Hey everyone!
First of all, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who reviewed. It meant so much to me! Reviews make my day and motivate me to keep writing. :)
Initially, I wasn't going to post another chapter due to the rather underwhelming response (again, thank you so much to those who did!) but for shits and giggles I'm posting another chapter. I'm hoping this one will get a better response over all.
Now, I'm not one of those bastards who demands a certain amount of reviews in order to update; I just want to know if this story is appreciated and whether or not it's worth continuing. Please, if you're interested, let me know.
Onto Chapter Two! Enjoy!
A light breeze and warm sunlight woke Lucy Heartfilia from her slumber, and the first thing she knew upon awakening was pain.
It was all over her body; she felt weak and achy everywhere. Her right hand pulsed from what she assumed was an angry wound and her neck throbbed—she could hardly move her head without reverberating, punishing agony for her efforts.
What had happened last night?
Natsu had insisted they go out drinking and Cana had apparently suggested a place that had the lowest prices on alcohol in Magnolia—a bar named Elysium. So she, Gray, and Natsu had all shown up. She remembered walking them home after they'd gotten shitfaced-drunk, but why…?
Red eyes flashed in her memory and Lucy let out a startled yelp that made her cringe from the sudden movement of her neck.
The…the vampire-wannabe…
Lifting a hand to her neck, she gingerly touched the part that hurt the worst. Two small scabs, evenly placed apart, were at the center of her pain.
Her eyes widened in fear.
The not-so-wannabe vampire, it seemed.
Trying to move as little as possible because moving was painful, she lifted her other hand—the hand that had been holding her cell phone is it had been crushed. She winced at the jagged gash that had resulted from the destruction of her phone. She remembered it had been bleeding…but the man—no, vampire —had licked it clean before he had bitten her…
Oh god.
Lucy leaned over the side of the bed, awkwardly rolling off, before staggering to her bathroom despite the prompt wave of dizziness and barely made it in time to vomit into the toilet. Even as her body screamed at her for the sudden, unwanted movements, she couldn't help but empty her stomach heedlessly.
Was this what they called shock after a traumatizing event? She didn't know because she'd never had something so horrifying happen to her before—there had been finding her mother's body, but that did not compare to this in any way.
Forcing herself up from the toilet seat and flushing last night's dinner down the drain, she stood shakily and inspected herself in the mirror—but only after leaning on her sink to wait out the dizziness that had overcome her upon standing so abruptly.
She was, putting it lightly, a mess.
Her light blonde hair was mussed and bedraggled and there were purplish bags under her eyes. It seemed like half her neck was a mottled purple-blue, the bruise darkening until it met with two small scabs. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty and her feet ached from running in her heels—which she noted she still wore. But the worst part of everything was the overwhelming weakness she felt in her body; just trying to walk back into her bedroom made her feel lightheaded.
She collapsed on her bed, trying to ignore the terrible pain that her neck emanated with every inhalation of air. It was then, when a gust of warm air came through her window that two things that she had not noticed clicked into place.
Firstly, the last thing she knew was the strange man—no, vampire—biting her. She assumed she'd fainted at some point, which meant there was no way she had made it home herself. She had no recollection of anything from the point when she'd passed out until she'd awoken just a little while ago.
Secondly, and probably more importantly, the window was open—an easy escape for a vampire or anyone who could jump down to the second story and come out uninjured.
Clearly, the vampire had brought her home…
Her eyes widened in abject terror.
That meant he knew where she lived.
Lucy's stomach churned, horrified to come to such a realization. Did all vampires take their victims home after…doing that?
She hoped so, because the mere thought that whoever he was had gone to extra lengths to do take her home, incidentally finding out where she lived…well, it didn't seem like such a good thing.
Lucy decided that she was lucky to be alive.
After the shock of realizing what had happened started to wear off, she found that she was incredibly hungry. Slowly making her way from her bedroom, down the stairs, and to the kitchen proved quite difficult, given that her head started spinning if she moved too quickly or her knees threatened to give out if she didn't lean heavily on the banister. However, soon enough she made it to the kitchen and her first goal was to get a nice, cold glass of water.
The cool liquid was refreshing and wonderful and Lucy didn't think she'd ever had a glass of water that had tasted so good in her life. Next up was a bowl of cereal—she was too weak to make anything fancy and she simply needed to make something assuage her empty stomach until she could think more clearly.
Then, of course, she'd contact the police. Or Natsu. Or Gray. Or Erza…somebody who could help her. She wasn't sure if they'd believe the vampire part of her story, but she assumed the giant bruise and two little bite marks on her neck would be telling enough.
She'd pulled out the cereal, a bowl, and a spoon before going to the refrigerator for milk. Upon seeing a piece of paper taped to the door, however, she froze. That hadn't been there before and that jagged but somehow neat handwriting wasn't familiar to her.
With trembling hands, she pulled the note off the refrigerator and uneasily began to read.
Lucy—
I've gone to the trouble of keeping you alive, fortunately for you. You have had most of your blood drained. I expect you to go to everything length to replenish it as quickly as possible and I've listed foods that will speed up the process. If you want to stay useful to me and thereby alive, I suggest you follow my instructions.
By keeping you alive, you are also consequently a liability. I have no time to deal with liabilities, so when it comes to anything regarding our meetings, you willnot say a word to anyone. Should this become an issue, I will kill anyone you have told indiscriminately—and your friends will suffer, as well. One had pink hair, I recall. He will die first should you tell anyone, as well as whoever you have told. I assume that you value their lives, so I trust there will not be a problem?
I will see you at 9pm at your home Tuesday. I expect you to be there, alone. Should you bring anyone uninvited, I will kill them.
—Midnight
She dropped the note in horror at the same time as it felt as though the floor was dropping out from beneath her. Lucy stood there, frozen, suddenly hoping with all her might that this was just a horrible dream, that she would wake up right now and her neck wouldn't hurt, her body wouldn't ache, her hand wouldn't throb, and that there would not be a note threatening her friend's lives and holding the promise of seeing her attacker again slowly drifting to the ground.
She was suddenly leaning heavily against the refrigerator and tears were pouring from her eyes. She sobbed helplessly, completely at a loss as to how she was going to handle this sudden upheaval of her life.
Contacting the police...contacting her friends…contacting anyone was completely out of the question now. Even if she did have her phone—she'd need to get that replaced, so it seemed there would be a trip to the electronics store in her near future—there was nothing she could do with the information she'd suddenly had dumped on her.
The thought was still having difficulty settling in her mind. Vampires existed?
No, no. It was impossible.
And yet…the pain in her neck didn't lie. The weakness of her body didn't lie. The note on the refrigerator, now settled on the floor by her feet, didn't lie.
Even if there was a way to justify everything else about the situation, she couldn't forget his strangely enhanced speed, his otherworldly strength. With just the flick of his wrist he'd slammed her into a wall—lifting her hand, she noted that yes, there was a small bump on the back of her head from where she'd collided with the bricks. It didn't hurt unless she touched it, however, and given all the pain she was in otherwise she found she wasn't particularly interested in provoking the little wound. Dropping her hand, Lucy tried to figure out her next move.
Slowly, she picked up the note again, forcing herself to reread it and analyze every detail. On the back of the note she found the list of foods he'd instructed her to eat and found that leafy green vegetables such as spinach and kale underlined several times—of course, because they were a very good source of natural iron, which was clearly important for blood and its production. Meat was also on the list, as well as other foods that would help her regain strength.
She didn't have a lot of what was mentioned available to her in her home, so it was decided that after she ate her bowl of cereal, she would go grocery shopping and also replace her phone. If she remembered correctly, she had a warranty on it, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get a new one. She'd lost a lot of numbers though and they would be a little more difficult to get back. As far as she knew, her phone was a mangled piece of metal and wire that was useless to just about anybody, so if it had been found it had probably been thrown in the garbage.
It was a good thing she had made it a point of memorizing Natsu, Gray, and Erza's phone numbers.
Then, after all the menial things were done, she wound figure out a way to deal with the vampire who insisted on seeing her again—Midnight. She wasn't ready to consider her options just yet as she had to take care of the basics first. But she would find a way to deal with him. There wasn't any other option because she couldn't allow her friends' lives to stay in danger and…she really didn't think she could handle seeing him again. He'd decided to keep her alive so far, but what if that changed? What if he decided she wasn't worth the trouble? More than ever, her run-in with him the night before had proved to her one thing.
She wasn't ready to die just yet.
In the end, Sunday passed in a blur. After picking up her groceries and getting her new phone—the warranty was thankfully still active, so she only had to pay a little money to obtain a new one—she headed home.
The first thing she did was make herself a salad and cook some of the sirloin steak she had bought from the store. She hated to follow any of the instructions Midnight had given her, but she figured that a vampire would know best what would help with blood loss and she would need all her strength to deal with the wreck that was now her life.
It turned out that he had not lied; after eating the meal rich with protein, iron, and other essential vitamins, she was feeling a lot better.
Then, of course, the texts came in like an avalanche.
As she responded to Natsu's incessant texts—most of an unimportant, menial nature—Lucy almost felt as though her life had returned to normal. Then, her eyes would stray to the note that she'd left on her dining room table and she would be reminded that she was not out of the woods yet. Things would not go back to normal unless she found a way to deal with this newest threat.
But what could she really do?
It occurred to her somewhere along the line that if vampires existed, surely someone who was not a vampire knew of them? There had to be some kind of human retaliation—vampire hunters or something? She refused to believe that humans were entirely without defense of their kind.
The more difficult matter was finding out how to find and contact such people. Even with her laptop, she was almost positive that a search engine would be unable to give her any real results to her problem. Most would likely be a fake or a scam because really, who actually believed in vampires?
No, right now she was all alone.
After putting her dishes in the dishwasher and feeling almost normal at last—most of the pain was gone except what came from her actual wounds, specifically the bite on her neck—Lucy decided a shower was in order. While normally caring about what society thought of her appearance, other than changing pants and donning a scarf despite the warm weather, Lucy had headed out from her house as-is. However, now that everything felt a little more normal, it was important she become presentable.
A hot shower was just what the doctor ordered, it seemed. The warm water soothed her injuries and refreshed her tired body, so of course she took a very long time in the bathroom. She gauged that she'd been in the stall about an hour—her skin was wrinkled like prunes when she was finally done. Putting on a purple V-neck t-shirt and some white jeans was normal, but wrapping her yellow scarf around her neck and securing it firmly to stay in place was not. She bandaged her wounded hand awkwardly, given that it usually took two hands to do it, but after all was said and done she felt much better about everything.
And yet the note, still on her dining room table, stayed like an obnoxious intruder niggling in the back of her mind, reminding her that nothing was normal and that she needed to figure out what she was going to do about the vampire named Midnight.
It didn't seem like there was much she could do, but Lucy was a Heartfilia even if she had run away and Heartfilias did not give up.
That didn't make the situation feel any more manageable though.
In the end, she fell asleep around 6pm and didn't wake up until just before her shift started the next day.
8-Island was a café not too far from where she lived that served delicious, fantastic food that brought people from all over Magnolia flocking. It was a very well-to-do establishment and Lucy felt lucky that she worked in such an environment even though she really should have been at school at her age. School was a little too expensive at the moment though, so she was saving up with the help of her often-generous tips. Her boss, Yajima, was a kind, elderly old man who had once been an important public figure in the government before an enormous scandal had had most of the politicians present for it retiring.
Despite the guilt he felt over his part in the scandal, Lucy thought he was a wonderful person and really looked up to him. She did her best to work hard and give one-hundred-percent every shift and it was well-rewarded because Yajima truly seemed to like her.
It seemed work was just what she needed to take her mind off things and that idea was solidified in the form of one of her best female friends, Levy McGarden. The blue-haired girl was a fellow waitress but also a very good friend of hers and if there was anyone Lucy felt she could tell her secret and have it be safe, it was Levy. Given that Levy was an incredible bookworm, Lucy had no doubt that she could help her find out more about her predicament as well as probably locate someone who could help her.
Still, she couldn't risk her friend's life. She had no idea how Midnight would know if she had told someone about him, but she couldn't take the chance of him finding out. After all she'd been through, she didn't doubt that he would make good on his threats to kill her friends. It wasn't a risk she was willing to take.
It didn't stop her from trying to enjoy her shift as much as possible. She'd gotten a few odd looks aimed in the direction of her scarf, but all she could do was shrug it off and make sure the fabric stayed in place tightly. Luckily the yellow didn't clash too terribly with her blue waitress uniform or else she wasn't sure what she would have done. The bandage on her hand was easily attributed to dropping a glass and accidentally cutting herself, so at least that was one less thing she had to worry about.
The lunch rush was over and during the afternoon lull, Lucy and Levy sat in the break room eating some of the food that had gotten sent back when not done quite to order—it was one of the perks of working at 8-Island. Yajima hated food going to waste so if there was an untouched order, he would give it to his employees for free.
Lucy had claimed the dish with beef stroganoff because it turned out that meat really did make her feel better. She was still a little weak but all in all, keeping to the diet Midnight had given her was truly speeding up her recovery—even though she was loathe to willingly listen to any of his commands.
The pair sat at a small table in the break room. Levy had ordered some strawberry shortcake after finishing the soup that the customer had decided they didn't want and Lucy was almost halfway done with her stroganoff.
"So," Lucy said after swallowing a large bite, "How's the soap opera with Gajeel?"
Levy snorted and rolled her eyes. "For once, I'm not going to correct you. It really is a soap opera. For someone who claims not to care about what other people think, he's having a really hard time explaining to his friends why he's dating a 'goody-two-shoes' like me. It's beyond ridiculous and I'm starting to rethink the whole thing." Despite her cynical words, Levy sounded decidedly half-hearted about the thought of terminating the relationship.
Lucy raised an eyebrow. "You're going to break up with him?" Levy and Gajeel had been attached at the hip for six months so far, and even though she had complained in the past, she had never brought up actually doing anything about the situation.
The blue-haired girl sighed. "We're not technically boyfriend and girlfriend right now I would say, so I'd more call it 'stop dating him.' It's just…things are complicated and I'm not sure about really ending it, but it's hard when he claims to really care about me and then won't even touch me when we're around his friends."
"That ass," Lucy agreed.
"I don't really blame him," Levy replied solemnly. "I mean, his friends are something of an…interesting bunch. I don't really fit in with them and it must be awkward for him to have someone like me around. I don't spit or smoke or drink or do any of the things…they do. I'm literally the odd one out."
"It's his loss," the blonde argued. "You're the best thing a guy like him is going to get. If he can't handle it, then he doesn't deserve you. And don't you dare ever change because of a guy, Levy McGarden, or I swear, I'll beat him up."
There was a long pause as the girls regarded each other and then the two burst out laughing. The thought of slim, petite Lucy taking on a big, burly biker with piercings and wild hair like Gajeel was simply a joke, but nonetheless the visual was pleasing.
"You could suffocate him with your breasts," Levy joked, trying not to choke on the portion of shortcake she still had in her mouth.
"Shut up," Lucy cajoled, waving her uninjured fist in her friend's face. "I could totally beat the crap out of him!" Even as she said this, she was fighting back giggles.
It felt so nice to be playing around with her friend and acting as though nothing was wrong. This was a conversation similar to the ones she and Levy would have before the entire disaster concerning a certain vampire had happened. Unfortunately, just remembering her predicament made Lucy sober almost instantly and anxiety began to gnaw at her stomach. The food on her plate suddenly seemed a lot less appetizing.
Levy noticed the sudden mood swing instantly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Lucy sighed. "I guess I just feel kind of…lost."
"What do you mean?"
"Ever feel like you just don't know what's going to happen next? Like, there's something that you don't want to happen but unless you beat impossible odds it's going to happen anyways?"
Levy's brow furrowed as she contemplated the question. "I'm not really sure. I guess with Gajeel I'm not sure how things are going to turn out, and even though I want to be with him it seems unlikely that he's going to do anything to change the situation. Something like that?"
Lucy fought back a sigh of defeat. Of course there was no way Levy would understand. No one would understand. "Yeah, I guess something like that," she lied.
The blue-haired girl frowned with concern. "What's going on, Lu?"
"Nothing, it's alright. I don't really want to talk about it," Lucy said, lying yet again. It was distressing to have to deceive her friends because she was always usually so honest, but this was not a burden she could share without endangering their lives.
The rest of the meal went on in silence, but Lucy was unable to eat any more. Anything she put in her mouth tasted like ash.
When Yajima called out to them that lunch break was over, both girls stood, straightened out their uniforms, and got ready to start working again. Lucy did so without much fervor, no longer feeling lighthearted or merry. The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she felt. Luckily, her tips didn't suffer terribly from her lackluster attitude.
When her shift ended at six and Lucy walked out of the restaurant, she felt it. Her back stiffened and she froze immediately, eyes darting about to find the source of her fear.
Nothing—or rather, nobody—was there, but she knew that her eyes were lying to her. Someone was there, watching her. As she walked home, the feeling persisted and she knew that yet again, she was being followed. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably at the sensation because she knew who it was.
Midnight was watching her, stalking her like he had the night before. A discomfited shiver ran down her spine and she pretended not to notice anything, even though her body was trembling with fear.
As soon as she entered her home and the door was shut, the feeling was thankfully gone. Sighing, Lucy leaned against her closed door and took a deep breath. At least, for now, she was alone.
A glance at her phone told her that it was almost seven—her walk home had taken much longer than usual, probably because she'd been walking so stiffly and warily. It didn't matter; at least she didn't feel those eyes on her anymore.
Once her nerves had finally uncoiled, Lucy went about making dinner—salad with some chopped chicken and her favorite dressing. She ate slowly and haltingly, not feeling hungry but knowing that she needed to keep up her strength.
By the time she went to bed, exhausted, at 9:30 that night, Lucy was all too aware of the fact that she had less than twenty-four hours before she would have to see him again—and she still hadn't come up with a solution.
She was hard pressed to get any rest at all that night.
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