Rey found that she wouldn't get an answer to her question. Ren seemed relieved by the interruption, and then his phone rang. He picked it up and headed back into his bedroom, and Rey heard the door lock. She followed him a few steps, but she knew she wouldn't be able to get beyond that door without being noticed. She thought she could try picking it, but she didn't know how to actually pick locks, so it might have presented a problem.
She turned to see Roman standing there, looking at her expectantly.
"Shall we go, miss?"
"Go where?" She asked, curious.
"Master Ren said you might want to retrieve some of your belongings," He said simply.
"Master Ren?" She couldn't believe these people referred to him as 'Master', and she almost laughed, but then she couldn't decide whether or not she wanted to laugh or vomit.
"Mister Ren?" Roman said, shakily.
Poor Roman.
Rey found herself in the back of the luxury sedan. The sun was out, and even though the day was chilly, it was brighter than it had been for a few days. She rolled down the window to let the fresh air whip through her hair, before she rolled it back up. Roman looked at her in the rear view mirror. She found him looking at her a lot. She tried to think that it was simply that he was keeping an eye on her, but each time she looked up she saw him looking at her. It began to make her uneasy, and she wished she hadn't gotten into the car without talking to Ren first.
She had simply assumed that Ren had given his word, and that she should follow the man. She had grabbed her phone, and she kept it hidden within her purse. She realized that she might have been in serious trouble when the car ride went on too long, and they were nowhere near her apartment. She caught him looking at her again, though this time, there was none of the awkward friendliness he'd had in his face left.
She looked back at him, defiant, but she knew she wasn't going to be able to get out of the car without risking serious injury.
"I think I should call Ren,"
"You'll do no such thing," He said, abruptly.
He turned the wheel so hard that her phone went flying. When he hit the break, it threw her forward onto the seat. She knocked her head. She was panicking then, reaching around for her phone. He was reaching for her, attempting to drag her upright. If she didn't get to her phone, she might not make it. She didn't know how many more times she was going to have to fight for her life, but it seemed like every time she got into Ren's orbit, something bad happened to her.
Her fingertips felt the edge of her phone, and she quickly grabbed it, just in time to shove it into her bra before the suddenly malicious driver tugged her out of the car. She fought and screamed the whole time, but she realized that they were in an alleyway, and from what she could see there was no one around. She saw huge gargoyles, filling up the skies before she was dragged into what looked to be an old movie theater. She fought him until he got angry with her, and knocked her on the back of her head so hard the world went dark.
She was like a ragdoll, and she had the vague sensation of the ground coming out from underneath her. She was being carried, but she hadn't a clue where or why.
When she woke up again, she was tied to a mildewed theater seat. Not tied, persay, but stuck down with a good deal of duct tape. She rattled, trying to get herself free of it, but the more she tugged the more it seemed to cling. She felt it pull against the fine hairs on her arms, and it tore the hair from the skin. She hissed quietly, before she looked up to find that she wasn't alone in this great, decaying theater.
It looked as if it had been in use in the great age of film, but it had steadily begun to decline as the multiplexes became the thing. She saw that it hadn't been used for many years, even though there were old film reels stacked up. The place would have been magnificent, if it hadn't been for the destruction and general rot. One might have expected that they put her on the stage, but she realized that she had been relegated to the audience in this play. Her mouth hadn't been bound, but what she saw caused her breath to stick in her throat like swallowed gum.
There was a man on stage, very pale and bald. His features looked as if they'd been ripped apart and crafted back into a hideous mimic of a human face. His eyes were too big, and one part of his chin caved in, as if it had simply given up on living. He was skinny and scarred, and he wore vestments as if he was some sort of priest. There were others in the audience; junkies, prostitutes, kids that had just gotten lost and had never come home. Some of them looked so spaced out that she was sure they didn't see anything at all. She was the only one who was tied up, though - the others just swaying towards each other and allowing gravity to do it's job.
Rey looked back at the stage, trying to squash her panic. Whoever these people were hadn't killed her, but she didn't know how long she had. She watched as Hilda came on stage, her teeth shiny white and twisted into a grin that looked like it made her face muscles hurt. Rey knew it then. She wasn't dead, but she certainly wasn't alive. Whatever had been left of that girl was gone. Rey saw the pinpricks of her eyes glowing a deep, carnal red. Just like Ren's. She expected him to come out onto the stage at any minute, the nefarious ring linger, but he didn't.
The disfigured man gave out a rasping laugh, amused by her terror.
"You're looking around now," He said. "You haven't seen anything quite like this before, have you?" He seemed proud of the awful display.
"We never thought we'd find you," Hilda said in chipper, girlish tones. "But I knew, I knew the night I met you,"
Rey hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about. She didn't get a chance to ask, as suddenly, Hilda was right in front of her face. Rey hadn't even seen her move, and she leaned back. Her teeth were lined with carmine red, and she smelled of rust and decay. When she exhaled, Rey caught the full brunt of the carrion smell that came up from the back of her throat. She grinned her awful grin and Rey let out a short sob, unable to stop herself from doing so.
"Oh, pretty girl," Hilda said, scratching her nails along the side of her face. "Pretty, pretty, pretty girl,"
"Don't mark her," The man hissed from on stage, milling around under the hot stage lights. "He won't come if you hurt her,"
"He'll come," Hilda pouted. "He knows just as well what she is..."
"Shhhh!" The disfigured man shouted.
Hilda backed off like a feral, rabid animal that had been snapped at by a larger animal. The dazed crowd stood together in clumps, avoiding them both. When Hilda was back on the sage, Rey took a deep breath of air. The theater smelled musty and moldy, but even that was better than Hilda's breath. She didn't see Roman anywhere, but she didn't know if he was lurking outside or not. He had seemed unlike Hilda, but she couldn't say with any sort of clarity now.
The man on the stage had disappeared, and so had Hilda. Rey struggled, finding that the strange crowd of people were milling around her, getting closer and closer. She wondered if she was here to be a meal for all of them, but none of them seemed to be present in the moment at all. Rey struggled against the tape, wondering how many layers they'd wrapped around her wrists. She had to get to her phone. She doubted Ren had even noticed she was missing, still locked away in his office. She thought it was pretty likely that she might die here, but her mind kept running over the words that had passed between them. Was it possible that they had meant Ren?
She struggled against her binds, watching as her phone slipped out of her bra and down to the floor. It slid beneath one of the theater seats in front of her. She let out a quiet curse, trying to struggle more against her binds. The more she pulled, the tighter the duct-tape got, but she thought maybe she might be able to tear it off of there. She didn't know how she was going to get out of this, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the strange people go for her phone.
"No!" She shouted, startling the person enough to give her a look of replete horror. It was almost as if she'd woken up for just a moment, her dirty hair hanging stringy in her face and revealing a set of bloodshot, white eyes.
The girl reached down, retrieving the phone with her shaking hands. She seemed to be trying to talk, but Rey couldn't hear her and she couldn't get the words out. Then she realized that the girl was whispering the words blood rite over and over again. Good, another one of these. Rey wasn't expecting the girl to help her, but she came nearer on wobbly feet. She handed the phone over to her, setting it delicately on her lap.
"Help me," Rey said, hoping to convince the girl to help her before she returned to whatever catatonic state she'd been in before.
The girl began reaching into her pockets, pulling out a few wadded dollars and an empty wallet. She kept digging, looking more hopeless as the endeavor went on. Rey frowned, her eyes screening the room to make sure the two psychos hadn't come back. Finally, the girl pulled out what looked like a small pocket knife. Rey couldn't believe her luck. It was dull, and as the girl sawed at the tape in a half-hearted fashion, Rey was sure that it wouldn't be quick enough to get her out of here before the two of them were back. Rey got one of her hands free.
She grabbed the knife and began sawing at the other, looking around wildly. She didn't know where she would go, but she had to get out of there. It was her first priority. She knew then that Kylo Ren was right, she might never be able to go back to living a normal life. Their words rolled around in her head, repeating over and over as she tried to make sense of them. What did she have to do with this? Was she just someone who had been drawn into Ren's orbit?
She got her other hand free. The girl had wandered off, rejoining the clump of other people that swayed evenly, making strange noises as if it wasn't their will. She began to move too quickly, her paranoia catching up to her. She couldn't have had much more time.
When she got one foot free, she finally grabbed her phone. There were five text messages from Ren. Each got increasingly more concerned. She realized then that he hadn't said anything to Roman about gathering her belongings. She sent him a quick text before she lost the opportunity to do so. 'Help me. Theater.' She wiggled her other foot free after having cut enough of the tape away and found herself breathing again, though she had to make her way through a clump of people that seemed to be growing in pitch and volume. What were they doing here?
She nearly tripped over the girl who had helped her. Rey thought to help her out of here, but when she bent down she realized that the girl was no longer breathing. It was as if she had just laid down and gone to sleep, and death had crept over her silently. Rey felt like screaming, and crying, but she swallowed her fears down and tried to find an exit.
The door out was locked from the outside. They hadn't want to hurt her, or so they said, but Rey got the sinking feeling she'd been trapped within the area with the other lambs to slaughter. She ran towards another exit, finding herself in a winding back hallway. The theater hadn't looked that big, but the hallway seemed like it went on forever. It got dark, and the sound of the crowd got quieter and quieter. Rey found she didn't care for the new quiet. She followed the hallway. It got so dark she had to reach out and use the walls to lead her way. Each time she reached out into open air, she went that way. She began to think she would never get out of here. Finally, she turned her phone flash light on. It was dying, and she knew she didn't have much time.
When the light hit the darkest part of the hallway, she saw a pair of eyes glinting back at her. Not human, not feline. Hilda. She gasped, dropping her phone. She heard it spin away, but she knew that there would be no chance of her finding it into the dark. She started running back in the other direction, hoping to find her way back to the theater. Now she was in a labyrinth with a psycho who couldn't seem to make up her mind whether she wanted to worship her or kill her.
Rey heard her laugh. She felt clumsy and slow, hearing Hilda cut the air with her speed and agility. She was a big cat, and Rey was a gazelle. Rey felt sick at the analogy. She realized that Hilda was leading her, driving her back to some place, and when she broke out into the theater she overall thrum of the voices became overwhelming. Rey turned around, watching her stride forward with all the confidence of a predator.
"Please," Rey said, though she wasn't sure what she was begging for. Her life? For how much longer? How much more time did she really have? Even if she got away, for tonight, wouldn't they find her again? It filled her with a sort of unspeakable despair.
"Sleep tight, blood rite," She screeched out, before reaching out for Rey with arms that seemed too long, and fingers that seemed too pointy.
Ren came a second too late. Some force twisted the metal of the door inward, causing the lock to become so distorted that the door popped open like a button on a shirt. Hilda's claws had become needles, and they had already sunk their way into Rey's flesh, puncturing her lungs and causing her blood to flow into places it shouldn't be in an effort to go everywhere at once just to heal her rent flesh. It wouldn't save her. She coughed up the blood, feeling it stain her lips and dribble down her chin. Ren was recognizable, and then not. The anger made his face sharp and strange. His eyes became two glowing orbs of molten gold, cracking his face with light that looked like tears.
Rey was sure she was hallucinating in death, but as Hilda dropped her, she lost track of him. Despite all of his light, he carried with him a hazy black shadow. He was completely other, something ripped from another world. He was hazy, and it was as if he blinked in and out of existence, moving from one space to another with a stunning speed. Rey lay there, watching him move and dispatch of Hilda (again). She saw his hand come out, and Hilda rise up in tandem. He bones crunched into mulch, and she was no more, just a spray of blood on the back of old theater seats.
Rey wasn't sure if the spray had reached her, but she felt cold, and she was grasping onto things that didn't matter anymore. She was moving from her body, which was dying, and there was nothing to tether her there anymore. She watched Ren from her place in the sky, after having obliterated the receptionist. Rey was sure that she wouldn't come back again. She might have laughed at the concept if she'd still been aware enough to do so.
Ren cradled her body as she slipped further away, but she couldn't have been so far gone. She felt him, the dark shadow of him, and she heard him pierce the flesh in his wrist, a small nose of his fanged canines sinking into the skin before he drew up bubbles of blood, thick and nearly black. He pressed it to her lips, the viscous fluid falling down into the back of her throat. It took hold like a virus, pulsing through her body. She could almost picture it piggybacking onto her own, lowly blood cells, powering them up. She sucked in a huge breath of air and suddenly, she was slammed forcibly back into the body she had almost left behind. Ren looked at her, his eyes a strange combination of melting amber gold and red. There was that strange pinprick of red that she'd seen so many times before.
It was almost easy to convince herself that she was dreaming.
She saw him, all angles and captured memories, his fingertips covered in her blood. He watched him lick it from his fingertips, like nectar that had fallen from an overripe piece of fruit. He might have gotten on hands and knees and licked it up like an animal, but she saw him restrain himself from taking too much. He was brighter, and sharper, and his eyes carried that same gold glow, which slipped around his now-black pupil like a slithering serpent. He looked at her with a stark hunger that was laid bare in that moment, but there was something else, too.
Rey blacked out.
She dreamed. She dreamed of a dark prince with sharp amber eyes and a fanged grin. She dreamed of his blood, pulsing fervently through her veins, like a shared secret. She dreamed of his whispering her name, though it had lost some of it's sinister edge. Now it truly felt like a lover brushing her name against the curve of her ear. Each time she felt it, the brush of his lips and the purr of his breath, it sent a shiver down her spine.
She found that she wanted to let go of her, but every time she turned away from him, she found herself facing him. There was nowhere she could go where he couldn't also follow. He had a smirk and red stained lips and she fought the draw she felt to him with every fiber of her being. He threatened to consume her whole.
She worried she might let him.
Rey woke up expecting to be in pain. She woke up in someone else's bed, with someone else's sheets pulled up around her. She had felt adrift after Rose had left, but she felt even less with a home now. She realized that this was Kylo Ren's bed. She saw the pictures on the walls, and the walk in closet gave her a peek of all of the designer suits he had. She imagined him walking in there each night and putting on a suit, like the habit might make him feel more human. Rey knew then that he was not human.
She had expected it to be a dream, and she might have believed it, but when she pulled back the sheets she realized that even with his blood, there was the puncture wound scars from Hilda sinking her claws into her lungs. They were pink, and healthy, and Rey was sure they would disappear without a trace. She looked up, finding herself looking at Ren, who stared at her with concern, his face a mask of unreadable characters. She scooted back against his bed, her head hitting the headboard. He leaned forward, but she flinched, making it obvious that she would not approve his coming closer. He didn't.
"I should be dead," She breathed out, grasping the blanket around her like she might have when she had been a child.
"And yet, you're not," He said, though there was none of the firmness there.
His voice caused her to shiver in a way that overcame her. She didn't want to hear him again. She wanted to hear him again terribly. Her two sides seemed to be warring, and it was almost as if her blood called for his.
"What are you?" She asked, scrambling from the bed. She had been dressed in one of his shirts, which hung at her thighs.
"No guesses?" He asked, unsure of what to say. She could see that he did not want her to know, but it was too late to take back what had happened.
"Stop playing with me, Ren," She said. "I'm not a doll,"
He looked disappointed. Maybe he had been expecting her anger. Maybe he had been hoping she would understand.
"Vampire," He said simply. The one word encompassed all, and Rey thought of her high school obsession with them that started with a late night viewing of Dracula with Rose. She thought of all the literature she'd consumed, thinking how nice it would be to have such a dark Prince. There he sat, and she couldn't stand the thought of him.
Terror pulsed through her, and she wondered how she lived. She wondered if she was what he was now. She reached up, feeling the beat of her heart and the pulse in her neck, and was somewhat satisfied that it didn't work that way. She took a few steps back, keeping her eyes on him. She knew that if he decided to come after her, she would stand no chance. It came back in bits and pieces, but avenging angel didn't quite encompass what she had seen him do.
There were no earthly explanations for it.
She stepped back, heading towards the door. She felt fear, she felt want. The want was desperate, and she felt it clenching her chest as if someone had sunk their hand into her chest to wrap their fingers around her heart. He seemed to glow, as if all the arrows in the universe were pointing towards him. She wanted him so badly she had to escape. She had to get out of there. It was the only thing on her mind. Resigning or not, she had to leave him behind.
She was ignoring the fact that she knew in her bones that they were now inextricably linked. His blood, her blood, their blood.
"Rey," He murmured, his voice plucking at the strings in her heart in such a way that she found it hard to avoid. It was if she had no control over it. What had he done to her?
"What have you done to me?" She asked, feeling everything at once and wanting nothing at all.
"I had to save you," He said, his voice dropping quietly. He felt regret. She knew it, without doubt.
"Am I...what you are?"
"No," He responded, evenly. And she believed him.
She turned the knob on the door and found that it gave way. He stepped forward, cautiously. She wasn't sure if it was him that she was fearful of, or what she might do if he got to close to her. He took another step, and she held up her hand, trying to stop him in his tracks.
"I have to go," She breathed out, feeling as if she was being deprived of air.
"You're not being kept as a prisoner," He said.
"You're a monster," She said, all of the images of what he had done coming back into her head. She wanted to cry. She wanted to reach out for him. She realized she did not know what she wanted.
"Yes," He said, his voice dropping into a tone that could only be described as miserable. "I have been for quite a number of years," His voice broke.
"Did you plan this?" She asked, the anger and fear creeping into her voice. It was panic. Panic because he was drawing ever closer, and panic because she found she wanted him to.
"No," He said, his features falling. More of that disappointment. She could feel it radiating off of him as if it were her own emotion. He took another step forward.
"Stop," She said, taking a step back, feeling her back connect with the door. She released a small huff of air, unaware of it having been so close.
He did as he was asked, holding his hands up in a motion of surrender.
She couldn't stand it any longer, she had to get a fix, and she realized that fix was him. She came forward quickly, grasping his collar bone and then his neck, sliding her fingers up into his hair as she pulled him down. He kissed her, though she felt him holding back. He kissed her lips with a maddening lightness, and she felt him slipping away as if she were a child trying to catch an escaped balloon.
"I can't," He whispered against her lips, releasing her from his grasp.
She felt the sting of it quite openly. She was glad, and hurt at the same time. Always at war with herself, always at war with him, now that he beat so close to her heart. He was her blood, after all.
"I have to go," She gasped out, and this time she meant it.
oooh here's some angst. and some horror. keep ya pants off this time (winkwonkwink)
