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  Pouring the last of the fluid into Kenneth’s mouth, Besseta bit her tongue as Kenneth made a small grimace when he swallowed. Immediately, Besseta heard his thoughts slow down and strangely, slur. Then, none of them were coherent as she laid his head back on the pillows.

  Like someone had pushed a button, Kenneth’s entire body became flaccid. His mouth dropped open and drool leaked out one side. “Holy crap, that was fast,” Besseta mumbled in amazement. Raising the cup to her nose, she sniffed it again and almost gagged. “We need to go and collect more of that stuff.”

  “Can’t. Six of the twenty-eight plants I put in it are extinct,” Tiffany replied, watching the TV.

  Getting up, “That’s a shame,” Besseta said, walking to the kitchen. She stopped before putting the cup in the dishwasher. Instead, she opened the back door and threw the cup into the lake.

  “Pour out the rest,” Tiffany yelled out. “If you let it sit and cool, it becomes toxic to drink in a few hours, vampire or not.”

  Grabbing the pot, Besseta held it away from her and carried it out the door. She poured it into the lake and really expected fish to float up. Not seeing any, she threw in the pot and headed back inside.

  Curling up beside Kenneth, Besseta smiled, hearing the thoughts of slurred dreams in his mind.

  Chapter Five

  Hearing laughter, Kenneth struggled out of the fog surrounding his mind. With great effort, he slowly cracked his eyes open and saw the side of Besseta’s face. “Hey, baby,” he croaked weakly.

  “Kenneth!” she cried out, rolling over and hugging him.

  He tried to hug her tight, but his body felt drained. “What the hell did you pour down me?”

  “Medicine that Tiffany mixed up.”

  Releasing Besseta, Kenneth fought to sit up. With Besseta’s help, Kenneth sat up to see Tiffany smile at him. “Thank you,” he said, and his dry throat tried to stick closed. Besseta handed him a glass of water which he drained. “How long have I been out?”

  “Thirteen days,” Besseta told him.

  “Told you to brace yourself. I didn’t want you to feel that, but I’m glad for whatever Tiffany made. The pain is much better and easing up,” Kenneth stood up slowly, wobbling on his feet.

  “It’s not supposed to be that bad,” Besseta admitted, getting up and helping Kenneth. Not saying anything, Kenneth moved slowly around the coffee table. “Where are you going?”

  “I really need to pee,” he panted. “Before Tiffany wraps a puppy pad around me.”

  “Hey, I put them under you!” Tiffany snapped.

  Kenneth just smiled weakly as Besseta helped him to the bathroom. When he came back, he was walking without Besseta’s help. When he sat down, Tiffany held out a glass for him, but never took her eyes off the TV. “What is it?” he asked, taking the cup.

  “You can’t smell it?” Tiffany asked.

  Shaking his head, “Sorry, I still smell and taste the stuff Besseta poured down me,” Kenneth mumbled.

  “Oh, I forgot about that aftereffect,” Tiffany said, pausing the movie.

  Kenneth lifted the glass to his face, actually sticking his nose inside the cup and sniffing. “I swear, it smells like blood.”

  “Because it is,” Tiffany chuckled, picking up the puppies and putting them in her lap.

  “I’m going to be sick,” Kenneth gagged, putting the cup on the coffee table.

  “Fine, don’t drink it,” Tiffany shrugged. “The pain will hit your stomach soon and spread back out to your body, sending you back into a coma.”

  Besseta snatched the cup up. “Open, or I’ll open your mouth,” she threatened, putting the cup to his lips.

  “That’s why I hurt so much?” Kenneth asked weakly, holding Besseta’s wrist to keep her from pouring the blood down his throat.

  “When Besseta described your pain, I had a good idea that’s what it was, even though you should be weeks away from a hunger coma. You had the pain of change and the pain of hunger together. After thinking about it, to be honest, I think that would drive anyone mad,” Tiffany told him.

  “It almost did,” Kenneth admitted as Besseta grabbed the hair at the back of his head, tilting his head back and pouring the blood down his throat. At first, Kenneth fought not to gag, then slowly, it started tasting better. As the last of the cup filled his mouth, it tasted better than anything he ever remembered.

  Besseta let his hair go and set the cup down. “Thank you for drinking it,” she smiled.

  “Thank you for not breaking my jaw and pouring it down me,” he smiled. “It wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was downright awesome.” Taking a deep breath, Kenneth felt energy hit his body like a truck. “Man, I feel much better.”

  Hearing his thoughts and feeling the strength fill Kenneth’s body; Besseta smiled, then stopped and analyzed that. She could actually ‘feel’ how Kenneth’s body was reacting to the blood. Her jaw fell open as the realization set in.

  Hearing her thoughts, Kenneth turned to her. “You can really feel that?” Besseta just nodded. “Neat,” he said, getting up and walking around.

  “What?” Tiffany asked, looking from one to the other.

  “I can feel the energy hitting his body,” Besseta said in a hushed voice.

  Tiffany looked at Kenneth. “Do you feel what she feels?” she asked.

  “Always have but now, I don’t have to touch her to feel it,” Kenneth said, flexing his arm. “When will I be able to do the cool stuff you two do?” Stunned, Tiffany just shrugged.

  Feeling Kenneth’s energy continuing to increase, Besseta jumped up. “Baby, why don’t you sit down?”

  “Are you kidding? I feel great,” he said grinning. He spun away and disappeared. They heard a crash down the hall and jumped up. They saw Kenneth sprawled out on the floor at the end of the long hall, and both took off running. They knelt down and Kenneth looked up, rubbing his face. “That hurt,” he said.

  Tiffany looked up at the wall and grabbed Besseta’s arm. Besseta looked up and saw a depression of Kenneth’s face in the stone wall. Besseta scooped him up in her arms, darting back to the couch. “Okay, no more running,” she said, putting him on the couch.

  “You’re not supposed to get the strength and speed for weeks. Not to mention, his face should be crushed,” Tiffany mumbled, leaning over Kenneth and looking in his eyes. Raising his lips, Tiffany let out a yelp as Kenneth’s canines shot out. “That’s supposed to take a year!”

  He tried to sit up, but Besseta put her hand on his chest, holding him down. “I’m fine,” he said, smiling at her. “Guess I’m just a fast learner or changer, however you want to look at it.”

  Besseta just stared at him, feeling Kenneth’s body still getting stronger by the second. “Will you lay here for me, just for a little while?” she begged.

  Letting out a depressed sigh, “Okay,” he moaned, laying back.

  “Tiffany, did you put anything in that cup of blood?” Besseta asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “Hell no!” Tiffany shot back. “There’s nothing I could’ve put in there that would make this happen,” she said and started pacing.

  “Guys, stop freaking out,” Kenneth chuckled, putting his arms behind his head and stretching out.

  Besseta laid down beside him and still could feel Kenneth’s body getting stronger. “This isn’t making any sense. The increase I feel from you in strength, you should’ve fed several more times,” she said, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Hey, then let’s get some more blood,” he suggested.

  “No!” they both shouted.

  “Fine,” Kenneth pouted. He looked at the remote on the couch where Tiffany had left it and it flew over, hitting him in the face. Besseta jumped up, staring at him and then the remote on the floor. “I don’t know how that happened,” Kenneth confessed in shock, looking down at the remote.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Tiffany kept repeating as she paced back and forth faster. ‘Tiffany, quit it, that’s annoying’ Kenneth
said in her mind. Tiffany screamed, doing a cootie dance. “Don’t talk in my mind!”

  Kenneth jumped up. “You heard that?!”

  Besseta jumped up. “I fucking heard that!”

  Kenneth looked from one to the other. “Okay, if this is some new vampire initiation; you win. You two going to hold me down, give me a wedgie, and paint me now?” They both just looked at him, flabbergasted. “Oh shit, you two aren’t pranking me?”

  “Why in the hell would we do something like that?!” Besseta yelled.

  “I don’t know, I’m just trying to figure out the easiest answer,” Kenneth said.

  Tiffany walked around the other side of the coffee table, sitting down on the couch and putting the puppies in her lap, never taking her eyes off Kenneth. “You’re freaking me out,” Tiffany confessed.

  In shock, Besseta sat down beside her and Bonnie and Clyde jumped into her lap, “What are you thinking?” Besseta asked Tiffany as they both watched Kenneth.

  “We need to get him out of the house before he gets to full strength,” Tiffany admitted.

  “Hold on,” Kenneth said, throwing up his hands. “Before we start planning a camping trip, I have a confession to make.” They both leaned forward, waiting. “When I was out, I dreamed some of this and I wanted to punch both of you.”

  They both dropped back on the couch together. “You go first, Tiffany,” Besseta offered.

  “I changed my mind. You go first.”

  “I hear from Besseta’s mind, you two knew that,” Kenneth said, and they nodded numbly. “In my defense, you two should’ve warned me about acid trips during the change. The pain is one thing, but wildlife-like visions are something else.”

  “You don’t have visions during the change,” Tiffany said.

  “Bullshit. I saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I mean, I smelled him as I sat on a prehistoric plain and felt the ground shake as he walked,” Kenneth snapped and looked at both of them gawking at him. “Don’t tell me Ididn’t have visions,” he mumbled. “Besseta just pops out of nowhere as the big ass lizard comes over. I dreamed I screamed like a two-year-old girl and wet myself,” he continued mumbling, walking away.

  They followed him with their eyes as he walked into the bathroom, closing the door. When the door closed, they turned to each other and nodded. Together, they both jumped up and darted to the kitchen, pulling out two bottles of vodka. Turning them up, neither stopped until half the bottle was gone.

  Staring off into space, Besseta barely shook her head. “What’s going on, Tiffany?”

  Shaking her head, Tiffany just stared at the half empty bottle of vodka. “I don’t know,” she mumbled and drained the rest. Setting down the empty bottle, “He’s talking about mental powers I’ve never heard about or envisioned. I just can’t believe it’s possible.”

  Quickly, Besseta turned up her bottle, draining the rest and then set the bottle down. “Tiffany, I smelled it and I can tell you, ‘that’ dinosaur died in south Texas. I can feel where it was at when it died. It was a real ‘vision’.”

  Opening the cabinet, Tiffany grabbed the first bottle of liquor her hand touched and pulled the top off. Tilting her head back, Tiffany didn’t lower the bottle until it was drained, “Man, that stuff is nasty,” she said, wiping her mouth.

  “What are we going to do?” Besseta asked, pulling down another bottle.

  “Stay close to him, like I did for you. His abilities are more than I’ve heard about or read. We will just keep close and try to keep him from hurting himself,” Tiffany told her as Besseta drained her new bottle. “It’s rare to have more than one ability, and rarer still to have your ability of absorbing more.”

  Throwing her bottles away, “Can we slow them down? Or is there anyone you know about, that can help?”

  Shaking her head, “No, not with all this going on,” Tiffany said.

  Besseta turned around. “So, you know someone?”

  “The leader of the Asian League, Xu,” Tiffany said, pronouncing the name ‘shoe’. “He’s odd and slightly insane, but he would be the only one I can think off.”

  “We can go to China,” Besseta told her with an attitude.

  Shaking her head, “Besseta, when I met him, there wasn’t any turmoil going on and it took me eight years to find him. With this going on, it would take me a lot longer,” Tiffany said.

  “Just how do we keep him safe, when we don’t even know what’s going on?”

  Stepping over, Tiffany wrapped her arms around Besseta. “Stay close to him, and one of us has to always be awake,” Tiffany told her, pulling Besseta to her.

  “He’s coming,” Besseta said, pushing back.

  Tiffany let her go. “Does he know?”

  Shaking her head, “No, he’s reliving the dino nightmare,” Besseta said. “He’s not really worried about anything else.”

  “Can you still feel the strength in him?”

  Looking away, “Yes, and it’s still growing,” Besseta said in a low worried tone. “He just broke the faucet in the bathroom and is shutting the water off.”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Tiffany mumbled again, stepping away. “How could he have the hunger pains bad enough to go into a coma, when he wasn’t even through with the change? It’s like having a toothache before you are even born.”

  Besseta shook her head as she walked around the counter with a slight wobble in her step. “I don’t know how,” she said, heading out of the kitchen. “He just broke the sink counter.”

  “Cheap ass shit!” Kenneth bellowed from the bathroom.

  With her vision slightly blurred from the vodka, Besseta walked as fast as she could to the bathroom. She had learned long ago, never to run after drinking. Seeing water flowing out under the door, she opened it to see Kenneth putting towels on the floor, trying to soak it up.

  Glancing over at the marble sink countertop, both faucets were ripped off and the marble was broken into several places. The doors for the cabinet under the sink were floating in the water. “Need some help, baby?” Besseta asked, coming in.

  “That was a cheap faucet and I think the countertop is a cheap marble knock-off,” Kenneth grumbled, dropping more towels on the floor.

  Grabbing some towels, “Well, we can go get a new one that you think is real,” she smiled, dropping the towels on the floor. Hearing splashing, she turned around to see Bonnie and Clyde running through the flowing water. “Oh, you two don’t mind running in it, but throw a fit when I wash you?” Besseta asked, and they just looked at her with their tongues hanging out, panting.

  “Wait till you see what they do in mud,” Kenneth said, picking up the soaked towels and throwing them in the bathtub. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “About what, baby?” Besseta asked as the dogs started dancing around, splashing.

  “Breaking the sink,” he muttered, dropping more towels down.

  Shrugging her shoulders, “It doesn’t matter and is expected, just not this fast,” she smiled. “I ripped doors down and broke houses when I changed and back then, you couldn’t just run to town and buy new stuff like that.”

  With a slight stumbling gait, Tiffany came in carrying wet sheets, blankets, and comforters, throwing them in the bathtub. “Hallway’s dry,” she smiled.

  Kenneth looked at the mound of soaked stuff. “I’ll wash them.”

  “Ah, no, you won’t,” Besseta popped off. “I’ll do it, and you’ll like it.”

  Turning around to see a really stern look on her face, “Have you been drinking?” he asked, smelling alcohol and trying to ease the tension.

  “Yeah, want to make something of it?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

  Shaking his head, “No, not really,” he confessed. “I was just asking.”

  “You’re changing faster than we’ve ever seen or heard of, baby, and it worries us,” Besseta said, dropping her hands off her hips. “Let me rephrase, it’s scaring the shit out of me.”

  Stepping over, Kenneth hugged her tight. “I’l
l be okay,” he said, kissing the top of her head. Tiffany watched as Besseta’s face changed colors. Besseta was experiencing what Kenneth had felt when she used to hug Kenneth tight.

  “Kenneth,” Tiffany said, putting a hand on his arm, “she’s changing colors.”

  Letting Besseta go, she gasped, “Wow,” was all she could say.

  “Are you okay?” Kenneth asked worriedly, looking her over.

  Besseta waved her hand, trying to brush his worry off. “I can hold my breath for hours,” she said, stepping back over and hugging him, forcing the pain of the hug out of her mind. “The only reason our kind breathes more is to talk, unless we are doing something strenuous.”

  “I didn’t break anything, did I?”

  “No,” Besseta laughed as she buried her face in his chest. “Tough here, remember?”

  They all headed back to the living room, sprawling out on the couch and Besseta moved over on Kenneth’s chest. Tiffany grabbed the remote and let Kenneth direct her to a good movie. They sat on the couch, laughing at Tiffany for sixteen hours, as she yelled at the characters on the screen.

  As the movie they were watching ended, Tiffany aimed the remote at the screen. “You know, I was there, and ladies didn’t act like nuns then,” she said, scrolling through the titles. “People nowadays think in the middle ages, everyone was chivalrous and thought sex was taboo. The church preached that, but not even the priests or monks lived like that. Shit, people were shagging everywhere.”

  “And didn’t bathe,” Besseta chuckled with her head on Kenneth’s chest.

  Tiffany stopped at a neat-looking banner for a movie and looked at Kenneth who shook his head. “No, you need to go under my account and get off yours. You watch that, and you’ll cry for a decade,” Kenneth said, and Tiffany dropped the remote like it was a snake.

  “Why in the hell do they make movies like that?” she screamed, snatching the puppies off her lap and pulling them to her chest. “Life is hard enough without watching something that rips your heart out.”

  “Hachiko is a great movie and I cried,” Kenneth told her.

  Besseta reached over, grabbing the remote. “If it made you cry, we aren’t watching it, ever.”