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Chapter One: Barney's Back
One knock on the door. That's all it took.
"Of all the houses, in all the towns, in all the country, in all the world, you had to come knocking on mine, didn't you?" I growled, trying to keep my voice pitched at a reasonable rate.
Barnabas looked down his nose at me and strolled in rather casually.
"Yes, I did."
As I closed the door behind him he looked at me appraisingly, assessingly, seeing everything and missing nothing. I bared my teeth at him and growled.
"Is it a full moon? I barely noticed." He added, swinging that dratted stick as he walked down my hallway.
"It's not a full bloody moon." I followed him, sorely tempted to pin him to the wall and maul him.
He turned back to me and waved his hands about at me, wrinkling his nose.
"Then why are you all...all..."
"Wolfed up?" I snarled, stalking past him and gesturing into my kitchen. He gave me a hard look before slowly walking in.
I dropped onto four feet (It was easier to walk that way whilst I was in this state) and prowled around the kitchen, searching for the blood I kept stored in the fridge. I put it on my raw stake when I was like this.
"Blood?" I asked.
"O-positive?" Barnabas checked.
"But of course." I wrenched open the fridge, almost breaking the handle, and chucked a bag of it to him. He caught it in one lightning fast movement. "Is there any other good kind?"
He raised his eyebrows at me then shrugged, ripping open the bag with his teeth and chugging it down in one swig, his eyes locked with mine the whole time. I grabbed another bag from the fridge and copied his movements, wiping my mouth with the back of my arm once I was done and reaching for another one.
"Another one?" I asked, feeling my spine and skin start to ripple. It was almost finished.
Barnabas ignored me.
"If it's not a full moon, Carolyn, why are you like this?"
I shrugged, chugged the second packet of blood then reached for the raw steak.
"Met a witch. She made a potion for me to drink once a month, whenever I chose, so to bring on the wolf change that meant it wouldn't come on when I didn't want it too and I was also like this for a shorter length of time."
Barnabas stiffened as I placed the steak on the counter top, scoffing it hungrily, tearing at the edges like some kind of animal. Which I was, at that point. I suppressed the familiar feelings of humiliation, depression and sickness as I thought about what I was. My family had had to deal with it. I could too.
"Witches do nothing for free?"
I gave him a sarcastic smile.
"Who said she did it for free?"
His dark eyes met mine.
"What did you give her, Carolyn?"
I shrugged, ripping at the steak and gnashing it up harshly in my extra sharp teeth.
"Some unimportant things."
"Like?" He prompted.
I rolled my eyes.
"Nothing important. I met her at university, and she wanted the answers to an exam coming up. I got them for her. Now, at the beginning of the month, no matter where I am, a couldren full of potion arrives, regular as clockwork, just as she promised. No biggie."
Barnabas relaxed a fraction.
"Witches are known for keeping their word." He agreed, obviously thinking of Angelique. The woman who had cursed me to be like this thanks to him. Without thought, I growled.
Barnabas looked across at me but said nothing about it.
"Your family haven't heard from you in almost a decade. They think you're dead."
I shrugged and finished the streak, tossing the bones into the bin and getting another one out of the fridge.
"So what?"
"Don't you care?"
I snorted.
"I suppose I could try and care less but that would be extremely difficult."
This time I heard Barnabas growl. Next thing I know, he's standing right in front of me, hand pinching into my waist, bringing me closer to him so we're almost flush together, the steak the only thing separating us.
"You would turn your back on your family."
"If my family is them, then yes. Rather easily, actually. I had expected a few twinges of remorse but none came. I suppose I might get them in the next decade or two. But," I shrugged once more. "I very much doubt it."
Actually, that was a complete lie. There wasn't a day went by when I didn't want to call them up, tell David how much I missed him and his lunatic ideas, ask mum about her new boyfriend and the family business, tell Willie to stop drinking and get his head out of his arse (lovingly, of course). And, obviously, tell him how much I loved him and missed him deeply. But I couldn't do that. Could never have done that. Not with Vicky hanging around, at any rate. My love for him was about as fruitless as my searchings for a cure.
Completely and utterly.
"You're a Collins." He gritted out, then suddenly the steak was out of my hands and I was pressed against his very hard body.
I growled and showed him my wolverine teeth.
"You just took a steak out of a very hungry werewolf hand. Sure that was wise?"
"You just abandoned your family for no apparent reason and left me without a word of your whereabouts. Sure that was wise?"
"Yes. Completely and utterly." I told him, my heart shattering into small pieces just like Angelique's had that awful night so long ago.
His eyes bored into mine.
"Why'd you do it, Carolyn? You seemed like you were coping just fine."
"I can cope whatever. I don't need anybody else." I retorted.
He chuckled very suddenly, startling the tense atmosphere.
"Still the same Carolyn."
"What's that suppose to mean?" I demanded, almost snarling. My spine twisted and squirmed in my back, my leg muscles tensing and twisting, getting ripped apart by my own genetic need. Despite myself, I let out a howl of pain.
My legs buckled underneath me, and I was lucky Barnabas caught me before I hit the floor. My head snapped back and I howled.
Barnabas looked panicked before his calm mask settled over his handsome features.
"It's ok, Carolyn. You'll survive." He chuckled once more as he lowered me to the kitchen floor. "Now I know why you live in such a remote area."
I kicked out weakly at him, my body convulsing and rippling. I felt like I was being ripped into two.
"I've coped with this on my own for over a decade. I don't need you now!" I bit out.
Please stay with me. Don't leave me like I left you!
My treacherous heart pleaded. I gasped in pain as I fitted on the floor. I felt the fur on my face recede.
"Oh no. I'm not going anywhere." Barnabas told me firmly, helping me sit up so I could cough up the fur ball that had been roughing my throat raw. "I'm not giving you a chance to get away again."
I gasped out and my neck cracked, snapping my head to one side, then the other.
"Do I look like I'll be going anywhere fast?" I demanded harshly.
"I don't know. I've never been around when this has happened to anybody before." He told me honestly.
"Damn you!" I snarled, retching up at least one of the several bags of blood I'd consumed over the evening.
"How long does this usually last?" He then commented casually as he held my hair back. I had my hands braced against the sink, throwing up meat and hair and other substances I didn't dare identify. The only thing that kept me up was Barnabas's body that was pressed against the back of mine firmly, keeping me pinned between the sink and himself.
"Oh, not long now. Then you can bugger off." I told him half heartedly.
"You wish."
"Yes." I lied. "I really do."
I then couldn't speak anymore as I resumed throwing up.
An hour and a half later, I sat on my sofa in front of an open burning fire wrapped in my duvet, shivering as though I was out in the snow in the middle of winter. My hair hung loose in front of me, but I was uncaring. I felt like I had the worse flu of all time, one that could kill me. I'd be this way for twenty four hours precisely. I was used to it.
Barnabas sat on the other sofa, watching me with those dark eyes. I hadn't invited him to sit next to me, but he had explained anyway that he wouldn't sit next to me because his body was too cold whereas I needed warmth right now.
"You look like death warmed up." He commented.
I cast him a weak, sarcastic smile, not really feeling up to my usual standard.
"Thanks. You look like death cooled down. In fact, you are death cooled down."
He didn't, in reality. He looked amazing for a man who was undead and had to kill to survive. Positively glowing. Thanks to Vicky. I had to force myself not the retch at just the mere thought of her name. She wasn't that bad, really. Just the love of his life. But I refused to be Angelique and go crazy over the fact he didn't love me back. I had just left, vanished.
I sat in front of the fire for a few minutes, retching but not actually bringing anything up into the bowl beside me every thirty seconds or so.
"How did you find me?" I finally demanded quietly. "Nobody knows my real name anymore."
"It was easy, actually." He told me. "I just followed you."
I looked at him sharply, pulling my duvet closer around me, my nostrils flaring.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Alright, I followed the essence of you. I thought I knew where to start. It was just pure luck that I chose the exact place you'd been in before you moved here. Everybody recognised your picture. They really liked you. Your alias wasn't quite up to par though, I thought. Lupa Night?"
"Lupa is Latin for a female wolf." I snapped defensively. There was a pause in our conversation. I struggled to ask the questions I desperately wanted to ask. "How are they?" I finally settled on asking.
His eyes never wavered from my face.
"They miss you. Terribly. Since you left, David's been in this horrible state. He just suddenly started growing younger on the second year after you disappeared. He finally stopped at the age of eleven, and now has to see yet another psychiatrist. He blames himself for your disappearance."
I felt guilty and sick when I heard that, ashamed of myself for not coming back to check on him. He'd stopped ageing at the age of eleven, when we'd all be a proper family for the first time, when Angelique had subconsciously brought us all together.
"David was always a lunatic. He should know it's not his fault."
"Then come home and tell him yourself." Barnabas instructed softly.
I ignored him, switching subjects quickly.
"And my mum?"
"She misses you. Has always done? Why would she not? She is a mother who's only daughter, her most treasured possession, simply vanished of the face of the earth. If you came back you simply would not recognise her."
The talk of children brought me to my next question. I shivered and retched silently into the bowl, swallowing the bio-acid several times before allowing myself to ask the question.
"And you and Vicky? How are you doing together? Are you both well?"
"Victoria? I have no idea. I presume so, since I have not heard from her in neigh on six years now. Myself? I am all the better for seeing you alive and," He eyed me. "Relatively healthy. I will be even better once I have returned to once more to Collinwood and have locked you up in your room so you will stay there this time."
I allowed myself to pass over his last comment, his first catching my eye.
"You have not seen Vicky in six years? Why, for hell's sake?" I demanded, feeling the ashes of my heart start to move together as one once more.
He shrugged, seeming uncaring, but the way his eyes flashed I knew that he wanted to make sure I was paying full attention.
"It had not been working for a while. At least 1985. When you vanished it just added more strain to our relationship." He caught my eye again. I pulled back my hair and threw up blood.
Instantly, Barnabas was up and in a flash (Cheating, because he was using his super human vampire powers) he'd tipped out the sick, rinsed the bowl and had returned it to me without so much as a cringe or a flinch.
"Why?" I resumed our earlier conversation without so much as a murmured thank you. "You were so sure of each other thirty five years ago."
Barnabas returned to his seat, his eyes watching me with such care that I almost felt touched. But that was impossible, because I was a heartless monster. A wolf. Still, I couldn't remember the last time somebody had looked at me like that, with real care.
"Turns out I couldn't love the same type of woman once I'd met the new age, my new family." His eyes met mine once again and I felt a flush build up in my cheeks. "Once I'd met you."
I snorted.
"Are you stoned, or something?" I asked, repeating the first thing I'd ever said to him.
His lips quirked up in a faint half smile.
"Around you, Carolyn? Never. I wouldn't give you the chance to say something."
I pouted.
"You're no fun."
"And you are fifty five year old virgin who looks no older then twenty two, if that." He answered calmly.
I blinked at him, shocked.
"It's the curse of the family. Every member is cursed with this." I answered automatically before frowning. "Now where did that come from?"
"From the part of me that wants to drag you up off the sofa and carry you back home to Collinwood."
I shuffled back into my sofa and tugged my duvet tighter around me.
"You can't do that." I protested. "I'm a werewolf. And a sick werewolf, at that."
"Best time to do it, I think." He answered off-handedly.
"Bugger you." I shot back.
He continued as if I hadn't spoken, the arrogant, pig headed wretch.
"And besides that, your mother is the only woman who scares me apart from you and I'd hate to see her reaction once I return her long lost daughter too her, still sick."
"I'm going to be sick." I moaned. "This is horrible!"
The hair was suddenly lifted off my neck and my head tipped over the bowl in one tender movement as Barnabas came to assist me. As my stomach doubled over, it rolled and I retched, but this time only droplets splattered over the bottom of the basin.
He removed his hands from my head but didn't move and inch away from me.
"Carolyn." His voice was infinitely tender and caring. "Why did you leave?"
To get away from you and my unrequited love, you pig headed bastard! I wanted to scream.
"To find a cure for my monstrosity." I gave a weak, bitter laugh. "But the most I found was this damned potion."
"Which I demand you will stop taking the moment we get back home."
And he was back to being Barnabas.
I snorted.
"Then it is indeed fortunate that I am not returning to Collinwood, is it not?" I mimicked his turn of phrase perfectly.
"It would be if you were not, my dead Miss Carolyn, but alas, you are. Such is fate."
"Barney. I'm. Not. Going. Back. There." I growled at him, glaring, sure that my eyes were spitting acid instead of pleading him to ignore my words and take me home. Back to my mother and David. Back to him.
"My name is not Barney and whether you coming willingly or I have to drag you through every mud swamp in the land that there is, you are coming home."
I snorted.
"Don't you wish?"
Suddenly, I was too exhausted for all of this. My head fell back against the sofa, my eyes half closing. Instantly, Barnabas was next to me, his arms slipping underneath me and pressing me close to his chest as I lolled around.
"You are surprisingly warm for a dead guy." I mumbled as he moved me out of the room. I didn't miss the absence of the fire what with my duvet still being firmly wrapped around me and the surprising warmth of the man beside me.
Barnabas chuckled deeply, the sound rumbling from deep inside his chest.
"I have never had anybody say that to me, since the one woman who I have lain with since I turned into this creature was just as cold as I." He told me.
I didn't have enough energy to stiffen at the re-emergence of Vicky into our conversation.
"Well, now you have." I yawned.
"Indeed."
I didn't know how he'd figured out which room was mine out of the three that were upstairs (Considering there was only me living there, it was kind of stupid to have three rooms anyway.) but he did and next thing I knew I was being laid down onto my bed and snuggled down with my two duvets over me and my bowl just by my bed, within easy reach.
He paused as he finished settling down, just staring down at me.
"Beneath everything that has changed about you since I last set eyes on you, Carolyn, my Carolyn is still there."
He lent down to kiss my forehead softly. I mumbled and leaned into his kiss. This must be the delusional part of my recovery. How many times had I thought he was here, kissing me? How many times had I woke up and cried because it wasn't real? I wasn't going to let that happen to me again. Never. My tears would never fall for him ever again.
It was because of this I knew he could never have whispered 'I love you, my sweet, fiery Carolyn' before he left.
