Boing.
The dark room was pleasant. The curtains were open and the moonlight fell onto the floor, casting tall shadows from the windowpanes.
Boing.
All the other rooms around him were silent. Everybody was sleeping, everyone was happy, lying entwined with their partners, as if nothing could go wrong anymore.
Boing.
The squash ball bounced off the wall and landed into Ash's hand. He was leaning against the headboard of the double bed, brooding as he did most nights about how he didn't want to be here.
It's not that he wasn't grateful; if it weren't for Thierry's kindness then he'd be on the streets, feeding on homeless people, who quite frankly smelled foul.
He sighed.
It's just that everybody here was nauseating. All the kissing and the holding hands and the gentle caresses…
A girl with dark hair and olive skin flashed before his eyes.
Bang.
The ball hit the wall with added force, leaving a small black circle on the otherwise spotless wall. Ash didn't bother catching it. He didn't really care about the bedside lamp it knocked onto the floor. Instead he moved to the window.
The stars were glowing amongst the sky painted navy. He knew she would have been out earlier today, before the moon rose into the sky, when she could see everything clearly. Now she would be in her bed, all the way in that god-forsaken place where my sisters now resided.
Something inside him twisted in chest like a physical pain. It had been nine months. Nine whole months since he had seen her smile or smelt her hair or touched her skin, so how come he could still remember it all? How come every waking minute of his life felt incomplete? He had lived for so long being fine and then he met her and everything flipped. Now his life was a scrambled jigsaw and the final piece was missing. It was lying in a bed somewhere in Briar Creek.
His train of thoughts snapped as the door opened.
It was Quinn.
He was wearing a dark T-shirt and boxer shorts. His dark hair was ruffled. One hand was rubbing his eyes as he supressed a yawn. It was obvious he had just woken up. 'What the hell? Why are you throwing furniture around at four in the morning?'
Ash shrugged, still looking out the window, 'it was only a lamp I knocked over.'
'Whatever, just stop with the tennis ball. You don't have any idea how annoying it is when you're on the other side of the wall.'
Ash turned around, the moonlight framing his platinum hair. 'It was a squash ball actually.' He smirked.
Quinn sighed. 'Don't be an ass, people are trying to sleep.' He paused, staring at Ash's face. 'When was the last time you got any sleep?'
He shrugged again. 'Couple of days.'
'Jesus, go to bed!'
'Can't.'
Quinn didn't press the matter. He knew the truth. He knew was in pain underneath all the confidence and quick remarks. He was one of the only ones. After what seemed forever, he crossed his arms. Ash couldn't tell what he was thinking, but that was normal since it was Quinn.
When Quinn turned his head Ash didn't understand what was wrong. It was only until Rashel walked into view, joining Quinn in the doorframe. It still shocked him how she could move so soundlessly.
'Hey, are you coming back to bed?' She whispered.
She looked different compared to usually. Without the long sword strapped to her back and the black assassin outfit she looked fairly normal. In fact she looked almost vulnerable with her wide eyes and Quinn's jacket wrapped around her shoulders. Ash could see pink hot pants poking out from under the large jacket and his opinion of her changed entirely. Until he saw the sheathed dagger strapped around her bare ankle; then it changed right back.
Quinn pulled her close, his hand rubbing the back of her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head, something that he never did during the daytime. They were weird like that. If Mary-Lynette were here Ash would never let go of her.
Damn it.
He shouldn't be thinking about her.
He heard Quinn mutter something to Rashel before she glided away. I was sure he had secretly turned her. There was no way a human could move like she did.
'Ash,' he said. He sounded almost nervous 'If there's ever a problem,' he pulled at the neck of his T-shirt. 'You know, if you need… if you'-
'I get it.' I said flatly. 'I'm flattered at the offer, but I'm not coming to you to get advice on girls.'
He looked relieved. He was never good at comforting people. 'Fine then, I'll see you in the morning.' He turned to leave, before adding, 'Poppy's a good choice… for someone to talk to.'
'Night Quinn.' Things became silent.
Ash surveyed the empty room. The cream lamp was shattered amongst the maroon carpet, lying there as if some terrible victim off a hideous crime scene. He wanted to crush it. To turn the clay shards into nothing more than a powdery dust. He had the power to do it. All it would take was a step, or a clenched fist, or a single breath.
He rose, towering above the broken mess, his eyes burning with something fierce. He wouldn't call it despair; it was more an anguished fury that boiled inside him every time he wanted something. Every time he thought of her.
But it was her face that stopped him smashing the room to pieces, a simple paradox that held him writhing in his bed at night. He felt inadequate. Powerless. Little.
It took him a long time to step over the pitiful lamp, but when he did he resigned to his bed.
The simple phone on the bedside table stared at him.
All it would take is a phone call, one small connection over hundreds of miles. Then he could hear her voice. He could ask her to come back to him, to be there with him, to be with him so that the nightmares would stop.
He yanked the receiver so hard that the phone cord pulled the box to the floor, the crashing ringing through the empty hotel room. There was a thump from the wall in front of him as Quinn slammed his fist against it, telling him to shut up. He didn't care. He slammed the buttons in such haste that he needed to redial more than twice.
It was on the third time the dial began to ring.
He imagined what he was going to say to her. He would beg if he had to, deep down, beneath his lion's pride he was willing to do anything to bring her back.
He would tell her that he loved her, that he needed her, that he was a changed person and he had repented his mistakes. He would tell her that she was beautiful and that she was the world and he was merely a speck of dirt on a human's shoes in comparison to her.
He would tell her anything just to talk to her once again.
The dial tone ended. Her voice sang through the receiver, 'hey, it's Mary-Lynette.'
His dead heart lifted in his chest, her voice like an angel saying that God had saved him from his sins. He jumped in immediately, praying that she still remembered him.
'Hi, it's me'-
But her voice cut him off.
'I'm sorry I'm away, but please feel free to leave a message at the end of the tone.'
This time, it wasn't fury. It was a sad overhanging despair that filled his cold lifeless body.
The phone beeped.
Instead of speaking he slumped the phone back into its position, ending the call.
He rolled onto his back, staring at empty ceiling and imagined that it was covered with a thousand twinkling stars.
Slowly but surely, he began to count them as he drifted off, each one another step closer to the day when he would see her again.
