Controlled Chaos (Deadly Dreams Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

2:00 a.m. Friday Morning

The movie ended at two in the morning. Donna and I snuggled on her couch. We kept our physical distance, although we were being affectionate. It was less romantic snuggling and more warmth snuggling. Her heater was down and her apartment was freezing.

After the movie ended, Donna stood up from the couch and looked at my side of the coffee table. There were two picked-at pieces of pizza and three empty two-liter bottles of Coke.

“Not hungry?” Donna asked, and then followed her statement by saying, “and apparently very, very thirsty?”

“Donna things have been different lately,” I said.

“How so?”

I looked at Donna and wondered how much I could trust her. “What is happening to me is almost in the category of ‘unbelievable.’”

“Which is what?” Donna asked.

I looked at Donna and realized she never knew I was attacked. I never told her. I also never told her about the decision I had to make with Dave. She knew Dave. She knew him through me, but they were kindred drug-addict spirits.

I had always kept my problems off the table because I knew how easily Donna was triggered into doing anything drug related. But tonight, she wasn’t a drug addict. I needed a friend. I needed a friend’s advice.

“My life is falling apart around me in ways I never knew to be possible,” I said to Donna.

Donna stood up from the couch, went to her hallway closet, and pulled out two more comforters for us to snuggle in. We already had three. It was cold.

She jumped back on the couch with the five comforters piled on us. Underneath all the rubble, Donna’s hand found her way to mine and she held it tightly. Then, from underneath the covers, she said, “Hunter, sometimes I feel I barely know who you are. You know everything about me. Let me in. Trust me. I won’t bite.”

I exhaled, and I could smell how the air had become a combination of our breath meshing together with the scent that was coming from the comforters and couch.

“Donna,” I said with a raspy voice, “I was attacked about a week ago.”

“Oh my God! What do you mean attacked?”

“Three men beat me up at the park. They bloodied me up pretty good and I passed out and woke up in the hospital.”

Donna looked at me and sighed. Again, not the response I expected to hear. “Oh, Hunter. Were these men biting you?”

“Yes, how do you know?”

“Did all three of them bite you separately?”

“Yes,” I said, scared.

“Hunter, has everything gone haywire since?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t go out in the sunlight?” she asked.

“Holy shit! Yes!”

“Can’t eat?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Hunter, it’s happened.”

“What has happened?” I said loudly.

“Hunter...”

“Yes.”

“You’re a vampire.”

That was when the simplicity of our conversation ended, and my mind was officially blown. I closed my eyes and looked at my friend and said, “How do you know anything about that subject?”

“Hunter, we all know stories.”

“They’re just urban legends,” I said.

“Hunter...oh, my sweet Hunter. I have seen them with my own two eyes. One of my brothers has become exactly what you are.”

“Which one?”

“Ricky.”

“And he does heroin?”

“He says it is awesome for him because you can never OD as a vampire.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All the facts were in front of me, but still my common sense was making me question everything I was hearing. I couldn’t come to terms with what I was. I was a fucking vampire. That was why Father Fitzpatrick couldn’t be around longer than he had. He saw the evil that was around me. Are all vampires evil? The ones who bit and tore through my flesh definitely were. Was I now evil?

“I’m not evil,” I said to Donna.

“I know you’re not. This is what you have become. Think of it as a religion. It sucks that it was chosen for you, but from what I hear, it’s not so bad. It’s extremely under wraps. The second humans find out, they’re watched like hawks. I know. Because I know. They are just waiting for me to mess up. Maybe that was why you were here. Is it to mess me up?”

I looked at Donna and saw the fear in her eyes, and I said quickly, “I know nothing. This is the first conversation I have ever had with anyone about this matter. Others may suspect, but I have only been able to bring it up to you.”

“Really?”

“Really? Which part?” I said, laughing.

“Wanna have some fun?” Donna asked.

“How so?”

“Well, I have a fantasy, and I know you have a hunger for it. Why don’t you pick a vein I have on my neck and have at it until I can’t take it anymore?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t want to kill you, or even worse, turn you into a vampire.”

“You won’t do either. I need to be bitten by three separate ones, and you will be the only vamp I allow to taste me. My brother and his fiancée make it part of their sex life.”

“We don’t have a sex life,” I said.

“Then let’s make it part of friendship,” Donna said.

“Our friendship?”

“Yeah.” Donna took off her shirt underneath the covers. “Lay on top of me, Hunter and find your way around and have at me. We will have a safe word.”

I laughed. “What will that be?”

“Chaos.”

“Chaos? The safe word is ‘chaos’?”

“I like the irony in it,” Donna said.

“You want me to lie on top of you and slowly just suck on your neck until I can draw blood?”

“Yes,” Donna said, excited.

“Oh my God. Are you kidding me?”

“You have ten seconds to do this, or I’m going to pull it off the table forever.”

Then Donna began counting down. She got to one, and I jumped on top of her slim, hard body and I found her neck and began kissing it. I didn’t know if it was impolite to just start sucking blood out of someone’s neck right away. Was there a protocol? But at the end of the day, I was a gentleman. I maneuvered my body so I wasn’t putting much weight on her body. I began kissing her neck slowly. My kisses became licks. My licks became nibbles. My nibbles became bites. My bites allowed me to suck. And suck I did. I tasted her glorious blood as it trickled down my neck. It was the most delicious fluid to ever go pass over my taste buds.

I sucked harder and harder, tasting every drop, loving every moment this was happening.

Suddenly she whispered in my ear, as sexy as she could. She said, “Chaos.”

Chapter Fifteen

2:30 a.m. Friday Morning

We took all of her comforters to her bedroom, so with the two she already had on her bed, we were now dealing with seven comforters. We both jumped into her bed and piled the comforters high, and underneath all the blankets, we found each other.

“Did it hurt?” I whispered.

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m not.”

“You’re not?”

“No. It was hotter than sex. Well, then again.”

“Then again what?”

Then Donna reached out her hand, and it was freezing. She slid it under my basketball shorts and took a hold of me. She rubbed me sensually and very slowly. My hardness felt the glory and celebration of her magnificent touch. She rubbed me in a way that was sensual and erotic. She did this extremely well. Maybe too well. I rolled her over, ending her hand party, and began to kiss her face, neck, and mouth. When our lips touched, I paused and took in the moment. Then we began kissing and kissing as if we had been waiting fifteen years to do so.

We had been. I was shaking as I kissed Donna.

“Are you cold?” she asked.

“No,” I said. Our shirtless bodies entwined and we were skin on skin.

I could feel her heart beating through her chest and on top of my chest. We continued to kiss and touch one another in a very slow and methodical way. Eventually, we took each other’s underwear off. At first we both allowed our hands to do our bidding.

I knew what our bodies were wanting. Covered in seven comforters, I made love to Donna, long and slow. I was a gentleman the entire time. I had gotten away with being naughty earlier by sucking her neck. I wanted her to know she was special. She was someone I was falling in love with. Maybe I already was.

When she fell asleep, I found some cardboard boxes and did my thing on her windows with some duct tape I had out in my car. Now her house was as crazy as my office and soon to be home.

Chapter Sixteen

5:00 p.m. Friday Evening

I spent the entire night and day with Donna. This was the very first time I never went home from her house. This was also the first night in fourteen years that we’d made love. I know people are weird if you leave after that act occurs, so I stayed in her freezing apartment, smothered by more than half a dozen comforters.

I had restless sleep. I never slept well anywhere except my own bed. I didn’t have a sleep paralysis seizure or dream. I awoke around five in the afternoon. I called into my office and caught Sara before she went home for the evening. I told her I was changing my work schedule for the time being. I told her that I would work graveyard hours.

I asked her to forward any calls to my cell. I needed to figure out a few things before I headed off into the sunlight again.

I was up most of the night, trying to puzzle through how Felix came into my life. I couldn’t determine if my dreams were real or not. Had I seen Felix in another situation and my subconscious had just produced him in my dream world? Or was the nightmare real? Had Felix really thoughtlessly murdered those people in cold blood? How was it possible for me to see them? So many strange things had been happening to me since the attack, and I could only assume that they were all connected somehow.

Something strange had happened to me that night. If my nightmares were real, then I was witnessing murders, quite literally right before my eyes. I would then need to do something about that.

Right? I couldn’t just let him kill people. You’re only one man, Hunter. Not even a superhero at that. How can you stop anyone? You couldn’t even stop your own attack. Who are you to stop a man who has probably killed many more people than the ones you have witnessed?

I had to talk to Steve; I couldn’t pursue Felix alone. I would need some help. Steve would know what to do. I called Steve and asked him if he wanted to grab a beer later in the day.

Donna was still asleep. She already had the schedule of a vampire. How did she know so much about vampires? I felt like there was a world out there that everyone else knew about, but they kept it from me. Like a kid who finds out he was adopted after he became an adult, what I was learning about myself and my new condition was enough to make me feel crazy enough. But you throw these vivid dreams on top of it, and I had to constantly tell my subconscious to chill out so I wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown.

Being that it was almost Thanksgiving, it would get dark around 5:30 p.m. here in southern California. I wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Donna before I met up with Steve.

Donna got up around 6:30 p.m.

“Get up, sleepyhead,” I said. You’re sleeping away all the warm hours. It will go back to freezing here in a second.”

I looked at Donna and I knew she felt a tad embarrassed about what had happened last night. I didn’t want her to feel any awkwardness, so I jumped in and began talking about it. That way, we both could feel an equal amount of awkwardness.

“Did you have a good time last night?” I asked.

“That depends,” Donna said. She looked as beautiful as I remembered. She had her hair in a ponytail, and she always looked cute when she did that. It made her look a little younger and I think she liked that. She had on the same pink tracksuit she had on last night.

“That depends?” I said, laughing. “Depends on what?”

“Depends if you were just taking pity on me?”

I looked at the beautiful woman in front of me and the fact that she needed assurance didn’t surprise me. “Donna, everything I did with you last night, I wanted to do. I have desired you for quite some time. And last night you let me desire all of you. Literally.”

Donna stared at me and she was reading me. Her bullshit radar was on high. So I looked at her and said to her as honestly as I could, “Last night was very special to me.”

“Which part?”

I laughed. “Everything,” I said. “The whole experience.”

“You know, I loved it when you sucked my neck. I mean...I loved it when...” Donna stopped herself and was embarrassed.

“When what?” I asked.

“I loved it when you were inside of me. It felt right. It felt like you belonged there.”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to say. So I just closed my eyes and told Donna all that was in my heart. I was ready to tell her everything.

“Donna,” I said. “I haven’t had a serious relationship in years. I used to think it was because I was picky. After last night, I’m pretty sure what I have been doing.”

“What have you been doing?” Donna asked.

“Waiting for you.”

“Really?” Donna walked over to me and gave me a long, wet, juicy wet kiss that made my teeth hurt. But it was powerful and pretty damn awesome.

“I love you, Hunter,” Donna said to me. “I have loved you all my life. You’re my best friend. There have been times that you have been my only friend. I don’t deserve you.”

I stopped Donna from talking such nonsense and said, “We deserve each other.” Then I took my right hand and placed it behind Donna’s beautiful head. I brought her face to mine and gave her a long, slow wet kiss. “I love you, too,” I said, not surprised those words were coming out of my mouth.

Talking to Donna like this made forget what had happened to me in the grand picture. It was confirmed last night that I was indeed a vampire.

What the fuck? What did that even mean?

I looked at Donna and I changed gears. Although this romantic talk was nice and refreshing, I had too many vampire questions. The main one was how many people knew about it, and what were the odds Donna was one of them.

“You tasted amazing last night?” I said, referring to the first act we engaged in last night.

“About that,” Donna said.

“Yeah about that,” I said, cutting her off. “Is this really happening? Have I seriously become a vampire and not only are you okay with it, your fucking little brother, Ricky, is one too?”

“What a ride,” Donna said.

“You’re telling me. How come my little snack time didn’t turn you into a vampire the way it did me?”

“You need to be bitten by three separate vampires and survive to become one. You’re my first,” Donna said to me and winked.

“And that’s common knowledge?” I asked.

“It is to the vampire community. By the way, they also refer to themselves as the Mani.”

“The Mani?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure why. But there are quite a few of you guys out there. You can’t be revealing yourself as a vampire, or the Mani will come after you and dispose of you. My brother has told me some wild stories.”

“Why are you safe? How come you know and the Mani is okay with it?”

“I have been approached Mafia style and told if I don’t keep my mouth shut to normal humans that they would kill me.”

“Who approached you?”

“He was a male vampire. He didn’t leave his name.”

“Was he wearing a trench coat?” I asked.

“No,” Donna said. “Were you attacked by vampires in trench coats?”

“Yes,” I said. “Three different colors. Trench coats, that is.”

“Oh my God.” Donna looked at me as if she had seen a ghost.

“What is it?” I said.

Donna looked at me and said, “Your attack was no coincidence. You had a hit on you. Those three Mani are hired guns. I know this because the man that visited me told me that next time, the trench coats would be coming for me. I asked my brother Ricky what all of it meant. He told me they were hired hands and there are three of them. They either kill or they do what they did to you.”

“Left me alive so I would become like they are?”

Donna nodded. This was heavy shit any way I looked at it. I needed to go talk to Steve. Pick his brain a little.

I said goodbye and kissed Donna on the lips, then headed to Tips Bar. That was where I was to meet up with Steve.