Anywhere With You

Iris observed her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her face has water droplets clinging onto her skin from the cold water that she had splashed on it.

While she was talking to Monette, she had lost her patience and snapped at her or rather growled at her. She opened her mouth and leaned towards the mirror. She checked her teeth and found nothing suspicious.

She didn't like Monette. And that wasn't something new. But, there wasn't a time when she growled at her like an angry animal. When she realized what she had done, she hurriedly left and went straight to the bathroom because the first thought in her mind was that she had turned into a vampire like Calixto.

"You're not turning into a vampire," she sighed with her reflection in the mirror. "You're going crazy, that's what happening to you," she said, shaking her head, pulling a face towel, and wiping her face vigorously as if by doing so, she could forget the anxiety that was sitting in her stomach that was gently squeezing her insides, making the simple act of breathing a kind of trap that would pull her feet at any minute.

She exhaled a deep breath with how her mind was playing tricks on her. She left the bathroom thinking of finding something to do to take her mind off the worries she was feeling.

She was in deep thoughts when she stepped out of the bathroom that she didn't notice the man waiting for her with a threatening look. When he reached his hand to grab her, Iris shrieked at the top of her lungs.

"Be quiet! You're going to wake up all dead in the house."

Iris's mouth froze in mid-shock. Her body went rigid as the image of Calixto's kind waking up because of her.

"There are more of you in the house?" She asked with her eyes bulging out of their sockets.

Calixto shook his head in disapproval. "What are you doing in the bathroom?" He looked at her from head to put and the corner of his mouth curled in disbelief. "Do you sleep there? You look like you are chased out by some ghost."

"It's worse than ghosts!" She pulled her arm away from him and folded them over her stomach which had been hurting for a while now due to her anxiety. "What do you need from me? I just fed you yesterday."

Calixto's feeding time has a longer interval now. Before, when he was still emancipated, he had to drink from her two to three times a day. She could barely get up from the bed and Theo had to put an IV on her and feed her soup to replenish the blood that Calixto had consumed.

Those were the longest three days of her life. After that, he only drank from her once a day. But she had a feeling back then that Calixto was trying to control himself to take more from her. That was why he only drank once a day and that lasted for two weeks.

And in those two weeks, he did something strange to her that she kept a secret from Theo and the other people in the house. Calixto started feeding her his blood. It wasn't actually feeding, it was more like a taste of her own blood because after he drank from her, he would prick his index finger and let her drink a drop of his blood.

At first, she didn't want to take a lick of his blood but when she realized that by taking a single drop of his blood, she didn't get sick after feeding him, that was what convinced her to start taking his blood without complaint.

And now, it was the exact reason why she was panicking that she was turning into a vampire like him. She had read some books that said, by drinking a vampire's blood, a mere mortal can be turned into a creature of the night. If she became a vampire like Calixto, whose blood she would drink, she wondered to herself.

"You haven't answered my questions. Have you forgotten the pledge that you had given to me?"

Iris blinked her eyes as though the cold voice of Calixto jolted her up from her daydreaming.

"I was washing my face," she replied in a small voice.

Other people in the house pledge their loyalty to Calixto, however, she was asked to promise to answer his questions every time whether she liked answering him or not. She had no idea why Calixto asked for such a thing. He must be truly insane but she didn't care.

"Huh? Washing your face?" He squinted his eyes at her as if he could not believe what she had said but didn't say anything. He just nodded.

"We are going somewhere. Pack a bag for two or three days—"

"I have work!" She protested. She was working on the deadline for the website that her friends were asking her to do. The deadline for it is tomorrow. If she can't deliver there is a big possibility that she would have a hard time getting another job in the future from her friend.

"You can work in the car," he said, walking away, leaving her with no way to complain.

Iris exhaled a deep sigh of frustration. Yes, she could work in the car but she won't be as quick if she worked on her desktop computer. Her laptop shocks. But, Calixto's words are laws that even the President could not break. She went to her room to pack and the moment she stepped inside her room, another ear-splitting shriek escaped her mouth again but this time it was not because of terror but excitement.

A box of the latest laptop model was sitting in the middle of her bed and she didn't have to ask who put it there. She jumped into her bed, hugging the laptop while kicking her legs in the air. Calixto can take her anywhere now and she won't say anything.

Or she should not speak too soon.