Chapter Six

For four months, Jessica and Eunice moved from country to country, state to state, but still, the human was nowhere to be found. Jessica was getting anxious by the day. She could barely open any part of her body. Her face was yet to be affected, making her able to move around freely.

Sometimes Eunice begged her to let her look around alone, but she would always reject. She hated sitting back and waiting.

When they finished searching through Africa, they traveled to Asia, but they again met a dead end, and Jessica was even more upset as she could no longer have any vision of the child. She was getting cranky, making Eunice very worried about her.

....

On a rather noisy evening in Philadelphia, Jessica and Eunice sat on a bench by the roadside close to the traffic enforcers. Jessica's eyes were filled with tears that couldn't escape her eyes. She wanted to seem strong in front of Eunice, but she failed woefully.

"I don't think an animal blood can sustain me till we find the child." Jessica bent her head down, squeezed the coffee cup in her hand, and the coffee spilled on her body.

"Relax. I'm very certain we will find him." Eunice held her trying to encourage her.

She quickly wiped the tears in her eyes and raised her head. She faked a smile at Eunice.

"I think I want to try their burger. Have you tried it before?" Jessica asked Eunice.

"Yes, you won't like the taste, though; I'm sure you will have a stomach upset. Don't try it." Eunice said to her.

"Get one for me. I see a human walking out of that store." She pointed to a coffee house opposite the road that seemed to be selling snacks as well. "Get one for me from there."

"Okay." Eunice smiled and walked across the road, wondering why Jessica would want to try a human meal just four months since they've been in the human world. "Is this what dying feels like? Craving things that don't look good for you, you wouldn't even like the taste."

...

Jessica's eyes kept squinting around. The cars were running fast; they barely obeyed the traffic enforcers who stood on uniforms. Then her eyes drifted towards a bookstore named 'Peeper's bookstore.'

She fixed her gaze on the transparent door and watched as people went in and out of the store. She stood on her feet and was about to cross the road but then-

"Here you go, your cheeseburger." Eunice gave her the burger.

"Oh! Thank you." Jessica was a bit startled. She took the burger and had a bite from it.

"Ew," Jessica spat the burger off her mouth. "Disgusting" She gave the burger back to Eunice.

"Told you, you wouldn't like it." Eunice took a bite from the burger.

"Do you remember that book we saw in Asia, which entails the story of a powerful vampire who was cursed?" Jessica asked Eunice with her gaze still fixed at the bookstore.

"You mean the book that told the story about you and how you've been defeating Kendrick 's men?" Eunice raised her brows at Jessica.

"Exactly, it did state that I drink the blood of a human every century. I'm going to search for that book."

"And then what?" Eunice was surprised. She had no clue why Jessica would want a kid's book.

"We visit the author. The author seems to know a lot; we can figure out who's been giving her information." Jessica crossed the road and walked into the bookstore. She picked a book from the shelf that seemed similar to what she was looking for. She sat by the window, reading the book, but it wasn't the book she wanted.

Just then, a blind boy walked into the library with a young lady by his side. He had a dark shade on, and the lady by his side happened to be the store owner's daughter. Jessica eavesdropped on their conversation and heard the store owner calling him Nicholas. Her gaze followed him until he disappeared from her sight.

Jessica scoffed. Her gaze traveled back to the book in her hand;

"I need to keep this back." She sighed.

She then aloft on her feet and walked to the shelf to place the book where she found it. She kept searching for the book she was looking for, and finally, she found another book that caught her eye 'Hidden gates by Mary Dawn.' As she removed the book from the shelf, she was shocked to see the blind boy standing right opposite her, and his face was directly staring at hers. She felt drawn to him. There was something about him that made her want to be closer. She couldn't understand how or why she was feeling that way, but she tried to ignore him.

She gulps air through her throttle, then she walks away from the shelf, heading to the bookkeeper's desk by the door.

Suddenly their body collided against each other. Her feet slipped off the ground, but to her surprise, the blind boy caught her in his arms. It felt strange; it was as if he could see. As she stood on her feet, she apologized to him, and as she was about to walk away, her hand touched someone's hand, triggering her forgotten memories.

Suddenly, her eyes closed and she saw herself sitting alone in a house crying bitterly. It was dark, and there seemed to be fire right in front of her. Her eyes immediately opened; Jessica turned around; her eyes drifted around as she searched for the person whose hand touched hers. But the people in the library were much; no matter how much she looked, she couldn't find the person.

Her heart was thumping fast; she wondered if it were the blind boy's hand she touched or someone else. After searching through the bookstore by merely looking around, Jessica walked out of the bookstore, she was more anxious than before.

When she met Eunice outside, she gave the book to Eunice and told her she met someone inside that made her recall a fragment of her forgotten memories. Eunice was shocked by her words.

"Should we get to him?" She asked Jessica

"For what reason, I don't even know who my hand touched, but I think it's the blind boy." She kept looking into the bookstore.

"Do you think he is the one we are looking for?" Eunice asked her, but she had no idea. Then Eunice suggested they enter the room and confirm the age of the blind boy. Since they were looking for a twenty-year-old boy, they hoped that the boy would be around the same period, but the storekeeper told them that the boy was twenty-five years old.

"Too bad, now let's visit this author. I wonder how she knew about the hidden gates." Eunice flipped the book around; then she dragged Jessica by her hand, seeing that Jessica didn't seem to want to walk away from there.

Don't you think I should go back and find out if it was the blind boy that triggered my lost memories?" Jessica cried in a frail voice. Her eyes gathered tears. Merely looking at her, Eunice's heart melted.

"Don't worry. I'm sure it's just your memories coming to you. It hasn't happened before, right?" Eunice asked, thinking there was no need for them to go back there.

"I can't remember. I don't think so. But what if, as the witch said, he is my destiny, the one that can end my curse?" Jessica questioned.