If you could only see the beast you've made of me
I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free
Screaming in the dark, I howl when we're apart
Drag my teeth across your chest to taste your beating heart
Howl - Florence + The Machine
Rule number two:
Be aware of your surroundings.
She sits in the corner of the club. All alone and happy to be there. She watches the gyrating crowd with fascination, occasionally rubbing at her irritated eyes. Those men and women who approach her, like snakes to the charmer or moths to the light, see a beautiful young woman with light brown eyes.
She is beautiful. But the other three facts are completely false.
More than one person tries to approach her and ask for a dance. But each and every one turns back because of some seemingly inane fear. They walk towards her then freeze when they look into her big, brown, false eyes. Their blood runs cold before their pulse skyrockets. Something inside them tells them to run; something primal and instinctual. They listen to their bodies.
She sits and watches.
It was never like this when I was alive. She muses.
When she was alive; because she believes that, for all intents and purposes, she is dead. Her mission now is to track down one other Undead. Her Vampyre, whom she owes for all of her misery. Him.
She tenderly caresses the vial around her neck and reminisces, the flashing lights in the club playing in front of her far away eyes.
The year was 1921.
She'd been outside in the garden, reading beneath the willow tree. The Chicago wind slipped playfully over the walls and tickled her cheek. She leaned into its embrace, turning her face towards the sunshine before returning to her read. It was a good book.
Her mother was out to a dinner with her father. The servants were resting in the front. She'd come out to this peaceful place, her favorite haven, to give her nineteen year old self some downtime.
Her cheeks flushed as she came upon a particular risqué scene, the man and woman were in the "throes of passion". She bit her bottom lip, imagining what it would be to have someone else's teeth in that particular spot.
"What a beautiful blush you have." A velvety voice whispered, softer than the wind even. She jumped, dropping the book in her fright. It fell shut as her hand clasped her heart and her eyes raised to the speaker.
"Oh." She exclaimed. A young man, about her age, was standing before her. A stranger, yes, but a beautiful stranger. He was unnaturally gorgeous, with messy bronze hair and strongly planed features. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a lithe muscular build. He stood with his hands in his pockets, the sunlight framing his flaming hair and flaming eyes. His eyes were red. How odd. He also seemed somewhat… sparkly.
She shook her head. Maybe she was hallucinating.
A cloud passed over the sun. She stood unsurely, only imagining what state she looked compared to this angelic form. He smiled at her as she straightened up. His teeth seemed particularly sharp.
"Did the servants let you in? Do I know you?" She asked. His smile tightened.
"No and no. I climbed the wall." He said it casually, like he made a habit of hopping into private gardens and confronting lone maidens. She knew she should have been afraid. He'd just admitted that he did not know her and had trespassed on her property. Except she was strangely calm. After her initial fright, her pattering heartbeat had evened out. She was calmed by his beauty. Something so pretty could not hurt her.
She was so naïve.
"I'm Isabella Swan." She held out her hand to shake. He brought it to his lips and leaned over it, looking into her eyes as he softly and sensually kissed it.
His lips and hand were icy cold. But her cheeks were a bright, warm red.
She watched as his strange eyes darkened.
"I'm Edward Masen." He stepped closer. She knew she should've felt nervous, he was inappropriately close. Her eyes were level with his chest, she looked up at him, unknowingly baring her neck. His eyes lit up as they took notice of the white expanse.
The sunlight returned.
She gasped as his skin caught the rays like dewdrops upon the grass in the early morning. His skin seemed made of diamonds, and when he reached up to caress her cheek she found it was just as hard. He leaned down, her pulse beat a bit faster.
But not from fear.
He tilted her head up even more and brought his icy lips to the skin of her neck, lightly brushing it. She shivered. She was so naïve.
"I am so sorry," he whispered so lightly against her skin that it could have been the wind. She was relaxed in his arms. She didn't even tense as his teeth sunk into her neck.
The rest was pain.
She awoke later in a forest. Her new senses scared and confused her. Her smell was heightened. As was her sight. She sniffed out a delicious tangerine scent and located three objects the human eye couldn't. A strand of hair, a small piece of cloth, and an eyelash. And she knew, somehow, that all three belonged to him. What she'd come to call her Vampyre.
She got a vial, made a necklace, and placed the items inside. And after her first kill she vowed that she would find him and make him pay for making her a monster.
For taking the blood of another.
She is pulled from her gruesome reverie by the accompanying ache in her chest. She feels it every time she thinks of him. It feels like her dead heart trying to feel again. It hurts. A lot.
She grits and grinds her teeth, the venom making them slippery. Her mouth nearly drips with want as she views the lives before her. All the bountiful, available, lovely blood. The humans smell so good. She can't resist.
But she must.
She pulls herself from the club, going at a faster than normal pace until she is out the doors and flying along. The wind whips through her hair, presses her skin tight mini dress to her rocky skin. She clutches the vial.
She approaches Lake Michigan. She quickly looks around for others before finding none. Consoled, she strips and dives into the water, swimming until she reaches the middle of the lake and then swims towards the bottom. She is a few hundred feet down, lying on a mushy ground. The fish avoid her, they too know she is a predator. The weight of the water is like a heavy blanket, oppressive but welcome and not unbearable. It is dark, even for her impeccable vision. She stares up at surface, so far away, and opens her mouth. She breathes in the water, lets it fill her lungs and throat until she too is an extension of the lake. It is painful, but it distracts her and soothes her aching throat.
She lies for hours, filling her body with blue instead of red.
Sometime around three in the morning she breaks the surface and swims to shore. She leans over and pukes the water back into the lake. It leaves her painfully, like the way it entered. She retches and grimaces at the returning burn in her throat. She dresses, hooks her shoes around her fingers and runs. It is time to leave her old home again, the memories there are too real.
Seattle. We'll go to Seattle. That's far away, about as far as I want to go for now.
She breaks into a store and pulls on some comfortable clothes. She leaves the old ones behind. Her vial bounces against her chest as she dresses, clanging as if it were bouncing against metal. When she is done, she begins to run.
Her feet fly over the ground at unimaginable speeds. She does not tire, does not stop until four days later she is at the outskirts of the city. The Space Needle greets her as she rushes up Mount Rainer. It has been five days since she has fed. She sits and waits until night falls again.
It is time to hunt.
She locks her self loathing away in her mind as the burn overwhelms. She stalks the city, trying to find a kill. She wants to kill those who are like her, monsters. But they feel no remorse.
She stands atop a building and listens for screaming. She hears some, faint but terrified. She runs towards the noise, happens upon a man holding a knife to a pregnant woman's throat as he roughly removes her clothing. The woman sobs.
Bella grabs the man and whisks him away.
She pulls him down another alley and bites. She tears and pulls and drinks her fill until nothing but a lifeless shell is left. She closes her eyes, remorseful even though the punishment is no worse than he deserves. She slashes his neck with his knife further, letting the leftover blood drip out before taking the knife and pulverizing it to dust. A wind picks the ashes up and scatters them across the bleeding body.
She wishes again that she could cry. She kicks a wall, leaving a hole behind. She runs.
I've searched for ninety years. How much more can I take of this?
Then, suddenly, it's as if her prayers are answered. She stops to sniff the vial, but before she can unplug it and trace the faint scent inside, she smells something else that freezes her like a marble statue. She smells him, tangerines and vanilla. It is strong and musky; a recent scent. She can almost feel her heart beat again.
The search is over. She has found him.
And the plot thickens...
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