17. Jessica

Her heart was restless as she kept pacing around. They had a beautiful apartment, spacious, modern, and classy. Jessica was pacing around on the balcony and couldn't stop. The note Kendrick left, made her unrest.

Soon it was morning and she didn't get an inch of sleep. Eyes bags were underneath her eyes, making her look puffy and her face swollen.

"I see you didn't get any sleep last night." Eunice sighed as she placed breakfast on the table.

"You need blood, get over here."

"I need a cure, not some animal blood." Jessica sat on the chair and drew the bowl of blood closer.

"So after thinking all night, did you find the one you are to sacrifice?" Eunice teased her.

"It's not funny Eunice. I don't have time, we don't have time. Kendrick is moving faster than us, he must have found the child and hid him from us, now the only way is either to beat him at his game and find the sacrifice or find a cure before he strikes."

"And you think I'm not worried? We need to pass this message to the others. We need to travel to the boneyard." Eunice emptied her bowl of blood and watched Jessica carefully drinking hers with a spoon.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, I didn't realize it." Jessica places the spoon beside her bowl and lifts the bowl to empty the blood in it.

"I'm getting weaker, I need human blood, I need my sacrifice." Jessica signed. Her gaze drifted to the spoon she dropped earlier.

"Somehow, I felt I need a spoon to eat."

"We all need a spoon to eat." Eunice brushed it off as nothing.

"I need to meet with Nicholas, I need to know why we always have a dramatic encounter, if I can solve that puzzle, then maybe I can mice ahead, but I pray that puzzle makes him the cure, nothing will make me happier."

"If you say so, but when you are done, we are leaving for boneyard. We need to straighten the protection on the walls, Kendrick must not penetrate."

Every month, Jessica's blood is sprinkled on the walls of the city, which makes it hard for any of Kendrick's men to penetrate the walls. It has kept the city safe for thousands of years, but the weaker Jessica got, the weaker the power on the walls gets.

"If I die, it wouldn't take Kendrick a week to defeat boneyard and reek havoc on the humans. We need to move fast."

"Says the woman who hasn't washed up to go see Nicholas." Eunice wobbled her head.

....

It has only been yesterday since she met him. She walked into the library thinking he might not be there. She decided to look around the book Nicholas was reading the day before. She found it - 'The cursed one.'

She sat at the table and started reading the book by Mary Dawn. Jessica came across a phrase at the end of the first chapter.

"A vampire without memories, one who has to be turned from human to the kinds that drink blood to survive."

Knowing that Mary Dawn only writes facts, Jessica was dumbfounded.

"Does this mean I was one human?" Her heartbeat was raising, as she stared helplessly at the book.

"If this is true it means, Richard..." She kept wobbling her head until she heard a voice behind her.

"Is everything alright?" Nicholas's voice sounded like chiming birds in the garden.

"You...?" Jessica fixed her gaze on him.

"It's Nicholas, can I sit?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, for what happened yesterday, I'm sorry for pushing you off like that, I'm sorry." Nicholas apologize.

"I'm sorry too, I didn't call for help when I was supposed to." Jessica tried to shove it off.

"You are reading the cursed one. The vampire who was once human but she became a vampire and didn't know how."

"How did she become a vampire?" Jessica was curious about the story.

"Till the end of the book, it was never revealed. I'm guessing the author doesn't know either. Or doesn't want her readers to criticize her work. Readers suspect her friend turned her into a vampire, but no one knows." Nicholas smiled.

"The author doesn't know, if she knows she must have written about it. That means, the author knows this person before she became the cursed one." Jessica muttered, recalling Helen whom she met at Mary's office.

"Helen" She mumbled.

"Excuse me?" Nicholas's voice broke her reverie.

"I'm sorry, I was just deep in thoughts.

"I want to ask for a favor."

"What might that be?" Jessica wondered how she would be of help to him.

"Can I touch you?"

She instantly became speechless. She wanted that too, but she was too deep in thought of the book.

"Yes."

As they both placed their hands on the table, Jessica's heartbeat was thumping fast. Slowly she moved her hand on the desk until it finally touched his. She waited for her nightmares to scare her, but she saw nothing.

"What is this?" She questioned herself, as her gaze fell on Nicholas. For the first time, the only thing she felt was the pains she locked away.

her heart was engulfed with sadness.