Chapter 358: Laying It On The Table

"I see you're a multimillionaire now…" echoed a voice teeming and brimming with wonder and awe. "Mom said you were doing well, but I didn't think… this… well…" 

A humble, modest country girl all her life, Sammy was a total stranger to the more extravagant splendorous aspect of life. While the house was far from anything a multimillionaire would live in, more above-average living than anything, that didn't matter to her. 

If it's got a chandelier on the ceiling, a plasma tv forty-five inches wide, and more than one bathroom to be used, then in her eyes I was pretty much inhaling and exhaling riches instead of air. 

I watched there, slowly taking in the newfound sights with incredulous eyes, as I fixed a drink up for her in the kitchen. 

"Oh," I called out, nearly forgetting. "Vampire on the couch, don't be too startled."

"Vampire on the -? AHH!" 

Did warn her…

Once Sammy caught sight of the slumbering figure on the slightly shredded and tattered sofa, that was it… her fascination had peaked. Like some kind of exhibition behind a glass panel, Sammy stared at Adalia's sleeping face with a mixture of wary fear and morbid curiosity, leaning in further over the back of the couch, her lips wide in a perfect circle.

"Fangs. Claws. So this is… uh, Adalia, right? From Tyler's video?" She asked, swallowing her disbelief. "Your, uh… new gothic vampire girlfriend?" 

I walked forward, placing a pair of steaming hot mugs onto the nearby dining table. "Allegedly."

"Allegedly, huh?" She repeated back, catching sight of the swirl of white steam wafting about, and immediately plopped herself down to a seat. "Which is mine?" 

"The one on the left. Here I'll - " I tried to pass her mug to her, could practically feel the warmth radiating inches from my fingertips before it was suddenly whisked away like someone had tied and tugged a string around the handle, and that someone had her lips already around the rims, sipping audibly. "Pass it... to you…" 

With a loud satisfied exhale, Sammy lowered the mug onto the table, revealing an even more satisfied smile. "Ah, that's better…" 

I took a seat across from her, reaching for my cup the normal way, y'know the human way. "I thought you hated coffee."

"Not yours," She said, taking another sip. "You suck at most things," then another. "Coffee isn't one of them." 

Pretty much, yeah. Didn't argue with that, and instead raised my mug to my lips. That's when I started noticing more things amiss, peering over the rims of my drink.

All this while hearing the faint rumble of wheels, I thought Sammy was pulling her suitcase along with her. But now she was sitting right in front of me contentedly enjoying her warm cup of coffee, and yet I can still very much hear those same wheels rumbling. 

Her luggage was pulling itself. In the corner of my eyes, I watch rolling itself deeper inwards before coming to a gradual stop beside her daintily swaying legs.

"Too hot," Sammy muttered, forming a little frown. "Think you forgot I like mine chilled a bit." 

Then going three for three on the abnormal, Sammy blew once a heavy breath on her coffee… and once she ran out of breath, the once swirling white steam over her drink had suddenly ceased to be. 

In fact, upon closer inspection… I think there was a bit of frost etched onto the table there.

"Better," She said, smiling again content.

This girl is flaunting her magical prowess like it was going out of style or something. What's happening? I thought she didn't like the magic side of life? Also, how the hell is she so good with it? I know Mom has been showing her the ropes, But is she really that much better of a teacher than Irene? 

It's either that, or Sammy was just that more diligent of a student than I'll ever be… and really, who'd be surprised if it really did turn out to be the latter? Not me, that's for certain.

Speaking of Irene, don't think she'd be too happy knowing Sammy is not as restrictive with her magic as I claimed her to be. Eh, we'll sort that out eventually…

"So, Sammy," I began, wearing and brandishing that tone of older sibling authority once more. "Why did you up and leave so abruptly wanting to see me so badly? Without even telling Mom... or Dad. You don't love your big brother this much, do you?"

She stared with disdain at that remark. "Don't be disgusting. It's not that I want to see you, I HAVE to see you. There's the difference." 

"So explain the difference. What do you have to see me for?" 

Now, with the mystery elephant in the room finally being addressed, that look of discomfort was back again and veering her eyes to everywhere else but onto mine.

Which left me to speculate aloud. 

"I know it can't be boyfriend troubles, school problems, or just whining about how life is back at home… and if you're coming to me about it, then I don't think you've told Mom or Dad about it either, which means only one thing..." 

I trailed away, wanting her to fill in the rest of the blanks, and eventually, after she watched her teaspoon for a time slowly stir itself around her glass, she finally did, "I'm having dreams," the stark blue of her eyes stared again back at me. "But I don't think dreams is the right word for it. They're more like nightmares… but that's not right either." 

"Visions?" I suggested.

"That works," She said, nodding somberly. "Yeah, visions. For almost two weeks now, night after night, it just… keeps happening." 

Her words triggered a memory inside of me… a vision of my own if you wanna call it that. Way back when, before this house, before Jay, before the Blight, even way before the Matriarch fiasco, my first week with Ash… I remembered being in bed myself, remembered seeing things I thought utterly ridiculous.

A Wicked Mother, A Heroic Father… battling to the death in a ruined wasteland barren and infinite. It made empathizing with her a whole lot easier.

"It's about Mom right? Or Dad?" I nodded in a way to tell her that she wasn't alone in going loony. "Them together in their past lives doing whatever it is they do." 

Only to be implicitly told by the slow shake of her head that I was understanding wrong already.

"It's about you."

Her lips barely even moved. If the tv was playing, or if the leaves outside were rustling even slightly… I never would have heard her say it, or if I did, I could have just thought I imagined it.

I wished I could have just imagined it. Just can't catch a break now, can I?

"Me," I didn't stop to think, to speculate, I just wanted to know what it all meant. "What about me, Sammy?" 

"That's the thing," She said, elbows slamming onto the table, defeated. "I don't really know what any of it means." 

"What does that mean?" 

"It means… I don't have the answers, big bro," Sammy gave me a tired look. "All I can tell you is that I don't like the way I'm seeing you. You're just there, in my mind, like a blur, like a ripple in a pond. I can see you clearly but not really… and there's nothing about that image of you that I like, and when I snap out of it, when I wake up every morning... I wake up scared." 

"Scared of what?" I asked, then immediately right after, I had a dreadful feeling that I didn't want to know the answer.

But they came all the same, in that same heavy somber tone, her voice coated in that same layer of dread. "Of you, big bro." 

"Oh," I nodded again, not as understandingly this time, unfortunately. "I see." 

"That's why I'm here…" She finished. "For a few days… I just wanna, I just wanna make sure, y'know? Because considering our heritage… and who we both take after… yeah? You know what I'm saying, right?" 

I just kept nodding. "Unfortunately, I do." 

There were many things I could say to respond to that. I could assure her, I could comfort her, wave it away, laugh it off, maybe joke, quip… but none felt right to say, so I didn't say anything.

Sammy didn't like that quiet, more aggravated than anything. She's always like that when things aren't going right. When Mom's sick, when the internet goes down, or when I announced that I was leaving for the city life all those months back… I'd always see that flicker in her slanting brows.

And I was seeing them now again.

"Oh, come on. Help me out here, already. Don't just sit there, for God's sake..." Her chair gave a screech, pulled by her weight as she tossed her body forward. "Say I'm just overthinking things. Tell me I sound stupid, and I came here for nothing, that I'm just overthinking it, laugh, joke - come on, just do something! Or else… or else, you're going to make me have to ask you…" 

That's when she moved again, slowly, not as aggressively… the way she slumped back down into her seat. This was the other thing she does after realizing things still weren't going right. She'd get quiet, soft… no longer trying to fight whatever it is she was trying to fight against, and instead just accepting that some things are just simply out of her control.

Once again, there that tense stare was right across from me, as she spoke, as she reluctantly asked.

"You're not going to go all evil on us and destroy the world, are you?"