Before we head out the door, I slip on my favorite black ankle boots, tugging each zipper up quickly. Bane hands me my leather jacket, and I decide not to push his patience any farther before walking into a vampire gathering where he’s my only ally, so I put it on.
Typical caveman brooding aside, I can tell something is bothering him. His death grip on the steering wheel makes every vein in his hand bulge as he drives his black dodge charger toward the mystery place where the vampires of Philadelphia congregate once a month. A location Bane still won't entrust me with, which is kind of ironic seeing as he’s the one who turned me into a vampire. I ignored his dark mood on the drive to my apartment, told myself not to poke and prod, but the more I think about it if he and I are going to be a thing, any kind of thing, he should be able to confide in me about whatever it is that has him this riled up.
I shift in my seat, turning to face him. After a beat it’s obvious he’s not going to acknowledge my full attention on him, so I lean over just enough to place my hand on his thigh. At first, he just looks down, like the gesture is foreign and strange. Suspicious even. He glances at me sideways for a second and returns his eyes to the road. Then I hear him take a deep breath. A few minutes tick by in silence, the sound of his calm breathing fills my ears, and somehow it feels like enough. The realization that my touch had that effect is akin to moving mountains when it comes to Bane. Then, without warning, he takes one hand off the wheel and places it over mine, interlacing our fingers. I stare at our hands, fingers locked together. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, and I turn away, looking out the window
“These meetings can get pretty intense,” Bane says suddenly, carefully enunciating the last word. His voice is calm, silky smooth, and bittersweet. “I don’t want you to be afraid, just prepared. It’s not unusual for someone to lose their head.”
I nod, trying to absorb everything he’s telling me. While it does nothing to calm my nerves, It does make sense. These vampires are older and more experienced than I am, but they’re still predators, driven and controlled by their thirst for blood. It stands to reason that if a few vampires show up to a meeting on edge from hunger, the whole underworld could see the effects. If their tempers are anything like Bane, I’m in for a wild and potentially violent night. The car fills with an unpleasant sound as I swallow the dry heavy feeling in my throat, and the car comes to a stop on an upper-level of a parking garage.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Bane whispers, tilting my chin so that our eyes meet. “I’ll be by your side the whole time.”
I nod again, willing my body to calm down. I can feel my rapid pulse and the heavy thudding of my heart, and I know that everyone will hear it. I’ll immediately be pegged as the fearful, overly emotional “new girl,” and my life as a vampire will be the sequel of my pathetic existence as a human. Bane reaches into the backseat and pulls out the black cooler bag he brought from his apartment. He unzips it and pulls out a blood bag, holding it out toward me.
“This will go a lot smoother if you’re not fighting your hunger and emotions the whole time.”
I bite my lip, searching his eyes for answers I know they can’t give me. Then I take the blood and gulp it down, letting the cold liquid soothe my dry throat and my nerves. As soon as I hand the bag back, he zips it into the cooler and climbs out of the car. I hesitate for a second, but then I feel the blood kick in. It floods my system, silencing my hunger, and taking the edge off my anxiety. I’m still terrified of the uncertainty that I’m walking into, but my body and mind seem much more willing to hide those feelings now. My pulse is slow, and my heartbeat calm when I step onto the concrete. I breathe in the fresh fall air as Bane leads the way toward an elevator. After a silent few minutes, the doors slide open, and we step inside. I watch as he pushes the button for the sixteenth floor. My brow creases when I step out onto what appears to be really expensive tile flooring, and I feel that my ideas about tonight may be entirely wrong. I was too distracted to pay attention to where we were heading on the drive over, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t expect the vampires of Philadelphia to meet on the top floor of a swanky apartment building. I was envisioning something much darker.
“What’s wrong?” Bane asks, his features pinching slightly.
“Uh, nothing,” I say, shaking my head.
“Piper.” He narrows his eyes.
I cave, deciding answers are more important than my pride.
“Well, actually. I was kind of expecting the whole underworld scene to be darker, more 90’s grunge, maybe like underground, rave style.”
“What?” he says. The confusion in his tone is clear.
“You know what, never mind. This is good, much better than an abandoned subway tunnel or a sewer.”
He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes a deep breath.
“You thought the most powerful creatures in the city managed their affairs from a sewer?”
When he says it like that, it sounds a bit ridiculous, but that’s exactly what I thought. When I think of vampires and all of the other supernatural beings from the big screen and books, I always assumed they spent their time lurking in the shadows, doing everything possible to avoid detection and avoiding humans at all cost. Clearly, I’m a bit off in my paranormal profiling. In lieu of an answer, I offer him a shrug as I shift my eyes from side to side. Thankfully it works. He stares at me in silence for a second and shakes his head in what appears to be bewilderment. Then he leads the way to a set of double doors at the end of the hallway.
“Sorry to disappoint.” He flashes me a sideways grin and slides a sleek black keycard into a reader beside the door. “But, we aren’t the sewer type.”
Bane pushes the doors open and steps inside. I follow him closely, unable to hide my wide eyes as we walk under a crystal chandelier in the foyer and step into a huge window-lined great room that could hold my entire apartment and still have standing room. The space is already packed with people. The crowd is busy chattering when we enter, and I watch Bane scan the group. His impenetrable mask is in place, and the small but playful smile from the hallway already feels distant. He clears his throat, grabbing my attention, before nodding his head and walking into the sea of chattering bodies.
First, I notice the way the group parts, stepping out of the way without question as soon as they see him approaching. When we get to the front, the crowd is silent, every set of eyes is on us, or more accurately, on him. That’s when it hits me, standing at the front of the room beside him with the full attention of the masses glued to him. Bane is the vampire king.
Piper
* * *
Now: October 31st
I can feel the shock setting in. My eyes go wide, brows raised. My rapid pulse and heartbeat fill the otherwise silent room. Confusion and panic are taking over. And then in an instant, they aren’t. Somehow, in a moment of complete instability, flooded with desperation, I do something I didn’t even know was possible. I turn it all off. My body goes from a manic ball of nerves to a flat serene pool in the blink of an eye.
I have no idea how I did it or how I’ll ever undo it, but suddenly I tap into a supernatural ability I didn’t even know I had. My feelings go numb, or they disappear. Who knows? Who cares? Consciously I am aware that the eyes focused on me are uncomfortable. I am also aware that Bane lied to me. He came clean about the bodies at the club, confided in me about his blood-stained past, and chose to keep his identity as the leader of the underworld a secret. Some would shrug it off as a lie of omission, give him credit for the truths he told and move on knowing that the truth came out. Those folks clearly don’t have trust issues of epic proportions because there is no way in hell I could just brush this under the rug and move on like this isn’t eating away at me. Even worse than Bane’s deceit is my own lack of intuition. I pride myself on being able to read people, to know when someone is a slimy lying snake- this is embarrassing.