By the time I got my hand up to the spot, Blondie had removed the object of sharpness and the sensation of something entering my bloodstream had disappeared. Only to be replaced with a slight blurring to the scene before me, a sudden onset of nausea and then the whole world went black.
I woke slowly to the hum of an engine and a pain pulsing through my head. I groaned and rubbed my temples, feeling both light headed and cotton wool padded inside. Nothing seemed to be working. My eyes blinked in the surroundings, taking nothing in, my ears only produced a thudding noise, in time with the pulsing in my head. And my hands, other than rubbing my temples, felt like they belonged to someone else. Actually, my whole body felt like it belonged to someone else, I was just along for the ride.
Slowly the room around me coalesced and I was able to comprehend my location. On a plane, a private jet it looked like, sitting in a well padded caramel coloured leather armchair with a blanket over my legs and half way up my body. The blanket was cream mohair, so soft and delicate. I ran my fingers along it and realised I was able to feel a lot more than a few minutes ago. Sensation was coming back to me, which was a relief, but memories of how I got here were not.
That thought woke me up completely and was immediately followed with others. Who were the people on board with me, where were we going and where had we been? And then, the most frightening, who the hell am I? I started to feel clammy and hot, but a deep seated coldness began to churn in the centre of my stomach. Something was so very wrong about this situation, so very wrong indeed. But, I had no idea what it was, or what I should be feeling. That alone was enough to terrify me though. I suddenly felt very alone and very, very scared.
My eyes flicked around the cabin of the plane. Everything was top notch. These people had money to either hire a jet like this or maybe even own it. It had half a dozen comfortable caramel coloured leather armchairs, like the one I was seated in, polished mahogany tables and a side dresser, covered in bottles of top shelf liquor. A 50 inch plasma TV screen, which was showing a movie of some sort. And about half a dozen vampires littering the space.
I knew this, I'm not sure how, but I knew they were vampires without a doubt and I also felt very much at home with that thought. Instinctively I knew Vampires exist and that I am part of their world. This was such a basic idea it actually calmed me. The fact that not all vampires are created equal was also thrumming in my head, but the familiarity of vampires overcame that fear completely. Still, a sense of wariness stole over me. Vampires could be lethal, I had to watch my back.
One of the vampires turned then and looked at me. He was tall, although sitting in an armchair, his strong long legs were stretched out in front of him, taking up the small space of open carpet in the cabin. His broad shoulders and muscled arms made him appear bigger than all the rest and that was saying something, they were all pretty big on the muscle front. He had unruly shoulder length blonde hair, but it didn't look windblown or bed tousled, it looked a little staged, but it also made him seem carefree and handsome. That, and his piercing azure coloured eyes.
He was gorgeous, with golden brown coloured skin as though he had been tanning it at a beach resort. Of course, I knew that was not possible, vampires can't survive the sun. How I knew this I couldn't say, but I just knew it as a fact.
He smiled and it lit up his face, his long body unfurling as he came over to crouch down next to me. I didn't pull away in fear, I didn't brace myself for an attack, I just didn't feel anything.
“Who are you?” My voice was steady and my throat not dry. So, I hadn't been out for that long then.
“How's my girl?” His accent was American, mine wasn't. He reached up and brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. A movement so familiar and laced with care, I wondered if I was meant to know this man intimately. I tried to rack my brain for any memories of him, but came up blank. In fact, when I tried to think of something from the past, anything at all, it was all blank.
“I don't know you.” I wanted to say more than that, like I don't know where we've been, where we're going, who I am, what's happening, but I chose to push those thoughts aside because I could feel they would only lead to hysteria. I was on the edge of a cliff already, I needed to stay in control of my emotions or all would be lost.
He smiled sadly. “It's all right, Lucinda, you don't need to remember, I can do that for both of us.”
I shook my head at him, I couldn't form any more words. He looked so sad, so heartbroken, but also so sincere. I must know this man, he must know me. I wanted to reach up and brush his face, to reassure him, but I felt nothing for him, other than what pity I felt at the look on his face right now. I kept my hands clasped in my lap.
“You've had an accident, which has taken your memories. We're bringing you home and hoping our doctors can help you to remember. If you like, I can tell you a bit about us. Would you like that?”
I just nodded, what else could I do? My head still felt as though it was stuffed with cotton wool. It must have been a result of the accident.
He settled himself down in the seat next to mine and took one of my hands in his, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. The motion felt familiar, I couldn't take my eyes off what he was doing. This felt familiar. I looked back up at him and found he was watching me intensely.
“I remember this.” He seemed momentarily surprised, but then happy.
“Good, that's good. We always hold hands.”
“We're friends?” I think I knew what his answer would be, but I wanted to get it out in the open. Everything felt so foreign, but his thumb on the back of my hand did not. I was confused, scared and wanted some answers, even if they would create more questions in their wake.
“We're more than just friends, but it's OK,” - he saw the look of outright fear and utter confusion gracing my face - “we'll just take it slowly, until your memories come back, or until you're comfortable. Either way, you're in charge.”
The way he said it made me think perhaps he wasn't sure my memories would come back at all. I felt a little detached at that thought, as though not having my memories back would be a good thing, part of me thinking that remembering would only make this so much worse.
“Where are we going?” Maybe getting some facts would help.
“Home. Colorado, the United States. We've been there for a while, I'm hoping seeing it again will bring back some memories.”
Huh, Colorado. It absolutely did not bring back some memories. In fact, I had absolutely no idea where, in the United States of America, Colorado was. How was that possible if I had lived there before?
I sighed, he just kept rubbing the back of my hand, a soothing motion that did make my blood pressure lower and my heart rate steady. I decided I liked him holding my hand.
“What's your name?” My voice was small, I didn't like admitting I couldn't remember him. I wanted to remember him, I wanted to make him smile.
“Jonathan.”
That twigged a memory, or something, I couldn't quite grasp. But it felt familiar, not quite as much as the thumb rubbing on the back of my hand, but still, it was something, wasn't it?
“I remember your name, I think, I'm not sure, but I know I've heard it before.”
He smiled, but I picked up a sense of tension in his body that hadn't been there before. I'm not quite sure how I managed to do that, it seemed like the signals he was giving off were minute, but somehow I could pick up the nuances as though this was just a natural part of who I am. Reading people. That made me wonder what I did for a living.
“What do I do in Colorado?”
He pulled himself together, although I'm sure to anyone else they wouldn't have even picked up that something was wrong.
“You're my wife, you don't need to work, your place is by my side.”
I had a sudden sense that was wrong, that there was more to me than someone's other half. I hid my reaction with a shift of my hand in his, now taking hold of his instead of letting him hold mine. I smiled up at his surprised face and said, “Good. I like that.” And prayed he bought it, because I knew now he was lying. I had no way of knowing what the truth was, but I knew this was not it. Jonathan was not my friend, let alone my husband and I knew this with such conviction it rocked my soul.
The rest of the flight was much the same. The other vampires, who Jonathan introduced to me as his work colleagues and friends, sat watching the movie, while Jonathan tended to me. Getting me food and drinks and telling me about our supposed life together. I let my mind wander, still taking in what he was saying, but allowing myself the luxury of self analysis. Who was I? Why was Jonathan going to such extremes to make me believe I was part of his world? And where had we just come from?
Because the further we were getting from where ever this plane had taken off from, the more I felt like a part of me was being left behind. I clung to that part as it felt more real than the vampire sitting by my side, but no matter how much I tried to identify it, I couldn't. It was lost to me and that sense of loss almost made me cry.
Just before we were due to land, Jonathan came back from the galley with some tablets and a small cup of water.
“Take these, sweetheart, they're your medicine.” Then seeing the slightly sceptical look on my face, he added, “Without them you tend to have seizures. We don't want that, do we?”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to ask what they were. But, I knew when my back was against a wall. We were on board a plane, I was surrounded by vampires, I could not have fought back or escaped, this was not the time to rock the boat. So, I took them and I swallowed them. He was watching me too closely, to play with fire and pretend. My time would come, I told myself, because as sure as I knew that I was more than just some trophy wife, that there was more to me than meets the eye, I knew I would escape these vampires.
I knew it and I grabbed hold of that thought, held it close and settled in my armchair waiting for whatever the drugs would do to me to happen, knowing in my heart that it wasn't about seizures at all.
It took a good ten minutes before I realised I was tired and perhaps another ten before I could fight the fatigue no more. I let it wash over me, I stopped fighting it, but I promised myself, I would fight it again tomorrow.
The next time I woke I was in bed, in a big bed, the size of a truck, in a nicely decorated airy room. Pale duck-egg blue walls, delicate furniture, gauzy curtains on the windows, the moon in full glory hanging outside. I watched that moon and thought it didn't look familiar. Shouldn't it, if I am home? The shapes to the shadows, the contours across its surface. All looked out of kilter. This was not my moon, I told myself. Then this was not my bed.
I got up and walked over to the window and took in my surroundings. The building I was in was surrounded, at least on this side, by a large expanse of green grass, rolling away to wooded leafy trees in the distance, some twenty or thirty metres away. In this light it was difficult to tell the shade of the leaves, but they looked pretty and abundant. Lots and lots of leafy trees bordering the edge of the large green grassed area. I couldn't see any neighbouring houses, we weren't in a city, that was for sure and I knew that vampires liked cities. So, why the expanse?
I opened the window - which surprised me as it wasn't locked - and was met by cold, frigid, clean, fresh air. We were high up, I could tell, this air was thinner than I was used to and much colder. Perhaps we were in some mountains, Colorado is mountainous, isn't it? Damn, I wished I'd paid more attention to geography in school. I wasn't sure of my surroundings, I knew damn near nothing about Colorado, or even if this was in fact Colorado as Jonathan had suggested. As far as sussing out my surroundings go and formulating a plan of escape, this sucked.
I tried to settle my breathing and decided to explore. There was absolutely no point in succumbing to fear. Fear wouldn't help solve this mystery, fear wouldn't get me out of a potentially dangerous situation. Fear was not my friend. So I bottled it up as best I could, grabbed hold of the thought that home was back where we had come from and headed towards my door. I expected it to be locked, but like the window, it simply opened with ease.
I walked out onto the landing and looked around. The house I was in was well decorated, lovely pale colours and pale, distressed, wooden furniture. Very un-vampire like, but charming and quaint. This had the feel of a holiday home perhaps, a place in the country to get away from the stresses of urban life. Maybe that was it, maybe the vampires I could sense downstairs didn't normally live here, but came here to unwind. It sounded like it could be possible.
I started towards the stairs that I could spot over to the right, which I knew would take me closer to the vampires below. I began scratching at the bend in my elbow distractedly as I tip-toed towards them, then realised I could feel raised bumps where my finger tips were brushing. A quick look told me everything I needed to know. Needle marks. I had been drugged with more than just the tablets on the plane.
A shudder ran through me and for a moment the fear almost succeeded in taking over all rational thought, but I rallied, I dug deep, because this could not be my life, it just could not.
I never went for playing the victim, I wasn't about to start now.
That thought and that thought alone, made me rejoice, because I was more than what I saw and felt right now.
I was not a victim. I never had been.
So, all I had to do was remember exactly what I was and all would be OK.