Thrall (A Vampire Romance) by Abigail Graham

Author:Abigail Graham [Graham, Abigail]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2015-04-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I don’t cry or scream this time. I just sit there in a daze, hugging my knees to my chest, my eyes fixed on nothing.

He gets up. He comes over and he sits next to me. He reaches out and his hand nears my cheek.

“Don’t,” I say.

He pulls his hand away and rests it on the bed.

“Just leave me alone.”

“As you wish.”

He leaves me alone. He takes the notebook and his pencil and he closes the door behind him but doesn’t lock it, because a magic collar will choke me like a misbehaving puppy if I try to leave. I slide down the bed and stare up at the ceiling and wonder why, of all the people I’ve hurt, I am alive, or something like it, and they are not. I want to live, no matter how unworthy I am.

I want to know why this man cares so much.

I want to do something else. Be somewhere else.

So, books.

I end up staring at the page. I flip through the Lord of the Rings but I lack the patience to really read it. It’s not really the easiest book. A great book, but not a brisk read by any stretch of the imagination. When I look at the pages I see faces staring back at me. Andi, that boy and girl.

I never knew their names or their ages. What he told me makes me sick. If by feeding the vampires ate their souls, were they torn into pieces? Kept apart? What were they to each other? Lovers, or brother and sister? Maybe I read too much into it and he was just kind and selfless for all the good it did him.

One thing I know for sure: They died and I didn’t. Or, at least, I got to get up and walk around after. Keep going. They’re gone.

I look down at the pages and see one is dogeared and wonder what kind of a jerk dog-eared a collectible leather-bound gilded book. I turn to that page and scan down until I see the passage of interest that marks this page as special. There are many who live and deserve death, and many who die and deserve life.

With a thump, I close the book. No, I can’t give it to them.

I slip the book back in its case and stare at the others. There’s a collection of textbooks mixed in with the others. English texts, what look like philosophy texts. I’m so curious as to why Michael thought I would enjoy reading Nietzsche and the American Experience that I can’t help pull it off the shelf. It’s a used textbook, like many of the others. As I turn it, I see marks on the bottom. Someone has written across the edge of the pages.

C. MOORE

When I open the front cover there’s a name on the inside, beneath another name, crossed out. The latest owner.

Christine Moore.

I drop the book. It flops right out of my hands with a dull thud and I stumble backwards until I hit the bed and slide to the floor.

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