A/N: Wow... Um, I guess I've kind of neglected this story... I'm so sorry, forgive me pls.
Elle: Nope.
Darren: I say we give her another chance.
Elle: No, my creator left me for several months. [cries]
Steve: Just get on with it, gawwwwd. [ulta-ooc pose]
Right... Yeah, so here it is. Chapter 11! Sorry for the long wait. Please read and review it helps me muchly.
I couldn't do it. I shouldn't have done it, but I did. I kissed him back. I didn't know whether it was genuine or whether I was just too angry at Steve that I had to it. Darren was a vampire, I was a vampaneze. In fact, some of my clan believed I was the Vampaneze Lady. But I couldn't be. And even if I was, who said I would stand up to match the prophecy. Sure, I'd felt a spark on the first few days of meeting Steve, but it wasn't a passionate spark, now that I think about it. Then that left the lingering question: what did it mean? It could have been the spark that was soon to start a burning fire.
Darren's hand reached up to stroke my cheek gently as he pulled away from my lips. My eyes had been closed, so I opened them to look up at him. He smiled at me, and slowly let his hand fall onto his lap. The silence was starting to make him uncomfortable, and he showed that when he gave a small cough.
"I cleaned up the blood and your wrists stopped bleeding, but it could do with some bandages." He told me as he stood up from the bed, then motioned me to lay down. I done as he said, assuming that it would be a good idea. "I'll go get the first aid kit. Stay here."
"I won't move," I told him, and pushed a smile onto my lips to show him that everything would be okay. With that, he lifted up the flap to the tent and walked out. Would everything be okay? I wanted him to believe that, and I wanted to believe that. But whether we believed it or not, it was clear to see that it wouldn't be okay. Steve would he angry. He would try to find me. And when he did, he'd probably take down the majority of the Cirque if I were still here. I had to return back to the vampaneze. I had no choice in the matter. Risk my own safety or the safety of many. I wasn't that selfish.
I raised my hands slowly to my face to cover it for a moment. Pain did arise in my wrists, but I ignored it that time. I rubbed my face and as I pulled my hand away, I expected some black marks to be there from the cat whiskers which I hadn't had time to wash off; but there was nothing. How had my face suddenly became clean? It hadn't even been a few minutes when Darren returned with the first aid kit. I looked up at him as I sat up, frowning. "Did you find me without the pen on my face?" I asked him. If he said yes, I would have began to wonder if I had started losing some of my memory. But his reply told me not.
"No, I washed it off while you were asleep," he told me in a soft tone as he opened the first aid kid, "The powers of a baby wipe are amazing." He added with a sort of nervous laugh. This caused me smile. It was a sweet thing for him to do, so I thanked him for it.
We sat in silence as he wrapped the bandage around my wrists, handling each one with delicate care.
"He'll come and find me if I stay here, you know." I told him quietly after the silence was proving too much for me to handle.
"And I'll be ready for him when he does." Darren didn't look up from working the bandages.
"But you don't understand, he'll -"
"I know him, Elle, more than you do."
He was right. He did know Steve better than I did; he had been his best friend for years, what was I to compare to that? But I had been one of those people to train him. His skills had come on brilliantly.
"His a skilled fighter…" I told him quietly as he looked up at me. He looked directly into my eyes, my purple eyes. The ones that signified me as a monster.
"Then I'll take you somewhere else, anywhere, but not back there." He insisted, closing the first aid kit once he had finished with it. I stared at him, wanting to persuade him that I would be fine to go back, even though I knew I wouldn't. "Elle… please."
There was a kindness in Darren that I didn't quite understand. Some could see him as a push over, doing what others wanted him to do or doing whatever would make someone else happy. But I could see that he wasn't just doing this for me, he was doing it for himself. It was the tone of his voice when he spoke to me that told me that. It was probably for revenge on Steve. For his best friend becoming his enemy.
I sighed and looked around the tent, my tongue running over my lips in thought. "Where would you take me?" I asked him, turning my gaze back to face him.
"I know a place, abandoned. No one goes in there. You'll be safe there." He offered me a small smile and placed his hand on my shoulder. "I'll deal with Steve, get him off your trail."
He didn't have to do all of that for me, but he was, so I wrapped my arms around him and held him close.
"Thank you, so much." My voice was a whisper and my eyes fell closed. "I can't thank you enough for this."
Darren and I had left almost straight away. He hadn't given any word to his mentor, but he had told Evra. The vampire would probably yell at him when he were to return and I had told Darren that he didn't need to take me, he could just give me the address and I would get there myself. But he insisted on taking me. As we could flit, it didn't take us long to get there, but Darren had to stop a few times. He wasn't as strong as I was and I had a sneaking suspicion why. He was almost too human of his own good; he wasn't drinking blood.
We arrived at an old theatre. It was dusty and almost completely empty, there was only the stage and some ripped curtains. A few rows of chairs but not many. There were more on the upper ring. It was huge, and quite ghastly in my opinion.
"Believe it or not, this is where Steve and I first found Crepsley." He told me, walking down the isle at a slow pace to take in everything. "My hometown."
"Your hometown?" I raised my brows at him, "Isn't it a bit dangerous bringing me here?"
"How could it? I'm going back to the Cirque. No one will see me. To them I'm dead." His gaze dropped down to the ground for just a moment, but he tried to hide it by looking up at me with a smile. "Of course, I'll come and visit you to make sure you're safe. But I'll make sure to bring Crepsley with me so we'll come at night." He nodded, then walked over to the stage and jumped up onto it. I followed him up onto the stage and behind the curtains.
"Here would probably be a good place to sleep, away from view in case anyone comes in."
"I thought you said no one would come in!" I exclaimed.
"Just in case, you know." He laughed a little then began to look around for anything that I could use as a bed, but I would be fine on the floor so I told him that.
"Yeah, but you may as well make yourself comfortable."
I sighed quietly and stepped in front of him, placing my hands on his shoulders. "Darren, I'll be fine. You don't need to worry. I'm used to sleeping on the floor, I do it a lot." I told him with a small smile. "I'll be fine."
It took a lot of convincing to get Darren to go back to the camp, but eventually he left me on my own. I didn't mind, I had been on my own in strange places plenty of times before. But in the abandoned theatre, I felt empty. As if everything I had once lived for had been taken away from me. I had no idea what time it was outside, as there was no light coming through into the theatre - thankfully my vision was brilliant - but I decided to try and get some sleep anyway. Seeing as I couldn't find any sort of material to use as a blanket or pillow, I laid down on the cold, wooden floor and propped my head up slightly with my hand. For an hour or so, I only tossed and turned, unable to sleep, but somehow I managed to drift into sleep.
I didn't know how long I had been asleep and how much time had passed, but I was awoken suddenly by one of the doors bursting open and a familiar voice yelling through.
"Place her somewhere down here, boys. Make sure no one comes in. There's going to be a little get together and we wouldn't want anyone crashing it. Murlough, when the sun sets tonight, we're going somewhere. Tiny will be meeting us there."
Steve.