"No, thank you. I didn't mean to bust in here early." "Please, make yourself comfortable. I'd entertain you, but I have to get ready. Miss Ruby is picking me up for dinner tonight."
With that, the creepy man's bulging eyes twinkled and he disappeared from the room.
I opened the small desk. Inside was a box of centuries-old stationery marked STERLINGS and a dried-out Montblanc pen. It would be a dream come true to someday live here with Alexander and Jameson. I surely wouldn't change anything--maybe just add a slightly feminine touch. Vases of dead black roses, portraits of Alexander and me, scented lavender votives scattered throughout the Mansion.
It seemed like forever as I waited for my vampire to arise from his cozy casket. Impatience shot through me. I felt as if I were a groupie waiting backstage for a rock star.
I pulled back the heavy velvet drapes and rubbed my hand against the dusty window. I peered out as the sun slowly set over the horizon. Seconds seemed like a lifetime, minutes like eternity.
"Alexander will see you now," Jameson finally said, now dressed in a gray evening suit.
My combat boots couldn't carry me fast enough up the grand staircase. I raced past the million rooms and up Alexander's creaky attic stairs hoping they wouldn't give out on me.
Alexander greeted me in a black ICP tour T-shirt, oversized black pants with a handcuff belt buckle, and black Converse sneakers.
"I saw Valentine," I blurted out before my boyfriend had the chance to say hello.
Alexander stopped. His thick brown eyebrows tensed.
"He was in my house!" I said, half terrified, half excited. "Did he hurt you--or your family?"
"No."
Alexander seemed relieved, but then became worried. "How did he get in?"
"Billy Boy invited him for a sleepover. He ate dinner with us-- pizza. He's sneakier than Jagger."
"While I was out searching the cemetery and cave for him, he was inside your home?"
I nodded.
"Why didn't you get me?"
"I couldn't. I didn't know where you were--or how to find you. You don't carry a cell phone."
Alexander turned away. I could tell he felt responsible.
"Ever since I arrived here...I've brought trouble for you and your family. I thought I was leaving the Maxwells behind when I came to live in the Mansion. Now I realize you would have been better off if I'd stayed in Romania."
"Don't say that!" I said, grasping his shirt and pulling him close. "I would never have met you and fallen in love. We wouldn't be together."
I leaned in to his chest, then looked up and kissed him.
His tense body relaxed and his arms melted around my waist.
"Billy Boy and Henry are meeting Valentine tomorrow night at Oakley Park. But tonight my brother is home studying. So for now we are all safe."
Alexander began to smile. "Then let's celebrate." My boyfriend took me by the hand and led me downstairs and through the unkempt grass of his backyard to the dilapidated gazebo.
"When I come here at night, I wonder what you are dreaming," he said, lighting a half-melted candle resting on the ledge.
"I'm dreaming about you. Except last night, when I dreamed my brother was a vampire."
Alexander leaned back against the decaying wooden structure and stared out into the moonlight. "The Maxwells are disturbing your days and nights."
I cozied up to Alexander and gazed into his midnight-colored eyes. "You know that I want to be with you, no matter who or what you are. I always want you to know that--no matter what anyone might say to you."
"Who would say differently?"
"You never know in this town, with vampires and nemeses running amuck."
"I know exactly how you feel, because it's the same way I feel."
His words warmed the blood that flowed through my veins.
"In the cave, it was Valentine who touched my neck. I found him doing the same to my brother. At first I thought he was planning to bite us." I paused. "Instead, he was reading our thoughts," I continued.
"How do you know?"
This time I didn't answer.
"Valentine is gifted. He's reading more than your thoughts; he is recording your soul. In the Underworld we call him a 'blood reader,'" Alexander explained. I took a deep breath. I was ready to confess my hesitation-- before Alexander heard it from the menacing vampire--that though I'd always wanted to become a vampire, when I thought I was going to be turned, I became confused. "I think Valentine--"
"Enough of him," Alexander said, brushing my hair off my shoulder. "I can read mortals, too," he continued with a sexy smile. "Though I have my own way."
Alexander pressed his lips against mine. I could feel my heart race more quickly than at the touch of any preteen vampire.
Chapter 12 Blood Brothers
The next evening, Alexander refused to let me search for Valentine. Instead he elected to hang out with the Madison family in our home. Like a gothic guardian he kept a watchful eye, ensuring no bloodsucking visitors would skip through our front door.
Observing Alexander protect my unsuspecting family made him even dreamier in my eyes than he already was.
The following day, I spent study hall in the cafeteria. The lunch ladies were sorting trays and preparing meals for four hundred hungry students. The smell of schoolhouse chili filled our study hall. I was stretched out over a table, resting my head against my backpack when I overheard a soccer snob talking to Jenny Warren at the table next to me. "Did you hear about Trevor?" he asked her.
"No, tell me."
"There was this freaky kid hanging at Hatsy's Diner last night. He kept staring at Trevor and when Trevor confronted him, the kid tried to choke him."
Two majorly thin brunette soccer snob groupies were sitting at a table behind me. "Well, I heard the coffin boy jumped him and held a knife to Trevor's throat," one said.
"I thought it was a lightsaber," replied the other.
"Quiet down there," Mr. Ferguson chided.
By the time I gathered my belongings, I had overheard the same story five different ways.
I rose and walked over to Mr. Ferguson, who was grading English papers. "I need to be excused," I said.
"Why are you taking your backpack?" he asked skeptically. "Are you planning on not returning to study hall?"
"Listen, if I leave it here, students will fill it with garbage."
"That was you?" Mr. Ferguson asked, surprised. "I heard about that the other day in the teachers' lounge."