A/N: Okay, here it is chapter 7. I have literally taken forever to write this, I apologize a hundred fold. And in advance. This story is un-beta'd, though hopefully that will change soon. Only warnings I can give is that the story loses some of its pg-ness, mentions of vampires duh and a lot of angst. Like a lot lot. I mean so much angst that the soundtrack for this chapter is from 30 seconds to mars. Hope you like. ;)
As days go by, the night's on fire.
"Do you really want me,
dead or alive to torture for my sins?
Do you really want me dead or alive
to live a lie?"
- Hurricane by 30 seconds to Mars.
"The rules are simple," His smooth as molasses voice went from charmingly deceptive to sternly authoritarian in seconds. "Don't leave the house, don't answer the door and don't think I can't see you." Jerry turned my attention to the security cameras discreetly positioned on the corner walls of the cell.
I blinked at their expensive appearance before dragging my gaze across the mostly bare room; aside from the bars on the windows and the security cameras watching my every step, this wasn't as bad as I thought.
The torture devices were no where in sight, and with the raised window I had access to at least some daylight. Apparently his trust in me extended that far, but despite the bathroom and working shower I hadn't yet earned the comfort of a bed. Only a mattress that had seen better days lay on the floor.
I wasn't at all surprised by his measures to subdue me, or the fact that he thought that I could be subdued. Without meeting his magnetic eyes I commented on his lack of creativity. "You know, Bela Lugosi's probably turning in his grave right now."
The tiny room, more like a cell, didn't leave me with enough space to avoid contact with him but I tried like hell just the same.
He turned to me, his eyes almost black from suspending his evening feeding, and gave me the kind of appraising look a lion gives an unfortunate lamb right before he pounces.
"You haven't seen the piece de resistance." He grinned, revealing perfectly white human canines before seemingly vanishing through the slim doorway and returning a couple of heartbeats later with a pair of handcuffs far more sinister than the ropes currently binding my wrists.
They were shiny and about a thousand times more industrial-strength than the ropes were. Before I could explain to him how I wasn't Houdini, he switched the shackles.
"It's a bit excessive I know, but I can't afford to have you enjoying your last few days here or forming any bright ideas in your head to get out of this world kamikaze-style you know? I have a reputation."
I huffed, raising my bound wrists to expose the flaw in his great plan. "What good can I be as an eternal slave if I can't do anything?" then realization dawned across my face, "What do you mean "last few days?" The memories of my excursion the previous night resurfaced, unbidden and harrowing. I narrowed my gaze. "What's going to happen to me?"
Jerry's laugh shook the ground. "I'm going to make you understand the meaning of the word "eternal." Within seconds I felt his cool breath ghost across my neck and his stone fingers plant themselves at my hips. He was standing behind me now, his voice a soft, low grumble in my ear. "And what it means to be a perfect slave."
The fear I was managing to conceal all day suddenly crept up on me. But so did something else. Something that made me feel high and a little dizzy and my stomach stir with anticipation. But I swallowed it down, trying to focus my dwindling attention on anything else except the cool chill of his fingers as they inched their way up my shirt.
It was suddenly getting harder to breathe. The natural urge to jerk out of his grasp tugged at the corners of my forgotten conscious before it was tampered down by common sense. I knew that one wrong move could have Jerry morphing his human fingers into vampire claws in seconds, and I wasn't very partial to the idea of having them in close proximity to my skin. No way.
So I decided to pin him with another question that had been gnawing at my brain, but as soon as it escaped me I realized how little I wanted to know the answer. "In what way would I qualify for your leech army?" What on earth did he think he was going to gain by having me at his immortal side besides sustenance? I was sure it must have been obvious that I still wanted to kill him.
Something foreign and evil flitted across the dark orbs of his coal-black eyes. "Many ways than one. You're volatile and hot-tempered kid, couple that with incredible speed and strength and you'll be unstoppable." His tone held a smirk, "You'll also be fair warning to those who try to fight us off."
My brow furrowed in confusion. It didn't make sense. "But if I'm undead how will you feed from me?"
It was clear in his expression that I had hit the right note. "I'll admit I will miss the taste of your blood, but I can rest knowing there isn't a chance that you will die next week. Besides as your Maker and your master, your job will be to hunt for me when I require food."
The anger boiled up inside me. Damn him and his power. "And what if I walk into the sun, huh? Or spend every second of my undead existence trying to kill you? Then what?"
I felt a slight relief form the pressure as Jerry released me only to have it return when he materialized in front of me, gripping two firm hands on my shoulders so I was forced to meet his gaze. His icy stare sent chills down my spine. But I held his gaze, knowing somehow that he was trying to cling to his already crumpling composure.
"I realize you aren't going to be an easy one. That it will take more than chains to hold you back." He allowed a smile to cross his face and for a second he looked nostalgic. "You're a fighter, guy."
I shrugged noncommittally. "I'm not a murderer like you." I said, dropping my gaze from his burning irises. Being a vampire and all, his capabilities were endless. Just the fact that six months ago he turned the whole town on its knees proved that. But as my gaze swept over the sharp outline of his biceps knowing mine paled in comparison, a sick thought crossed my mind. I could be…
I could be strong and brave capable of having armies fall to my feet as I crushed the weak in my grasp. But why would I enjoy bullying the innocent when Jerry was so close? I could exact the perfect vengeance on him; make him regret ever changing me.
It was a very tempting idea.
Especially when I knew he was never going to stop until he wiped out the rest of Shadow Hills, everyone Ed, mom, Amy, Peter and I resurrected and even more. I was able to stop him last time but it wasn't easy, not even close. I barely made it out alive or kept the casualty list down.
I had walked in there last time ready to die, if it meant that everyone else was free, but in the end the tables had been turned, on me.
He had me now, to kill, to turn, to wager my soul, to do whatever the hell he pleased and even if he promised to spare everyone else's life, even if he cared, it wouldn't matter. What could I do?
I was as good their salvation as I was my own.
"You're different Charley," he said emphatically, his voice dangerously inviting, like I could just fall in. It was unexpectedly soothing to hear him say my name. "You were made to be so much more than this."
It's a trick. Don't let him get to you. Get a grip. I tried to steel myself from the power he was having over me. I couldn't remember it ever being this hard, not even in my nightmares. If I could just shut him out…
"I remember the first couple of weeks since I moved in. You were the annoying brat who didn't know his place, the prying dork who kept slipping out of my reach." I was sure that if I looked up, I would see the vicious smirk that marked his Adonis face.
"I only wanted to kill you in spite. But then you tried to rescue Doris." My heart ached to hear her name; she was the only one we couldn't save.
"I got my first glimpse of the scent of your blood, uncensored, with nothing else around to distract my senses. I could smell you on everything you touched, inescapable. I thought back to our talk the night before, how much I hated you then, unable to see past all the shit and realize just what I've been missing.
"You became my main objective, all the other blood shed was just to tie me over. But the more you evaded me, the angrier I became. You have no idea how much I wanted to break you, to unleash all the horrors of this world onto your pathetic life and light the way for the dark side. With everyone you loved dead, I knew you'd be desperate. Blaming yourself and considering your human life a waste." He tapered off into pensive silence.
I was suddenly feeling very woozy. It seemed like every array of emotion licked and flared in my veins at this new well of information. Anger, fear, loneliness, hate all seemed to become one inside me. Why was he telling me this? Did he think it would change anything?
"Does it even matter anymore?" I spat. "You win."
In a flash, Jerry had me pinned against the wall, using nothing but the steel force of his arms to hold me up. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?" He snarled, forcing our eyes to meet. "I barely even touched you."
My heart thundered in my chest, serving only to bring Jerry closer. I could sense the waves of brutal power emanating from him, knew that he was so much stronger than me and like a bolt from the blue I felt alive.
"I could make your life so much worse." He mused, tracing the bite mark still fresh on my neck from his last feeding with one of his cold human fingers.
"I can break you the way you were meant to be broken, force you to choose this and enjoy every second watching you struggle with your stubborn pride."
Just what did he want from me? Hadn't I given him enough?
Despite the growing panic that threatened to keep my mouth sealed and the terror rising in my chest, I couldn't help but give a rebuttal.
"Please, spare me your pity." I said, challenging myself to meet his eyes. Their piercing black depths held nothing but conviction, as my words struck home. "You went after my family, the people I cared about, and you put my life in danger. Kill me if you must, but know that someone will stop you even if I can't be around to see it happen."
Jerry drew back a little, giving me the opportunity to breathe again. His dark eyes were skimming me with appraisal, and then he laughed. For a moment he looked so human, before his face twisted back into the predator still pinning me to the wall.
"Oh, don't worry. I fully intend to," His acerbic words hid none of his hatred for me. But there was the hint of something like muted awe. As if my words impressed him somehow.
"Slowly and deliberately." His smile curved into a wicked snarl, revealing his razor-sharp fangs.
The panic inside me shifted into high gear as I remembered his words in the basement: I will take my time with you.
There was a barrage of things he could still do to me that were within the range of cruel and unusual punishment—I was positive, a number of which included the ideas manifested by his sanity-starved imagination.
It didn't help in the least when I noted that he seemed very content to stay where he was, like the awkward position of our bodies being pressed together didn't offend him at all.
Sandwiching me between him and the wall, his virile stature pressed against me obscenely, a familiar but oh-so-totally uncalled for feeling stirred in my gut. Despite his ice cold skin being so close, I felt impossibly warm.
Self-awareness filled me as I realized that this reciprocated hold that Jerry had on me could further lead to my undoing. It wasn't a bad revelation; in fact it was almost like an adrenaline rush.
Gradually, I was relaxing in his hold, too comfortable to apprehend his stone fingers threading through my hair and inching our faces closer till the metallic smell of his cool breath filled my senses. There was another scent— unmasked by anything and incredibly provocative on its own; that didn't extinguish the fire broiling inside me, a scent I only noticed on Jerry that was a major addition to his hypnotizing gift.
Suddenly, it was as if I was finally growing into my skin. Merging out of the awkward, pimply fourteen year old into the handsome, tall young adult I was meant to be. I could feel the confidence surging forth and nonsensically, my fingers yearned to touch Jerry as if he was the cause.
The craving was near to violent.
He somehow knew what I wanted without me even having to utter a sound. His cool hand ran its way up my pelvis, soothing the scorching skin of my stomach.
I basked in the transient relief from the burn, grateful to him for it, when instinctively, and in complete disregard of my own personal safety, I stretched my neck out for him, eager for his touch to cover more than just one part of me.
When those metal-cool fingers obliged to my wish, there was no denying how good it felt. A groan escaped my open lips, but I was too far gone to feel any shame.
Jerry chuckled, the façade of his mortality silently slipping away and revealing the unhinged, impulsive side of the vamp he was. He angled my neck to his brutal fangs. The fear that usually arose in me was no where to find and instead the only thought swimming in my head was bite me please, to quench the ugly sting of arousal simmering in my blood.
But Jerry had other plans. He placed a firm hickey to my neck. Sucking hard enough to bruise, but never sinking his teeth in.
It was maddening but just when I thought the frenzy developing inside me would finally erupt, he relinquished his grasp. I all but fell to the floor with the lack of equilibrium.
Though my head was still misty with the fog clouding my brain, my eyes found his. They were slate black, the hunger in them evident, but resolved.
For a moment, he looked like he was seriously going to finish me, before his expression schooled itself back into the douche bag confidence he always wore.
My chest still heaved like it didn't have air and my pulse kept racing.
I wasn't really paying attention to him; repulsion at my own betrayal was sinking in, but he saw how blown my pupils were, how much I wanted it that it literally burned me to be denied, and he smirked.
Maybe I wasn't broken per se, but I certainly wasn't Charley anymore. Or so I wanted to believe, because the sick, screwed up truth was as I sat there on the cold floor, wrists bound by detestable handcuffs, watching him leave and aching to be touched like that again, I never felt more like myself.
A/N: Well, thank you guys again for the inspiration. I'm really proud of this story, especially since my family kept hijacking my computer to read what it is that i've been writing nonstop. We will meet up with Peter, Amy and Ed again as well as a few OC vampires of mine but by then will it already be too late? What is becoming of Charley? Will he ever be a vampire or will he die before then? We'll just have to find out. Remember, read, review or do the two! And be safe and happy.
Heads up: no, Charley isn't a vampire yet, he's just experiencing normal human desire.
But yeah, I hope yall enjoy your summer!
