Chapter 15: The Vampire Pirate's Daughter by Lynette Ferreira
When I am a distance away, I hear Carmine’s voice as if she is talking next to me, “Susie, where are you going?”
I hear Duncan ask, “How did she do that?”
I could not walk away now. It would result in us having to move again, move somewhere far away. I would have to stay and somehow explain what had just happened before I appeared on some most wanted list. Could I even leave Andrew, when I have this unexplained pull toward him? I have these emotions and feelings when I look at him or when I see him which I have never experienced before. I have always wanted to know what it feels like to love and to be loved, and this could be my one and only opportunity. Knowing I will always have Ethan, he would always try to convince me he feels affection for me, but this with Andrew could have a different prospect for me. I laugh cynically—a different prospect for a short moment in time, perhaps.
Turning to the wreck again, I slowly walk back to them.
When I reach them, the people who had arrived are helping where they can. I hear the ambulance, even before they see the lights approaching.
The white vehicle stops next to the crunched-up metal which used to be a car. The red-light blinks… blinks … blinks irritatingly.
Standing separated from them I notice the paramedics lean over Andrew, where he is still on the ground where I left him. The paramedics look him over, prodding here and there, and then they lift him onto a stretcher.
The paramedic calls to me and I walk back to them. He wants to take my pulse, but I pull my arm away from his probing fingers. I say determinedly, “I am fine. Will Andrew be okay?”
“He’ll be fine,” he replies dismissively.
A paramedic leans over Carmine and they clean her arm. The amount of blood did not justify the injury.
A police van stops behind the ambulance and I see them leading Duncan to it. He goes willingly and I think he must still be in shock.
The paramedic standing across from me turns back to me. “There is a police squad car, behind that red car, parked over there.” He lifts his finger to point it out. “You and your friend there with the scratch on her arm can go with them to the hospital. Even if you say you are fine, and you look fine, you should still be examined and kept overnight.”
He starts to walk away from me, and I follow him. I come to a stop next to Carmine and the paramedic helps her to her feet. She is weak and I immediately put my arm around her shoulder to support her.
Slowly we walk to the police car and then a police officer opens the back door for us, and we get into the car. We sit there silently waiting for the police officer while he is talking to another officer. The scene looks like a nightclub, with all the flashing lights in blue and red.
The police officer gets into the cruiser and he starts his car. We follow the ambulance back into the city and I watch everything around me with a distant disassociation.
I feel Carmine reaching for me. Her hand folds around mine tentatively and I hold her hand tightly.
When we eventually get to the hospital, I see the stretcher Andrew is on, pushed into a different direction to where the officer is leading us. I stay with Carmine while they put antiseptic on her wound again. It is not big enough to warrant stitches.
Moments later her mum and dad rush into the emergency room. Mr Van Heerden is an imposing figure and at school, he reigns with a steel fist. He is frowning irately, but Mrs Van Heerden is a real motherly figure, and looking at her, I feel sad when there is nobody coming to rush to my side. Amanda and Shayne probably do not even know I am here. I wonder how it would feel to have those pudgy arms fold around me and to sink into that plumpness.
I excuse myself, mumbling I should phone my brother and hear Mrs Van Heerden ask Carmine where Andrew is and then Mr Van Heerden grumbles something incoherently.
I walk out of the hospital. Nobody came to me to see if I was okay. They assumed I was only a passer-by lending a helping hand. Looking at me, you would not say I had just been through a traumatic experience. This, however, is nothing compared to other experiences I have encountered before.
I stay outside watching life pass me by for hours and then I walk back into the hospital. Wandering through the endless corridors, I eventually see his sleeping face on the snow-white pillow. A soft light glow over him in the otherwise dark room.
Softly I walk toward his bed. I sit down on the bench next to his bed and then softly I cup my hand over his.
He stirs and then he opens his eyes gradually. When his eyes focus on me, he smiles slowly and he whispers, “Hey.”
THE NEXT MORNING, I get a worried call from Amanda. With motherly concern, she says hurriedly when I answer the phone, “Susie! Where are you?”
Defiantly I answer her, “It took you this long to notice I was not there?”
Defensively she replies, “No, we noticed this morning already, but we thought you were just having fun. It is late now though, and I was getting worried.”
I sigh. It has been a long night. “I am okay. We were in a car accident last night and I am here with Andrew.”
Andrew is looking at me and I smile at him. I say Andrew, but she does not know about him. How do you explain you are desperately in love with someone you should not even be friends with? We have lived long enough to integrate ourselves into everyday living, but it would be unacceptable to fall in love with a human. I would be the laughingstock of my community.
She asks, “Is he one of your friends?”
“Yes. He is Carmine’s brother.” She knows who Carmine is. After that first day, Carmine came to my house and permanently borrowed my clothes, she has come over regularly. Carmine often exclaims how idyllic it must be to live with your older brother and his wife.
“Was he seriously hurt?” Amanda asks.
“No, he is okay. He knocked his head badly, but other than that, he will be okay.”
“It is always so sad to watch them when one of their own dies. Carmine is close to you, so I would have hated to have to see her so sad when she came to visit you. It would dampen that bubbly personality of hers.”
Since the invention of the ‘vitamin’, there is nothing that can kill us. Shayne, Amanda and I tend to avoid the murderous groups of our race. Just as humans do, we have our bad areas too, where we avoid settling down, so we are never really in any real danger of being killed unless of course, we went looking for trouble.
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