Dawn could still taste the sweetness of the blood on his lips. He could still feel the thick fluid slide down his thirsting throat. He had wanted to stop. But his throat begged and pleaded for more of the craving.
Dawn could still feel the strength of the boy as he struggled under his grip. Fists flew at him like gnats and his legs jerked as if he were doing some crazy dance. But Dawn couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t control himself. The smell of the boy’s blood. . .it was such a sweet, nurturing smell. And it was practically calling Dawn’s name to just come and be sucked.
Dawn didn’t want to do it. He couldn’t! How could he bite some random guy’s neck? How could he suck him dry of blood and leave him lying there dead in the ally? How?
How could a half-vampire like Dawn even remotely have guilt for what he did? After all, he was a vampire. He was supposed to suck people’s blood for a living. For living. Why should Dawn care about how he took the life of a human being?
But Dawn knew he wasn’t that kind of vampire. He couldn’t go out at night like the rest of them and just track down the finest neck of a person and decided they’d be the one to lose their life that night.
The boy had to have had a family. Had to have someone who loved and cared about him. How would they feel to find out the boy died because he had lost all of the blood in his body?
Get a grip, Dawn constantly scolded himself. It was months ago! The boy is dead. It was all over the news. No one, I repeat, no one is going to suspect you of killing him! Hell, no one will even believe a vampire was the one who killed him.
But Dawn couldn’t. He had never killed a human before. He had killed animals to feast on, but not a human. And the guilt was eating him alive.
Kind of like how I must have eaten him alive.
*
Tim could still not believe it. It was only a year ago his mother had died at the hands of a bloody vampire, and now, three months ago, the life of his brother was taken as well. If anything, Tim wasn’t angry. Angry was too much of a soft and simple word to use for how he was feeling. Hatred seemed to describe him. He hated the vampire who killed his mother. Took her life away like she was not the most amazing woman on the face of the earth. As if she was nothing more than a piece of gum to the bottom of a shoe.
Tim couldn’t help feel the rage come on as he thought of his mother. She was so sweet, so young, and so strong. She had gotten pregnant with Tim when she was sixteen, never knowing the father and having to do the difficulty of being pregnant while still in high school. But she had been mature about the situation. She knew the right thing to do was keep the baby, she knew she had messed up her future because she had had unprotected sex, but she was willing to except it as long as the baby was in her life and she could give him all the care and attention she knew he deserved.
She did not deserve to die. She did not deserve to be found lying in the park near the swings with two fang marks on her neck and her body drained of every ounce of blood. She did not deserve to have her sons have the police over to their house to tell them the news. She did not deserve to have her sons try and find out who killed her because she was supposed to die when she was old and nearly one hundred, when her heart was supposed to giveaway.
No, she didn’t deserve any of what she got.
Neither did Peter, Tim’s younger brother, who died the same way of having the blood sucked from him. Peter was only sixteen when he died. He still had a lot of growing up to do. He still needed to find out who killed their mother as well. He still needed Tim to take care of him.
*
Dawn was getting ready for his date with his boyfriend that Sunday night. He was fixing his cropped blond hair, trying to flatten it down the best he could. Dawn had always known he was gay. His parents never wanted to admit it, so they always told him it was just natural for boys not to want to have girlfriends at sixteen. But when Dawn introduced his first boyfriend to them at Christmas time, they had automatically said he was no longer welcome until he could get rid of the boy and come to his sentence that he was no f*****g homosexual.
He never made any contact with them after that. No phone calls or cards or anything. He had moved far away from his home town. He figured all the trouble was on the street his parents lived, but no, Dawn had found a different form of trouble when he moved to a different town.
But tonight, Dawn was not going to think about anything but his date with his new boyfriend, Tim.
*
Tim was in love with his new boyfriend Dawn. They hadn’t known each other for even a month, but something about being near Dawn was just a total heart-flutter-palms-sweating moment for him. Dawn was perfect but imperfect at the same time. Although Dawn was nineteen – same age as Tim - and on his own as well, he had such a child-like way of doing things sometimes, that his tiny flaws that should have annoyed him were actually cute.
Tim remembered their first date. They were going to see a movie - an action flick if he remembered right. He remembered Dawn was giving small details about his life, how he was living on his own because there was something about having a roommate that bothered him dearly. All the while, little pink circles were on his cheeks, as if he was embarrassed to be saying this to someone who could someday be his future husband. But then Dawn just suddenly seemed to trip out of nowhere.
Tim felt it was a good thing he had trained so much for almost a whole year, because if it weren’t for his speed, Dawn would have hit the pavement face first.
Ouch!
*
Dawn felt his cheeks flush as Tim entwined their fingers together. He liked the touch of his skin on his own, the comfort of a human that he hadn’t felt for a while. Dawn couldn’t help but feel like such a giddy schoolgirl when he was with Tim. To him it was embarrassing, but Tim found it cute, and how, Dawn couldn’t figure out.
“Hey,” Tim said, stopping only a few feet away from the apartment building Dawn lived in. “Can we, uh, go by the park for a minute?”
Dawn arched an eyebrow. Although they hadn’t made any specific plans on what they wanted to do, it wasn’t the surprise of hearing how he wanted to take him to park, but the way he said it. Something in his voice sounded different. Like he was reluctant against saying it. And if Dawn heard correctly, maybe there was hint of mournfulness.
“O-Okay,” Dawn said, giving his hand a little squeeze to let him know that he really didn’t have a problem with going to the park.
Really, he didn’t.
*
Tim stood in front of the swings, the swings where his mother had been found. He had his arm around Dawn’s waist while Dawn leaned his head on his shoulder, sending waves of sympathy to Tim even though Tim never told him how his mom died.
“Did you hear about the woman who was found with her blood completely drained from her body about a year ago?” Tim asked, doing the best he could to not make his voice crack with the pain he was feeling.
Dawn lifted his head off Tim’s shoulder. “Yeah. It was. . .scary,”
Tim titled his head to get a better look at Dawn. The moonlight shinning through the dark caught his pale, innocent face almost perfectly in the light. Tim noticed Dawn was biting on his lip – and he wondered why.
*
He knows! Dawn’s brain shrieked with panic. He knows I’m a vampire! He knows I killed that boy and he’s trying to make it seem like I killed the woman! Why else would he bring me here and mention how she died?
“T-T-Tim?” Dawn tried to keep his voice calm; after all, that’s what you had to do when a vampire hunter suspected you of being a vampire. If you even let your guard down for a second, the next thing you know you have a stake right through your heart and the feeling of your flesh burning up into ash.
Dawn took a deep breath, turned away from the observing look Tim seemed to have on his face and continued, “I. . .need to tell you something really important.”
Dawn had to pull away from Tim’s arm around him. He didn’t want to have him touching him in such a loving manner while confessing his secret. In fact, he didn’t want to at all. But, maybe, if Tim knew he only killed a boy in an ally, he’d still love him and let him go. Maybe he wouldn’t drive a stake through his heart.
Maybe.
*
I should also tell him about my mother and brother, Tim thought. If what Dawn needs to tell me is important – if he’s going to tell me something as deep as my own secret – maybe this could make our relationship grow.
Before Tim could even open his mouth to tell Dawn what he needed to tell him, Dawn had screamed out, “I’m a f*****g vampire!”
*
That’s it, I’m dead!
Dawn shut his eyes and took a couple steps back from his boyfriend. Even though he was - what he believed - a good few feet away from Tim that if he decided to stake him, Dawn had the chance to run. He could feel Tim’s body grow tense. But he didn’t know if it was from anger or fear.
All Dawn knew was, he didn’t dare open his eyes. If Tim was going to stake him, he didn’t want to see the look in his eyes. Would he be happy? Sad? Angry?
*
Tim could not believe it. His boyfriend had just confessed to him that he was a vampire. A blood-sucking creature of the night. Dawn. His Dawn, of all people.
How could this be? How? Why did it have to be him?
Tim had gone through in his head over and over what he would do if he ever came face to face with a vampire. But now. . .
He reached his arm down and took the stake out of its holder that was attached to his ankle. He knew what he had to do, but he wondered: could he?
All vampires were bad, that’s what he always told himself and Peter. It didn’t matter who it was. If they had fangs, came out at night, and sucked humans to death, they were bad.
But Tim had fallen in love with a vampire. He had trusted one of them. Didn’t that prove they weren’t all bad? Dawn certainly wasn’t - vampire or not.
Tim bit down hard on his lip and began to question himself.
Should I kill him or not?
*
“Please!” Dawn found himself pleading. His body was beginning to shake with fear and anticipation at Tim’s silence. “Please. . .listen to me for a minute, though! I-I know you’re a hunter, Tim. I know why you brought me here. But I didn’t kill her! Please, if anything, just believe me on that. I-I didn’t mean to kill the boy in the ally. I was just. . .I don’t know. My body needed the blood, it was craving for it.” Dawn sunk to the earthy ground and buried his face in his hands and began to cry, wondering what Tim would do to him.
*
Tim’s hand began to shake. He felt himself grow light headed at the words the vampire had spoken.
No. . .no way.
He couldn’t believe he had heard correctly. Dawn was the one who killed Peter. His little child-like boyfriend, Dawn.
This can’t be happening! It can’t be!
He felt himself shaking with fury. The wooden stake in his hand seemed to be able to finally be put into a perfect use. To kill the vampire who had killed Peter. That’s what he was supposed to do. Drive the stake though the b*****d’s heart, listen to him wallow and scream in pain and agony before his body would disintegrate into ashes and be carried out through the cool night wind.
That was always how Tim played it in his mind. But now, listening to the pitiful vampire sobs, he wasn’t so sure he could do it.
Tim stepped closer to Dawn, placed the stake down on the ground before getting on his knees and pulling him into a tight hug.
“The boy you killed,” Tim spoke softly, rubbing Dawn’s trembling back. “Was my younger brother. I had been searching for the vampire who killed my mother at these swings over here. I wanted. . .needed revenge. I became a vampire hunter. I trained myself and did research and everything, but never even once came across a vampire until you.” Tim kissed him lightly on the top of his head. His sobs began to die down and his body seemed to relax and Tim felt the pressure of his head push into his chest.
I wish I didn’t have to kill him, Tim thought, feeling his heart break as he picked up the stake. I do love Dawn. I do! But. . .
He shut his eyes, said, “I love you Dawn,” in a meek whisper and drove the stake through the vampire’s heart.
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