Donor House: Advent Story (part 2)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1

Morgan glanced over at Nick. “I may not have been here as long as some of the other donors, but I can see Nick doing that. He seems the sort of person who, when he falls in love, will do things that he wouldn’t normally do, and losing you would have destroyed him.” She bit her lip and when Alice’s eyes met hers it was easy to see the sadness in them, which was easy to understand why when Alice thought about how close Morgan and Nick had become in the sort time Morgan had been at the House. “Sometimes, when he looks at you, there’s this emotion in his eyes… he’s still worried about losing you now, Alice, even though you’ve been together since he changed you.”

“I know.” Alice sighed. “You’re not the only person who sees that look. Even though I’ve told him that I’m not going to leave him there was a time when he thought that I should. He wanted to protect me from things that I didn’t need protecting from any more. I did need protecting when I was a human, but he wasn’t ready to talk to me about certain things and he still isn’t ready now, not really. Unfortunately it got to the point where he didn’t have a choice any longer, because I woke up a vampire and he wanted to tell me why it had happened. As with everything, when I look back I can’t help thinking that he was telling me so I would walk away.”

“He didn’t expect you to stay.”

“Nick wanted me to stay… he needed me to stay, but he needed me to leave. We’d become close, closer than my parents thought was safe, and they kept telling me that I’d end up a vampire. I couldn’t tell them that was what I wanted – I couldn’t even tell Nick, because I didn’t think he felt the same way about me. A vampire falling in love with a human, especially a human he was feeding from, didn’t make sense. Not to a girl who’d been taught that all vampires were evil blood sucking menaces that should be exterminated.” Alice shook her head. “The only reason I felt the need to help him was because he saved me from being sold at auction. I never expected to start liking him, to start understanding his point of view, or that it was possible that I would fall in love with him. When Nick suggested the Donor House might be a viable alternative to the auctions we had a massive argument, because, to begin with, I thought the idea of setting up a community for vampires and humans was doomed to fail, but he knew that was, in part, due to the way I’d been brought up. Luckily he’s an understanding person, so the next day, after I’d calmed down, we actually talked about things like sensible adults.”

“From what Caleb said you’re making all of us more interesting to the auction vampires.”

Alice nodded. “That is a disadvantage of what we’re doing, but I think the advantages outweigh them. Even if you are taken to auction you’ll never become an addict and you’ll know how to deal with vampires feeding from you, so, as much as I wish we’d known that from the beginning, I don’t think it’s as much of a problem as it could have been. It’s something we can prepare you for, in case it happens, although I know that Nick’s long term plan is to bring an end to the auctions. I’m just not sure how we’re going to do that, because there are vampires who want to own the human they’re feeding from, mostly so they don’t have to share. Vampires can be very protective over the human they’re feeding from and then there are those who love to share.” She shook her head. “There are a lot of vampires who are people that never wanted to become what they are, but, for one reason or another, embrace the teachings of the vampire who created them. Francis might well have been a nice person before he was changed and it was spending time with Nick’s creator that changed him or he might have been a bastard even before he was turned. We have no way of knowing.”

“How many of you do you think there are?”

“I wish I knew, Morgan. When we first opened I wasn’t sure we’d have any visitors, apart from vampires we knew personally, but as time passes I’ve realised that we aren’t the only ones who didn’t want to become a predatory vampires. There are others who walked away from their creators, or we walked away from, because they didn’t want to hunt humans.” Alice thought about the stories she’d heard from the vampires who needed sanctuary within the House. “And then there are those who were pushed away for other reasons, like Jack, or walked away later on thanks to a human who made them realise they didn’t need to be the person they’d become, like Sullivan. I’m just glad that there’s now a place for them, where they can begin to heal and become a part of a community for what might be the first time since they became a vampire.”

“Sullivan came to me the other night to feed.” Morgan smiled. “I think he preferred the conversation that came after, because what he seems to be looking for right now is a friend. We spent a couple of hours talking about things that wouldn’t make him think about the human he still feels he killed, even though I think he’s beginning to come to terms with what happened. It’s just going to be a slow process.”

“With vampires it always is. I know why he feels guilty, because Nick felt exactly the same way, but she was lucky enough to end up with him instead of being purchased by someone who was going to use her.” Alice blinked away unexpected tears. “When I was attacked by Nick’s creator I didn’t think anyone would come to save me, even though I should really have expected Nick to come to my rescue, and I’d come to terms with what was going to happen. Being dead didn’t seem so scary, not really, not when there were worse things that could have happened to me if he hadn’t of rescued me the first time. I don’t remember when he found me, because by then I was, apparently, pretty much dead, and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to turn me into a vampire. That day he spend the whole time away, wondering if he had a dead girl in his bed, but then I woke up.”

“Your first words to him weren’t nice, were they?”

“They were nicer than they could have been, because I didn’t say the first thing that came to mind, but I wasn’t kind to him. I was angry with him for being selfish. Once we’d actually talked about what he’d do if he was in that sort of situation and he told me that, if it was someone he cared about, he would change them, but I don’t think either of us ever though it would be me he needed to change, so it wasn’t as though I didn’t know it was possible. Part of the problem was making the decision that I was okay with dying only to find myself alive when I woke up and I didn’t like that he’d taken that away from me.” Alice shrugged. “If he could have asked me he would have done, I know that, but what I don’t know is if he would have accepted that decision. I was the first person he’d been close to since the day he was turned into a vampire and I don’t think he could have let me die, even if I asked him to.”

“Love makes us do silly things.”

“Knowing how he felt about me might have made accepting his decision easier, but it was years before he admitted that was why he’d changed me. He was in love with me and finding me mostly dead had caused him to do something he’d always promised himself he never do – turn someone without asking for their permission first. I know he hated himself for it and that I hated him for it as well really didn’t help. I’ve had dreams where I’ve been able to talk to me just after I became a vampire, so I could explain what I know now, and I wish I could do that in real life, because it would have changed things for the two of us when I was still coming to terms with everything that had happen. It didn’t help that I knew my parents were going to disown me when I told them what I’d become, because I was one of the creatures they’d both been hunting their whole lives.”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you. When I think about how my parents would react if I had to tell them I’d been changed into a vampire I know they wouldn’t be happy, but I hope they wouldn’t disown me.” Morgan sighed. “That was one of their main worries when I told them that I’d applied to become a donor, so that we didn’t lose the house, and they tried to talk me out of coming here for a long time, even after they met Nick. Strangely, I think meeting Nick scared them even more, because he was so normal. It was as though they couldn’t believe a vampire could be civilised and able to have a conversation with more than one human without attempting to feed from one of them.”

“Nick does a job I could never imagine doing. I’m good with the donors when they arrive, but going into someone’s house to interview their child to see if they’re worthy of a place as a vampire’s blood donor…” Alice shook her head. “Even bringing myself to knock on the door would take hours, because I would have no idea how anyone within the house would react and I’d be afraid that someone in there would have the same reaction as both of my parents.”

“Staking Nick, thankfully, never seemed to cross either of my parent’s minds, and neither did hiring the hunters to wait outside for him, but I know that a couple of people put in applications purely so they could attempt to kill a vampire.”

“He has told me about them. Even though I don’t think he knows why he does it Sam will warn me if they’ve been hired to watch over a house. Slowly I do seem to be making him a friend and an ally, rather than the enemy I think we all expected him to be.” Alice looked over at the door, hoping Sam would arrive with Cate, but she knew it was unlikely. “Sam didn’t exactly make a good impression on Nick and Nick acts as though he doesn’t approve of us spending time together because Sam’s a hunter, but I know it’s because it’s Sam. He wouldn’t be so uncomfortable if it was someone else, even though they may well hunt vampires.”

“Sam didn’t make a good impression on any of us, Alice, and I don’t think he’s going to return, as much as I hope he will. He didn’t want to understand us when he came here – he was simply doing what his sister asked him to, because he cares about her. Maybe he’s changed now, I don’t know, but he’s going to have to prove himself to us if he ever wants to be accepted here.” Morgan shrugged. “You’re the sort of person who’ll give him the benefit of the doubt when the rest of us won’t and for that I honestly think you’re a much better person that I am.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.