Vampiric: Chapter Seven, Part 4

“We are close to our destination,” Drei said.

Opening my eyes, I felt mildly refreshed, surprised to find I had slept some on the car ride. Rain tapped on the car windows and the swish of the windshield wipers seemed to want its own part in the melody. Caroline sat behind Drei, her crimson hair pulled into a French twist, a few strands held in place by a black lily pin. She had curled some of her hair to the side to give the illusion of wispy bangs. A set of pearls dangled from her neck, accentuating the cut of her little black dress. She had even donned a set of stockings and pearl hued slingback heels. There was no doubt she could pull off the uptown look. Better than some of the people I used to know, even.

“You look nice.” I wrapped my arms around my knees.

Her bronze eyes swiveled to me. “I do what I can,” she shrugged, allowing a small smile. “Uh, how long?”

“Five minutes if traffic stays the way it is;” Drei glanced in the rearview.

Whether it was the rain or something else, I felt sleepy. If we were that close, though, I needed to stay awake.

“So what else do you have to tell us?” I asked, needing some distraction to focus on.

“Well, Drei will take you upstairs, and when he goes in, Ian will come out to drive me back. But we need you to stay home for a couple of months, Abs,” she stated, staring out the window. “Drei, Ian will stop by some time to get some blood from Abs. I'd ask you, but Ian's doing all the work anyway, so it's best if he has his hands on it when he needs it.”

She likely couldn’t appreciate the intelligence in that decision. Not that I didn’t trust Drei, but, who knew what could happen? We were already pressing our luck; we didn’t need something else to press it further.

“What does he need her blood for?” His shoulders tensed; there was an edge to Drei’s voice, and a touch of something else I couldn't describe. I would have said protective, but I had heard him protective before and that wasn’t it.

“He's setting up an accident scene. It comes down to this: Abs, we need you. You're probably the third most important person in this project. I need you working with me, but you can't with everyone looking for you. So hang low, Ian will set up a scene by the docks. Bodies disappear there all the time, but the blood will ID you. Once they determine you're dead, and after a few weeks of dragging the bay, you'll be free. You can work.” She gazed at me again, her hands twisted around each other in her lap. “That's if you want to. I can't force you; but the least I can do is free you from the wanted pages.”

Caroline was asking a lot of me and we both knew it. Returning to work for her would mean risking a repeat. I gazed up at what I could see of Drei. My initial involvement was largely due to him, so my continuation would be also. “Can I get back to you?”

“Of course;” she nodded slightly, a hint of relief lacing her voice. “Take your time.”

“It sounds like quite the plan,” I said, wanting a subject that would make her act more the way I was used to. “Thanks for caring so much.”

Caroline waved it off, staring out the window again. “As I said, you're the third most important person. I need you; that and I can't even begin repaying you for taking the fall.”

Part of me wanted to tell her she didn't need to repay me, but the part missing Mom wouldn't hear it. If I had never gone, nothing concerning her would have changed. Since I had, it felt like everything I did had to be done just as much for her as for myself.

The car stopped, then. As Drei turned off the ignition and climbed out, Caroline reached to the front passenger seat, holding a floppy black sun hat as she sat back, motioning for me to sit next to her.

“Hold the blanket closed like this,” she instructed, wrapping the material around my shoulders, twisting it at my bosom and placing the gathered material in my hand. “And Drei's going to lead you in, so you can just keep this down far enough people will assume you're ill.” She combed my hair with her fingers in an attempt to make it unkempt. As she placed the hat on my head, her lips pressed against mine briefly.

I pulled away from her, trying to convince myself it was a mistake; she hadn't really just kissed me.

Drei opened the passenger door then, and Caroline smiled vaguely at him, as if lost in a universe of her own. It made me wonder if it hadn’t been a mistake, but I still wasn’t even sure if it had really happened.

“Ian borrowed some of your clothes so he could look like you. He promised to wash and return them,” she said as if she had just remembered.

“Come,” he directed, ignoring her, pulling me out of the car to follow. I pulled the front of the hat down over my face, still trying to figure out what had happened. It didn't make sense that she would kiss me. Neither did it make sense that Drei was so perturbed currently. Then again, he'd been a little snippy when Caroline first told him to drive.

Ian passed us on the way out, tipping his hat to us. Once he was past, I kept my head down, deciding nothing had happened in the car. It was easier to ignore it and write it off as a trick of the mind than admit anything had occurred, because that would lead to asking why it had. There was an answer I wasn’t sure I wanted.