Chapter 14

Alina

“You know,” Erick stated. “You could at least pretend to be happy. Your dad’s gonna think I’m slowly torturing you to death, and that won’t be healthy for him.”
“You know,” I deadpanned, “you could at least pretend to shut up sometimes. It’s really healthy for you.”
“Ha ha.” Erick glared. “You’re not funny.”
I glared back at him.
Kendrick, Erick’s chauffeur, cleared his throat to get our attention.
“What?” we asked in unison and turned to resume our glaring crescendo.
“Master, ma’am, we’ve reached the hospital,” Kendrick said, all cool and professional as if he hadn’t just tolerated our bickering for the past twenty minutes.
That was when we noticed that we were sitting in the parking lot of the city hospital.
Erick was out the door and beside mine in an instant, pulling my door open. “Come on,” Erick said. “It’s time to give the best performance of your lifetime.”
“I’m his daughter. I shouldn’t put up anything!” I grumbled. “Let’s just hope Papa doesn’t see through it.” I hooked my arm through his as we walked inside the hospital.
We didn’t stop at the reception, for I already knew the way by heart. The receptionist sure did stop to have a good look at Erick, which he acknowledged with a smirk. I huffed and rolled my eyes at his arrogance. Erick was the Vampire Prince. Good looks were a part of his genetic makeup, but that didn’t mean he had to flaunt it all the time.
My legs started to get unsteady as we neared Papa’s door. He had gotten a lot worse these past few weeks, and I was scared to go in. The fear of what I might find inside gripped my heart in its icy fists every time I approached this room. I didn’t know what I would do if I lost him. My Papa, my strong, loving Papa who was my hero till that crash was gone. He never went back to being the person he was after Mom died. It was as if a part of him died with her that night. Now, it felt like he was giving up. I didn’t want to be the reason he was holding onto life because I knew how much pain he was in. The dialysis hurt like hell, and the chemos were killing him. I knew because I’ve seen him suffer, but I didn’t want to let him go yet.
“He’s fine,” Erick said while walking next to me. “I can hear it. His heartbeat is strong.”
“You can hear it through all the noise?” I asked as we passed the noisiest section of the hospital, the nursery.
“Vampire hearing is very strong. I simply have to concentrate on what I want to hear.” Erick stopped in his tracks to let a tiny toddler in a lemon yellow dress run out of the games room laughing and run a circle around us before heading to the nursery, her worried mother hot on her heels.
Erick and I both stopped to stare as her mother caught her around the waist. She threw her up in the air and caught her as the child squealed in joy.
“Hey, I wanted to ask about how vampire children are born.” I looked up at Erick, to which he raised an eyebrow.
“Eager, are we?” He simply smirked and moved his foot out of the way as I glared and attempted to stomp on it with my heels. Then he started walking again and pulling me with him. “Vampires can have children with both humans and vampires. With a human, the child will also be human since to give birth to a vampire, both parents have to be vampires. In the case of vampires, however, since our growth is so slow, conceiving a child takes time. My mother was aged three-hundred and seven when she had me, almost fifty years after my eldest sister and twenty-three years after my second eldest sister. Then again, Mother and Father got married in their late two hundreds.”
I could only stare open-mouthed at him as he spoke of three hundred years as if it were merely just a few years in time. For a human, that was three to four lifetimes!
“We’re here.” Erick knocked on the door before I could compose myself and barged right in.
“Erick! Alina!” came Papa’s excited voice as he saw us enter. He spread his arms wide open as I came forward.
All my fears vanished in an instant, and I found myself running into his arms and hugging him tightly. “My baby girl! Where have you been this past week? I missed you!” Papa scolded me lovingly.
It brought tears to my eyes. My papa was acting normally! He didn’t sound tired and worn out like he had been this past month. “I’m sorry, Papa. I was busy with the wedding arrangements. Kenna took me dress fitting, and we talked about the flower arrangements. How are you, Papa?”
“That’s great! I’m fine, baby, don’t worry.” He released me but took my hand in his as I sat down on a chair next to the bed. “I’m so glad you’re taking things better now.” Better definitely wasn’t the word I would use, but it was a start. I couldn’t exactly tell Papa what I had gone through since Erick came back into my life. It felt like a rollercoaster ride— sometimes scary, sometimes confusing, and sometimes good. We still had a long way to go before things were better between us.
“Erick, son! Come here.” He patted the bed opposite me where another chair was placed. “You haven’t visited me this past month either, son. Where have you been?”
Whoa! Hold on! Pause! Rewind!
Did Papa just say that Erick hasn’t visited the past month? As far as I knew, he had never visited Papa before! “Wait, what do you mean he hasn’t visited you this past month?” I voiced out my thoughts as Erick visibly flinched. “He used to visit you after you were hospitalized?”
Dad and Erick exchanged the ‘deer caught in the headlights’ looks as they looked at me and then back at each other. “Will someone be kind enough to tell me what the hell is going on?” I glared at them with arms folded across my chest.
My Papa laughed. “Looks like the secret is out. Well, no use hiding it now.” He patted Erick’s shoulders as he came to sit on the chair opposite to me. “He came quite often, actually, but never through the front door. That’s one reason why I was surprised he used it today. His usual entryway used to be the window. We would sit and chat for a long time while playing cards and discussing basketball.”
“I beat you every time, Allen. Don’t miss out on that!” Erick smiled, and for the first time, it was genuine. It made his face all the more devastatingly handsome.
“Yes, yes!” Papa laughed. “How can I ever forget that? You sure you don’t have x-ray eyes?”
“Pretty sure,” Erick said while still smiling.
“And you would be so persistent about having me drink your blood! I had to tell you every time I didn’t want any,” Papa said in a scolding tone. That got my attention once again.
“Blood?” I asked Papa, and Erick’s smile disappeared.
“Yes... Oh! You don’t know?” Papa asked, surprised.
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows at them. “You guys kept your whole escapade a secret, and you think I’d magically know that Erick offered you his blood? Can vampire blood even heal cancer?”
“Vampire blood to humans is like the best medicine ever created on Earth.” It was Papa who answered to my surprise. “Since vampires heal so fast, if humans ingest or inject vampire blood, it can heal them too.”
“But you didn’t answer my question. Can vampire blood heal cancer?” I repeated, this time directing my question at Erick.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “No one’s ever experimented with vampire blood on a human before, and even if someone has, they won’t exactly broadcast it to the world. Next thing you know, we’d be turned into lab rats by the government who’d drain us dry and cut us into a million pieces.”
“So you were planning to experiment on my father?”
“Oh, hush you two! Oh my, is that your engagement ring, Alina?” Papa held up my hand closer to his eyes. “It’s very beautiful. It suits you. Now, Erick, what brings you both here all dressed up?”
I shook my head at his obvious attempt at changing subjects but didn’t say anything. At least, Papa didn’t try any of his blood.
“We’re going to the inauguration of a new blood bank in Moosonee,” Erick answered, finally revealing the big secret he had been hiding from me this morning.
“Oh! That’s great news!” Papa exclaimed happily and became a dedicated manager at once. “Everyone has been waiting for that to open! Go on then. I won’t hold you back for too long. It’s important that you arrive on time.”
“Nah, I prefer to be fashionably late.” Erick smirked.
“Kids!” Papa grumbled before urging us on. “Now go on, and don’t forget to send me pictures!”
“Will do.” Erick got up and walked out the door but paused in the doorway. “I’ll be in the lobby.”
I waited until he was gone before I turned back to my father. “Are you feeling okay, Papa?” I asked again.
“Do I not look okay?” he asked with a smile. “Don’t worry, my little princess. I’ll be right here when you come back to see me again. Your wedding’s coming up, and I’m not going anywhere before that! Everyone has to go away someday, sweetie, some sooner than others. It’s the way of life.”
I nodded my head, but inside, I felt like crying for ages and ages to get all these feelings out of my system. I didn’t know how people could stand the loss of their parents, the ones who gave birth to them, because I kept praying that Papa could stay with me for as long as I was alive. I’ve already lost my mom, and I didn’t want to lose him too.
“Right.” I got up, afraid that if I stayed too long, I might burst into tears in front of Papa. With his condition a little better today, I didn’t want to give him something to worry about and ruin his health. “I’ll be going now. Erick’s waiting.”
“You know,” Papa said, halting me on my way. “At first, I was worried about how things would turn out between the two of you. You know, him being a vampire and us being human. But now, I know I don’t have to worry anymore.”
I smiled and hugged him before leaving, not really understanding what he meant. Did our performance went that well? Which was weird because I was pretty sure Erick was the only one putting up one.
An image of his smiling face crossed my mind. To me, he was this careless, arrogant vampire who thought humans weren’t worth living and should only be treated as food. But clearly, there was still so much that I didn’t know about him. Just when I thought I knew everything about him, he did something so out of character, something that I never in a million years would think he’d do, just like I never expected him to visit Papa, more so spend ages talking to him.
I found him standing right outside the nursery and leaning against the opposite wall while watching little toddlers and infants make a giant mess out of the games room. It was like seeing a different side to him altogether.
“Ready?” He pushed off the wall and took my hand in his as I came to stand beside him.
“Yes, let’s go,” I said. I was curious about when he started to visit Papa and why, but I didn’t want to ask too many questions and ruin this new impression I had of him. So I stayed quiet.
“Let’s go then.” We stepped into the elevator as soon as it opened and headed out to the blood bank to visit a bunch of vampires who would be all too happy to rip out my neck than sip on a bag of donated blood. No wonder Erick kept it from me for so long.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone near you,” Erick said from his place next to me. “As for the mind reading, no one can do that anymore unless you have their blood on your system. Besides, my blood has already worn off. It’s been more than twenty-four hours, and I gave you a very small amount.”
“I see. So the mental connection created by the blood has a time limit, but what do you mean no one can do that anymore?” I frowned. “You did this morning.”
“Yes, I did, but like I said, I can’t anymore. Also, your engagement ring is laced with magic to block anyone who had natural mind reading abilities. My great grandmother was a weak vampire. She couldn’t resist vampiric compulsion although they were only supposed to work on humans. To protect her from vampires with mind reading abilities and vampiric compulsion, that ring was created. You need it more than her now.” He explained.
I stared at him wide-eyed and then at my ring. A huge weight was indeed lifted off my shoulders.
“Thank you,” I told him, something I never thought I would ever say to him.
Erick snapped his gaze towards me. He was surprised as well but said nothing. The rest of the ride to Moosonee was quiet.
Let’s get the evening started, shall we?