'No! Stop it Kieran,' I thought to myself as my stomach twisted into a tight knot in hunger. 'Stop picturing and thinking about it.'
Focusing on her again as she pointed the way to her house, we finally came up to it on the other side of the block. It looked fairly big from the outside being a bi-level home. There were two cars parked in the driveway and the house was darkend and I could already sense three other people inside sound asleep. So they didn't know she had snuck out of her house then? Well what about taking her to her front door then?
"Uh actually do you think you could take me around back?" she asked quietly and pointed to the gate on the ohter side of the garage. I just nodded trying to keep my focus on her still and not my thoughts of still tasting her blood to see if it was just as sweet as she smelled. She opened the gate quietly since I was already holding her and I went to the back porch where there was a bench swing and set her on the seat. I was going to take off her hoodie and hand it back to her but she spoke up again. "Uh it's okay. You can hang on to it for now." She sounded embarrassed.
Giving her a nod, I too felt guilty for taking and hanging onto her hoodie. It looked like it was one of her favorites. I thought a moment then reached up and unclasped my chain that held my grandfather's ring on it and knelt down in front of her and went to clasp it around her neck to hang onto for the time being. She was rather surprised I guess and spoke again. "I...I couldn't take that."
"It's okay," I spoke finally to her finding my control over my hunger getting easier to handle at the moment though my stomach was still in tight knots. "I'm letting you borrow it just like you're letting me borrow your sweatshirt."
"Thank you," she replied as I helped her to stand up and watched as she limped over towards the slider door to the garage. I guess she had a way in after all.
"No thank you," I replied to her. "Until we meet again." Then I silently and quickly turned before she could turn to look at me and went around the side of the house where the gate was and went out it to the front and shut it behind me silently. I could feel her presence as she moved from the garage into the house and followed it up to where I guessed her room was at though she kept the lights off. I lingered under her window on the second floor for a few minutes trying to read her mind to see what she thought of our encounter but it was still a fuzzy humming. Then finally it quieted down with her mind and I figured she had fallen asleep.
Taking off down the street again after making a mental note of her address, I couldn't help but smell her scent still on her hoodie and the annoying feeling of not being able to fully read her mind like everyone else. I was going to get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing I did with her. I just wanted to know what she was thinking clearly in her mind just once.
By time I got home and came in, Gabrielle and Nickolas were working on getting a few boxes emptied out still and get a few more things situated to our new home. I was going to have to sneak up to my room and hope they didn't smell the girl's scent from her sweatshirt but I thoguht too soon. I could hear both their thoughts before Gabrielle peered from the living room area at me curiously.
"Is that a human's scent I smell?" she asked as she looked at me with her equally black eyes as I stood at the foot of the stairs with one foot on the first step and frozen in place as she came over to me. "Kieran don't tell me you bit a human." Nickolas also came from the living room and raised an eyebrow at me with his onyx eyes with the same question running through his mind.
"No I didn't bite her," I replied calmly though the scent of hers was getting to me again. "I was in a park to the south and she happened to be out roaming the woods at night. Why even I don't know. I couldn't get a clear reading on her mind for some reason. It was all fuzzy." I paused a moment. "I could smell her scent and it was so overpowering. Like now. Even now it's so overpowering. Can't you smell it? It feels like someone is hitting me with a sledgehammer."
"That powerful?" Nickolas asked confused. "Well now that is something. I've heard there were certain humans whose scent is really powerful for us but I've never seen or heard of it with my own eyes or ears."
"What did you do with this girl? You didn't hurt her did you? And where did you get the sweatshirt?" Gabrielle asked eyeing the girl's hoodie and put a hand up and touched the collar of it. I pulled back slightly since I didn't want the scent of the girl to go away.
"No but she ran from me since I think I surprised her," I replied. "I couldn't tell from her mind being fuzzy to me but I followed her and found her lying on the ground in the grass where she'd tripped and sprained her ankle. So I decided to help her and used my shirt I tore up to make a wrap for her ankle." I pulled out my torn up shirt and Gabrielle took it shaking her head softly. "I could just make out her feeling guilty for somereason and she handed me her sweatshirt to use since she had a long-sleeved shirt on underneath anyways." I paused again. "Then I carried her back to her house. I'll give her her shirt back when we meet again.
"Kieran," Nickolas started to say.
"I'm sure she goes to one of the high schools around here since she looks around eighteen," I replied quickly. "And I know where she lives so it's not that hard to not know which of the two high schools she goes to in this district. "I can just start there since I'm supposed to be playing a seventeen year old this time. It should be easy to find her."
"Just don't get carried away okay?" Gabrielle asked softly. "We just moved here."
"I know that. I'm not going to get carried away," I replied a little annoyed. I hated being as hungry as I was and knowing that I could say something that upset someone else. I always got a bit irritated when I was extremely hungry and the girl's scent wasn't helping much. I just wanted to retreat to my new room and inhale her scent all night.
"Kieran wait a minute," Gabrielle said stopping me before I could turn and go up the stairs before she turned and went to the kitchen and came back with a bottle of red liquid and handed it to me. "You better get something to eat before you get any more out of hand."
"Merci Gabby," I replied taking it and leaned down giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and a hug then a nod to Nickolas. For adoptive parents they really knew when to keep their own cool when I couldn't keep mine from the hunger.