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Preparations
"Dude, get the fuck off me, you don't know what you're doing!" I protested, trying to stumble away from Allan. Unfortunately, his hands still clutched my hair so I was forced to stay where I was.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" I cried, yanking his hands from my hair and then glaring at him. "When I say get the fuck off, I mean it!" I growled, baring my teeth at him like a feral animal. He rolled his eyes, unaffected and reached for me again. "Just let me fix your hair," he demanded.
"No, you already ruined it! And anyway, what if this doesn't even work? What if I get the wrong person?" I whispered the last sentence almost inaudibly, afraid my voice would tremble and quake too much if it were any louder. "You'll be fine. Trust me," he reassured me, motioning me back over to him. I grimaced and reluctantly obeyed, muttering, "Oh, yeah, I don't have anything to worry about if I trust you."
"Would you cut it out with the sarcasm for once?" Allan asked, pulling my hair back. "I live by sarcasm," I retorted and giggled when he pulled all of my hair straight up in the air. "How about we just keep it like that, eh?" he asked. "Oh, sure, it looks beautiful," I drawled, still laughing as I pictured myself walking around the Boardwalk with my long hair gelled into a mohawk.
"Please don't tell me you're really letting Allan do your hair," Edgar's voice asked from the doorway, and I turned around to grin at him. "I really am. Actually, he's not giving me a choice. It's either 'come here and let me mess up your hair' or 'I'll pull it out if you don't'," I said, pointing a nasty glare in Allan's direction.
"Would you stop flirting with my brother? The sun's gonna go down in about twenty minutes." I sighed heavily. "It's not like we have to be out there right at sunset," I growled at him as he, once again, started pulling my hair back. "Yes, we do, because we don't want to miss anything," he informed me smartly. "Still doesn't make any sense," I muttered, but it was too low for him to hear.
I went over the plan again in my head. We'd thought it up yesterday, the day after I'd woken up from the Change, but I still didn't like it. At all. After discussing the problem of feeding me for a while, Edgar had finally suggested that I hunt bad people: murderers, rapists, etc. Of course, I was a.) uncomfortable with the rapist thing, I mean, who would want to come in contact with a rapist? (The brothers had agreed that I wouldn't have to eat them after I'd voiced my opinion.) and b.) VERY uncomfortable with the overall eating a person thing. I might be a vampire, but I sure as hell did not like the thought of taking down some weak human to drink their blood. Blech. I'd never been able to stand blood in my human life and some of that must have been transferred to my vampire life, because I found that it still disgusted me.
Which sucked (haha, another bad pun).
Anyway, I was supposed to go down the Boardwalk, pretending I was lost in the back alleys, until I found a bad guy. Seemed simple enough, but it was probably easier said than done.
I went through this all in my head while Allan pulled my hair into a messy bun. "There, I'm done. You happy now?" he demanded, letting me free. I blinked and looked in the mirror. "Uh, yeah, I guess. But next time, I'm doing my own hair. Why did you want to do it, anyway?" Allan glared at me. "Cuz you wouldn't wake up until I pushed you out of bed, and then you were too lazy and stubborn to do it yourself," he retorted.
I scoffed. "Yeah, right," I replied, although it was true. I wasn't a morning person when I was human, so it wasn't a surprise that I didn't want to wake up when I was a vampire, either. "Just get your dress on," he growled and I waved both him and Edgar out of the bathroom while I changed into the silky red dress I'd snuck in and stolen from my mom's closet last night.
I was pleased to see that it fit, and fit well. It clung to my curves in a gentle way, not like some of the sluts I saw walking down the street. Subtle, but it was noticeable. I sprayed on some perfume with the title SEXY written in big red letters on the bottle, and then slipped on the red and white stone bracelet that I'd kept from my vacations to Colorado. My heart gave a pang of grief; those had been the times when my family had actually been a family and had loved each other. But I shook it from my head; there were much more serious matters to attend to.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Edgar and Allan both stared at me. Allan in shock (which I was slightly annoyed at) and Edgar with awe (which I was very flattered at). "You look so beautiful," he murmured, looking as if he wanted to hold me close. My heart ached to hold him to, to kiss him, but I knew I couldn't do that. Stupid bloodlust, I growled angrily in my head.
"Alright, now that you're all prettied up," Allan said after a pause, snapping back to his normal bossy self, "wear these. Don't be afraid to use them; I bought you some gloves so you can touch them."
With those slightly ominous words, Allan handed me a pair of beautiful, long red gloves that matched my dress. As I slipped them on, he pulled out a small vial of Holy water hanging from a chain. I hesitated before grabbing it, making sure none of it leaked out through the cork that he'd screwed into the top. When I had slipped that on, making sure it lay hidden under my dress but shivering at the thought that only glass kept it from my skin, Allan held out a simple silver cross on another chain.
Instinct took over. I hissed like a feral cat, backing away in a half-crouch- the hunter's crouch. My nails grew out longer and I felt my teeth morph into fangs. "Get that away from me," I snarled at Allan and he blinked, alarmed. There was a stunned silence for a long time, apart from my growling, and eventually even that faded. When it did, I realized what I'd done and that my reaction was uncalled for.
I blinked in guilt for three reasons. The first one was that I was a Christian (kinda ironic, huh?) and it felt extremely wrong to feel that I couldn't even touch a cross. The second reason was that I had growled at Edgar and Allan, my boyfriend and my best friend, as if they were enemies. And third was that, even though both of them hated vampires and would have with anyone else, neither of them made a move to grab their vampire hunting weapons. They just stood there, warily perhaps, but certainly not as if I was an enemy.
"Sorry…" I murmured, not meeting their gazes. "It's ok…" Allan replied cautiously. "It's just instinct, love. Nothing to be ashamed of," Edgar reassured me and I smiled gratefully at him. "Thanks," I said and then took a cautious step back toward them.
"What if it touches my skin?" I asked fearfully as I gingerly took the cross from Allan's palm. "Don't worry, the chain's long enough so that it shouldn't." I noticed that he didn't really answer my question but I didn't pursue it, afraid of what the answer might be. I wasn't really sure if crosses just hurt vampires or actually could kill them, but I didn't want to find out.
After I'd slipped on the cross, I glanced at the light outside. The sky was still tinged with orange, but some internal clock told me that the sun had already set. I could smell the night on the air, and it smelled delicious. Suddenly all I wanted to do was run and jump and dance under the light of the moon. But the joyous feeling left me when I remembered another delicious scent…blood.
"Alright, I guess I'll leave now," I said reluctantly. What if I caught the wrong person? What if the blood actually tasted disgusting? What if I fainted at the sight of it? Before I could chicken out, I gave the brothers a quick salute and then raced out of the store.
I followed the path I'd taken to get to the dilapidated buildings, the fateful place where all of this trouble had began. Once I was there, I immediately picked up the scent of several males, and I could even tell by the scent what they looked like- sort of. They were all Mexican, traveling in a group, a gang probably. I could smell the metal and gold- they were wearing rings and necklaces, no doubt. I could smell a faint, sweet scent that I recognized as cotton from the shirt I'd been wearing yesterday. And the scents were fresh. But as far as I could tell, they weren't evil.
I moved on, but my bloodlust stayed with me, growing stronger and stronger with every step. Eventually I came across the spot of a fairly recent murder- the spilled blood, washed away now by clean-up crews, made my mouth water but I tried to ignore it. But the scent trail leading away from the scene told me that the killer had run and then gotten caught and arrested most likely. There were scuff marks a few yards away, indicating a struggle, but either between the killer and the victim, or the killer and the cop, I couldn't tell. I moved on.
I came across millions of scent trails, but not one single bad person seemed to be in the alleys tonight. I found myself sickly wishing that there would be someone that wanted to attack some young clueless girl (me) because the bloodlust was becoming more and more unbearable.
Just as I was giving up all hope of ever finding anything, I stopped dead in my tracks. My sensitive ears twitched in the direction of a sound- the sound of muffled screams, the sound of feet scuffing dusty floorboards. I raced off in the direction of the sounds without another thought.
The hunt had begun.
R+R please! No flames.
