“I have school and daily life. As long as your feeding doesn’t get in the way of that, what other times are there?”
Caydem snapped his fingers that weren’t clutching River’s hair, and River passed his planner to the vampire knowing it was what he was asking for. Caydem flipped a few pages, his face serious as he looked over everything.
“You have everything scheduled in here. Your life seems boring.”
River shrugged. “Put your name in a slot that isn’t already filled,” River said.
Caydem stared at him for a minute, and it looked like the vampire was going to say no, but slowly a smile curved his lips.
“This will be interesting at least.” Caydem grabbed the pen and scribbled his name in a few places before passing it over to River.
River glanced at the new entries in his planner.
“Do you need to eat this much?” At that rate, he would be seeing the vampire at least three times a week. It was way more than his visits to the blood clinic. River was born with a rare blood problem. He couldn’t say it was a medical issue since he’d never had it diagnosed. He just knew that from a young age someone always came and took blood from him. And when River was free of his jail, he’d tried to live like everyone else, but he’d learned quickly he needed to give blood to stay upright. Too much filled his veins and he would get sick, headaches that were so crippling it was hard for him to see and nausea so strong the toilet became his best friend. Going to a blood bank was safer than cutting his wrist and letting the blood flow out until all the pain subsided.
River absentmindedly rubbed at his wrist where his watch lay, hiding the multiple scars—scars from his own way of dealing with his problem.
“Yes, I expect to see you.” Caydem stared at him with predatory eyes that should have had River rocking in a corner and crying. “Don’t make me come find you.”
River nodded and in a blink of an eye, Caydem was gone and River was left by himself in his dorm room. He slowly picked himself off the floor. He didn’t stay still, needing to correct the little imperfections in his room. His brain demanded he do something, anything, to gain a little more control. He placed the metal credit card in between a few textbooks on the shelves hanging over his desk. River thought about researching vampires but doubted Google would truly be any help. There were probably some truths in the myths, but since he doubted he would do anything about the vampire, he shrugged it off. As long as he had the means to get rid of the excess blood he had built up and still got to live his life, then he was fine with it. So what if he had to give it to a monster—River had found out long ago that the worst monsters were always human.
Feed and Fuck
The first meeting came faster than River thought possible. He sighed as he left his last class and went to his dorm room. He looked over his planner and realized Caydem hadn’t written where they were supposed to meet. River clenched his jaw in annoyance. How was he supposed to be on time if he didn’t know where to go?
River sucked in measured breaths, calming his frayed nerves. This was already something new added to his daily life; he didn’t need it to destroy the careful world he’d worked so hard to construct. River fixed his glasses and opted to take a quick shower. He still had an hour before his meeting time.
Freshly cleaned, he dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a gray button-up, rolling the sleeves exactly a quarter up his arm, buttoning it so it stayed in place. He combed the curls on top of his head, styling them the best way he knew how, making sure they didn’t look messy. Putting his wire-rimmed glasses on his face, River was ready to walk out the door. The only problem was that he had no idea where to go.
He needed a distraction. River moved to his already perfectly neat desk, not finding one thing to straighten up. His hands clenched and unclenched as he tried to find something to do to steady his mind. He could reorganize the closet—that always put him somewhat at ease. Just as River made it to the closet, only touching one article of clothing, his phone rang.
He checked his watch, a habit that River tended to fall on when he felt out of place. No one ever called. It was already six at night, and it was twenty minutes before he needed to see Caydem. The unknown number flashed on the screen, and before it went to voicemail, River answered the phone.
“Hello.”
“Hello, I’m here to pick you up,” the man on the phone said.
River had never heard his voice before and honestly thought the man had the wrong number. He was about to say as such before the man spoke again.
“Mr. Humphrie sent me.”
River closed his closet door. “I’m on my way down.”
River hung the phone up and stuffed it in his back pocket. He walked out of his dorm room with the understanding he was about to meet a man that could kill him, and no one would look for River. He didn’t have friends, and his family was gone. Most would worry, but River, he just felt indifferent.
He took the stairs down to the bottom floor, and right outside his dorms, there was a crowd out front and the sound of whispers and pictures being taken. River wanted nothing more than to avoid the group of people, but he had an inkling that he needed to head toward the noise. River let out a deep sigh as he moved toward the crowd, maneuvering through people. It helped most people ignored his existence. He made it through and found the source of all the uproar.
A black Rolls-Royce Cullinan was parked out in front of his dorms. A man with black hair and blue eyes about River’s height exited the driver’s side of the car. He wore a full suit, and a gold watch decorated his wrist, a matching wedding ring on the left ring finger. His smile was gentle as it reached his eyes.
“Mr. River, I presume?” the man asked in a thick Southern accent.
More screams came from the women behind him, making River cringe from the sound. Why the hell were they so excited? River sighed. Caydem was disrupting his life too much. He was going to have to talk to the vampire. He looked at the driver, giving him a curt nod.
The driver opened the door, and River got into the car, if only to get away from all the screams and whispers. People were staring at him, contemplating if he was famous and wondering who he was. River’s jaw ticked with annoyance, but he pushed it aside.
The black interior with white accents was plush in the spending too much money kind of way. The back seat was large and comfortable with enough legroom that River could stretch his legs out fully. The middle armrest was large and had buttons on it along with a place for River to plug in and charge his phone.
The front car door opened and closed, and they pulled off. The tint on the window was so dark it looked as if the sun had gone down completely, instead of the pinks, purples, and blues River knew the sky was. The car drove so smoothly it was like riding on clouds. If River were to close his eyes, it wouldn’t even feel as if he was in a car.
He relaxed in his seat and tried his hardest to ignore the driver’s eyes, but they unfortunately kept straying from the road to River. Why couldn’t the man ignore him and just drive? No such luck as they braked at a red light. The driver decided conversation would make the car ride better.
“What are you studying?”
River thought about not answering, but sometimes it backfired and only made people even more interested in him. River had run into that question a few times, and each time he gave his answer, but it always led to a why.