by Tijan
Lovecrushes aside—or maybe front and center—I hadn’t moved my eyes off Roane’s back, but then my eyes slid past his shoulders to his black computer screen. I found myself staring smack head-on with him. I gasped in mortification. He’d been staring right at me the whole time. This was not good, not at all. He knew that I knew. I knew that he knew I knew. I could’ve pretended that I didn’t know he was listening to us, but now all bets were off.
He’d seen.
I smiled smugly and whispered, “I know what you are.”
His face didn’t move. His eyes didn’t react, but I knew I’d made him angry.
CHAPTER TWO
I called my empath sponsor and planned to meet her for coffee. When I pushed through the glass doors of Coffee Java, I inhaled the freshly brewed aroma and felt like I’d just touched a piece of heaven.
Blue looked up and waved an arm from a back booth tucked into the corner with bookcases and empty tables surrounding it. I liked how private it was. Blue got her name for her graying hair that she dyed with blue highlights. She liked that it gave her an out-of-this-world quality although she was very much an earthly woman. Every one of the bracelets jangling on her wrist stood for a cause – pollution, cancer, save the forests, happiness from an orgasm.
I smiled widely as I weaved my way through the book cases. “Blue-cheese, how are you?”
She laughed with her raspy deep-throated voice. “That never gets old.” Nudging forward a coffee, she added, “Take it. You know it’s for you.”
I nabbed it and closed my eyes when the liquid touched my lips. It was so good, so yummy, and I knew I really was in heaven.
She closed the novel she’d been reading and pushed it to the side. She wasn’t one for idle talk. “Okay, girl. Out with it.”
“I have a problem.”
She arched a perfectly outlined eyebrow and rested her chin on her hand.
“I have vamp problems,” I said further.
Understanding dawned in her grey eyes. All empaths understood that statement. Sometimes we felt too much, but when we felt a vampire our senses went haywire from what they felt. “Are you still practicing your blocks?”
I nodded. I’d upped my level since I joined the hotline.
“That’s good. Keep at it. Now, tell me about the vamp problem.”
What could I say? “It’s nothing really, but a feeling. He saw me in the library today with my roommate. I asked her about him and he heard the whole thing.”
Blue frowned. Her purple lips rubbed together. “What’s the problem? Vamps are used to that.”
“I was watching him when I asked her about him. I didn’t realize that he’d been watching the entire time.”
“What do you mean ‘watching’?” She narrowed her eyes.
“He knew that I knew what he was. It was like a challenge or something. I didn’t like it.”
“Oh, girl.” Blue frowned deeply this time. “What’d you do?”
I took a sip of my coffee, but the flavor didn’t taste heavenly anymore.
“Girl.”
“I might’ve said something like ‘I know what you are’ …or something.”
She pursed those purple lips together and reached for her coffee. I felt her disapproval coming at me in waves. “You did what?”
“I couldn’t help it, alright? It was like he was challenging me or something.”
Blue sat her coffee down and leaned forward in a matronly way. “You know better, Davina. You have issues with vampires. We all do, but you’ve got more. You gotta fight that. Now what’s gonna happen? You know vampires. They love challenges. He’s going to be all over you now. Then what? How are you going to get away?”
In a small voice, I murmured, “I could always do what I did before.”
Blue let out a disgusted sound and rolled her eyes. “I would not recommend lighting a vampire on fire. It didn’t help you back home. It won’t help you this time. Learn from your mistakes, child.”
My back stiffened at that. I hated being called Davina and I really hated being called ‘child’. “You know, maybe moving here and having you so close isn’t all that great.”
“I’m being your sponsor. You know the steps. If you’ve got vamp problems, you’ve done step one. You’ve told me. Good job, but you need to be held accountable for the next step. Which is?”
She knew I knew it, but I cringed when I had to say it. “I have to attend an empath meeting.”
“And?”
“And...,” This was so freaking hard. “…I have to tell the group.”
“About?”
I growled deep in my throat. “I have to tell them about Craig and how I lit him on fire because he was stalking me.”
Pride gleamed from Blue and she smiled blindingly. “That’s my girl. You know the deal. Vampires have their twisted thing for us. The good ones avoid us out of respect and the bad ones—you know more than most.”
I swallowed tightly. Craig had reveled in my torment. He’d become obsessed with me. He stalked me and he loved that I couldn’t block him. Vampires were overpowering, much more so than humans. An empath could easily block humans at a level four, but it wasn’t until level six that we could easily block vampires. Craig met me when I was on level five. Luckily, the night that I’d snapped and lit him on fire was the night that I broke to level six. I remembered that night. I saw him on fire and I remembered the pain that engulfed him while I stood back to watch.
“Girl.” Blue’s calming voice brought me back. She had opened herself up and I could feel some of the pain taken from me.
“Don’t do that,” I murmured huskily. I didn’t want her to feel my pain. No one should be burdened with that.
She reached over and placed a hand on mine. It instantly calmed me and I turned my palm upwards to link our fingers. Blue smiled gently. “There’s a reason why we’re empaths, Davy. You know that. I like to help a little bit, every now and then.”
‘Every now and then’ was the empath community’s motto. We all learned that we could help every now and then, but not too much to kill ourselves. Too many had died because they tried to help too much.
“Now,” Blue squeezed my hand. “What are you going to do with your current vampire?”
“Oh…” I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I’ll have to see what kind of vampire he is. He might be one of the good ones.”
Blue twisted her lips in disbelief.
“I mean, he seems to be one of the student vampires.” The chances were fifty-fifty. The bad ones pretended to be college students to hunt.
“There’s a meeting next week. You should go.”
I’d have to go — it’d be good for me.
“So, tell me about your crazy uptight roommate.” Blue’s eyes rekindled with gentleness. She knew I needed a lighter topic. The ‘Craig topic’ was deep enough for me. So I sat back and entertained her with Emily stories. By the end of our meeting, I hadn’t said a word about the suicidal girl. I knew I should have, but I was still uneasy thinking about it. Some things were too hard or too scary to put into words.
When I returned to campus that evening, I faltered as I got out of my car. The air was chilled, but there was something else, something supernatural in it. Looking over my shoulder I only saw a parking lot full of cars. There was a clump of trees at the north end of the lot, but I’d go south to my dorm. I held my breath as I walked underneath two tall oaks and an arched overhang that led into the quad of my dorm.
Throwing my bag over my shoulder, I marched forward. No shadows moved and none seemed to watch me in return. I breathed easier when I neared the main doors. Once inside, excited voices came from the television room.
We were allowed boy visitors, but a lot of girls used the lounges for their study groups. It wasn’t unusual to look inside to see books and papers sprawled across the beige carpeting right
