stereotypes.
I mean look at this,” I flung an arm out, “we’re sitting in the coffin you sleep in, in the middle of a pitch black room while you burn things with a blood red lighter.
And look at that, for fuck’s sake.” I pointed to something I had just noticed: a miniature cemetery, complete with collectible tombstones, laid out neatly across the top of his bookshelf.
Which was, of course, filled with horror novels.
“Do you have a favorite anything besides blood red and vampire books?”
“Yeah. You’re my favorite bind.”
“You only get one, dummy,” I reminded him. “That’s a given.”
“You only ever get one you can choose,” he corrected. “And chances are, you probably won’t find one you want. Lucky for me, I did.”
“Same thing.” I tried to make my voice indifferent.
I was also trying to suppress my smile and the faint blush creeping up before he noticed.
He was making me so happy tonight. “Where’d you go to college?
” I asked. It was the next thing that came to mind.
He answered and my mouth dropped in disbelief. “Isn’t that an Ivy League?”
“Ivy Plus,” he said. “Not quite, but it’s close.”
“Still! Isn’t that like, a school for genius people with 4.5 GPAs and shit?” I straightened up when he somewhat nodded. He didn’t seem to care, but I was in awe. I had no idea he was actually prestigious or whatever. “What’d you major in?”
“I double majored in Forensic Science, and Psychology with a specialization in Abnormal Psychology. Plus a minor in Criminology.”
“Are you serious?” I began piecing things together when he nodded.
“This explains so much. No wonder you’re so fascinated by death and murders.
And that explains how you never get caught killing people.
You studied how to find evidence so of course you know how to not leave any.
” I kept staring, at a loss for words. And then I found more and kept going.
“And you studied abnormal psychology! That’s the study of mental illnesses, right? ”
“Among other things.”
I was thinking back to the way he’d reacted when I first mentioned having bipolar disorder.
He’d gotten so serious, like he was processing it and rethinking specific things instead of being generally awkward or freaked out like most people.
The way he’d asked about my specific triggers, if I had type one or two, and so many other comments he’d made or questions he’d asked that most people would never think of.
“Holy shit, Dennis. You must be super smart. I never noticed.”
“You don’t notice a lot of things,” he said.
“Well now I feel stupid. Are Sean and Mateo super smart, too?”
“We went to the same college, if that’s what you mean. Sean was a Business major and Mateo majored in Kinesiology. We all met in a night PoliSci class freshman year.”
“Ugh. This means I’m the only one who’s not basically genius level in this house.” I pouted before deciding I didn’t actually care. “When’s your birthday?”
“Why do you wanna know?”
“So we can celebrate it. Duh.” My focus dwindled when he stood from the coffin.
He pulled off his dark shirt, then tossed it aside and began sifting through drawers for another.
I couldn’t help but admire his tattoos. And his back.
Literally everything. “I’m gonna make you a cake and everything,” I said, fighting through my straying thoughts.
“I’ll even bring you a human, if you want. ”
“Oh, yeah?” He changed to a black shirt and stripped down to boxers.
“Yeah. What do you want?”
“For what?”
“Your birthday, silly. Pay attention.” I shifted as he returned.
“I don’t want anything.”
“Nope, not an option. I’m gonna find you the perfect present and you’re gonna love it.” I waited expectantly, hoping he’d come up with something good. I really wanted to get him something special.
“I’ll think about it and let you know,” he finally said. “It’s in November.”
“Oh! It’s coming up?” I sucked in an excited breath as he chuckled. He pulled my legs across his lap again.
“The 29th.”
I was beaming now. I had so many ideas for him. I had to find out his favorite cake flavor, favorite thing to do. Maybe visit a cemetery? Would he like that? Or maybe… “What?” I realized his eyes were on me. Was I talking out loud on accident?
“Nothing. You weren’t.” He laughed at my confusion. “You’re so fucking adorable.”
“I’m not.”
“It doesn’t make you any less sexy or gorgeous, if that’s what you’re worried about. You pull off all three.”
I kept shaking my head. I disagreed. I was none of the three. “No. Just stop complimenting me, please. I don’t want them.” I fumbled with the sheets beneath us.
“You’re still not over everything that girl said, are you?”
I blinked. Shook my head. Whimpered at a surge of emotion. He frowned as I wiped away sudden tears. A switch had flipped the moment he called me adorable.
“Do you wanna sleep in here tonight?” he asked. “I won’t try anything.”
I nodded and lay by his side, snuggling close as he settled in beside me.
The sound of his voice was more soothing than I remembered.
“I’m sorry I called you crazy and told you to fuck off so many times,” I said.
“You just seemed really delusional at first so I assumed you were, but now I feel bad because you’re actually not.
Even though you did literally stalk me, but I’m over that now. ”
“It’s okay. It never bothered me.”
I took a second before kissing him, sweetly this time. It went against every rule I had, but I didn’t care. When I pulled away, he was smiling cutely. I smiled back and turned over, taking his arm and hand with me.
“Goodnight, Dennis.”
“‘Night, Vixen.”