Forbidden (Fallen 2)

I gingerly sat on the bed that was supposed to be mine. A little dust cloud filled the air making me cough.

“Gabriel?” I asked.

“Mhmm?” He said not turning away from the window. The way his eyes were moving you would have thought the window was telling him a story. Maybe it was for all I knew.

“Does it hurt?” I asked. “Becoming a vampire?”

He sighed and I saw his shoulders sag. He closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair.

“Yes, you can’t begin to imagine how much. You’re on fire all over but you’re cold too and you shake uncontrollably. Your veins feel like they’re going to burst and your eyes feel like they’re going to explode. Your skull feels like it is splitting open. Your throat burns with thirst. Every bone in your body feels like it’s been broken and knitting back together. You think you must be in hell with all this burning but you can still feel your heart beating because it’s beating so fast. You think it might beat right out of your chest. You just want it to end. You beg and plead but you can’t tell if you’re speaking or only hearing your own thoughts. Everything hurts. Everything burns. You welcome death. Beg for it even. But it doesn’t come and never will. And then you wake up some indeterminable time later and then you really wish you would have died. You’re so thirsty but not for water. Blood. It calls to you. All the time. The thirst never goes away even after you’ve had a meal. The pain of thirst is sometimes as bad as the process of becoming a vampire.”

“If you had been given the choice to stay human or become a vampire which would you have chosen?” I asked softly.

“I would have stayed human. There are so many good things about being human that we all take for granted. I would give anything to be human again but this is my life now. I have to go on and live my life even if it’s never going to end. I’ve lived through so much and seen so much. I’ve had to experience things that no one should ever have to. I have to live every day with blood on my hands. I’ve killed people, that’s common in the first years after you turn, at least now I know how to control myself before it goes that far. There’s so much that I’ve done that I wish I could take back. There’s so much stuff I’ve seen that I wish I could have prevented. I guess I have a hero-complex. It’s taken me a long time to see that there’s more evil in the world than good. I’ve had to build a shell around me in order to protect myself,” he said leaning against the window.

“So, you understand why I don’t want to become a vampire, right?” I asked timidly.

He chuckled, “I do and I don’t. I would give anything to be human again but if I found my soul mate I’m not sure I would still think that. A lot of times I think that I’ll never find my soul mate. That maybe it’s my punishment for letting them kill Lea. That I’ll never find happiness. You have no idea what it’s like to live forever being miserable. Do you know why it is that vampires have to drink blood?”

“No,” I shook my head, “J

onathon doesn’t tell me anything.”

Gabriel gwaffed and shook his head, “It’s because we’re not holy. We aren’t meant to exist and therefore in order for us to live we have to have sustenance through something that is holy. Blood. That’s what gives us our powers, our magic, the blood. As long as there’s blood there will be vampires.”

Just then my cell phone chimed with a text message making me jump. Gabriel picked it up off the shared end table a tossed it to me. I caught it and flipped it open to read the text. Isaac.

Meet me outside. 5 min.

I typed back a quick, ok. I sighed and tossed the phone onto the bed that would be mine. I ran my hand through my hair in frustration. I had a bad feeling about this. I grabbed a jacket and put it on to protect against the chilly night air. I grabbed the ice bucket and told Gabriel, “I’m going to go get us some ice and be right back,” I pointed to the door.

“Oh, I can do that,” he said.

“No, really. I just needed some fresh air. After all you’ve told me I just need to think a bit,” I hoped I sounded convincing.

“Oh,” he said nodding, “Got it.”

I slipped out the door and down the walkway. The air was nippy and I wrapped my jacket tighter around my body. I walked down the stone steps to the lower level rooms. Standing at the bottom was Isaac leaning against the building hidden by shadows. I walked towards him cautiously.

“Hey,” I breathed.

“Hey,” he said stepping into the light.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To see you,” seeing me about to protest he put his hands up in surrender, “I know that you can’t change how you feel about him. Some of the other vamps explained the soul mate thing to me and I understand that neither of you can control it. But I also can’t control how I feel about you. I wanted to tell you that I’m working on it so that hopefully we can at least be friends. I want to be your friend and I want you to be mine. I want you to be able to talk to me. I want us to be a part of the other’s life. You know what I am. You’re just as much a part of this world as I am. I can’t have a normal relationship with anyone. All my friends are vampire hunters and I am expected to date and marry a vampire hunter and then our kids are supposed to grow up and be vampire hunters. I hate this world. I just want to be normal. You are normal and you make me feel normal. You ground me. Everything my whole life, since I was born, was about killing vampires and the order of things and the good of mankind. I started martial arts training as soon as I could walk. I’ve never had a normal life. The only ounce of normal I had before you came along was my music. I know you don’t feel the same way about me that I do you but I’m begging you to look past that and just be my friend. I know that vamp, what was she, a thought persuader, or something another, made you feel something for me that you didn’t really feel. I understand that and I won’t try anything, I promise,” said Isaac.

“Isaac,” I sighed. I wanted to be his friend. I always had. But I also felt like I owed it to him to explain that I did have feelings for him but that it didn’t make any difference. I thought he deserved the truth. “I want nothing more that to be your friend. But I should tell you something.”

“What?” he asked.

“That vampire, the thought persuader, well Gabriel explained how her power works and well… She can’t make you do something she can only influence or persuade you to do or feel something that you already have some kind of feeling for,” I said hesitantly, looking down at my feet.

“So, you’re saying that you had to have feelings for me in order for her power to work?” Isaac asked.

I blushed, “Yes, but you have to understand that she made my feelings so much stronger. Her goal was to tear me and Jonathon apart but I thought you deserved to know.”

He sighed, “Ky, you’re killing me. Do you know that?”