The scent of coffee was so strong it was almost nauseating, a machine behind the counter louder than Chloe could even fathom. It made her grit her teeth, digging her nails into the side of the table as the girl across from her set down both of their drinks. The steam rose into the air, clouding her vision of Beca.
"The sound bothering you?" She asked, raising her eyebrow slightly. She carried a look of disdain towards the black coffee. It was too hot and sour to drink. Chloe didn't touch hers either, instead, she folded her hands in front of her.
"Is it that obvious?" The red-head parted her lips slightly.
"Well, to everyone else you look nauseous." Beca cracked a small smile "But to me, you look overwhelmed."
She nodded, swallowing roughly as her mind raced. In an unspoken sort of way, she knew there was no turning back now. Before the hospital- before she emptied that plastic bag of blood like it was a juice pouch on a hot summer day, she had a choice. A choice to give in to the death that loomed just behind the edge of her conscience.
"Alright, hey" The smaller girl reached her hand out and grasped Chloe's. It was a simple gesture, her touch soft and everlasting as she ran her thumb along the edge of the girls just like she had done in the dorm room. "What do you hear?"
"A lot," Chloe knit her eyebrows together as she let out a shaky sigh. "It's so… loud."
"What specifically?" Beca pressed forward. "Really focus."
"Okay," She drew in a breath, clenching her jaw as she slowly closed her eyes. What did she hear? The bubbling of hot water folding under the mercy of raising degrees. The small argument that the couple across the dining room had about being monogamous. Even the girls who shared the same shade of lipstick in the tiny bathroom that rested behind a large mahogany door. "Wow."
"If you ever hear too much… ever get too bombarded with everything that's happening around you, tune into your heartbeat. Your pulse."
"I still have one?" Chloe cautiously opened her eyes, mouth dry like cotton.
"Of course you do," The girl smiled softly "It beats slower than average- but you'll always have one, Chlo, that'll never leave you."
She nodded, finally wrapping her hands around the porcelain mug. It was warm against her palms. She needed that warmth, needed that comfort that she didn't know she was taking for granted until now.
"What else?" She adjusted her stance "I… I've read all the stories and seen all the movies, but I don't know. This doesn't feel like anything I've ever felt before. It's so clear and confusing all at once."
Beca nodded slowly. She didn't really know where to begin. It took a few seconds for her to gather her thoughts before she finally spoke. "You're faster now, your reflexes better and stamina stronger. But it doesn't' come without a price. The sun has a tendency to hurt,"
"You were in the sun yesterday,"
"I was." She nodded, finally pulling the cup filled with inky liquid to her lips. She didn't' sip it yet, instead, she let the steam cloud her vision. "I've been alive long enough to build up a bit of a tolerance. It's not impossible."
"How long, exactly?" Chloe asked.
"I'm sorry?"
"How long have you been… you?"
"Well, I've always been me," Beca abandoned the prospect of stomaching coffee after a long day. She set it back down and leaned forward to answer the question. "But I've been a different version of me since 1892."
"So what you said about your sister then, that was true?"
"It was." Despite not swallowing the liquid, her mouth was sour. Talking about her history made her nervous. It was natural for her to deflect everything with a snide attitude and dark personality. But with Chloe it was different, she almost willed herself to open up. "She unfortunately never got the chance to see the brighter side of ten years old."
"I'm sorry," Chloe whispered, not knowing how to comfort a 125-year-old vampire. "How did it happen… how did you become what you are?"
"Witch craft would be the simple answer." She let out a thick sigh "At that point, my mom, she had died. The whole town was reeling, there wasn't much for anyone to do but sit and wonder while the funeral parlor got more traffic than ever."
Chloe sat back in her seat. Instead of focusing on the sound of her pulse, she tracked her attention to the soothing sound of Beca's voice. A stranger that she wanted to know everything about even if it took all night. She had the time now- after her little meal, there was no chance she could bring herself to rest if she even needed to.
"When I started to feel ill, I prayed. Day and night, I would pray that I would be able to stick around to help my father raise Mercy. My brother, Jesse, had left by then. Gone to school where consumption couldn't touch him. We barely had money, but did have enough food to last through the winter."
"You knew you would die?" Chloe whispered, feeling the fear that had lasted the past 24 hours take a home back in her stomach in an obscene wave.
Beca nodded. "I was sick, and no one could help me. Not even God, it seemed… but I did meet someone, one night. I had ventured away from the house against the doctors best wishes. I wasn't old enough to drink, but I was determined to have one before everything ended. She helped me."
"She turned you?"
"Not right away." Beca let out a small breath "I fell in love, hard and fast. I didn't have much time to determine the consequences of being infatuated with a woman in that time and age, so all bets were off. I thought I was just fun, for her. An experiment."
Chloe swallowed a gulp of her coffee. It was filled to the brink with creamer- a lighter shade of white that steam quelled close to the edge. She didn't' care about the heat anymore.
"I was dying, and both of us knew that, but she never brought up what she was, what she is." Beca parted her lips slightly. "I was on my death bed when she told me that there was an answer for it all. A way to keep me alive long enough for us to be together. To run away together."
"What happened?" The Red-head willed. She didn't want to push Beca too far, but in a way, she needed to know. She needed to hear it from her savior and killer.
"She was a witch." Beca clenched her jaw "One that practiced the darkest of arts. She had perfected the spirit of immortality in time for me to be restored after the town had gone on their annual vampire cleanse."
"So you did die?" Chloe asked.
"You did too," The brunette lifted her chin slightly "Not as long as I did, but death did have a hold on you, and it easily could have grabbed you again if we waited any longer tonight. It's a cold and dark experience that I wouldn't will upon anyone."
"What happened to her," Chloe swallowed roughly "The girl who helped you."
"She cursed me." Beca let out a small scoff as she shook her head "But at the risk of getting too technical, this part of Georgia had its fair share of witch hunts too. They burned her at the stake before she could teach me how to be what I am. Which is why I refuse to let you go through this blindly, Chloe."
There was a thick and unimaginable silence between the two as the noise around them quieted. The brunette knew she had to order a hot chocolate for the feisty blonde roommate that would have her head if Chloe wasn't returned soon. But she didn't' move, not as the deep crystal stare of this new vampire poured into hers.
"The other night, after I did the same thing to the woman who raised me, it felt wrong. I had spent centuries alone, and suddenly I was getting what I wanted. But when she threatened you- when she hurt you it was everything that I didn't."
Beca let out a steady breath "I couldn't let you be another victim that's forgotten. Because, Chloe, I've known you but a day and you're all I want to remember."
