beer,” Brandon said trying to reassert his manhood and worldly experience as a man.
“Don’t worry, Brandon. We’ll have plenty of time to drink in our life,” she replied, but almost gave away his surprise.
He reached into his right pocket and gripped the box her engagement ring was in, “There is something I have been meaning to ask you…”
And just as he was ready to get down on one knee, the waiter came back and delivered Valerie’s diet Coke and Brandon’s red, fizzy, virgin cocktail.
Don the waiter went on for another five minutes about the specials, when all Brandon could think about was a blood-rare t-bone steak and a huge rock on his girlfriend’s hands. It never seemed like the right time to pop the question after that, because Brandon was enjoying his steak and couldn’t think of anything else but drinking the blood of each and every restaurant patron. So, he decided to focus all of his attention on the steak for the time being.
The meal ended and Don was on his way back to give a full review of the desert menu, but Brandon would have none of that. He used every ounce of his vampirical powers to make Don think that the couple was gone and had given him and extremely generous tip, which Brandon actually did before his next action.
He scooped Valerie up into his arms and zoomed out of the restaurant, landing in the one spot he knew she would understand. Brandon put Valerie down in the sand after he removed her shoes. They were standing at the beach-head that Valerie took Brandon before he made the transformation into her world.
“I guess you can tell by now that I’ve opened a door that was previously closed,” referring to his reestablishing his powers as a vampire.
She calmly nodded in understanding, so Brandon read the green light and proceeded without caution.
“I brought you here to this spot so I can do something that I should have done… well, I probably should have done this a few weeks ago.”
He removed the red velvet box from his pocket and then smoothly lowered himself down to one knee. He opened the box and said, “Valerie Winters, will you make me the happiest man in the world by agreeing to marry me?”
Her eyes lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and yelled “HELL, YES!” as she extended her left hand and he placed the mammoth piece of jewelry on her ring finger.
He rose to his feet and hugged her tight, spinning her around and around from sheer joy. The sun was setting behind them and the lights of ships making port could be seen in the distance. It was the perfect setting for romance, so the newly-engaged couple went on a kissing and hugging binge for a few minutes.
When the steamed cleared, they walked hand in hand up the long sandy shores toward the parking lot where Brandon was about to zoom them both back to the restaurant to fetch his Mini Cooper. They looked back at their special place in the surf and then Valerie took over the special night of festivities.
“Before we go back to the restaurant and then home to everyone, I have something to tell you. While I appreciate that you were honest with my about unlocking your vampire genes, I have to admit that I haven’t been completely forthcoming with you.”
Brandon wasn’t really sure what was coming next.
She extended her right arm and wiggled her index for him to come closer so she could whisper in his ear. He bent down and she said two simple words that rocked his world and sent their relationship to a whole ‘nother level.
“I’m pregnant.”
NINETEEN
“I tell you, this is one potent family!” Cal Brewster exclaimed as Brandon told the family the good news as they sat down for dinner.
Joe Winters had been trying to come to grips all day with the double shock of marriage and then baby. Somehow the news of the pregnancy had cushioned the blow of his daughter's impending marriage and the pure joy it brought to his wife, who had come in with the twins to give Valerie a big hug.
“A baby! Who’s having a baby?” Samuel came in and out of the room as a blur, as his strength seemed to grow on an hourly basis.
“Was that Samuel again?” Belinda asked.
“I don’t know, I didn’t see him,” Sharon replied.
“That boy is getting way too fast for his own good… and the good of this house,” Maggie added, as the crash of another glass object could be heard in an adjacent room.
Samuel had been breaking things with great regularity, but had discovered that his abilities extended beyond sheer speed and being able to talk to people internally. He stared at the broken vase on the floor and did little but imagine the vase in the state it was before he knocked it over. Time rewound as the vase recollected its watery and flowery contents and flawlessly reassembled on Maggie’s nightstand.
“Cool!” Samuel said, being impressed with his own accomplishment.
He proceeded to spend the rest of the night breaking things and then putting them back together again, like nothing had happened at all. Samuel’s ‘behavior’ became so disruptive at one point that the collective dispatched his parents to see what all of the ruckus was about. Since Kayla didn’t feel like chasing after Samuel, she sent perhaps the only being on the planet that could even remotely keep up with him.
Max was the strategist of the group and needed every ounce of his analytical mind to process what he was witnessing. Samuel was whipping around his play room like a tornado, destroying everything in his path and then backtracking to fix each item before it hit the floor.
“What the…?” Max said to himself as he moved closer and took his son by the arm.
“What is going on in here young man?” Max said, playing the part of the stern dad to a two day-old kid.
Samuel stopped in his tracks, which caused the remaining broken items to crash to the ground. He then looked at his father in frustration and replied, “I was just going to fix those things.”
“Fix what?” a thoroughly-confused Max asked his son.
With that, Samuel went back to work and once he envisioned all of the broken items as whole again, they did just that.
“So, you can break things and then put them back to the way they were before?” Max questioned his son.
“Yeah, isn’t it cool?”
Max thought of the widespread applications that his son’s skill could have beyond fixing toys, lamps and vases. What of the human uses? He wasn’t a deep thinker like, perhaps, previous generations, who would at least roll a thought around in the brain before acting. Max was very much from the impulse generation, a quality he obviously shared with his son.
“Yeah it’s cool!” Max replied, and then fetched the nearest sharp object, which just happened to be a sword he collected from Andrew’s room, and sliced open his forearm.
Samuel was visibly upset and seeing his father not only be hurt, but being injured by his own hand.
Max seemed impervious to the pain as he tried to focus Samuel, “Let’s see what you can do with this?”
Samuel didn’t know what to do for the first time in his young life. His skills were off the charts but his social mind was still very raw and was a work in process. Max did little to help his son’s mind freeze, as he continued to cut himself up in order to push Samuel to stop internalizing his feelings and simply react to what was in front of him.
Samuel was pushed to the edge of supernatural thought as his father kept slicing until he placed the blade on his own neck. He furiously shook his head “No," somehow hoping his dad would end the madness and put the sword down.
Before Max basically executed himself, he left his son with these sage words, “Only you have the power to make all of this go away. Act, Samuel. Act.”
The big playroom went quiet as Maxwell slit his own throat with the skill and grace of a virtuoso violinist. Samuel had a split-second meltdown where he doubted both his place in the universe and ability to clean up the mess before him, but then did the only thing he knew how to do: he acted.
Since Maxwell’s head was hanging on to his shoulders by a
thread, Samuel decided to work top-to-bottom to ensure the speediest and most efficient recovery. Samuel imagined his father’s head and body unmarked, and within two mortal seconds – which seemed like five minutes to Samuel – he was like a supernatural tornado, circling Maxwell until he was as good as new.
Samuel stood in front of Maxwell, and curled his lower lip over his upper lip to signify that he was not happy.
Max came back on line and exclaimed, “Wow! That was a head rush!”
He then noticed that his son was making it painfully obvious that he wasn’t pleased.
“I know you’ve only been out here a few short days, son,” Max started before he realized that Samuel needed to be held.
Max picked up the 100-pound Samuel and gently put his head against his son’s.
“If you have the power to heal us, then you must help me and your grandfather to learn the way. This is a gift to be shared, Samuel.”
He kissed Samuel and the forehead and then put him back on the ground. The observable question then purged his lips, “So what else can you do?”
Samuel thought for a moment and then did the only other thing he knew how.
Just at that moment, Kayla decided to pop her head in the room. What she saw wasn’t mayhem, but it did nonetheless stop her in her tracks.
“Maxwell?” was all she asked because she was too dumfounded to say anything else.
Standing in front of her was the real Maxwell, his wounds now a thing of the past, and Samuel, as