The Donor House: Advent Story (part 20)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5
Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10
Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15
Part 16; Part 17; Part 18; Part 19

“Really?” Kisten asked, and Georgina could see how insecure he still was, but then she didn’t think of the vampires who’d come to the House searching for somewhere they might be able to call home were happy with what they’d become. Even Nick was still having trouble with it all, although he was much better than he had been. “I always thought that if I said something like that to any of the donors they’d feel uncomfortable with me and that’s not what I want to happen.” He sighed. “For the first time I feel like I might have a chance of having some real friends, so I don’t want to screw it up by doing or saying something stupid.”

“Kist, I can’t speak for all the donors, that’s simply not possible, because I don’t know enough of them, but I know personally that I’m more comfortable with a vampire I know is being honest. By telling me that you enjoyed my blood you’re doing just that. It’s something you’ll have to talk with your other regular donors about if you want to know for certain what they’ll think, but I can’t imagine them being insulted by you asking the question. Even though we might not have started out that way by the time we’ve been here about a month every donor begins to want to learn more about the vampires they’re close to. You’ve been coming here now for almost six months and we want to know about you, whether what you have to tell us is good or bad. We know that some of the vampire who’ve come here weren’t always someone we’d be comfortable around, but they’ve changed.” Georgina glanced over at Sullivan. “The House is a place of forgiveness, of learning how to be a different type of vampire, of bring a predator and their prey together to create something that I never truly believed would work, and of sanctuary for some. It’s somewhere I couldn’t imagine ever being, but I’m so glad I came, because it’s home. Leaving…” She shook her head. “We all talk about what it will be like on the outside, for those of us who’ve been here for years, and it’s always a heart wrenching conversation. One day we’ll have to leave the House, leave you all behind, and that’s something we really don’t want.”

“You can’t be donors forever,” Jean-Luc commented, biting his lip. “At some point you will all need to move on, to have real lives again, but I don’t think Nick ever truly realised how close we’d all get. I know he’s got closer to a couple of donors than he ever believed he could, even though it’s nothing like the relationship he had with Alice when the two of them were doing this alone, and I think we all wonder what it will be like when someone we’ve become close to leaves the House, because it is going to be heart breaking. I doubt we’re all just magically going to go our separate ways – it’s not going to be that simple.”

Georgina lent against the wall. There were still more vampires in the House than there were donors, but, thanks to Alice and Nick’s rules, that hadn’t been a problem so far, and she knew Nick would bring in more donors when he found the right people. His insistence on that was what had made the House so wonderful, so no one complained, although they did always look forward to the day when someone new would arrive. For the donors it was interesting to see who Nick had chosen and where they’d fit into the community they’d created. She could still remember the day she met Morgan, who was a girl Georgine didn’t think would have come to the House if she’d had another choice, but she’d become an important member of the community in more ways that one, because she was always there for Caleb, she was there for all the other humans as they saw her as a way of talking to the vampires in charge, and she was there to help any vampire who needed it.

Dominic had been the one to show Georgina around the House. There was a moment, before they started the tour, that she thought about telling him the real reason she was there, but in the end she didn’t have the courage to. She didn’t want to admit that she was so scared of a vampire that she was running away from him, because it didn’t make sense that she’d chose the Donor House to run to. It was full of vampires and for the first week she was permanently terrified. Every time she walked around alone she couldn’t help thinking that maybe one of them might grab her and feed from her without her permission, but it never happened. Of course, like a few of the other donors, there had been that one time when she’d forgotten to wear white and one of her favourite vampires had asked to feed from her. She knew she should have said no, but she didn’t want to – she wanted to help one of the vampires who’d made her feel like she could really call the House home.

Alice hadn’t been happy. She never was when one of her donors made that choice and it happened at least once for almost every donor, for one reason or another. It didn’t matter that she would have done exactly the same thing if she was in that position, especially if it was Nick, but it wasn’t long after that they’d had the schedules placed on every floor, so all the regular vampires knew when each of them was available, if they actually bothered to check them. Normally the vampires knew exactly who they could feed from, but there were times when they made mistakes, and she never had a problem with working one extra day, not when she didn’t feel like it would be a problem for her personally. Both Morgan and Dominic felt the same way, and they understood the reasoning behind the rules that Alice had put in place to keep them safe, even though they didn’t necessarily agree with her.

Every decision that had been made during the making of the House had been made because they weren’t certain how things were going to work out, so they were trying to plan for every eventuality. They wanted to make certain the donors felt safe and happy, that the vampires were comfortable but knew they couldn’t break any of the rules, and that it worked out, even thought they could never be certain that it would. Georgina could see the four of them sitting round a table trying to make sure that the humans outside the House would accept it before it was created and whether there might be thing they could change in the future if they managed to stay open for a year, then five, then ten… she could easily understand why they were worried that it wouldn’t happen. Vampires like them had enemies within their own people as well as the humans who were massively against the idea of bribing any humans to feed the creatures they hated.

Lack of understanding was, as Lewis always said, part of the problem. Humans found it easier to hate vampires, mostly because there hadn’t been any vampires who were willing to teach humans about what it was like to be turned into something that needed to drink blood to survive, due to the changes in the way their body worked, or even could, really, because vampires knew very little about themselves it seemed. They’d never felt the need to learn about themselves – they just did what they needed to in order to survive, but they didn’t know why they needed blood. All they knew was that was what had happened and there was nothing they could do about.

“No, it’s not,” Georgina said, sighing. “I honestly can’t imagine what life will be like outside the House, without waking up and knowing who I’m likely to be spending time with that day, that I’m doing a good thing for people who really need my help, that there’s a chance it might be a day when I get to meet someone new – vampire or human – who might be able to teach me something new or learn from me.” She shook her head. “Every day that passes is another day gone and some of us are already thinking of extending our contracts, although I’m not sure if Lewis would let us. It’s not as though we need the extra money – we just want to be able to stay here without having to think about leaving.”

“Don’t sign your life away, Georgie.” Jean-Luc reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “There are two things you need to think about before you make that sort of decision: what your plans were originally, before you decided to come to the House, and how you can make them happen when you actually leave.”

Georgina bit her lip. “Luc, I didn’t have any plans for the rest of my life. Maybe that sounds strange, but all I knew was that I wanted to finish my A-levels. I didn’t want to go to uni, not the way both my sisters do; I didn’t have any idea what sort of job I wanted, if I wanted one at all; I didn’t even know at one point if I was even going to have a future. There was so much happening and coming to the House gave me a chance to stop, to think, and yet I still have no idea what I want to do.” She shook her head. “I’m taking some online courses that are interesting, but I don’t think they’ll lead to a full time job, and I’m writing my blog, which is bringing in a little extra income thanks to the donation button I have set up, so staying at the House makes a scary amount of sense.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to be a donor,” Kisten said, smiling. “The larger the House grows the more help they’re going to need with all of the admin, cooks will come and go, there are inevitably going to be cleaning jobs, and that gives you other options. You may not live in the House any longer, because you won’t be a donor, but you will still be a part of everything, which I think is part of the long term plan. Every donor here is likely to be given the option of working here in some capacity, because we trust you. We know that you care about us, that you want us to be safe, and that’s a good thing for us to have.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Georgina smiled back, unable to stop her relief from showing. “I’ll have a chat with Alice before I make any definite decisions. There are no donors that I know who’ll be happy to leave the House, so knowing that we have those options in the future… it will be good for us. It’s not something the short term donors need, although I know they have been getting jobs with the vampires who’ve chosen to run shops in the local area, some who’ve chosen to work nights so they can sell for 24 hours, which means we don’t get left out the way we would have done in the past.”

“Cate’s taken on a couple of helpers too, which has been good for us and for her, because she knows we get paid by the House, so they’re working on a purely voluntary basis, at least until the time comes when they leave. Then, maybe, she’ll have the income to be able to afford to hire someone herself, especially for the night shift, because it’s important to her that there is one. She wants us to have the freedom to go there in the same way the humans who love her shop do.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.