Will sat dumbfounded in his apartment, staring at the floor waiting for Lena to return. He wasn’t sure if he desperately wanted to see her again, or if he should run screaming for the hills.
She was no different than earlier that day, he told himself, but then he laughed out loud. At least now he knew why she was so strange.
Everything she said and did was careful, like she thought she was being watched. Or maybe like she didn’t know how to act.
And Lena didn’t eat dinner, though she had acted hungry.
Will shuddered slightly. Hungry meant something different for her. That cheeseburger she hardly ate wasn’t gonna cut it.
But the little, blonde creature was terrifying, and Lena wasn’t. The blonde filled Will with a sense of dread he was sure he’d never shake. She would probably slaughter him in his dreams every night for the rest of his life.
Lena didn’t make him feel that way at all. Lena didn’t just not make him feel scared, she made him feel good. Like he could do something more with his life, be something more than what he had been or ever thought he could be.
That hopeful feeling stayed with him all day. It worked its way into everything he thought, everything he said. It was irrational, like his feelings about Lena. He had no reason and no right to like her, to feel certain he was safe with her. But he did.
Will was the black sheep of his family. His two sisters were perfect. Both were happily married, both waiting until their thirties to have kids, like their parents always encouraged. Katie worked in the District Attorney’s office and helped bring criminals to justice. Nikki was a photographer and traveled the world with her zoologist husband. Will thought she was in Kenya right now. Her photos could be seen in almost every nature magazine on the planet.
The family loved to hear their stories, and then turn to Will expectantly, awaiting some similarly fantastic piece of news that he never had available to share.
Will wondered if Lena knew how that felt too, like she seemed to understand the rest of his family problems. The thought made him smile
He wondered then if he had those kinds of feelings for her. He didn’t think so. Or, if he did, he was too confused and grossed out by the vampire situation to know it.
Kyle wasn’t even really hurt. Will had the feeling it would have been easy for her to kill him, to drink all his blood or to snap his neck if the spirit moved her. She was supposedly strong, and quick, so definitely capable. But she chose not to.
That meant something.
What would the logistics be, he wondered, to dating a vampire?
Will shook his head and laughed awkwardly. He was being dumb, but it was a good distraction.
If he had been asked by someone before today what his reaction would be to learning there were really vampires in the world, Will wouldn’t have thought in a million years he’d be so casual about it. Making jokes and possibly having feelings for one of them? It was crazy.
But when he thought about her peculiar blue eyes, about the cool smoothness of her skin, of the way she made him feel, all Will could do was smile. She was unlike every girl he’d ever met. Of course, no kidding, she was different than any other girl. But beyond the obvious, Will felt like there was something between them. Some sort of link that made him understand where she was coming from and made her get why he was the way he was.
Maybe he was making it up, lost in the fantasy since the day had been beyond surreal. Maybe it was all in his head, and after being away from her for an hour for the first time in half a day, he’d feel differently when she came back.
There was a thud at the door. Not the normal, rapid knock with knuckles, but one solid thump, as if whoever was on the other side slapped their hand flat to the door. Once.
As Will hopped from the bed and spanned his small apartment, a feeling of oddly familiar unease crept into the pit of his stomach. There was no reason for it to be there, so he tried not to read into it. But it did make him take a moment before turning the doorknob.
Fear slithered inside. He figured out why the uneasy feeling he was having felt so familiar only after it was too late.