I gave Corrine a long look before nodding. “Thank you. She’ll be back tomorrow…” I headed for the door and paused just before twisting the knob open. “That is, if she wants to.”

I could sense the witch’s smile – a show of approval perhaps. “Have a good day, Derek.”

CHAPTER 21: SOFIA

The moment our eyes met, he looked away, almost as if he were embarrassed over something. It was actually… cute – a word I never thought I’d use to describe Derek Novak. As we walked back to the Pavilion, he remained silent, deep in thought, never even looking my way.

“You said that you wanted to teach me how to defend myself…” I eventually said, breaking the silence, detesting the wall that seemed to be building up between us.

“Yes,” he nodded. He then paused as if to catch himself. “But if you don’t want to…”

I frowned. Since when does he care what I want? I decided not to make a fuss over it.

“I want to.”

The heaviness in our conversation was weighing on me. I wanted to go back to how comfortable and light and casual our interactions were before things took a turn for the worse. Before Lucas happened. I was still shaken, still afraid of what Lucas was capable of, but dwelling on woes really wasn’t one of my strong suits. It was one of Ben’s major influences on me. He never allowed me to dwell on self-pity. So I slipped my hands into Derek’s, getting used to how cold it was, hoping to let him know that what happened didn’t change my view of him.

“I’d like it if you let the other girls join in too,” I suggested, squeezing his hand.

The gesture seemed to lighten his mood a bit. His shoulders relaxed as he gave me a fond look.

“Of course.” He nodded.

He then stopped walking and took both my hands in his. He heaved a sigh. It seemed like he was weighing every word he spoke carefully.

“I’m thinking that you should start sleeping in my chambers from now on.”

I was taken aback. Then a teasing smile crept over my lips.

“Don’t you think we’re moving a little too fast?”

I joked, squinting an eye at him. I was making fun of his proposal, but the truth was that I had quite a handful of reservations about being in the same bedroom – much more the same bed - with a blood-sucking vampire.

He gave me a funny look, perhaps wondering if he should take me seriously or not.

“I mean it, Sofia. I understand you have reservations, but I promise I won’t try anything with you. I just want to make sure that you’re safe.”

I really made a conscious effort to keep my jaw from dropping. Was he actually asking for my consent? He wasn’t just ordering me to sleep in his bed? Have we gone past the no questions asked because his oh-so-royal word was the say all and be all of my entire existence? I gave it some thought. The idea of even going back to my bedroom at the penthouse sickened me. I wasn’t sure if I trusted Derek enough to keep his word and not actually try to jump me, but then the alternative of being alone in a room, and the chance of once again having Lucas climb into my bed in the middle of the night was a far less attractive option.

I nodded and looked up into those bright blue eyes of his.

“I can trust you, can’t I, Derek?”

The expression on his face and the way he responded was enough to tell me that he wasn’t taking the situation lightly.

He nodded. “Yes, Sofia. You can.”

In the days that followed, he proved his words true. Derek never did anything or even said anything that would violate my trust. It seemed he took extra care in making sure that I wanted to do what he was asking me to do, but that really was the major difference. He actually began to ask. It seemed so unlike him at first… almost unnatural, but as time passed, we became a lot more used to having each other around. Or at least I did.

Days – or in the Blood Shade’s case - nights fell into routine. We started off with breakfast before he brought me and the girls to the Crimson Fortress to train using weapons of defense against vampires. Much to his siblings’ horror, he actually gave us each wooden stakes of our own. He, however, warned us sternly that those were for self-defense and nothing else. Should we use it for any other purpose, he made it clear that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill us himself. It was a reminder that the fierce and menacing part of him was still in there – no matter how caring and gentle he could be around me.

After training sessions, he would have Sam and Kyle bring the girls back to the penthouse to prepare lunch while he brought me to Corrine. I had no idea what he did while I spent a full two hours with Corrine, but it didn’t really bother me all that much. I began to treasure times I spent with the witch. She was definitely far better than the other psychologists I’d been forced to meet with. It didn’t take long for her to have a diagnosis of what my mental condition was.

“You don’t have any of the disorders those doctors diagnosed you with, Sofia,” she explained. “What you have is often confused with other disorders, because it’s hard to detect, but I honestly think that you have “Low Latent Inhibition”, also known as LLI. Latent inhibition is what allows people to shut down other things so that they can focus on selected things. It’s what allows us to not have to deal with all this external and internal stimuli at the same time. After all, the brain can only take so much. You, however, don’t have a lot of latent inhibition. That’s why you’re constantly fully aware of everything going around you. You can’t just shut down and focus on one thing. It can get overwhelming, because you’re always open to new stimuli.” She paused. “I think it’s what your mother had. She wasn’t able to handle it… hence, what happened to her...”

I bit my lip. “Does that mean I could end up like her?”

“Most people who have LLI do end up going crazy, Sofia… unless they have a high enough IQ to handle it. You’re one of those lucky few. Most people who are able to handle LLI have high levels of empathy and are often very perceptive of others. They’re creative geniuses.”

At that, I scoffed. I doubted that I was much of a creative genius. Yet, a lot of what Corrine said about LLI made sense to me. It was perhaps the reason why I was so attuned to all my senses. I’d just assumed that it was normal for everyone to be that way. Maybe I was wrong.

After sessions with Corrine, I spent the rest of the day with Ashley, Paige, and Rosa. We were often guarded by several alternating guards assigned to us, but we decided that we liked Sam and Kyle best. Those afternoons we mostly spent with them helping me finish my project in that extra room Derek provided me at the penthouse. We still talked about escaping, but we had no clue how to pull it off, it almost always ended up being a complete downer, so we tried to avoid talking about it unless ideas of how to pull it off came up. They asked me a lot about that night and what happened. I tried to avoid answering them as best I could. I didn’t want to scare them.

I managed to convince Derek to allow us to hold a memorial service in honor of Gwen and he eventually allowed it. It was the Blood Shade’s first ever memorial service held in honor of a human.

I spent most dinnertimes alone with Derek. Sometimes, he talked to me about what happened throughout his day after he left me with Corrine. Most of the time, he just listened. He kept me up to date on investigations regarding my attack and Gwen’s murder. I honestly think that he suspected Lucas; he just couldn’t admit it to himself. It only served to strengthen my resolve not to test his loyalties by telling him.

Over the course of several days, I was also finally able to teach him how to use his cell phone. He gave me one of my own and the first thing I tried to do with it was call Ben. Apparently, whatever was keeping the Blood Shade secret also blocked any calls and messages from leaving the island. Whoever Cora was, I both admired her and loathed her for making the Blood Shade so secure.

If not for Lucas, I could honestly say that I was beginning to like living at the Shade. It was harder for him to get to me, with all the security measures Derek had built up around me at night, but there were still moments when he caught me alone and off guard. Lucas never failed to remind me that a time would come when I’d be his. I never did have an encounter with him that didn’t leave me feeling shaken and violated. I hated Lucas with every fiber of my being. It seemed he knew that and the knowledge only made the whole thing more amusing to him.

Ultimately, it was Derek that made life at the Blood Shade worth living. I began to treasure nights spent with him. We spent most of it with me trying to introduce a new piece of technology to him, one at a time. Introducing him to the camera was pretty fun. We spent the night snapping pictures of each other and mostly just goofing around. It was the first time I could remember hearing him laugh.

Life at the Shade almost took on a lethargic pace and the life I lived before being taken there felt like it belonged to a completely different lifetime. I was mostly worried about the girls and how they were coping but they seemed to have accepted that this was their life for now. Occasions where we got to leave the penthouse and see other parts of the Shade were ones that allowed us to see how other vampires treated their human slaves. It was evident that it was to our advantage that we got to be under Derek’s care.