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Annie

2. Fire-Bear

Annie pops in and out of several prisons and is nearly in tears when she sees Herrick. He is pacing outside in his policeman's uniform, like a beacon telling her Mitchell is near. He offers her a smile.

"Ah, there you are."

"Where is he?" she asks, stalking across the parking lot beneath thunderheads.

Herrick nods towards the building behind him. "It's a research facility. The official line is that his name was cleared and he was released from police custody weeks ago."

Annie grasps the folds of her cowl to her throat. "What?"

"I can't get in. This is beyond my reach. Even in this guise."

"Thank God for that."

"Oh?" He arches a brow. "They know what he is, Annie. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought, for a moment, that you two were lovers."

There is a taunting quality to his voice that matches his smug expression. But Annie has gone so cold inside that she wonders if she could become the wind.

"Will you look at that," Herrick croons. "Your eyes have gone lavender."

Annie feels the wind cutting around her not-body and wills it to howl.

Herrick smiles. "You see, I can't get in there… but you can."

"Of course I can."

He closes the distance between them and the wind dies down. "Bring him to me," he whispers in her ear.

Annie sneers and cracks the cold inside her like glass. "Never."

Herrick's eyes darken. "I said, they know what he is."

"And so do I." Her voice is starting to shake so she does her best to steady it. "He isn't safe. What he did…" She closes her eyes and takes a breath. "He deserves this."

"Does a cat deserve to be punished for killing a bird?" He moves with slow steps, circling the ghost.

"What?"

"Or how about a child that stomps on a spider?"

Annie tucks her chin in. "That has nothing to do with –"

"It has everything to do with it. Is a tiger evil because it hunts to eat? How many cows have died for your meals? How many chickens have you consumed? I'll bet you couldn't even venture a guess." He pauses before her.

"That's completely different."

"All life kills to feed. All."

"Not all."

He arches a brow. "You don't think that spinach was alive before someone plucked it?"

"They were innocent people, Herrick. Twenty of them. And he didn't kill them to survive – he killed them out of anger. Revenge. Sport."

"Just as a kitten kills a garden snake then plays with its corpse. Or an orca a seal. A man a man." He narrows his eyes when he sees her blink. "Has there ever been a generation that truly did not know war? Men – human men – killing each other for sport, because they were ordered to, because some rich bastard got upset with another rich bastard. And you dare say this is different?"

Annie can't meet his gaze so she focuses on a leaf skittering across the pavement in the distance.

"Death is death, Annie. Whether a person is innocent or guilty, killed on orders or for fun, it's all the same. I would think that you of all people would know that."

She meets his gaze then. "He hates it. He always has."

Herrick raises his brows. "And I hate him for it. You see, the funny thing about vampires is that our brains stop when we get bitten. Luckily, I have the brain of a fifty-year-old. Mitchell, however, will never develop beyond twenty-four. Malleable age, that. Yet still, that… strain of decency that just won't die, no matter how I try to… well."

He smiles as he remembers who he is speaking to.

"You have no idea what it is like. We don't feel like angry men, or hungry men, or even desperate men. We exist in a realm beyond anything any human could ever feel. We exist in terror and frenzy and a voice screaming inside with lungs like a horse's, telling us to kill, always to kill. We are sharks. Yet even then… that doesn't even begin to do the bloodlust justice. And yet you dare judge us?"

Annie holds her cowl shut against the wind as the storm approaches. "I pity you," she says quietly. "I really do."

Herrick glances her over with distaste. "I don't want your pity."

"I won't give you Mitchell," she says resolutely. "Let him go. Move on. He's not yours anymore. He's mine."

Herrick smirks. "Ah, yes. I should've known." He sighs and glances at the clouds. "You know, I think it might rain."

Annie doesn't take her eyes off him and she feels electricity crackle on her not-skin as over a hundred years of hate meets her gaze when Herrick looks back at her.

"I made him. He is nothing without me."

"I'm sure you'll find another."

"You see, that's the curious thing. There ought to be far more of our kind, but the majority get themselves killed off the bat. So when you find a tough one… one whose spirit just won't break… you welcome it as a challenge."

Annie cocks her head with a small measure of satisfaction, her tone patronizing. "How disappointing for you. You said it yourself – Mitchell is decent. You have failed."

To her surprise, Herrick nods and starts to back up. "I do believe I have… but then, what do I matter?" He offers a parting smile then takes several steps away before glancing over his shoulder. "After all, you're doing the job for me."

Annie watches him leave and feels her entire not-body turn to cracking glass, and each shard is pricking her with guilt. The wind is icy and it's starting to rain and Mitchell is somewhere inside.

Mitchell was given a pair of thermals to wear under his prison garb but it doesn't ward off the chill, for it isn't coming from the outside. It is coming from the death in his bones and blood and sinew that is Vampyre. It comes from his heart that he never picked up. It remains where it fell on the floor, gathering dust as its bruising darkens, growing worse with time.

His body is sore and his muscles cramp but he can't do much more than curl up and drag himself from corner to corner. He is allowed to drink from a straw, for the muzzle-mask has slits in the front. But he hasn't had a bite to eat since the morning of his arrest.

He could tell them that he is hungry. That he needs to eat just like they do. But his bruised heart and his stained soul won't let him. So he drags himself under the cot like a dying spider and hides in the shadows. The cramped space makes him feel safe.

Hunger for food makes his thoughts sharp and crooked and they like to chase each other in circles. He usually doesn't notice until they've done a few laps.

Memories have surfaced, as well, melding themselves with dreams until he can't tell what really happened and what didn't.

But above all, the bloodlust hammers in his temples and gums, and under his fingernails, and the screaming gets a little louder with each passing day. The emptier his belly, the hungrier his veins.

Mitchell has never starved before. He'd come close to it a few times as a child, but never this bad. His mother had always been able to fix up potato skins or barley kernels into some sort of meal. He'd take the fish scales stuck to the bottom of the frying pan at this point. The marrow of bones. A whole fish raw, in fact. Raw and alive and full of blood –

He closes his eyes as his body breaks out in a clammy sweat. Don't think of the hungerpains. Think of her. Think of the sun.

But he sees his kills. He tastes them in his sleep. And he is so very frightened of himself that he hopes he is dying, even if that means ceasing to exist altogether.

The door to his cell opens and Mitchell doesn't budge except to sluggishly offer his arm to the doctor's assistant who has come to collect a sample. The guards are rather bored with his obedience and wish he would do something befitting his supposedly demonic nature so that they can come home with stories. Not that they're allowed to repeat anything they see here.

Mitchell can't even feel the cold of the alcohol wipe, nor the sting of the needle piercing his bruised flesh as blood is drawn. It has happened far too many times for him to do much more than close his eyes and will the orderly to leave.

He knows he's alone again when the door shuts and he hears the woman start chit-chatting with the guards. Relief floods him and he pulls his arm back in, tucking it to his chest.

The floor is growing colder and the air seems to be moving. But how can that be when there are no windows?

And what's that sound? Is someone crying?

He brushes his fingertips over his exposed cheekbone above the mask. His skin is dry. It isn't him. Then who is it?

Mitchell stiffens. Maybe the orderly didn't leave, after all. Maybe…

"What's happened to you?"

In that moment he feels the sun on his soul, has the urge to gnash his teeth like a mad dog, and realizes that Annie just tripped over his heart on the floor.

He shifts to look over his shoulder and sees the knitwear of her boots. Then the knees of her leggings and finally the rest of her as she kneels beside the cot.

Annie holds a hand over her mouth when she sees the mask up close and the red marks it has etched into the skin around it.

"Why is that thing on your face?" she asks and her voice is full of the tears she's failing to hold back.

Mitchell blinks as he studies her, his own eyes misting over, because this can't be real. Annie left him. Annie is gone. Annie doesn't belong in this horrible, horrible place. Annie is smarter than that.

"Did you bite someone? Mitchell?"

She's so perfect. How can her inner beauty just radiate like that?

Annie sobs. "Mitchell, can you even hear me?"

Yes, he wants to answer. I can hear you. But he can't remember the last time he used his voice.

He still isn't sure if she's really there but he snakes his needle-bruised arm out anyway. Her fingers wrap around his and even though they're cold as death, they're warmer than him and they make the bruise on his heart start to fade as it beats faster.

"Annie?" he whispers so hoarsely that it barely sounds like a word.

Annie nods and squeezes his hand. "I'm here. I'm so sorry, Mitchell. What have they done to you?"

He shakes his head no, forgetting about the needles and the guards. She's real. Warmth spills from his eyes. She's real.

And even though he has a mask covering half of his face, Annie can tell that he is grinning, and that smile sets her ablaze. She shoves the cot aside and overturns it to shield them from view before lying down to wrap her arms around him.

"You're so cold. Even to me, you're so cold…. Are those your ribs?"

Her hands recoil.

Mitchell sits up slowly and waits until his head stops spinning before he meets her gaze once more. His arms move stiffly, as if he's afraid she'll vanish like a wisp of smoke, but he places a hand on either side of her face. "Annie?"

She smiles and nods. "I'm real." She kisses his palm, his forehead, his temple, and he closes his eyes and leans his brow against hers.

She wants to kiss his lips and traces her fingers along the straps securing the mask to his face but can't find a latch. Mitchell derails her hunt by collapsing against her in an embrace, burying his face in her neck. Moisture wicks his eyelashes and as she feels his thin, desperate form clinging to her, she is overwhelmed.

The lights buzz and flicker and one in the hall explodes.

He needed to be punished. He needed to give what he could to the families of his victims. But not this. She had never intended this. Her guilt threatens to choke her but it is frightened into a corner by a giant bear wreathed in flame. How dare someone lay a hand on her love.

Annie has never seen a starving person before but her instincts recognize the dullness and distance in Mitchell's hazel gaze. "Why aren't they feeding you?"

When she receives no response she shifts to get up and investigate but he lets out a small cry and fists his hands in her clothing. She has never heard so raw a sound and it stokes the fire in the bear as she cradles him. The lifelessness clinging to his frame terrifies her, and there is so much that she wants to say but something else comes out instead.

"I can't believe they cut your hair!"

What she can see of his face is smiling and she works her fingers through the softness on his head, toying with the forming cowlicks.

"I'm here now," she says through fresh tears as the bear roars to be let out. "I'll never leave you again, sweetheart."

His only response is to cling all the tighter.

She rocks him and hums quietly, but her humming turns into singing. He is sound asleep within minutes, though Annie never knew him to sleep soundly. That alone has convinced her to set the fire-bear free.

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