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BlizzardGraphics — Linger Ch.01 by Amber Maynard (Vampire Paranormal)
Published: 2013-03-18 00:28:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 286; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 0
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2013 © Amber Maynard.
CHAPTER ONE
With the greatest of effort Gabriel's eyes fluttered open to the sound of metal against metal. It was an involuntary action to open his eyes as though he might see what was around him, but still he had not seen a single thing since he was fourteen and had lost what little sight he had left. He expected the usual vision of black, which vibrated with the movements of the people around him. Which must have been why when he blinked lazily and the sudden whiteness of light rushed in on him, he threw himself back against the bed in surprise, and covered his eyes with the palms of his hands.
The pain that followed after the blinking of white light was excruciating. It was followed by a rush of salty tears, which he tried desperately to control before they broke free. However, while being so distracted he had hardly noticed the sound that had made it's way passed his lips in reaction to the light. Faintly, he heard her intake of breath, and then she exhaled while setting down whatever it was she was holding. Gabriel turned his head towards the sound, but he dared not open his eyes again.
“Oh, you frightened me. You aren't meant to be awake yet.”
Overwhelmed by the softness of this new unfamiliar voice Gabriel flinched despite how he tried not to. Awake? Not meant to be? What on earth was this woman talking about. Reaching out his hand Gabriel felt for the cabinet that had sat beside his bed since he was a child. Nothing in his surroundings were ever moved because he was used to where they were, and he had grown used to navigating around them. He reached for it more out of comfort than anything, because he was confused and disorientated and absolutely every part of his body ached.
As you can imagine, when his hand waved through thin air, and reached the cold surface of a wall instead of a cabinet, alarm set in, and Gabriel sat rigid in the bed. “Where am I?” His voice was husky as he spoke. It croaked as though he had not used it in a very long time. It took every ounce of his control not to panic, and the woman must have noticed for the touch of her hand against his lower arm sent him recoiling backwards.
“It's ok, you are in a hospital.”
“Hospital?! What? How?”
“You were involved in a terrible accident Gabriel. I need you to relax, everything is being taken care of.”
Accident? Gabriel searched his mind but he remembered nothing of no accident. It would explain why his body ached with such viciousness, but what was he supposed to do? Just take this woman's word on it? Believe a complete stranger? Not a chance. For a second time his eyes fluttered open, and a blinding white light rushed in on them. He closed his eyes instantly on a sound of frustration and rubbed lightly at their surface with the pads of his thumbs.
“What happened when you just opened your eyes?”
“Pain.” he admitted reluctantly. He didn't want to admit anything to this stranger. But for arguments sake, lets say he was in-fact in a hospital. If anything she would better understand what was going on with his eyes, and if she did not, he was pretty sure she would know someone who would.
“It's ok, it will take some time to adjust.”
“To what?”
“Your sight.”
“Lady, I haven't seen in ten years.” Gabriel snapped, saying he would adjust was like rubbing salt in his wounds.
“But-”
“Abby.”
Another voice cut into their debate, even without seeing her he knew she had turned toward the voice, because she was standing so close to him that he could feel the air round them move with her. The other voice was cut low, almost as though her name was uttered as a warning.
“Leave us.”
The command bounced about the room around them uneasily. He felt the air shift again as the woman, Abby started to move away from him. There was a long uncomfortable pause. Gabriel could not feel nor sense the person that had spoken, it left him fidgeting with the blanket that pooled about his waist.
“Here, let me close the blinds it might help.”
“You don't understand.” Gabriel protested.
“Unfortunately Gabriel, you are the only one in this room that does not understand just yet.”
There was an undertone to the voice of the woman who had joined them. Each word she spoke was biting and clawing it's way underneath his skin. He was so utterly confused with everything that he could feel his temper rising and his skin prickled with sensitivity. “Where's my father?”
“You can't speak with him.”
“Well I want to. So someone had better get him right now.”
There was another long uncomfortable pause, and, try as he might to keep control of himself he knew he was loosing the battle. “Please.”
“I'll see what I can do, but first I want you to get some more rest.
Sighing he dropped his head to his hands, he couldn't sleep when so many questions went unanswered. He couldn't even breath properly because his chest had tightened at the thought of having nothing familiar around him. His hands were so rigid he knew his knuckles had whitened with his tension, but as if on cue, his body listened to the woman before it listened to himself, and he felt his resolve weakening.
The rigidity of his muscles slowly started to relax. His head felt heavy despite how he willed it not to, and before he knew it he was drifting off into a peaceful sleep.
Drugs. That was the only explanation for him falling asleep when his body was so tightly wound. For the first time in years he felt coiled like a snake ready to attack. When he sat up in the bed beneath him he felt instinctively for his cabinet, silently hoping this had all been just a bad dream that could be forgotten. But when his hand touched against the cold wall for a second time that day, he wanted nothing more but to scream with frustration.
Quickly, he swung his legs out of bed. He didn't intend on going far because unless by some miracle one of the nurses or doctors left his stick close to hand, he would pose too much of a risk to himself, and on top of everything he definitely wouldn't get very far. The bare pads of his feet touched against the coldness of tiles, they were so cold his feet ached as he stood. His hands hovered just above the bed ready to catch himself as he shook weakly, but instead of concentrating on how he could hurt himself, he as too busy listening to what was going on outside the room.
The adjustment to his hearing should have been his first clue that something suspicious was going on. But instead he brushed it off as a trick he had developed over the years. It was his only means of survival he reminded himself, and that was why he heard so well. Except, everything seemed oddly heightened. He could hear several people discussing their day, and as he concentrated he realized he could hear the voice of the woman who had promised him he could see his father after some rest.
“When are you going to tell him?”
“I don't know. How do you tell someone that he very nearly drowned alongside his family, and he is the only survivor.”
“It's tough.”
“It is. I'm worried he wont take it well, and I need him calm right now.”
“I understand. Well, I will check in on him in the morning. If you need me you know where to reach me.”
Gabriel stood frozen to the spot. He could hear every individual tap of boots moving along the corridor, and the soft brush of flat shoes dragging lazily towards the door. As a child might. He considered jumping back into bed and hiding under the covers while pretending to sleep. It was his anger and his confusion that stopped him. He was no longer worried that he wasn't in a hospital after listening to their conversation. Now, instead, his heart ached painfully in his chest as the thought the family they were speaking of, could be his.
An odd calmness settled over him. He felt numb to the very core as he heard the door creak open, and he raised his chin high defiantly. He couldn't see her but he could feel her looking at him and sense the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. “I want to know where my family is.”
“Gabriel.”
That was it. That one word was all it took to shatter his calm. They were hiding something from him because he knew his mother would tear through heaven and hell to be at his side. On a rush of emotions that had been building inside of him for longer than he could honestly say. He reached for something. Anything that was close enough, and swung it angrily across the room. He could feel the gentle brush of his own tears against his cheek. Feel his cheeks burning with the slowly rising volcanic anger, threatening to break him apart at the seems and gush everywhere. There was a high pitched thrashing noise, and then the sound of what he had thrown shattering into a thousand shards of something impossibly fragile.
“Where are they!” he bellowed. His voice echoed along the corridor beyond the room. But still he received no answer. In truth, he didn't really need one. Her silence said it all. He knew. He just knew that the family who drown, was his. He couldn't breath, his chest heaved as he tried but still he only managed to suck in the tinniest amount of air on a sob. Why?! Why was he the only survivor. Why couldn't it have been him to leave this hellish world instead of them.
“Gabriel.”
The woman's voice was lowered to a soft voice. In her tone he could hear her willing for him to pull on some resource of calm. He couldn't be calm. The last thing in the world he could be right now was calm.
So preoccupied by his own thoughts he hadn't heard her cross the room toward him. When she touched him he jumped, more from how his skin crawled at the small contact, than the surprise of it. He took to pacing with his head buried in his hands. His head ached, and his thoughts were almost fuzzy as he tried his hardest to understand. None of it made any sense to him, they couldn't be gone. They just couldn't be.
“Gabriel, you need to rest.”
“Don't tell me what I need to do.” he snapped as his chest heaved and his lungs burned.
“Please, you will make things worse for yourself.”
“Worse? How can I make things worse. I have none.”
His eyes burned with salty tears. His anger had reached such a level that he was forced to vent in the only way his body knew how. It made him feel weaker than he already was. On top of everything, he felt distinctively out of control. The blood vibrated in his veins. His mind was whirling with one thought after another, and he felt like he could grab something, anything and rip it clean in half.
He didn't recognize himself when the woman tried to touch him again. He was getting tired of her being in his space, but that couldn't explain why he grabbed hold of her and shook her with such viciousness he almost lost his own balance. The person that held her, which lived inside of him was not the person that he was. He had never hurt someone in his entire life, and yet, in that moment his body screamed to inflict as much damage as possible.
The sound of his voice travelled through the halls of the private little hospital. Nora had known it was him the moment people started to shift uncomfortably. His voice cut through her like a knife through butter. She was positive the sensation had everything to do with the pain and anger she could hear in his tone. But still, a part of her knew there was much more to it than that.
Call it intuition, or perhaps neediness on her part. She longed to have someone to take care of, to fill the large gap that shadowed her life, which left each day feeling dull and lifeless. She had just known, the moment she had set eyes on him, unconscious and grey as life dwindled away from his body, that he was meant to play a bigger part in her life.
It had made her feel so desperate, as she stood and watched his creator rip open her own wrist to feed him the elixir that coursed through her veins in one last desperate attempt at saving him. Nothing had ever made Nora hate being human more than in that moment, because nothing she could have done for him would save him, yet Eleanor had been blessed with a means that would bind her to this perfect man for the rest of her life.
Blessing. Her father would laugh if he could hear her thoughts. He was quick to remind her that being dead was no blessing. Neither was it when half the worlds population genuinely believed the species to be mythical. But still Nora had wanted to be the one to help him. She had wanted to save him, and the knowledge that she hadn't, had left her a little bitter.
She reminded herself of how truly ridiculous she was being. She had no rights to this man, and probably never would. Which was why, her uncharacteristic behaviour towards him took her so completely by surprise. She was the sixth generation of her family who had been privileged enough to work alongside these illusive families, and never before had she wanted to put a man before her job. Let alone a complete stranger. Even now, deep down she knew she shouldn't, and she wouldn't because it would place her life in too much risk.
That knowledge didn't stop her from rushing out of the room and down the corridor towards the commotion. Once she peeled through the bodies of nurses. Doctors, and interested patient families she was horrified by what she saw. He held Eleanor in a death like grip. His face was scrunched with his frustration and fury, and to Nora/s surprise he had finally opened his eyes. Great big red glowing eyes followed her as she entered the room cautiously. They glittered with an anger that told Nora he would rip Eleanors throat out as quickly as it would take for her to breath in a stifling breath.
This was not Gabriel, but the vampire inside of him that had awoken. His instincts were feeding off his fear and upset, making his actions much harder to predict and control. Nora had to get control of this situation and fast, because despite how she hated the woman, Gabriel's life was more important, and if he hurt Eleanor, the consequences were fatal.
Nora's whole body crawled with awareness as she watched his body shift, and his nose twitch with her very human scent. She was placing herself in great danger here, approaching him while she knew he had little to no control of the instincts now crowding his mind. More importantly, he was too young to bite and create another of his kind, instead he would end up making a royal mess of things which would cost her her life.
She hadn't really realized she was holding her breath until the moment her eyes fixed on Eleanor, who hung limply in his arms. First of all Nora had wondered why the female vampire had not put up a fight, but as she got closer and rounded their bodies ever so slowly the fear that emanated from Eleanor was thick in the air. She held onto Gabriel's wrists as though that might actually stop him from crushing her, however it didn't take a genius to see it wouldn't.
“Gabriel, Please let her go.” Desperate Nora spoke to him softly, she understood completely what he was going through, but hurting Eleanor was not about to bring his family back, nor was it going to help make the confusion over what he was feeling any easier. Clinging to a small detail that she had discovered about him, she hoped that somehow she could get him to soften and release the other woman. “Casey is alright.”
Even while knowing what she was saying could provoke him. When his head snapped in Nora's direction, and those beautiful bright eyes trained in on her, she flinched but continued. “She's safe. She wasn't with you when all of this happened, but at home instead, with the babysitter.” His eyebrows creased together as he frowned. A part of him had to be listening to what she was saying to him, but still his instincts were too powerful. It was almost like he didn't believe a word that she spoke, and of course a part of his mind would reason that she was just saying this to save her friend, but it was anything but. She cared not for what might happen to Eleanor, but instead what might happen to him.
“Meghan, that's her name right? Your sisters babysitter, she was here this morning.”
As his face softened Nora made absolutely sure that she didn't mention that Meghan had been there to identify his parents bodies. Instead, as she saw a flicker of the man he truly was, she continued and pushed harder on the strings of his heart while taking another cautious step towards him. “I will take you to see her. Would you like that?”
Eleanor glared at Nora from where she stood perfectly still in his hands. It would go against every instinct in her body to let her creation leave with another female. But despite that, as far as Nora was concerned, the female would have to understand that Gabriel was half human. His attachments to the things he loved would still remain strong, and he couldn't be expected to adapt to this way of life over night.
The whole situation went against everything his mind could possibly comprehend. If they forced too much on him too soon he would rebel against them, and he was now an important asset to their people. Taking the last final step that separated them, Nora curled the gentle bones of her hand around his elbow. The flare in his eyes was slowly starting to die down as he thought of his young sister being alive, and the noticeable change in him gave Nora that extra boost in confidence.
“Give me your hand Gabriel. Let me take you to see Casey. You have to trust me, but first you have to let Eleanor go.”
He seemed reluctant at first to do just that, but then as if by some miracle he took them all by surprise as his grasp on Eleanor loosened, and she managed to wriggle free. An awkward tension filled the air as Nora felt Eleanor's eyes burn holes in to her body, but she dared not break eye contact with Gabriel. He stared down at her so intently that under any other circumstances his gaze would take her breath away. He was moving even without her insistence, and her hands slipped to brush over skin that was layered with a film of cold sweat. When he took her hands Nora felt utterly vulnerable, and so relieved she thought she might actually fly, but even that was short lived, because the colour drained away from his face, and his eyes rolled back into is head.
There was no time to react, and try as she might to catch him her small weight was no match for his. However, she did manage to cushion as much of his blow with her own body when he dragged her to the floor and lost all consciousness. The suddenness of it all left her breathless, and grasping the thin gown covering his chest. “Gabriel!” Nora Turned his head towards her chest and cradled his face in her hands. He wasn't breathing.
