Chapter 37

                                    

                                          
Later on, I saw Lucas walking toward us. I waved my hands in case he doesn't see me, but he already did when I just began to wave, "Hey!" Lucas greeted. 
                          
"Hey, Luke," I bro-hugged him. 
                          
After the hug, he stared at me from head to foot. As if by judging. "Wait, things changed," he observed. 
                          
"Like what?" I asked although I already knew what those 'things' were. 
                          
He made his eye narrowed as he gazed at me directly. Like eye to eye. "Your eyes got paler. . . Only there's a bit of red there. Not the color that appears when you have sore eyes or something. But it's just different. Your pupils were like a canvas and the red thing in there was the paint. And . . ." He made another round of 'judging'. He grinned when he was done. "You got fat! Finally, Rissa. . . Your flesh had been filled up with. . . With what?" 
                          
I put a finger on my mouth. I don't trust the air here, so I said: "I'll explain everything to you later."
                          
"Sure. But where is she?" He asked, and that time I only noticed his hands were at his back. He was hiding something.
                          
I tilted my head and looked at the other side, but there wasn't any sign of Vanessa. I tried to do the 'vampire smelling'. "She's over there, waiting for you," I pointed at our east. "What are you holding?" I gestured at it.
                          
"Flowers," he straightened his hands then showed a bouquet of flowers wrapped in a beautiful, pink wrapper. "Do you think she'll like it?" He worriedly asked. 
                          
I shook her head as I sighed. "No, of course not!" I said sarcastically. 
                          
I grabbed him by the wrist, then led him to the corner where Vanessa was. 
                          
She did not see us because she was facing the opposite side, making her back face our faces. But Abel was there. And so he tapped me on the shoulder. Lucas immediately hid the flowers behind his back when he saw her. 
                          
"Nessa!" I called. She quickly turned her head, then grinned when they saw us. But not actually us, but Luke only. She hid her grin. "You told me you were here!" 
                          
"Yeah, I was waiting for you guys here for almost an hour. I texted and waited for your reply, but you didn't," he breathed deeply. "So I thought about going to a flower shop," he gave the flowers to her, and Vanessa obviously liked it. 
                          
"Oh my God, it's the combination of my favorite colors, Luke," she grinned very widely and it almost reached her ears. 
                          
"Are you in for a date today?" Lucas asked nervously, but he still felt confident. Vanessa smiled. "Absolutely, my Romeo," she answered with a high-pitched voice. 
                          
"Come, my Juliet," he said and offered her his arm. 
                          
They said their good-byes to us. Of course, they had to leave us. 
                          
Abel looked at me when they left. "So, I guess we're also in for a date now."
                          
"We're in the park, so yeah." 
                          
We both began walking slowly in the park. A slow walk would be more romantic, wouldn't it?  
                          
It was conversation-less walk because we were most probably enjoying seeing the attractions here. But someone called Abel's name and eventually ruined the silence. 
                          
"Abel?" I heard a woman's voice. For a short time, I thought it was Valerie. But I realized she did no know his name and the voice was entirely different from her. 
                          
We followed the voice when we heard it. The one who owned that womanish voice was the only girl standing there whose head was incredibly red-orange. I liked her hair dye. If it was. "Amanda!" Abel said. 
                          
The way Abel and Amanda sounded was like they didn't see each other for such a long, long time. And then a man a head taller than her appeared beside Amanda, and the thing most noticeable here was that they look quite alike. 
                          
I could only guess they were twins.
                          
Abel glanced at the man beside Amanda. "Is this Carl?" He asked, with a finger pointing at him. 
                          
"Yes. He's a grown up, isn't he?" Amanda spoke before Abel could drop his jaw. "So what are you doing here?" She asked.
                          
"Well," he smiled. "I'm having a vacation here with Selene." Oh my God, you failed to mention my human name, Abel!! He put his hand over my shoulder, pulling me closer to give a message. 
                          
"That's sounds good! You still living in Grezsatly, right?" She asked and when she smiled she had dimples.
                          
Mentioning that secret place made my eyes widen in fear. "Yeah, you could visit anytime. See my family."
                          
"We'll do our best to find time," Carl finally talked, with his voice that sounded normally low.
                          
I was going to confirm my thought but first I had to wait them to leave. 
                          
"They're twins, aren't they?" I asked when they were completely gone. 
                          
"Obviously," he replied, then continued to walk. 
                          
Abel and I met a small family on the way, but what I had noticed was that their mouths were oddly covered. 
                          
Covered with surgical masks.  
                          
Not only a family that I saw was wearing masks, but even other people whenever we meet their direction. I was starting to get confused, terrified. Because when I last lived in this place, the citizens weren't wearing surgical masks. When I saw that small family, I ignored them but when I saw more people, it sent me chills. But it wasn't certainly my first time to see such thing covering the mouth, of course, people wear it in hospitals. But these masks were a special kind. It was like the better or more accurately, enhanced mask. Exclusively made for a certain sort of disease. And it was most probably very very contagious. Try to see the point here, why would they wear such things if the disease wasn't highly contagious at all?
                          
But just to make sure, I asked this: "What's with those masks?"
                          
Abel gave me a shrug only. "I don't know. Maybe there's a dirty air or pollution going on in here," he guessed. I was about to correct his false guess but I decided to hide it.