Survivor by Kaye Draper Read Free Book Online

with a big old wing backed chair and a love
seat.  Peter had lifted me over to the love seat, and I was relishing the
chance to get out of my wheelchair.  If someone happened to come in, I would
hear the bell over the door. 
    I reached for a napkin and the light from one of the
tall windows caught the charm on my bracelet, making the graceful fish glint
and glow.  Peter smiled as I wiped my face.  He popped a grape in his mouth and
reached for his bottle of juice.  It was still odd eating alone, and I think he
knew that.  I doubted he would ever eat that much if he were alone.  Vampires
only ate for pleasure, and only once in a while.  He said most human food lost
its taste after you were turned, and it wasn’t as if he needed it for
sustenance.  His eyes followed my hand as I started tucking things away in my
little lunch box.
    “I’ve noticed you wear that bracelet often,” he
said, taking my hand in order to examine the charm more closely.  He shifted
closer, and a shiny shock of dark brown hair fell into his eyes.  He brushed it
away and his soft, earthy smell filled my senses.  I took a deep breath to
steady myself.  Even just being close to him like this was overwhelming.  He
said it was because of the hormones he produced to attract prey, but I wasn’t
so sure that’s all it was.
    I cleared my throat and tried to get a grip.  “It’s
a koi,” I said, fingering the charm.  It was jointed in a few places, so it
looked as if it were swimming when I nudged it. 
    He nodded and glanced up at me, unaware that his
nearness was giving me heart palpitations.  “They are supposed to be good luck,
right?”
    I nodded, embarrassed by how much I believed in this
one silly superstition.  “It was supposed to be a good luck charm.  One of my
friends bought it for me in one of the mall stores when we were in high school.” 
I shrugged.  “It used to hang from the rearview mirror of my car.”  Peter had
stopped looking at the charm, but he didn’t give me my hand back.  Instead, he
laced his fingers through mine.  When I glanced at our hands, lying on his
knee, he gifted me with a half-smile that said he knew exactly what he was
doing to me.
    “After they got me out of the car, someone in the
fire department picked up the fish.”  My focus went distant as I tried to
remember the time around my early recovery.  It was hazy and I only recalled
bits and pieces, like blurry snapshots.  Post-traumatic amnesia made it
impossible to remember the accident.  I had even lost the last couple of days
leading up to the accident.  I couldn’t remember the woman, only what Mom told
me about her.  “She kept it, and when she learned that I was still alive, she
brought it to the hospital.  I glanced at Peter to find him regarding me
intently, all signs of his earlier mischief in check.  “My car was completely
trashed.”  My voice caught, for some reason, and I blinked hard, trying not to
let my eyes water.  “They had to cut me out.  I lost all of my belongings, but
this survived.”
    I had seen pictures of the wreckage.  The other
driver’s vehicle was larger than mine, and it had a lot of force behind it.  My
little car was pushed off the road.  It rolled down a big incline and smashed
into a bunch of trees.  Hundreds of pounds of glass and metal were twisted and
shattered, my body was crushed and battered, and yet this cheap little fish was
completely unharmed.
    “I researched it, koi,”   I said awkwardly.  “Once I
was better and I could focus long enough to operate a computer.  There’s this
Japanese story about how a koi swam up a waterfall and was turned into a
dragon.  It’s supposed to represent determination to overcome obstacles.”  I
looked down at my hands, embarrassed.
    Peter nodded.  “It’s a perfect symbol for you.  You
were lucky to survive, and you’ve been gifted with strength and perseverance
over adversity.”
    I snorted.  “Yeah, lucky.”