Free The Vampire Pirate's Daughter by Lynette Ferreira

pick him up, but even here I
feel that maybe he does not really know the entire truth. If I
picked him up now, as if he was a mere feather, he would never be
able to love me. Forever I would wonder how it could have been and
forever is a very long, long time.
    We run back into the basement and
automatically I pull the open door from its hinges. I briefly
notice the shock in Andrew’s eyes. I push him roughly toward the
corner and then while we are both crouching down I hold the heavy
metal door up and over our heads. We hear the house collapse piece
by piece and then suddenly with a loud, ear-piercing crash it all
comes down at once. I growl softly as the full impact hits me on
the back and I have to strain my arms to keep the door above our
heads.
    We sit like this for a while, as small
pebbles, gravel and sand continue to fall down onto us. I move my
arm painfully and notice that one of the boulders of cement had
wedged itself in under the door. The other side of the door was
balanced against the wall of the basement and on top of this large
irregular lump of bricks and mortar. I let my hands go tentatively,
one after the other. I am ready to wedge it back up if it does not
hold. I sigh with relieve when it holds and I sit down onto the
ground. My haunches feel lame and I want to rest my arms for a
moment. Awkwardly I sit close to Andrew and then he slides his legs
out from under him. He manages to slide his legs around me and in
some bizarre act of fate I am sitting here with Andrew, in such
close proximity I can hear his heartbeat.
    He smiles slowly. “How long do you think it
will take for Amanda to get us out of here?”
    “Your first question is that? You don’t want
to know why I cannot go up into the sun, or how I managed to hold
an entire house on my back.”
    He is still smiling amused. “I already know.
Before Amanda told me, I had my suspicions anyway.”
    I laugh derisively. “Suspicions! Obviously
you read too much fiction.”
    “She needed my help and when she realized I
thought I knew, she enlightened me completely.”
    “What do you mean, you thought you knew. How
could you?”
    “ That day at the café, I realized nobody
has reflexes like that, besides I have never noticed you being
clumsy ever, so your excuse was feeble. Then while I was in the
hospital, it all came back to me slowly. Initially I only had
flashes of you helping me out of the car, pulling my door off its
frame and then also the cherry on top … lifting the car up
single-handedly. I dismissed it, but then when I left the hospital
and Duncan completed his community service, we got talking. The
rare meat, your pale skin, your extremely fast reflexes and then
you must remember that Carmine and Duncan was completely awake. I
suppose Carmine knew better of what was happening around her than
Duncan. So, although at the time Duncan thought it was a drunken
hallucination, it became clear when we spoke of it.”
    “Yes, but these are only speculation, a wild
guess. To be honest, I think it could have been only wishful
thinking that you would know a … somebody like me. It is all
explainable anyway, adrenaline, reflexes, fears of skin cancer,
preference in eating habits – Lionel also ate his meat near-rare.”
I grab desperately at excuses.
    He laughs softly. “Then Amanda phoned me a
few days ago and asked to meet me. I wanted to see you and I
thought you were avoiding me, locking yourself away in your house.
I went and I have to admit I was nervous going into the lair of
vampires, so I asked Duncan and Carmine to go with me. Duncan and I
hid wooden stakes under our shirts - just in case.”
    I inhale insulted.
    He puts his arms around my shoulders and then
he shuffles me closer toward him. He holds my head against his
chest and his heartbeat is thunderous. His heartbeat is so loud, so
close up that it feels as if it could have been my own heartbeat.
It reverberates through my body and for a moment I remember the
sensation of a living