What if Nora met Adrien First? (ebook sneak peek)

This is a short version of the library scene of what might have happened if somehow Adrien had been the one that Ally sent into the library to sit with Nora instead of Marc. 

(Starts with her having already chosen what book to study)

*****

"Uh...hey?"

"Ack!" I cried out and whirled around, my chair scraping loudly across the floor as I jumped to me feet to stare at the wide eyed boy standing there.

"Whoa! Geez…sorry! You okay?" 

The boy was frozen in place hands in front of him almost as if he thought I was going to attack.

I let out a soft, shaky breath and hazarded a look at the front desk. Vilos was still there, head tilted down as he stared at me over the top of his glasses.

So much for first impressions, there… 

I mouthed the word 'sorry' to him and he went back to whatever he was doing. me emotions were clearly still running a bit high after what happened earlier. I dragged a trembling hand through me hair as I glanced back at the boy.

"Sorry," I said. "Just…rough morning."

"Was it?" The boy gave me an awkward smile. "I actually have no idea what's going on. Ally just caught me in the club room and told me to come hang out with you." He leaned down to pick up the fallen chair, giving me a cautious look as he did so. "You're, um, in my art class, right?"

"Oh - yeah.." It had taken me far to long to realize that's why he was familiar.

"N…Nora? Right?"

"That's me."

"Adrien. Adrien Wallace."

"Right, right. I remember."

I fell back in my seat and flopped across the table, feeling like an idiot. Even if I was on edge, that had been quite the dramatic reaction to someone literally just walking up behind me and saying hello. Adrien sat across from me, giving me a sheepish smile.

"Man, I must be really out of the loop. I didn't even know you were…um…you know..."

"One of us?" I supplied dryly.

"Yeah, that." He smirked slightly, but it faded fast. "Though I doubt you're one of us," he said, giving me a long, careful look.

"Meaning?"

He tapped my book. "One of us."

I glanced down at the page in front of me where the first first word declared what I was reading about in big, bold print.

"Oh..." Realization hit me suddenly. "Oh! You're a Vampire??"

He just laughed as he leaned his chin on his hands. "Why so surprised? I don't look like one?"

I studied him for a minute. I'd never paid that much attention before, but no he didn't really look anything like I'd have picked a Vampire to be. 

"Well…No. Not really." For one thing...he was kind of short. I always sort of imagined Vampires as tall and lanky. I gave Adrien an amused smile, figuring I'd keep that part to myself. "Do Vampires even have a 'look'?" I asked.

"I guess not," he responded. "I mean, we mostly just look like regular people. Except we dress better."

I laughed. Well, I couldn't argue that. He dressed better than half the student body. But that wasn't exactly hard.

The laugh died off quickly, leaving me to mull over that. Adrien was a Vampire, of all things. 

Like Marc...

That was surprising. They seemed quite different - but then, I supposed it wasn't as if all Vampires had to be exactly alike. I stared down the pages seriously. "But going back to what you said, no. I don't think I'm a Vampire." 

"Well that doesn't surprise me. You don't really have the aura."

"Yeah. And, I mean, I don't get the urge to, you know, chew on people's necks and all that. So…"

He gave me a look of mock annoyance. "You know we don't all do that, right?"

I narrowed my eyes as I looked Adrien's way again. "…I did not know that, no." I shifted my eyes away, fidgeting as I wondered if it was safe to ask what that meant. "Are there…um…are there other body parts preferred over the neck?"

Adrien looked surprised at that question for the briefest of moments before he just laughed. "Wow, you don't know anything about any of this, do you?"

"No, I don't actually. That's the point."

"How rare." 

"In my defense, I didn't know there was anything to know anything about until, like, yesterday. So…" I watched him curiously as he pulled my book closer to his side of the table and flipped forward in it, scanning the pages. Oddly, he was friendlier than I expected. In art, he never spoke to anyone but one friend of his in the same class.

I'd always thought he was kind of standoffish. Maybe it's just a Vampire thing. 

Adrien finally stopped looking through the pages and pushed the book back toward me. "This…is what I am. Though they really need to expand this section. Geez..."

I curiously leaned forward read the chapter title, lifting one eyebrow. "Vitae?" That sounded Latin…ish. I scanned the first paragraph as well. Vampires that fed on…life energy. From the look of the text, it didn't involve biting, but Vitae could feed just by touching other people. I looked up at Adrien again, but my eyes were almost instantly drawn to the gloves he wore.

I'd always kind of wondered why he always wore them - even in class. Now...

He noticed immediately and gave me a wry smile. "Yeah. Can't really turn it off, really. Not completely. Not yet…"

"So, what? You wear gloves to keep from sucking out everyone's life energy all the time?" That sounded inconvenient for everyone involved.

"Something like that."

"You can't…touch people? Like…ever?"

A shadow crossed Adrien's face. He dropped his gaze to the table, eyebrows knit together. "Well, I could. I mean, it's not like we drain harmful amounts usually. Normally people wouldn't even notice, and it wouldn't do any harm to them either. It's just there are…rules. You know?"

"Rules about being able to touch people?" I didn't quite keep the incredulous tone out of my voice. A look of surprise flashed across his face, and there was something that expression that made me feel I was not only right, but that he didn't expect me to...sound so opposed to the idea. 

Though I supposed the rules were probably about draining life energy rather than touching people. But either way, the result was the same, right?

And my first inclination was to think that was unfair to force someone to avoid human contact. Though he's not really human is he?

It was also unfair to say people should have their life energy sucked without consent. 

Somehow it all seemed more complicated that I'd previously realized. All of it. I was freaking out about seeing a creepy thing. But the others were dealing with actual consequences of what they were. Ewan with his, er, head thing. And Adrien couldn't even touch people?

"Nora? Still with me?" 

I looked up with surprise, not having realized I'd gone quiet for so long. "Sorry. Just got a bit lost in thought."

He gave me a lopsided smile. "Worried I'm going to 'suck out your life energy.'?"

"No!" I denied quickly. "I was just…no. That isn't what I was thinking." I looked at him silently for a moment, raising an eyebrow.  "Though, now that you mention it, should I be?"

He held his hands up, still wearing the same teasing smile. "Nah. Even though, for the record, the rules only prohibit me from absorbing human life energy. You're a Cryptic, so I could—"

"We don't know I'm not human yet, thank you very much." My tension began to drain away as he teased me. "And I'll have you know that I absolutely am completely opposed to any sort of supernatural…cannibalism."

His grin widened. "It's not cannibalism if you aren't a Vampire."

"Pfft. That's a technicality. One I wholeheartedly reject."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm not in the habit of just absorbing random people anyway. I mean, who knows where they've been??"

"Absorbing people?? That just makes you sound like…you know that old sci-fi flick The Blob?"

Adrien just laughed at that. He leaned back in his seat and stretched. "I'll have you know that I am way better looking than The Blob."

"Eh…" I pretended to mull that over. "I guess I'll give you that one. I'm feeling charitable – and to be fair, the bar is pretty low."

"That's harsh," he said, still laughing.

"I do have that kind of reputation…"

He leaned forward, again, folding his hands on the table. "So…what was so rough about this morning anyway? Ally was running off pretty quick somewhere. She didn't really say why she felt you needed company."

"Oh, I was just accosted by a…a thing…this morning. And she's going to have the agency investigate it or something.

"A…thing? That's descriptive."

"Well, I don't know what it was!" I insisted. "It was a...thing. A big thing with big teeth teeth…and it lived under a bridge?"

"Like a troll?"

I paused, definitely not having considered that possibility. "Uh…that…yes? Maybe? Are trolls a thing that is real?"

"Vampires are a thing that are real, and you think trolls have to be made up?"

Okay, when he said it like that (and with that look on his face) I had to agree it sounded silly. "Fair," I said. "Trolls could be real. Got it. Maybe it was one then, I don't know. It just grabbed me and recited poetry. It was…weird."

Adrien looked exactly the way I felt about the whole thing. "Sounds like an odd combination."

"Tell me about it."

"Maybe it was flirting."

"That might even be worse than kidnapping..."

"Kidnap?? So it accosted you and tried to kidnap you? Geez. You okay?" 

"Yeah, I'm okay." I glanced down at my wrist – the redness had faded a bit, but it still throbbed faintly.

"You sure about that?"

I gave him a weary smile. "Yeah, more or less. I mean, it could have been worse. At least it was far from me house. At least I was alone."

"Sounds like the fact you were alone may have been why it came after you, though," he said dubiously.

"Yeah, but anyone else in my family would have freaked out at the sight of something like that - assuming they could even see it and didn't just see me fighting off...air."

"Your...oh. You mean your family's not...you know...like you?"

I scoffed at that. "If they were, do you think I'd be so confused about all this?"

"I guess that's true." He seemed to mull that over quietly for a moment. "I just didn't...wow. That's really, really rough. I mean, all of it."

"No kidding." I flipped the book shut since it was clear I wasn't going to be getting any reading done. I didn't mind terribly, though. Adrien was doing a better job of getting my mind off things than the book was anyway.

"Sorry," he said.

I looked up at him curiously. "For what?"

"I don't know. I guess I feel like I've kind of been a little insensitive.  I mean, joking around and everything. I didn't realize just how bad a morning it really was." He twisted his fingers together, the leather gloves squeaky softly in the quiet. "Sometimes the, uh...interns...can be a little over-dramatic about things."

"Interns? You mean that agency thing?"

"Yeah. Speaking of that - I bet Ally's back by now. Want to go check?" He seemed a little hopeful I'd take him up on that.

I gave him a crooked grin. "Sick of babysitting me already?"

"No! No, it's not that. I just..." He sighed, expression oddly troubled. "I just don't think I'm the best person to offer comfort, you know. I mean, I grew up with all this, so I don't know what it's like to...to..."

"Nearly be dragged into the woods by a possible troll?"

"Yeah...I guess?"

"Don't worry - that's actually comforting in and of itself." I shrugged. "I mean, if you did know what it was like, I feel like that would indicate troll abductions are far too common for my liking."

Adrien snickered. "I guess that's true..." 

I stood and pushed my chair in, a movement Adrien almost immediately copied. "But I'm fine with going to see if Ally's back." I picked the book back up. I didn't really get very far in my reading but I figured it was fine. Now...where was Vilos?

"You know can just leave the book there - it'll find its way back to the shelves on its own after a while."

"Oh...that's convenient..." And cool. And...slightly weird. there was no way I'd have been able to work in a library where books were flying around all day.

"Well, it is a magic library, you know."

I smiled at that, as the two of us headed back to the club room. "One of the only good things that happened today so far."

Adrien shoved his hands in his pockets and I couldn't help but notice he walked just a touch further away than normal even as he grinned at me. "Hey, I think getting to chat with me is a good thing, too."

I grinned back. "Eh...I mean...could have been worse."

He just laughed.