Heather Terrell - Eternity (v5)

“Just where do you think you are going, El speth?” my dad asked, breaking the silence. His tone sounded hurt, and he was using the formal

“El speth.”

“Nowhere,” I whispered.

“Does this ‘nowhere’ include meeting Michael?” my mom asked. Her voice bore none of the soft, injured qualities of my dad’s. She was furious.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I sounded unconvincing, even to my own ears.

“We may be trusting, El speth, but we’re not fools,” she said.

I didn’t know how to respond. Obviously I was trying to sneak out, although I hoped they hadn’t witnessed the flying piece. I had no idea what they knew or for how long they had been aware of my nocturnal activities. Given that I had no desire to educate them about the details if they were blissful y unaware, I kept quiet.

“El speth, al ow me to make clear to you what seems very apparent to your mother and me.” My dad’s tone started to match my mom’s—less hurt and more angry.

“Al right,” I said.

“We have grounded you for that Facebook incident, which mystifies your mother and me. But you stil want to see Michael. So you two thought you’d sneak out of your respective houses late at night and rendezvous somewhere. Am I right?”

I wondered whether I should just cop to my father’s tale. After al , his theory was pretty close to reality, and it was far less damning than the ful truth. Plus, I could feel the need for Michael’s blood pulsating through me. Maybe if I just came clean, they would leave me alone, and I could stil meet Michael. Even now, Michael was my focus.

As I considered my response, my mom interjected, “Is Michael waiting for you out in the yard?”

“No,” I practical y shrieked. Michael and I had planned on meeting in town. But I was late, and I couldn’t take the chance that he’d come to my house looking for me. And I absolutely couldn’t risk my mom peering out the window for him, only to witness him flying by in search of me.

“Do you admit that you made arrangements to meet him somewhere? Just not here?”

“Yes.”

My dad shook his head. “El speth, we are so disappointed in you. This behavior is so uncharacteristic for the daughter we’ve raised and loved.”

He looked over at my mother, who nodded in encouragement. “We can’t help but think that Michael is somehow influencing your actions. For your own protection, we have decided to ban you from seeing Michael.”

“No!” I cried out.

“Yes, El speth.” My dad’s voice was unusual y firm. “We wil do whatever it takes to keep you from seeing him.”

I could not al ow my parents to separate me from Michael. I no longer cared about being a dutiful daughter—al I cared about was Michael and the blood. I felt myself getting furious, felt that expansion I first experienced when I lashed out at Missy. My words and my actions were no longer under my control.

I stood up from the window seat, defiant in the face of their attempt at restraints. “You cannot stop me from seeing him.”

My mom rose and got right in my face. She looked the way I felt. “Oh, yes, we can.”

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“El speth, I think your dad and I know exactly what you are capable of.”

Placing my hands on my hips, I matched her expression and then smiled smugly at her. “Oh, real y? I don’t think that’s possible.” I didn’t wait for her response; I headed straight for the window. I had every intention of flying right out of it, into Michael’s arms. I didn’t care if they saw. I needed to get to Michael, and I would not let them constrain me.

As I lifted the sash once again, I heard her cal out, “You think you’re a vampire, don’t you?”

Chapter Twenty-seven

I spun around and stared at my mom. Her eyes were so certain and knowing, yet contained no judgment of me and no incredulity. She knew who I was, what I was. I wanted more than anything to ask her how she knew, but the words stal ed on my lips. How could I ask an unthinkable question?

Overwhelmed and confused, I fel back on the window seat. I must have looked as disoriented and woozy as I felt, because my parents’ hands reached out to steady me. Through the miasma of the moment, I heard my dad say, “It’s al right, dearest. We’l help you.”

“Help?” I asked with a laugh. How could they help me? This wasn’t some high school problem to be solved with a pep talk and a pat on the back.

It wasn’t a dilemma that a few sessions with the local psychiatrist could cure. No, my parents couldn’t help me. No one could help me, not even Michael.

I felt my dad’s arm slide around my shoulder and pul me tight. “Would it help you to know that you’re not a vampire? Would it help you to know that vampires—as you think of them—don’t real y exist?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. The whole setting and conversation was becoming increasingly surreal. Was I actual y sitting here in my bedroom at midnight talking with my parents about why I was not a vampire? Or was I having one of those awful hyper-real nightmares in which you know you are dreaming but you can’t wake yourself up?

My dad fil ed in the deafening silence. “I’m going to tel you a story, El ie. It’s from the Bible—from Genesis, to be exact—so we have to take it with a grain of salt. But this particular story contains a nugget of truth, a very relevant nugget of truth. So I want you to listen careful y, very careful y.”

I’d grown used to my dad’s random quotations—even tolerated them—but I was in no mood. Anyway, a story from Genesis was an odd choice for my dad, who claimed he loved the messages and tales of the Bible, but couldn’t stomach how organized religions used them. “You said you wanted to ‘help’ me, Dad. How is that supposed to help?”

“Just listen, El ie.” It was an order. Since he was typical y more inclined toward polite requests, I nodded.

“In the beginning, for lack of a better term, God sent some of his spiritual intermediaries—we’l cal them angels—to mankind. He wanted these angels to protect his newly formed humans, to teach them about His divinity, and to shepherd them to heaven upon their deaths. Instead, these angels became enchanted by mankind. They became enamored of their purity and innocence and, of course, their physical beauty. They were made in God’s image, after al . But most of al , the angels became entranced with mankind’s thirst for knowledge, about their world and their origin.

Because, you see, the angels knew the answers.

“So, succumbing to their own pride in knowing the world’s secrets, the angels began to teach human beings al they knew about the earth—the constel ations, the signs of the earth, sun, and moon, knowledge of the clouds, the working of metals, the use of coin, and the art of war. In so doing, they fel in love with mankind. They even took human men and women as spouses and produced a unique race of half man and half angel. These beings were cal ed Nephilim.

“From afar, God watched the acts of these angels. And He was mad. These angels had taken His secrets and corrupted His favorite creation, humankind. They had even dared to fal in love with His creation and made a new creation of their own. And what could be more audaciously Godlike and defiant than that? Creation was reserved for His hands alone.

“God decided that there was only one way to undo the damage caused by these angels. He had to wipe out the now corrupt humans and the half-breed creations, leaving only a select few pure humans. So he whipped up the flood.”

My dad said this last word as if it deserved a capital ‘F’ and as if I knew what he meant. Which I didn’t.