by Tara Brown
He looked back to see her sitting on the driftwood, huddled into herself.
His fists clenched thinking about what he would do to Tony. He smiled thinking he would bring Lucas and Ben with him. Nothing was more classic than vampires and werewolves fighting.
He looked out at the sea watching the waves roll in, thinking about how he would tell Aimee about her sister.
Chapter Fourteen: You're making me Batty, not that kind of Batty
Hanna
She watched him working quietly.
"So do you eat animals or people?"
He smirked not taking his eyes off the work in front of him, "Never eat animals. You are what you eat my love."
"Have you killed people?"
"What do you think?"
"I want you to say no."
"I killed your father."
"I watched that girl do it. I know you never."
He glanced at her, "I made the elixir he was taking for nearly a decade. It was killing him, suppressing the beast."
She shrugged, "Its not what I mean. I mean have you drank until they were dead?"
He watched her face as he spoke plainly, "Yes."
She shivered, "When was the last time?"
He sighed rubbing his eyes, "Few years ago, no wait. Uhm well it was at a movie release. Scarlet O'Hara, Gone with the Wind. So it was, uhm. I don’t know. What year is it now?"
She laughed, "2012. The last time was in the thirties? You last drained a human in the thirties and you thought that was a few years ago?"
He blushed, "I'm old Hanna. Like old, old. Time passes when a hundred years have gone by. I don’t recall what was going on. I just remember that when I tasted her blood it was good. I couldn’t stop." He laughed, "No that’s not true. I could have stopped, but I didn’t want to."
She cringed, "What is wrong with you?"
"I have no soul. No beating heart. You've seen the movies I would imagine. They're not so far off."
"How did the information about you and my dad get published into novels?"
He laughed, "Disinformation of sorts. People have discovered us. Witch hunts, burnings, the Spanish inquisition, all our fault. Fortunately none of our kind was ever harmed, just regular people. Women mostly. So rumors were spread, myths and lore. It made it seem as if it were entertainment instead of fact."
"Garlic and holy water?"
He looked annoyed, "Totally false but the day light thing is true for every vampire beyond myself. It's partly why I've never had a relationship with a vampire. I can't imagine being with someone who couldn’t go out in the sunlight."
She hadn’t ever imagined he would have a relationship with another person. He seemed so closed off and cold.
"Your skin isn’t cold."
He chuckled looking back down at the map he was drawing with weird letters and numbers, "No it isn’t. It also isn’t hard as a diamond. It cuts, its soft."
"Can you be killed?"
He shook his head, "I am what Aleksander is, I am cursed. I heal instantly. No man made weapon or even Aimee can kill me. I believe if Lorri ever got the chance she might be able to, but I ensure I'm never around her."
She thought about everything that had been explained to her about Lorri being the devil. Roland and Lydia had rambled many things at her.
"Who are the good guys and bad guys in it all?"
He pointed at her, "Last question. I don’t believe there are necessarily good or bad. I believe the good have committed the same crimes as the bad so who are they to judge. The Roses, Lorri's goon squad thinks they're the good guys, protecting the humans from us freaks. Daniel and his monsters, who used to be Roses, think of humans as sheep. They believe humans are the lesser species and must bow before the rest of us as gods. They believe what they are doing is for the good of the rest of us."
"Where do you fit in?"
He dropped his pencil and walked to her. He stood between her thighs looking down on her, "With you. I said last question and I bloody mean it. You're driving me batty."
She opened her mouth but he growled, "NO I don’t turn into a bat and don’t you dare even think about asking it."
She snapped her mouth shut and smiled. He bent kissing her lips softly.
The questions were rolling around in her mind.
Chapter Fifteen: Boston be Damned
Aleksander
The doctor shook his head as he spoke, the words got lost but in the sentences somewhere he heard, "No chance…hopeless…such a shame…"
Aleksander looked at Giselle taking it all in. Her face never changed, she accepted the fate with grace and calm. He found her behavior alarming.
He looked at her sitting on the bed in her hospital gown, "I will be right back. I need to make a call."
She looked at him breaking his heart with her devastating beauty, "Okay."
He walked from the room feeling desperate.
He dialed quickly.
His heart clenched as she answered her phone, "Hello."
"Aimes I need you to come to the hospital. I'm in Portland at the Science University. I'm at emergency."
"I don’t understand. Are you okay?"
He chuckled bitterly, "Yes of course, I'm here with Giselle."
"What? Be there now."
The phone went dead.
Suddenly he could hear the telltale click of her boots on the linoleum floor.
He looked back at the entrance to the emergency ward.
Her face was drawn and panicked.
He pointed to the room, "Wait for the doctor to leave. She'll be a mess when she sees you. She doesn’t understand why you’ve left her alone in the world."
He hated saying it to her. He hated hurting her that way.
Her face pinched, "I never thought, my dad said she was fine. I just didn’t know how to fix it." Her head hung.
He put his arms around her trying desperately to control himself and not smell her hair or kiss the top of her head.
"How did you find her?"
He pulled her back and looked into her blue grey eyes, "It was a tip from a friend at the blood bar Master Mikes."
She looked confused, "She's hanging with Vamps?"
He nodded, "She has been blood drugged repeatedly for the last two or three weeks. Her liver has started to shut down again. The transplant with her was always fragile I guess."
"Well wouldn’t their blood heal her?"
"If they gave her a day or two in between feedings and gave her blood that wasn’t loaded with drugs yeah. The blood is probably the only reason she isn’t dead right now."
Aimee's tears rolled down her face, killing him inside.
"I need to message Shane, he needs to be here for this."
Aleks nodded, "I'll wait with her."
He turned and walked away wishing he could find some closure. He wished for even the smallest ability to not think about kissing her or the memories of her.
Giselle sat alone in the room, "They're like admitting me. I'm being taken to the room in like the next five minutes."
He nodded, "Aimee is here. I called her."
She looked around, "Where are we?"
"Portland."
"How? We were on the beach and then like everything went black."
"You fainted. I have the ability to move to a place quickly, like flying sort of."
She snickered, "I've seen it all I guess. Like this one time I was at that blood bar and this one girl had these green eyes. They looked like cats eyes and Tony said they were tiger's eyes. She was a tiger. I was like no way but he said those shifters are every where."
"You need to get some rest. Try not to get too excited when Aimee comes in okay. You could hurt yourself."
She shook her head, "I feel pretty good."
"It’s the drugs."
Her face went pale, "What drugs? I don’t do drugs. The doctors know I can't have any drugs right?"
He shook his head, "The vampires at the bar take mass amount of drugs and it's in th
eir blood stream and when humans eat their blood they get high. It makes the humans more free and willing, well to try new things." His voice cracked.
She gasped, "What? No."
He nodded.
Her dark doe eyes filled with tears making her face considerably more attractive. He felt his knees getting weak watching her.
He would have calmed her down and made her more relaxed if his charm worked on her but it didn’t. He wondered about it.
"Giselle?"
He looked back seeing Aimee enter the room slowly.
"AIMES! Oh my god! Aimes you look hot. No wait I'm pissed at you."
Aimee looked full of remorse, "Giselle I had to stay away. I was sick."
Giselle raised an eyebrow, "Your sister and Blake said that you were an evil killer now."
"You've seen them?" She asked without answering.
Giselle nodded, "Yeah. Alise has been by a couple times when Blake had work here. Well in Seattle not here."
Aimee looked confused, "His work. I thought he was at MIT?"
Giselle smiled, "Yeah duh, he works at the school now."
Aimee didn’t look convinced, "He works at the school. After a year and a half he's working there?"
Aleks felt the answer hitting him square in the face suddenly, "Who took you to the blood bar for the first time, the one down town Seattle?"
She shrugged, "Blake took me and Alise. They had been there before."
Aimee looked like she would throw up, "What?"
Giselle nodded, "Yeah he wanted to see the vampires. He liked to watch them bite me and Alise." Her cheeks reddened.
Aleks could see the shift in Aimee from the sweet girl to the psychotic killer, "He does what?"
"Yeah, he asked if he could watch them bite me. It felt weird letting him watch us do it. He seemed like Blake the nerd though, like he was going to pull out a clipboard and take notes."
Aleks looked at Aimee, "I think he might be working for the Dark Ones in Boston."
"Doing what though?"
"Not a clue."
"My sister?"
He nodded, "She's probably being used to experiment the effects of blood and drugs on humans."
Giselle put a hand up, "Whoa wait, Aimee are you part of all this too? You let them bite you?"
She seethed, "NO, but I'd like to." She sighed and sat at the bedside taking Giselle's hand in hers, "I gave up my life, as it was, to live. I didn’t have enough time to wait for a liver. I am what Alise and Blake said. I'm a monster like the vampires now."
Aleks shook his head, "No you're not. Giselle don’t listen to her, she doesn’t hurt anyone and she doesn’t kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it. She works for a group of people determined to keep people safe and prevent things like what's happened to you from happening."
"Who did this to her?"
Aleks sighed, "Guy named Tony. He's always at Master Mikes in Seattle."
She looked at Giselle and smiled, "I love you and I wont let you die. I'm sorry I never told you the truth before but I didn’t know how. Not without sounding nuts."
Giselle nodded, "It's okay Aimes. It's not your fault. None of this would have happened if Mr. Mac hadn’t tried to kill me."
Aimee bent and kissed her cheek. She was gone before she even stood up from Giselle.
"What was that? Where did she go?"
Aleks sat at the chair waiting for the doctors to come in and take Giselle up to a floor and sighed, "It's a long story Giselle."
She laughed, "Dude where am I going?"
"Well it all started the summer Aimee and Alise's mom died…."
Chapter Sixteen: Home/Castle Wrecker
Hanna
The dark halls of the creepy castle had started to close in around her. She paced, wondering when and if she was ever going to be able to leave.
He had given her another shot but it had made her tired for days. She could feel it killing her as the beast inside of her fought to get free.
She looked down at the plate of watermelon and pushed it away. The huge table was filled with food, all of it made just for her.
She thought about the taste of Marcus's blood, the excitement that had built in the bottom of her stomach after getting past the thought of drinking it. She had been more aware of him for days afterward, smelling him out like a hunted animal. He seemed to keep his distance from her. No doubt disgusted by finding her and a partially slaughtered animal in the woods. She knew she was hideous but she had hoped that his fangs and hunger for blood would help him see her past her inner beast. He had said she was his favorite monster, maybe it had all been a ploy to get her to give him the paper.
She wondered about the paper. She knew nothing about what was on it. She needed someone nerdy and smart to read the paper for her. Someone she could trust, someone besides Marcus. He seemed to have his own agenda.
She couldn’t help but like him regardless of the fact she knew he was selfish and self-centered. She wanted nothing like she wanted for him to take his flirting and kisses further than they were going at the moment. She wasn't the most sexual person the planet, of that she was certain. She had waited until the end of high school to lose her virginity and never gave it much of an afterthought. Somehow he had her wanting things she wasn’t even sure how to do. It was as if some kind of fire was being stirred inside of her.
She walked along the lonely halls wondering where he had gone.
She walked until she reached the lab. The huge metal door was open halfway. She had never seen it that way before. Fear crept across her as she peered into the crack of the open door. Seeing no one inside of the extremely well lit room she stepped in. Florescent lights covered the ceiling of the empty room. She glanced around wondering where he was. She hoped he wouldn’t come back to find her inside and alone. She walked to the table where he had left her note. He had improved upon it at the very least. It was covered in scribbles and a bunch of further nonsense.
She picked it up feeling the guilt and betrayal inside of her, warning her to put it back. She folded the paper and tucked it into her bra again. It was the only thing of her fathers she ever carried with her. It was her salvation in his eyes and he had sacrificed everything to keep her safe.
She turned running from the room. She couldn’t hear anything beyond her own footsteps. She took her shoes off and padded in her sock feet. Marcus, or rather Henry, had brought her bags of new clothes. They weren’t sexy clothes either, they were her type of clothes. The bags were full of jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, flip-flops and sneakers. She had half expected him to bring her dresses to go with the castle motif but he had not. Even her pajamas had turned out to be her favorites, fleece. Marcus had let her sleep in her own room.
She carried her runners softly creeping through the castle halls. The muted light made the anxiety she was feeling overwhelm the guilt.
Suddenly in the muted light and eerie halls she heard a noise. She stopped dead in her tracks holding her breath and willing her heartbeat to give pause.
The old wide halls echoed the sound as if it came from every room all at once.
It was a woman's giggle.
She felt a rage build inside of her.
A woman was in her castle.
Her castle? She shook her head. Suddenly she realized she considered Marcus hers. Even the beast inside of her seemed to concede he belonged to them.
She felt her feet start walking toward the noise before she had formulated a plan. Her fingers gripped the sneakers in her hands. She felt the canvas tear between two of her fingers but she ignored it, she had a mission. She needed to find the noise, or rather find its source.
"Marcus stop, really it's not funny." The woman's voice filled the hall again but this time she could tell it was coming from Marcus's room.
"Monique please for the love of god just let me do it." Marcus sounded light, he never sounded that way with her.
Hanna froze in her steps again. Her heart was racing.
"Fine but I want someth
ing in return." The woman giggled again.
Hanna didn’t wait to hear the rest of the conversation. She quelled the need of the beast to escape and eat the girl in the other room, she ran. She ran hard and fast until she was free of the castle.
She looked at the car and jumped into the front seat.
She started the car throwing it in reverse and squealed the tires, burning out of the circular driveway.
She watched as a shirtless Marcus appeared at the entryway of the castle screaming her name.
She threw her middle finger into the air screaming obscenities she knew he would hear and raced down the road.
She knew he could chase the car and probably would. She didn’t make a single stop sign or light. She nearly got hit several times as she headed out onto the freeway and back toward home.
Rage wasn’t the right word, blind hatred was and it rode every inhale and exhale she seethed.
Chapter Seventeen: Don't mess with Texas or Aimee's BFF
Aleksander
He paced outside of the room as he tried to listen. He wished his hearing were better as he tried desperately to make out the hushed words spoken beyond the closed door.
"She said she wished she had just died. Everything would be different if she had just drank the lemonade alone."
Aleks turned smirking at Lucas, "Thanks."
Lucas shrugged, "So is that the hottest girl on the planet or am I crazy?"
Aleks nodded "She is, there is no doubt. I've lived hundreds of years and that is the most beautiful girl ever created."
"She yours?"
Aleks frowned, "How is Ari, speaking of girls you're interested in?"
Lucas chuckled, "Not for me man, I was just asking is all. Ari is Ari, you know. She's still different from all the pushes affecting her life but I like her that way. She's moody, I like moody."
Aleks shook his head, "That’s weird. Where's Ben?"
Lucas laughed, "Speaking of weird…he's around. He was in Boston a few days ago. Something is up there."
