Bad times are coming, coming/ Good friends are gone/ And my eyes keep hoping, hoping/ That they'll meet yours/ My faults were full and plenty/ So it's no wonder I'm thinking really/ You're better off/ I didn't want you anyway/ No, I couldn't want you anyway/ Not anymore
- Jack Garratt, 'I Couldn't Want You Anyway'
There's never any logic (at least that you can tell) to how Mother chooses them. She'll just look at a crowd of girls, fresh faced and ready to start their wild college ride, and pick one for you to target. Winds you up, points you in the right direction and watches you go. It's like you're nothing but an extension of her, her tool to use as she wishes, her very own seduction machine. After you've played your part and delivered the girl, you're simply boxed up and put away until the next time.(And the next and the next and the next…)
Sometimes you think that the only criteria Mother looks for is pure human. Anything that has a pulse and breathes is fair game. Although there was that one time she chose wrong, and the thing within your victim got loose. (You try not to think about that time. You don't ever mention it. Seriously. Don't say a word.)
Sometimes you make a friend. (Shut up it happens okay). Even if the girl wasn't one of the chosen, Mother always takes them. You're not allowed to make friends with the prey, she tells you. You can't have any friends; just family. (You feel like a child again, a misbehaving toddler having their toys taken away for throwing a tantrum). No distractions. You get better at seeing them as beneath you after a while. You lose yourself to the hunt. To the thrill of the chase and revel in the power you have over the masses. A casual look, a wink, and a tight pair of trousers and suddenly you have them begging you to take them (although probably not in the way Mother intended.) You indulge them sometimes, a quick and rough fuck in some quiet and dark corner. (It helps keep you sane; you don't get attached.) It passes the time between having to start the whole game over. Because that's all it becomes, a game. Something to pass the lifetimes you're stuck repeating. Oh well, you think. At least it's fun.
It becomes too easy to seduce them (a consequence of having too much practice you suppose). You begin to get bored of the game. Bored of fluttering your eyelashes, licking your lips and seeing them fall at your feet like autumn leaves. It becomes a chore. (The worst part of it is seeing them whisked away and knowing you have to start over). You still don't care about what happens to them. It's not your problem. They should know better, talking to strange girls (even though you work hard at looking like a regular student). It's just a pain to put all the effort into chasing them.(Anyway; that's what you tell yourself at night. It's not your fault that you're irresistible and they're naive little girls. They're not your responsibility).But, oh well. Mother's pointed another one out. Here you go again.
And, oh! Look.
Another one bites the dust.
The first time you see her, cliché as it might be, it feels like the world has stopped and only you and her are left. It's across a lecture hall that's full to the brim with stupidly enthusiastic freshmen. There's some orientation thing going on apparently. Mother's eyes are scanning the crowd and you're standing oh so faithfully at her side. Waiting for the nod to go and approach the chosen one. (Not her oh please not her). There must be a couple of hundred girls here and any one of them would do. (Please please please, pick one of the normal ones. Not the girl with the ridiculously gigantic bag and stack of folders as tall as her head.) Mother sees you watching the crowd attentively. She seems pleased that you're so excited to begin (you're praying that your eyes aren't following the girl, must give no sign that you want her, show nothing). Mother chooses some little brunette waif and silently gives you the nod. Off you go.
(You keep an eye on the girl as you work. She's beautiful. She doesn't seem to notice the looks she's getting, not just from you, but from everyone. The meatheads are staring openly and nudging each other and pointing - good lord subtle much boys – there's a tall ginger leaning casually against a wall whose giving her appreciative eyes as well. And countless others. Some of the looks are directed at the idiotic amount of stuff that she's juggling, but most are simply full of want. The girl you're talking to doesn't even see her, she's too busy staring at your breasts. You whisk her away for some ' studying ' . Part of you has never hated Mother more in that moment. Making you leave the one. Making you leave her when all those greedy eyes are still resting on her body. Still, there's work to be done.)
You see her around campus a few times, striding confidently across the quad, talking to a select few people. (Your eyes always following her, and behind them the constant fear that Mother might notice. Mother can't see, mustn't see, can't have her. She's yours to protect. She's special.)
And of course, it all goes to hell in a hand-basket. It always does, because you can never have nice things.
She's the nosy type, you learn. She's the one who's been digging around the mysterious disappearances of girls (and really, if Mother made more of an effort to appear to care about that, then this whole mess could have been avoided) like some amateur Nancy Drew. So you have to move in with her (simultaneously the absolute best and one of the worst thing to ever happen to you). You think carefully about how you're going to play this, because you cannot be seen to like her, you have to protect her from your fucked up family (you don't love them, but you can't bring yourself to hate them either, you should leave but blood, always blood binds you together). So you walk in and become this bitchy caricature of yourself. She hates you, naturally. Which hurts, but it's still better than the alternative. (What's one more little pain? It's all temporary anyway). You make her life difficult, you steal her things, and you claim her ex-roommate's possessions. You get in the way, you bring your conquests back to her bed, you are generally the worst version of yourself you can be that doesn't inflict actual physical harm on her (or her ridiculously ginger friends). (The tall one watches you suspiciously and you learn to ignore her glares – and her scent. You don't tell Tiny that you saw how Tall watched her like a piece of meat at that long ago freshers meet, don't tell her that Tall is hiding something too. You can't hurt your little one like that.)
At night, you pretend to sleep in the bed that's two feet from hers. All you can think about is the warmth that she's spreading into the room. All you can hear is her breath steadily rushing in and out of her lungs. You can practically taste her pulse on your tongue. (You think that if you woke her with your mouth trailing gently down her neck she'd let you press her into the mattress and clutch you to her as you drew soft moans from her delightful mouth. You steel your resolve and force yourself to flee the room before you attempt to touch her.)
You find yourself clear across campus, on the roof of the science halls (tallest building around, closest to the stars as possible). It still feels like she's right next to you. You can feel the life flowing around her body. It isn't until this begins to happen nearly every night that you realise you might have a problem. (You're still hunting for both Mother and to feed. You find yourself drinking from girls that look like her, or smell vaguely like her. It's really getting absurd. Her heart beats against your lips even when you're awake).
She has all these weird and wildly protective friends - (who are clearly up to something dangerous) so you take your share of glares and snide remarks as they dish them out, some subtle and some not, while all the time you hear them talk and try to plot their way towards the very heart of the monster you are trying so hard to protect them from. (These children, these nosy children who need to learn to look the other way and just move on, move on dammit this isn't your problem you're only going to end up getting hurt and if they cause her to get hurt no one, not even Tall could stop you from ripping their throats out so they'd better be careful because you're watching them and waiting for an excuse).
One day you come home (home is where the heart is after all, that lump of stone in your chest still is aheart even if it only beats occasionally whenstolen life flows intoyour veins) and she's there waiting and then you forget every promise you made to yourself because she's sitting in front of you looking like the country girl she really is and she's practically begging you to touch her (just like the rest in the end), but you reach out to try and the next thing you know Tall is there, (canine stench and feverish anger like a slap to the face, feeling fur prickle under your hands as she wrestles with you) and you're being tied to a chair with some ridiculous string of garlic thrown over your head. Because you know what? You thought that this might have been different, that you might have been going somewhere rather pleasant, and really to her it was some elaborate ploy, a trick that leaves you feeling hollowed out (you've never felt more ashamed of yourself and betrayed in all your years, letting someone distract you like that).
Here you are, centuries old, done this a thousand times and wiser than they know, being tied up and being 'forced' into telling them everything you know about the missing girls (nothing you know nothing it's not your business you don't care, don't let them see you care). The scream in the distance are a minor hitch in the grand plan they seem to decidedly not have for you, their words as they discuss what do with you now playing out like fragile music as you sit, sit, sit and contemplate breaking out of the tenuous grip they have on you (but you cant, you can't because she's right there and she'll get hurt and you can't do that, you can't hurt her anymore than you already have by existing, you can't see her eyes go dim under your fang and claw so you just sit, sit, sit) and you might as well be made of stone as their words continue to drift around you their plans being made and unmade moments later (and you wish you could just see the stars because her heartbeat is tainting the air that you don't need to breathe, but of course you do anyway because its a sickness; the need you have inside of you andyou can't help but feed it small doses of the thing it craves; tame the beast in your breast lest it break free and kill everyone and you can't, you can't let it happen you won't let it happen).
You grow weaker every second you allow yourself to remain in this chair (penance, you think, for daring to think that you deserved something as good as her), the possibility of escape getting further and further away as you go days on days without feeding, and her heart still beats so close and yet not close enough to taste. Still you sit silent, only speaking to lie, to protect the family of monsters that love you when no-one else will and protect you when it suits themselves and try and keep her away from everything and anyone that might hurt her. (You feel empty and parched and dead inside and is this what dying is supposed to be like? This slow starvation? This purgatory of having what you crave sit next to you and you can't reach out and take it like you always have?). The smell of blood wafting from that mug is torturous to resist but you do because its for the best, everything you've worked for could unravel at the seams if you submit now, so you sit and breathe and want so badly your body begins to shake and then -.
Then you realise that your shaking isn't shaking with want its seizing and oh god you're actually going to die, finally after all these centuries of living you're going to die and she will be safer in a world without you there to poison it and then -.
Blood. There is blood on your lips and in your mouth and you swallow and choke it down as fast as it pours and (you've never been so glad and so miserable in the same moment before) you drink and you drink until you can almost feel you heart beating again in your chest and there is no more red life flowing into your mouth (the mug please say the mug is empty and not her oh not her please say I didn't oh god). She's there and she's stroking your hair oh so gently and almost whispering that you're going to be okay and you think that she might be right (you've never been okay since the day Mother pulled you from your grave and told you what gift she had given to you, but you think that you could be if she's going to be there and is going to touch you so gently like you might break, and you are breaking but she can't see the fractures her touch is causing and it hurts oh god it hurts so sweetly).
Later, as you watch the gears clicking away as you tell your story, watching your pitiful life play out with fucking hand puppets like so much children's playtime, watching as she realises that this is not a game, not a show and certainly not a puppet that can be put away when all is said and done (you are a puppet, a walking talking hunting puppet for the only family you can remember, blood chaining you to them for eternity, she shouldn't pity you, you don't deserve that compassion, not from her, not from anyone, you're worse than that, you're a monster) you begin to realise that she won't be swayed from her cause. Like some of the great leaders you have seen rise, she has found her platform, her soapbox from which she could maybe, just maybe, lead a revolution from. (You realise that all your efforts and hiding her from Mother, all the work you have put into keeping her safe might have just been in vain. Great leaders rise, burning with light and fire and zeal, leading their people through social metamorphosis,before igniting into flame, their passion burning them away and leaving nothing but falling ash. She can't fall, not her not her not her). You just might be doomed.