I woke while he was still asleep. He had his arms around me, cradling me as if I was a child, and I was in his lap with my arms around his neck and my head on his shoulder. I jumped up not wanting to be caught like that, and with my sudden movement he woke too. He jumped up, crouched as if to attack, and then looked at his surroundings. When he realized it was only me he relaxed and stretched just like any normal human would, but I couldn’t forget his first reaction and I wondered about his past, but I won’t ask him.
“Good morning Hiram,” I said in my most cheerful voice.
“Morning,” he replied, but I noticed that he looked at me with not only admiration, but awe and respect after remember what I showed him last night about what kind of torture I went though to save my sister.
“I am going to take a bath in the river,” I state, and with that I walk off to the river, but I can feel his eyes watching my every movement. The water was glacial cold, but it helped to clear my thoughts. By the time I returned I knew exactly what I was going to do. I walked up to him sitting on a rock and stared at him.
“Since I cannot beat you I have no control over you, so I care not what you do. If you decide to stay with me, very well, but if you leave I must ask you to not tell anyone where I am.” He looked at me and smiled.
“If you don’t mind I would like to travel with you for now. Life is so boring with only me.”
“Very well,” I said grinning, “but I have to warn you, it is not going to be easy. I have to go back to her, for I am afraid for what she might do to Kit. If I am gone, I don’t even know if she will keep her word and wait for my consent, she might just consider Kit without any family members left. I have to back and save her.”
“Hey, I’m game. Which way do we go?” I looked over my shoulder.
“North,” I declare. As we walked toward the place of my creation, the wind caused the leaves to swirl around us. If we were not vampires with abnormal strength, the wind would have pushed us back. It was like the wind was trying to warn us of what lay ahead.
Hiram said nothing during the journey that first day and I was determined not to be the one to come up with a conversation. I played with the idea of asking about his past, but didn’t have the guts, and everything else seemed trivial.
When we finally stopped for the day, I was exhausted. I spotted a rock and sat down. Hiram turned and looked at me.
“Oh no, you will not be resting yet.”
“What?”
“If you are to face her you need to learn how to fight. You have a lot of natural skill. Even more than most of our type,” he said and I noticed how he avoids the word vampire, “but with proper training you could be amazing.”
“And you plan to give me this training?”
“Yep, now get in ready position.”
I wasn’t actually sure what ready position was, but I tried starting how the boxers on T.V. do. He looked at me curiously, and when he found out that I wasn’t joking, he started laughing quite loudly. I was very embarrassed, but what could I do.
“Ok,” he said, still chuckling, “let’s start with your stance.”
After that night, I was very sore: my legs, my arms, my back, and even my head. Not to mention my whole body was covered in bruises from his constant beatings. I was used to this kind of pain, but I felt better about it this time, because I was not the only one who was sore.
“Ow!” he exclaimed when he got up and stretched. He looked at me with respect and some fear. “You hit hard.” I grinned in response. “Are you not sore at all?” he asked.
“Very,” I said, “but I am used to it. This is nothing.” At this response he face fell into pity mode, oh how I hated the sight of it.
“Let’s go,” I said thinking quickly and wanting to avoid conflict.
About halfway through the days walk I heard Hiram cry out triumphantly.
“Ha look at this. I found flint for building a fire. I am going to run up ahead and start a fire, so it will be blazing by the time you get there.”
I nodded and he ran ahead. The time seemed to pass slower without him there. That’s weird, I thought, I never actually needed the presence of someone else before to make me happy.
When I reached our meeting spot at first all I saw was Hiram, as proud as can be. Then my eyes drifted to the right a little, and I saw a roaring fire. Fire…oh no. I backed up slowly against a tree. Seat was poring down my face and I was shaking like a madman.
“What?” Hiram asked noticing my crazed look. As he realized where my eyes were locked, he caught on quick. He understood that for some reason I was scared of fire, he just didn’t know why.
The fire was too big to put out, and we needed the heat on our frozen bodies, but he had to get my attention away from it. He grabbed my arms, (which were pinned to my sides), and pulled me over to the fire, with my back facing it. My back was getting warm and all I could see was his beautiful face.
Even though I was deathly afraid of what was behind me, my instincts said that if you can see it, it can’t hurt you. I tried to turn my head to see the roaring flames, but two strong, soft hands cupped my face not allowing me to move. Tears started streaming down my face.
“No. Not Kit. You can’t have her,” I whispered. Then, resorting to his last resort he brought his face down to mine and kissed me squarely on the lips. I didn’t pull away either, it was a nice change from the hopelessness and despair I had hidden up inside me.
We kissed for what could have been days until all of my fear was gone. When I finally came back up for air, he just looked at me with a mixture of concern and excitement. He scooped me up into his arms and he laid us down on the ground, so close that we fit perfectly to the curve of each others bodies. We fell asleep like that.