Escaping Christian

11: Later

Take Me To Church Hozier Cover - Ellie Goulding

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Waking up that morning, the first thing I noticed was the empty room. The ray of light peeking through the curtains warmed my arms and legs. I gazed out and squinted through the early morning sunlight. It was barely daylight, probably only eight in the morning. Christian's whereabouts wasn't that much of a mystery. He'd left a note on the bedside table saying he was going to feed and to meet him at check-out at 9.

It was a blatant lie, we'd only fed the night before the last there was no way he was even a little bit thirsty. But I shrugged it away. I shrugged away every stupid thought I had because to be honest I couldn't afford to be thinking like this. We were on the run. He was helping me get from point A to B safely.

I undressed and stood under the jets of the hot, almost scolding water. Rolling my neck and shoulders, I shrugged and actually chuckled. The past twenty-four hours had been a game really. Everything between us was for show. He's a man, I'm a woman. We'd been lugged together for more than forty-eight hours, we've slept in the same bed - one of those times we were spooning for crying out loud - it was only natural for sexual awareness to stir.

Braiding my hair, I glanced at my tired reflection in the mirror just as I did last night and sighed. Doesn't matter if people describe vampires as inhumanly beautiful. I still looked like a cat dragged me out of bed and used me as a scratching pole.

I packed my bag after I threw on my shorts and t-shirt and made my way downstairs with ten minutes to spare. I didn't have a clue what the plan was today. I didn't know whether Christian managed to get that ride like Kate said we would. To be honest, right now I didn't care that much. All I wanted was to curl up and hibernate for year, I mean I had the time. What's one year to an eternity. Maybe reflect on the events of the past few days. Reflect and realise that maybe I should take up some form of martial arts. Take a few years out of work and go somewhere secluded where some Sendai can karate kid me or something. Lord knows it would have helped me now.

The reception area was quite lively for 9am. People were checking in and out, kids running through and outside, it was nice. I spotted Christian standing out, as per usual, by the reception desk searching the crowd. When he spotted me, I looked away and made my way toward him without taking my eyes off my own shoes which by the way were completely ruined.

"Are we checking out now?" I said when he opened his mouth. "I assume we're safe today, I'm sure Kate would have written a note or something. I'm also kind of hungry so food before we head out would be ideal. Any trouble feeding?"

Lifting his hand from his side, he handed me a paper bag with a logo I didn't recognise and said, "Yeah, I've already checked us out. We are safe and last night I did manage to secure us a ride with Jed and Helen. The bus leaves in fifteen. We'll be in Arish in two hours. And I didn't have any trouble feeding thank you for asking. You okay?"

I glanced inside the bag and examined all of the sweet, sticky breads. Close proximity for over forty-eight hours and he'd already picked up on my sweet tooth in the morning. I closed the bag and turned on my heel. "I'm fantastic. Where's the bus, I'm ready to head out."

Even if he did want to talk about anything that occurred yesterday I honestly didn't give him that much of a chance to. I'll take a page out of Rafiki's book and quote that whatever happened yesterday, "it didn't matter. It was in the past."

Outside, I was engulfed into two very affectionate hugs by Helen and Jed. I pasted on a smile. "Thank you so much for this, really. We'll pay you back, we promise-"