‘Are you here to tell us about Steven?’ Ingrid asked, her voice light, casual.
Since Ingrid had her back turned as she poured the tea, Emily winced. Her son’s name – it was hard to hear. Fighting hard to keep it together, she added, ‘Kind of, do you have any sugar?’
‘Of course, would you like one or two?’
Even though she hated sugar, she knew Anna had a sweet tooth. ‘Two please, got to have a few vices in life.’
‘Always the same Anna. Have you attacked one of the bakeries yet and bought your favourite jam doughnuts?’
‘Thank you for reminding me.’ Emily cringed internally – the thought of eating anything that sugar-coated made her feel sick.
Just then, a brunette with thick, curly hair entered the kitchen and embraced Emily, ‘Anna, I’m so glad you came.’
Emily hugged her back; she knew Anna would have done the same. ‘Good to see you too, Lana.’ Anna was married to Lana’s brother, Juan, and they had always been close, so she had to keep up the façade.
‘It’s good to see you too, but, before the others come, I need to discuss something with you privately.’ She was not used to having people like her, as they did Anna, so she decided to get straight to the point. If she was not careful, she would give herself away with uncharacteristic actions.
‘Ingrid has fraternised with a human that is under my protection. I’m sure she is aware he is like us. Otherwise, he would have died when she attacked him. I know this is a lot to ask, but,’ she hesitated, ‘this is going to sound terrible, but, I need you to tell Ian you made a mistake. If anyone finds out he exists you will put his life in danger. I can’t tell you more, but you need to trust me. If you want to talk about this, I must insist that you come and see me, and only me.’ She knew she was pushing it – she had no choice.
Ingrid and Lana glanced at each other.
‘That’s a lot to take in, Anna. What exactly do you want us to do?’ Lana asked.
‘Steven needs to believe this is all a hoax. Ingrid you will tell him you were set up to scare him, say it was all a sick joke. He must believe you. Tell him whatever he needs to hear.’
‘I think I can do that. What if he does not listen?’
‘Make sure he does,’ she snapped, before changing the conversation briskly, ‘When are you all due to go back home?’
Lana glanced at Ingrid for a fraction of a second. Emily started to panic. They did not like her tone. She would have to relax.
‘We’re planning to head back tomorrow,’ Lana replied.
‘Right, well. We better get a move on,’ she smiled. ‘Sorry if I’m stressed out. This situation is, well, difficult.’ Emily shrugged her shoulders, trying to act normal.
‘That’s a novel way to look at it,’ Ingrid guffawed.
‘Ingrid, you have to come with me. I need to grab some of those jam doughnuts,’ Emily joked, in an attempt to sound at ease. ‘I’ll bring her back soon, so that we can all leave together.’
Before she could refuse, Ingrid’s father, Eilif, walked in. ‘Have you solved the mystery?’
Emily held back the urge to reply in anger. Instead, she adopted her most soothing voice, ‘There is no mystery. The boy means nothing. I’ve checked him out and Ingrid made a mistake. Something else must have gone wrong.’
‘Ingrid, is this true?’ He seemed surprised at the revelation.
Emily held her breath. She needed Ingrid and Lana to play ball.
‘If Anna thinks so, then I must have made a mistake. Maybe, I–I just could not kill him for another strange reason,’ Ingrid chuckled, uneasy.
Eilif laughed aloud and gave his daughter a hug, ‘Don’t be silly, I rarely ever kill any humans either. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one in the family that likes to stop.’
Emily shuddered internally – she had never been able to restrain herself from killing once she had started. Perhaps she was the monster.
Chapter 11
The Cover-Up
It had been one of those nights, a lot of tossing, turning, lying awake, going to the toilet, and having a drink of water – everything but sleep. When Steven finally dozed off, it was practically time to wake up. His head throbbed as he turned off the alarm. Woozy, he made his way to the small window and looked out. It was still dark, yet the street light sufficiently illuminated the puddles – rain, lots of it. It was tempting to get back into bed, but the clock read eight o’clock in the morning, which meant he had to get a move on since his lecture started at nine. He could have skipped the first one, convinced no-one would even notice his absence. Unfortunately, boarding school had drummed routine into his core.
He shuffled over to his en suite bathroom, scratched his head and yawned. At the mirror, he raised his chin and brushed his hand over his stubble – he would shave today. After a shower, with a towel wrapped around his waist, he applied the shaving foam and eased his razor across his neck. He rinsed the razor in the lukewarm water and got ready to continue. When he lifted his chin he came face to face with the mark. It had faded to a dull purple colour, but it was still there. He frowned as he finished the job. There was nothing he could do. Life moved on.
Breakfast over, Steven zipped up his brown leather jacket and put on a black cap before he started his regular route to the university campus. He zigzagged along the path in an attempt to avoid the puddles. There was nothing he loathed more than rain. As he forced his way through the onslaught, a voice made him freeze on the spot.
‘Good morning, Steven.’
Ingrid.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he groaned.
‘I came to apologise.’
‘What are you sorry for?’ he snapped, ‘Is it the fact that you kiss me and always leave, or that you tell fanciful stories?’
‘Both,’ she admitted, dropping her hands against her sides.
Even though it was raining hard, he had to stop to face her. ‘What on earth are you talking about now?’
‘I haven’t been straight with you.’ She curled a wet strand of hair in her hand. ‘I honestly don’t know how you got the wound on your neck. I wasn’t trying to drink your blood,’ she laughed. ‘It was just a wind-up. I thought it was funny when you started talking about vampires and stuff – as if, right? I’m heading back home now since our holiday is over, so you won’t see me again. I’m sorry if I upset you.’ She sounded like she meant it, yet alarm bells rang in his head.
Steven shook his head in disbelief. ‘Great, your conscience is clear. So, it was all just a story,’ he laughed aloud, as he folded his arms in a defensive position.
‘Yes, it was all a story. Goodbye, and sorry again,’ she muttered, as she turned to leave. The look on her face was sad and confused. Something made him want to call to her, but he resisted the urge. She was sick in the head. What kind of weirdo would make up such a lie? He continued on his route. Not once did he turn round to check she was gone. Ingrid was history. It was over.
***
Ingrid had done what Anna had asked. She did not like it, but she had been forced to do a lot of questionable things in her time. Even so, something continued to niggle. She just could not put her finger on what it was.
Anna gestured to her mug as Ingrid sat down and shook her head in disgust. ‘Coffee can have such an incredible taste. It’s amazing how you can get it so wrong. There are definitely some things that are not worth experiencing. And others that are – don’t you think?’
‘I guess,’ Ingrid replied.
‘If we could resist human blood, it would be so much simpler. We could integrate if we could resist. It would be difficult to hide the fact we don’t age, but still.’
‘Integration is not an option, is it?’ Ingrid stared at Anna and wondered where this was coming from. She had never talked to her about integration before.
‘Of course not, I’m just chatting,’ Anna smiled, ‘so, what attracted you to Steven?’
‘I needed to feed and I happened upon Steven. Something about him drew m
e in. I was planning to make it look like a freak accident, but as soon as I bit him and started to feed, I felt strange. The blood tasted wrong. He still fainted as they all do, but I couldn’t kill him. I was not sure at first why, but,’ she paused, ‘now, I guess you told us the answer.’
Anna leaned in and seemed to study Ingrid, ‘So what are your thoughts?’
‘His blood repulsed me since we can’t feed off our own – you said he’s one of us. So, I reckon he doesn’t know who he is.’
‘He has no idea,’ Anna nodded.
Ingrid pursed her lips. ‘The thing I don’t understand is why? Why would anyone let one of us live here? I have always been brought up to believe that all of our kind are accounted for and contained. Tell me why I should keep your secret? Isn’t it too dangerous to let him live here – out in the open?’
Anna shook her head. After a long pause, she looked up at Ingrid, as though concentrating. ‘Steven will have to join us eventually. His mother is one of us, but his father is human. We’ve been protecting him because we had no way of knowing if he’d become one of us. That is, until you found him.’
‘A hybrid! How? Who is his mother? Can I know?’
‘Not at the moment – I’d rather keep her out of the picture. You can understand the potential repercussions if our kind found out that it were possible to mate with humans.’
‘But wouldn’t that be a good thing. Think of the possibilities. Like you just said, we could integrate back into society.’ Ingrid’s eyes widened at the prospect.
‘You would still have to kill humans to stay alive. There’s no such thing as integration for our kind.’
Anna sounded so bitter. Ingrid had never heard her sound so angry, if that was the right word to use.
Ingrid shook her head. ‘I would never choose to kill humans unnecessarily. Does anyone even know what a hybrid will be like?’
‘No, he is an unknown. That’s why you can’t expose him. There are those that enjoy coming here for the kill – it’s like a sport. Others simply view human life as expendable. If they realised that mating with humans was fair game, it could get ugly. I just don’t believe that we can play God. It would get out of hand eventually.’
‘I understand.’ Ingrid looked at the floor and studied the pattern, a tessellation of black and white identical alternating diamonds. It was bound to be hard for Anna. Her twin sister, Emily, had caused a lot of problems for the Roberts family in the past. Out of the blue, the obvious dawned on her – the niggling sensation. The woman in front of her was Emily, not Anna. She had to be Emily – the coffee, talk of integration, change in character. And the most important thing, her eyes. Her eyes were just like Steven’s. Of one thing she was sure, Anna had not had a child with a human.
She kept a poker face and stared at her drink.
‘We should go. Hopefully, we can put this behind us. I hope I can trust you to keep this a secret.’ Emily finished the dregs in her mug.
‘Anything for Anna,’ Ingrid replied. She maintained a straight face. She owed nothing to Emily. She wanted Steven to come and live with them, the sooner the better. She would come up with a plan and she would make sure Emily was none the wiser.
***
The bed was covered with all of Caitlin’s favourite cuddly toys. They ranged from a tiny Nemo fish to a toddler sized fluffy teddy bear. Her wide array of different sized posters stared back at her, yet they offered no comfort. All she wanted to do was mull. She did not want to face up to what she had seen, even though she’d have to eventually.
A tiny knock at the door warned her she had company. ‘Caitlin, can I come in?’
Caitlin remained on the bed and glanced at the door, before she called out, ‘You can come in.’
‘How are you doing?’ Her mum walked in. It was obvious she’d just come back from work. She wore the same haggard expression Caitlin had seen many times.
‘Same.’
Her mum took a seat next to her, held out her hand out and placed it on Caitlin’s, ‘You know you can talk to me. You have to talk to someone.’
‘I know,’ Caitlin sighed, ‘It’s just, I-I don’t get it, Mum, I just don’t.’
With her other hand her mother wiped a tear from her eye, ‘There, there, don’t beat yourself up about it. You couldn’t have known what that girl was planning to do.’
Caitlin sat up and snapped, ‘But, I should’ve known. She was so depressed the last time I saw her. I should’ve made more of an effort to be her friend. I should’ve been there.’
‘Caitlin, you can’t live someone else’s life for them. That’s just the way it is sometimes. I know it hurts, and you wish you could have stopped her, but you couldn’t. It happened and now you have to move on. Just because she decided to end her life, doesn’t mean you have to lose track of yours. Does it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Caitlin huffed and leant her head back. Her mother’s reassuring smile made her falter. It always amazed her that her mum could be so compassionate on some levels and yet so matter-of-fact on others.
‘You’ve got to go back to university, sweetheart. You can’t stay here. You know that daddy and I would come back with you if we could, but we need to go to work and we need to be here to look after Jeanie.’
Caitlin thought of her little sister Jeanie and sighed. In recent years, the focus of attention weighed heavily on Jeanie. Before she came along, her parents had more time.
‘You’ll be alright. Time’s a great healer.’
‘I know, Mum, thanks for the chat.’ Caitlin knew sarcasm would not solve the problem, but it felt good.
‘Caitlin, don’t be like that. I can’t do any more than I do already. You worked hard at school to get into university, and now that you’re there, you can’t let yourself lose track of your goals because someone else lost track.’
‘And there I was thinking you were sympathetic,’ she sneered.
Her mum narrowed her eyes, got off the bed and faced away from Caitlin. After a few seconds had passed, she calmly turned around and began, ‘You know, I don’t know what’s come over you recently. Of course I think it’s awful that your flatmate took her life. I just don’t see why you should allow yourself to wallow. I love you Caitlin, but you don’t seem to understand that we’re doing the best we can to make ends meet. We already pay for your brother to go to university, and now we are doing the same for you. You’ve been here for two weeks already when you should be studying.’
‘So, it’s just about the money, is it?’
‘No,’ her mother practically screamed at her, ‘it is not about the money.’ She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘It’s time for you to go back, whether you like it or not. You have to face your fears not hide from them. I’ll let you think about it. I have to go and cook.’
‘Fine,’ Caitlin replied. She threw herself back on her bed, grabbed the pillow and placed it firmly over her head. Her muffled sobs broke the stony silence.
Chapter 12
Reunion
Steven whistled to the tune of Star Wars as he cruised into his lecture. For the first time in a few days he felt at ease. A huge weight had been taken off his shoulders. Even though the conversation he’d had with Ingrid a week ago had rocked him, it was already forgotten. Ingrid was a psycho, end of story.
‘Hey, Mr. Happy – over here,’ Adam hollered.
‘No need for that,’ Steven snarled.
‘Well, it would be like you to stroll into lectures on a day as pitiful as this one with a smile on your face.’
‘Is Caitlin back then?’ Sally asked eagerly, as she poked her head out from behind Adam.
‘I don’t know,’ Steven stated, surprised to hear Caitlin’s name again.
‘Oh, I thought that was the reason why you’d be happy. You’ve been miserable since she left,’ she hollered as she nudged Adam in the ribs.
Steven took a seat and mulled over the suggestion. It was true. He had been miserable since Caitlin had gone. Yet, he had met Ingrid a fe
w days after she’d left so that could have been a factor. Truthfully, since Caitlin had left, university had not held the same appeal. She was the first person he had come across who he liked to spend time with and he had enjoyed their conversations.
A friendship could lead to more and they had got so close.
At least, it was close in his books. He had never texted a girl he was not dating on a daily basis before and he missed their exchanges. Since the suicide, he had regularly checked his phone after he texted her to let him know if he could be of any help. But, as of yet, there was no reply.
‘If you’re interested,’ Sally whispered, over Adam’s shoulder, ‘she’s due back at the end of the week. I doubt you’re interested. I thought I’d let you know, just in case.’ She giggled and snuggled into Adam’s shoulder.
Steven mused over this information. Caitlin was due back. It gave him a warm glow.
***
Caitlin stared at her new room in silence. Even though she was lucky a student had dropped out and left a vacancy, it felt all wrong. Regardless, she had no choice. It was three weeks after Georgina’s death. It was time. The idea of resuming life as if nothing had happened made her cringe, but she knew she had to try. The best medicine to combat trauma was surely hard work, and a few weeks at home had reminded her of the reason why she had worked so hard to leave. She loved her independence. It was not going to be easy, but she was determined to make up for lost time and catch up on any deadlines missed.
Her new room was in the catered accommodation block. The last thing she wanted to do was eat alone. The selection of bags, scantily arranged around the room, beckoned to be sorted. The walls were bare, devoid of all character. She was not sure if she had the energy or enthusiasm to redecorate again. The memory of putting up her posters with Georgina remained. She sat on the bed, stared out of the small window and held back tears. Annoyed at her weakness, she took out her iPod, put it on shuffle and placed it on the docking station. The sound filled the room as her chest heaved and gave up all resistance.