Raindrop: :) Thank you for your review. I'm sorry to hear that about your father. It is an awful experience that no-one should go through. I lost my Grandma last year and it was the strangest, numbing thing I've ever experienced. I can imagine what it must have been like for you.
Sadly, their brotherly relationship has had a permanent split. Whatever end result won't be a happy one but that's all I'll say for now. And it won't be the last of Marko's POV. I've squeezed in where it works (hopefully) an insight into Marko because I love exploring who he is now without a pack and so hellbent on revenge. With every other plot and sub-plot to fit in, there won't be actual flashbacks where we see the boys. I wish I could have fitted it in but someday I'd love to get this origin idea I've had in my head written out. We only got to see the boys as a pack in the first two stories and I feel like I didn't get a great chance to write about them more. I'd consider a canon focus fic of the boys in the future to make up for it. :)
Thank you to everyone else who took the time to read.
Bridget followed the motel owner up the stairs. He had given her the last room at the end, repeating quite a few times how popular his motel was during all seasons. He may have been happy to boast about it but all Bridget could do was roll her eyes and blank his proud statement out every time he mentioned it. There was a slight pang of guilt at how easily irritated she was at it and tried to force a smile on her face. Attempt to be polite and, most of all, human.
"I know it's none of my business but you seem kinda young to be wandering around like this, little lady." He glanced at her with genuine concern, frown lines creasing in his heavily wrinkled face.
Bridget folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "You're right. It's none of your business."
She stepped closer and stared him right in the eye. She knew her normal blue would be changing, melting into an eerie, inhuman yellow. It didn't matter that the motel owner was seeing the unnatural glow of her eyes. He was already dazed and blank.
"You don't care how old I am," she said. "You're going to give me this room and leave me alone while I stay here."
"No of course not," he agreed, nodding and a sleepy smile crept up on his face. "Sometimes we just have to get away."
He turned the key into the lock and pushed the door open. It creaked and he flicked on the light. It took five seconds, flickering on and off at first but settled down soon enough. The owner walked in, hands clasped behind his back as if admiring the room. When Bridget peered in, she saw the same motel room she had been seeing in the all the others for the last two weeks. The furniture was simple. A bed, an open wardrobe and a small bedside table, all oak. The queen sized bed had fresh white sheets on, a colour to match the white, plain walls. She stayed at the doorway, leaning against the frame as she waited for the man to stop observing the room. Finally, he glanced back with a frown.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
"Am I invited in?"
"You've paid for the room. It's yours."
She looked past him and into the mirror that stood on the dresser table. She was a ghost in the mirror, nearly faded all together. With a sigh, she shook her head. Paying for a room wasn't good enough. He still owned the whole building.
"It's just rude not to ask for an invitation." She gave a shrug. "It was how I was raised."
"Oh. Well, um… come in."
A cold smile played on her lips. "Thanks."
As she took a step inside, she saw her faded reflection become clearer. Back to normal as if she were a human again.
"Yes… well…" The man cleared his throat and gestured to the room. "Anyway, it's small but it has the basics. Everything you need. Bed. A bathroom. It's just a shower I'm afraid –."
"That's fine," she said, too quickly but she was purposely interrupting and hoping her standoffish attitude would persuade him to go away. The cramps were starting up again, making her wince but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay upright. Her throat prickled, quickly becoming dry. Too dry to swallow properly. She glanced at the bag she had dumped at her feet, licking her lips slightly before her eyes flickered up to the owner again.
"I'm real tired," she said when he still didn't make any move to budge. But now he raised a finger at her.
"Oh. Yes. Right, it's eighty a night as you know. I expect payment tomorrow night, same time. In cash, please. I hope you enjoy your stay, little lady." He nodded politely and shuffled his way to the door. When he passed, she breathed in and felt her stomach growl at the sweet scent of his blood. She inhaled sharply through her mouth and spun to shut the door right behind him.
"Fuck," she hissed, bending forward. Her palms pressed against the door, a desperate attempt to keep herself up. Pain shot through her. She breathed in. Jaw clenched.
One… two… three…
She moved on the three, scooping up her bag and hurrying over to the bed. The zip almost broke in her grasp and she rummaged through the contents, pushing things aside hurriedly or throwing random items on the bed or the floor. It really didn't matter as long as she could get her hands on what she desperately needed.
Bridget almost whimpered out loud as she took out a blood bag. The smell was never as fresh as it was straight from the humans themselves but there was still a richness to it that made her stomach whine and whimper. She groaned, clenching her teeth together as she used a sharp nail to rip into the bag. At the slightest tear, she heard herself growl. A feral sound and she didn't even try to stop it. Her teeth were bared, chest heaving with each wheezy breath and she brought the bag to her lips.
Having been in a bag, it was losing its taste. It wasn't as soothing on her dry, burning throat as she imagined fresh blood straight from the vein would be. And while she kept trying to persuade herself that it was a good thing she hadn't had the experience of tasting blood from a human, there was a growing desire to have the real thing.
The pain in her stomach eased. Not completely but enough to help her move about again without being in severe agony. She squeezed at the bag, forcing every single drop out. When there was nothing left, she sighed and dropped the bag in the bin next to her bedside table. Completely empty and gone in seconds.
She was getting hungrier each day.
Bridget closed her eyes and sank down on her bed, eyes lowered to stare glumly at the floor. At first she thought she had finally found a way to keep the hunger at bay. When she tried drinking from blood bags, her hunger eased and she could keep going without yearning too much for fresh blood. Even if she couldn't find a way to revert herself back to being human, she was at least thrilled to find a way of feeding herself and satisfying those violent, tempting urges but her glee quickly faded. In hardly any time at all she found herself starving again, just like at the beginning when she was first turned and left Santa Carla.
One blood bag a night had turned into two at the least.
If anything, the urge to kill and feed on blood only came back with a terrifying force.
There was a phone in the room and she stared at it, fingers gripping onto the edge of the bed. She chewed on her lower lip, feeling the sharp sting of teeth. She made a tiny whimper because she could feel the points of her fangs and she hadn't even purposely allowed her teeth to lengthen. It just happened.
These accidents were occurring way too much now.
Phone home, she thought, immediately thinking of her friends. Maybe Bonnie had a point. She needed to go home and get help from them if she couldn't find this comic book artist.
Or go home and get help from Bernice and Alan.
She squeezed her eyes shut, groaning and shook her head sharply.
No!
The only help she was going to get from them would be a lesson on how to rip into someone's throat. That was not what she needed even if she argued with herself over it more and more these days. She had seen how quickly Alan had changed, only a few days after being turned to begin with. Vampire blood had been forced down his throat that Monday and by Friday, he had grown detached from humanity. A large part of him had stopped caring and even if Logan hadn't forced Alan's thirst to gain control and make him kill, Bridget knew he would have been ready to give in anyway. She could see why now. Any anger she had towards him for losing control had disappeared because after two weeks of being half she didn't feel like a human at all. She was in a strange limbo where she thirsted for blood and thought about killing, just like a vampire, but still held herself back and tried to stick to her human morals. Even though she was doing this more for herself now. Not for any innocent life.
Her main and only reason for becoming human again was clear to her. As a human, she had been a bit on the rough side. She was angered quickly. If anyone did anything to her friends, she had been ready to yell. In a few cases, she had even dared to slap the person pissing her or her friends off and most of them were towards Imogen Reece, Alan's former crush. With vampire blood through her veins, she always felt ready to wrap her hands around someone's neck and crush it in one squeeze. She wanted to feel her fangs tear flesh apart. Revel in hearing someone beg for mercy and not give it.
She was terrified of finding out what she could really be capable of as a vampire.
And how much she'd enjoy it.
Despite her fears, she didn't blame Alan. If he hadn't had turned her, she would be completely dead. Charlotte had ripped into her throat like a starved animal and there had be no chance of surviving an injury like that. When she was only sixteen years old, there was no way that she would welcome any sort of death. It was die or be turned. She may have been stubborn at the time and proclaimed otherwise but in hindsight she was glad Alan had still been human enough to save her.
The only problem was now she had to find a way to return human without killing Alan.
So far only one person seemed to be the help she really needed.
She took out the comic book Bonnie had given her before she ran away, flicking straight to the back to stare at the author's photograph. Blake Ricelli stared right back at her with wavy, dark blonde hair, falling into his eyes. They were serious, matching the rest of his solemn expression, and dark brown. Quite a contrast to the fair colouring on his hair. His comics were pretty awful, full of cheesy dialogue but he seemed to have created a portrayal of vampires very similar to what her and her friends had seen for themselves. Too similar. All the rules and traits were exactly their own experiences of vampires. This guy appeared to know too much about the undead and it had to be because of his own dealings with them. At least that was what Bridget wanted to believe. The answers to her problems had to lie in San Diego and she was determined to find this author. Her search had brought her to Pacific Beach, finally directed somewhere after her last destination. She hadn't taken into consideration how big San Diego really was, fully focused on grabbing her stuff and leaving Santa Carla as quickly as possible. She felt a lot of time had been wasted travelling around San Diego in the hope that it was the home of Blake Ricelli. It was only in her last destination, Encinitas, where a couple of guys in a comic book store pointed her in the right direction of Pacific Beach. She still didn't have an address but the owners said he currently lived in the area at least.
Come on, soldier, she thought and stuffed the comic book into her bag. You want to be human. You shouldn't have to remind yourself of that. Get up and go find him.
She had gone from her motel in Pacific Beach to Mission Beach, following the directions of each comic store she had passed. Blake Ricelli was a reclusive artist and writer, known around the parts but hardly seen nowadays. He hadn't created a new comic for a few years now and comic stores around the neighbourhood never saw him again. A whole hour of walking around had started to get tiresome and she had been surrounded by too many humans. Instead of looking for another comic store as she walked down Mission Boulevard, she found her eyes wandering to people's throats as they walked past her. She could easily catch the veins that drew her in, blue and pulsing. Heartbeats varied. Some steady, some frantic. But all of them tempted her to let her teeth lengthen. To sink them into the next throat that she went near and take every drop of thick, warm blood from that person without a care in the world.
After two weeks of being a half vampire, she could see how allowing herself to give in like that would be a freedom. The cravings were agony. Suffocating. They made her feel caged and she felt like she constantly walked on eggshells to make sure she didn't snap. It would be a freedom to simply take that first bite and let go of any lingering principles that she fought to keep, even if she could feel it slipping away each night.
Logan had once said to her she was already a vampire. The only thing that made her different from the rest of them was that she hadn't fed. And she could see why he had said that to her. She needed invitations in to make sure the motel showers wouldn't burn her skin. She hadn't seen the sunlight in a week, now starting to affect her as if she was a full vampire. Maybe not to an extent where she would burst into flames but as soon as the sun came up she fell into an almost comatose sleep. And when she had forced herself to stay outside one day, it prickled and stung at her skin. She was more one of them than she was a human. She felt it.
She halted abruptly, tearing her eyes away from another human's neck when she looked up and saw a small shop. Outside there was a table full of cheap comics, stacked in cardboards boxes, bent from being stuffed full. She sighed, taking a deep breath in to ignore her hunger and walked inside.
She missed the comic store back in Santa Carla. The spacious aisles and the constant black and white horror films Edgar and Alan always put on when it was late in the evening. This shop had small, narrow aisles where she almost had to turn sideways to walk down. It was dark, the lights too dim when the shop was open at night but luckily she could still see clearly and sharply. And the owner was a thin, tall man. His face was blemished, shiny across his forehead and nose with a breakout just under his chin. He sat in a chair, reading a comic as he held a burger in his other hand and took large bites out of it.
Bridget wandered nearer to the counter and cleared her throat.
"We're closing in five," he mumbled.
"I'm looking for someone," she said. Behind her, she heard the footsteps of another customer coming into the shop. She didn't look behind her, eyes focused on the owner as he glanced up at her with a bored expression.
"Afraid I'm the only one in this store and I doubt you'd be looking for me," he said.
"This guy." She held up her copy of Destroy All Vampires, showing him the back page. "I'm looking for Blake Ricelli."
"The comic book artist and author?" The owner set his comic and burger down to lean forward. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose to peer at the photograph.
"You know him? Apparently he's from these parts." she asked.
"Yeah, he used to work here. When he was creating comics that is. Why are you looking for him?"
"I'm a big fan. I'm just looking to get this signed."
He raised an eyebrow at her but she kept her face straight. It was a stupid answer but she didn't really care too much to come up with a decent lie. She just wanted to find the guy and get more information from him.
She waited for the owner to speak, sighing at his long pause before he straightened and shook his head. "Sorry. Don't know where the guy is."
"I was told he lived around here."
The owner shrugged. "Haven't seen him."
She stared him in the eye, tempted to crawl into his mind and force the truth out of him. She wondered why he had suddenly straightened his back and turned his voice clipped as if he was hiding something. She figured he was. Lying to protect the whereabouts of Blake. She understood why. She was in fact a complete stranger asking for his address. He probably thought she was some crazed, geeky fan with a dedicated shrine to Blake in her wardrobe.
But she held herself back. She had used that trick too much. There had been too many times she had captured a human's attention with her eyes and sent them into a trance to get what she wanted out of them. And she could still hear the other customer wandering around and rummaging through the comics. She couldn't risk getting caught.
"Okay," she said and flashed the owner an icy smile. "Thanks."
She stuffed the comic back into her bag and turned on her heel, marching out. She turned left to wander down the street but stopped. There was a scent bugging her. A musky scent that stayed close by and she knew where it had come from. She began walking again and heard footsteps that weren't her own start again, exactly when she did.
She pinched her lips together and kept marching through the street. Whoever this person was, why did they have to pick her of all people? If they tried something, she would have to defend herself. And in defending herself, she might just lose total control.
Her anger was building up. Did they really intend to hurt her?
Think you're dangerous? I'm capable of so much more.
A small smile played on her lips and she turned into the next alley she came across, flying straight up to the roof of a building. This was where she had the chance to fly away but she stayed lurking over, watching as the hooded figure followed to where she had marched in. She bit back a chuckle as they halted, head whipping around to find her. She crouched, feeling the bones in her face crack and shift as she lost any trace of humanity in her features. The points of her fangs nipped at her bottom lip.
This felt… fun. Almost satisfying.
Completely satisfying would be ripping into their throat.
Maybe it's time to give in, she thought. What better first kill than some asshole who had the stupid notion that they were a threat to her?
She perched on the ledge of the roof. There was a spot right in front of the stranger and she aimed to land right there. Then she would grab them and tear their throat apart.
Maybe if she went through it, she could go back to Santa Carla. Not be afraid to be with her sister and Alan.
She leapt down, an eerie screech coming from her movements. She landed right in front of the hooded figure and reached out for their throat like she had planned. Although she hadn't expected the person to hold a cross out, dangling it right in front of her face. She hissed, jumping back.
"Vampire hunter," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Well done, Sherlock," the stranger, a man, muttered and pulled out a stake from his belt. She raised her hands immediately.
"Whoa, before you do that –."
She swore, ducking as he ran towards her and went to push his weapon through her heart. She darted out of his path and moved so she was behind him now.
"Dude, calm the fuck down! There's been a misunderstanding."
"I don't think so. You're a vampire. I'm a vampire hunter. We fight. You die."
She chuckled dryly. "I'm not planning on being that easy to kill. You shouldn't have followed me from that comic book store. Didn't you think I'd know what you were doing? I could smell and hear you following me."
"You're a vampire and you're looking for Blake Ricelli. I've got a job to do."
"You know Blake Ricelli?"
"I'm not telling you anything, bloodsucker."
She frowned. "Don't call me that. I'm not a bloodsucker."
"You kidding? Look at you. You're one of them. You were about to feed off me."
"I'm half," she snapped. "I was only gonna feed because I thought you were a threat. Like a robber or a rapist or something."
"You were about to take your first kill," he said.
"Yeah, well, trying being half for a couple of weeks and see how well you resist that urge," she said, scowling as her features changed back into human again.
"You could just be a full vampire trying to talk her way out of getting staked."
She sighed. "Look, I don't have time for this shit. I need to know where Blake is. He's the only one who can help me."
"How can Blake help a vampire? I'm not going to tell you where he is."
"Oh for –." She dug into her pocket for a small mirror. Another way of terrifying her out of feeding by having her disappearing reflection as a reminder of the monster she was slowly becoming. She tossed it to the stranger and he easily caught it. She saw part of his face was covered up. A black scarf was wrapped around his mouth and all she could see were his nose and brown eyes.
"Look in the mirror. I'm still there… just about. A full vampire wouldn't have any reflection at all."
"I know that," he snapped.
"Then look!"
The hunter flicked open the case, holding it so he would be able to see her reflection but also keep an eye out for any suspicious or sudden movements from her. When he took a quick glance he indeed saw Bridget. Faint but she was still there.
"I'm only a half vampire," Bridget said. "And I need Blake's help. I need a cure. A way to become human again." She opened up her bag and held the copy of Destroy All Vampires up.
"This comic has got everything right about vampires. Everything I've seen is all in here. So this Blake guy must know about vampires too. It can't be a coincidence. And if he does really know about them, then maybe he knows a way to cure me." Her voice faltered and she shrugged helplessly. "I am so close to becoming one of them for good. I need to find a way to become human again before I give in. I've been like this for two weeks. It's unbearable."
The stranger didn't say anything for a few seconds. He stared at Bridget, watching this change from a bloodsucker ready for a fight to a vulnerable looking girl. As feral as she looked before, with her human face back on she was young. Still a kid. He sighed and let his posture relax, tossing the mirror back to her. She caught it easily with one hand.
"Okay, I know where you can find Blake."
She sighed, eyes closing.
"Thank you. Where is he?"
In response, he pulled back his hood revealing untidy dark blonde hair. He tugged his scarf down, showing his face completely now and Bridget took in his wavy hair, dark eyes, and solemn expression.
"You're looking at him," Blake Ricelli said.
Thank you for reading. Please feel free to leave a review. Chapter 4 will be up next Saturday. :)
