Chapter 29 ~ Love vs Fear

Mara and David left for work very early the next morning, leaving Vella to spend the day by herself.

Vella left Mara's house around 10 a.m. to do some shoppng and see the sights around Chicago. After stopping by to check out the Sears tower, she did a bit of shopping and stopped at a tiny bar and had a drink. By this time it was only mid afternoon and Vella was bored. On a whim, she decided to stop by the hospital to visit Mara. After asking for directions to her floor, she went up the elevator to the fifth floor and found Mara writing on a clipboard.

"Vella!" Mara exclaimed happily. "I didn't know you were stopping by!"

"I just wanted to surprise you. I was out shopping but I'm bored already."
"Seriously?" Mara looked surprised. "You are bored of shopping?"
Vella began to laugh. "Yeah, well, it's more fun with a friend."

Mara shook her head and laughed.

"Stay here for a minute, I will be right back," Mara said and left down the hallway.

Vella stood around waiting uncomfortably for a couple minutes, the smell of blood was making her head swim. She hadn't worked in months and even though she had no problems when she stopped to help at the accident scene on the way to Chicago, the blood seemed to be affecting her now. As Mara approached, she acted like she had a headache and needed to get out of the bright lights.

"I took the rest of the day off, someone owed me a favor," Mara announced. "Are you going to feel like going out?"

Vella smiled. "Of course, I'm sure I will be fine."

As the ladies were heading to the elevator, a man who seemed very distraught was fighting with an orderly and a security guard. He broke loose of them and ran towards the elevator where Vella and Mara were standing. Vella grabbed the man easily, forgetting her strength, and stared into his eyes. She asked him to calm down, which he immediately did, accidentally compelling him. The security guard thanked Vella and walked the man back down the hall.

Mara looked at Vella completely shocked," How did you do that?"

Vella did her best to downplay the situation. "Oh, that was nothing. I've spent alot of time in the psych ward is all."

Mara gave her friend a suspicious look but didn't say anything else.

The two ladies left the hospital and walked down the street. Mara was hungry so she wanted to stop at a little restaurant around the corner. They stopped, but Vella refused to eat, saying she had already eaten. After eating they stopped by a shoe store and a few clothing stores, where both ladies bought a few things, just like old times.

Vella's head began hurting again as they stopped by a flower shop, Mara wanted to stop and grab some fresh flowers for the house. Her friend was picking up bouquets and checking them out, asking Vella what she thought about each one. As Mara picked up one rather unusual wildflower bouquet, Vella almost flinched at the sight of one of the flowers, Verbena, also known as vervain. Vella's head began to ache more painfully, so she excused herself and went outside to wait for her friend.
When Mara came outside with her bouquet of wildflowers, Vella cringed inside. She wasn't sure she would be able to stay in her house with those flowers. Vella began to think back to her childhood and she knew Mara knew about vervain, she used to wear it just like she did. She began to feel a bit paranoid, but she tried to push it out of her mind, there was no way her friend suspected what she was, how could she? She was here in the sun walking around, as far as Mara knew vampires couldn't go out in the sun, the thought helped Vella relax a little.

After a quick trip to the grocery store, they went back to Mara's house to cook a nice meal to surprise David. As Vella was chopping up some onions, her hand slipped and she cut her hand. Mara insisted on looking at it, but Vella couldn't let that happen, not while it was healing right in front of her face. She excused herself and went to the bathroom and put a bandage on it, even though it was fine, but her friend was a doctor through and through and she knew she would insist on seeing her cut if she didn't cover it up.

A short while later, David came home to a nice dinner and the three of them ate and talked.

"Aren't you hungry?" Mara asked Vella. "You barely touched your food."

"No, not really. I had a big lunch."

Mara gave her a strange look while Vella cleaned up the table, on her insistence of course. The three sat at the table talking for awhile afterwards, until David's pager went off.

"I have to go to the hospital honey," David said to Mara and gave her a kiss goodbye.

David left, giving the ladies another chance to spend time together talking about old times. Vella turned on the TV to a chick flick, while Mara made some popcorn and tea. She came back from the kitchen and handed Vella a bowl of popcorn and a cup of tea.

"You still prefer your tea with two spoons of sugar, right?" Mara asked.

"Yup," Vella replied with a smile.

The two ladies began watching the movie and talking. As Vella took a drink of her tea, she began to suddenly feel light headed and weak and then she realized why, her tea was spiked with vervain. She looked at Mara confused and then she passed out.

Vella opened her eyes slowly, trying to adjust to the light. Her eye lids felt heavy and her head was aching. Realization finally hit her and her eyes flew open to find Mara standing over her holding a long piece of wood with a sharp end.

"What the hell?" Vella uttered.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that...vampire?" Mara said shaking.

Vella looked at her friend sadly as a few silent tears fell from her face. "Please, let me explain," she begged.

Mara looked at her obviously terrified, shocked and saddened. "I...I...I..," she stammered.

"Please, Mara. If you ever loved me," Vella begged. "Just listen to my story and once I'm done I will leave, I promise."

The hand Mara was holding the piece of wood in was shaking violently. She wanted desperately to believe her friend wouldn't hurt her but she was terrified beyond belief.

"Keep holding the piece of wood, but let me explain, please?" Vella begged more desperately.

Mara nodded slightly in agreement.

Vella began to explain to her friend everything that had happened with Gabriel and Lillith and her sister Violet, not leaving out the part about Damon of course. Once she was done explaining she tried to convince her friend she meant no harm to her.

"Mara, please believe me when I say I don't want to hurt you. I have never killed anyone," she paused for a second to think about Mrs. Lockhart, but that was an accident and she wasn't really responsible. "You are my only family, I could never ever do anything to hurt you, I swear. Please say you believe me."

Mara looked at Vella thoughtfully. She thought her friend was being genuine but how could she tell. But in her head she was asking herself questions like, "If she wanted to hurt me wouldn't she have done that already?" and, "Why would she drive all the way here just to hurt me?" She wanted to believe her friend was the same old girl she grew up with, the one who snuck a smoke with her behind her parents' backs and the one who was there for her when her dog died and the one who was there for her anytime she ever needed a friend. She wanted to believe desperately, but fear was clouding her judgement, an overpowering fear.

Tears were running down Vella's face in waves. She didn't want Mara to be afraid of her, she just wanted to hug her and make her feel better like she always had, only this time it was her fault she was scared and upset. As she was about to speak agaiin, Mara dropped the piece of wood on the floor and began crying.

Vella struggled to stand up, still a bit weak from the vervain, and walked over to her friend and hugged her tightly. The two women cried together for a short time, before sitting on the couch and talking.

"I swear to you Mara, I would kill myself before I would ever hurt you, in any way."

Mara believed Vella. She knew deep down inside, that her friend was still the same as she always had been, only now she was a bit different.

Vella was relieved. She knew if her friend had tried to kill her tonight, she would have let her before she could ever hurt her.

"So how did you figure it out?" Vella asked her friend curiously.

Mara stared at her smirking. "Let's just say I remember all of the weird things I learned from your mother."

Vella laughed a little. She had to admit it was a strange childhood.

The women spoke for a little while before David made it back home. Mara wanted to talk to David about Vella, so Vella decided to go out, she was hungry any way.

Vella decided to go downtown and have a few drinks before she went to hunt. She drank a little more than she had planned and was a little tipsy when she left the bar. As she was walking past an alley just a block from the bar, she thought she had seen someone in the alley, a perfect place to hunt. She turned into the alley and then noticed three men standing behind her.

"Looks like you made a wrong turn," said the tallest man in an eerie voice as he pulled out a knife.

Vella looked at the men with an evil grin on her face.

"Ooh, this one looks feisty," said the short man with the dark greasy hair. "This should be fun."

Vella grinned even more evilly as she spoke. "If you want to live, I would suggest turning around and leaving."

The three men began to laugh maniacally, the other two pulling out knives as well.

The middle sized man with brown hair spoke to the others. "Can I have my turn with her first? I'm tired of being last."

That was it for Vella, she was livid. She had planned on compelling the men first and feeding but now she couldn't think straight, all she could see was red. She walked backwards deeper into the darkness of the alley so no one would could see what was about to happen. Predictably, the men walked closer and closer until they were only a few feet away.

Vella's anger had reached its apex. She was working completely on instinct now, she didn't even realize her face had changed and her fangs had grown. She ran vampire speed around the men, then backed them into the wall at the end of the alley. The tallest man tried to slash at her with his knife, but she deflected it and he only managed to cut himself. Now Vella could smell blood, which drove her into a frenzy. She backhanded one of the men and kicked another, both of them falling over because of the strength she used. The third man she grabbed by the hair, exposed his neck, bit him so savagely and drank his blood until he died. The other two men tried to scramble out of the alley but Vella stopped them. While holding one of the men, she ripped the throat out of the other man, dropping him to the ground when she was finished. She then took the last man, ripped his throat out and drank his blood until his heart stopped beating, throwing him down in disgust.

After Vella calmed down, she realized what she had done. She had killed not one, but three men. She stood there trying to justify the deaths to herself, that they had wanted to rape her and deserved what happened, but it still bothered her that she had lost complete control.

Vella ran back to her car and drove back to her friend's house, parking on the side of the road. She sat in her car crying for a short time, trying to come to terms with what she had done. "How can I ask Mara to trust me when I'm a monster?" she wondered.

Once she was able to compose herself, Vella got out of her car and knocked on the front door of Mara's house. Mara answered and let her in.

"Things went well with David," Mara explained. "He says if I trust you then he can too."

Vella was elated but she was now feeling mixed emotions. She hugged her best friend tightly. "I love you, Mara."

"I love you too, Vella."

The ladies talked for a little while, before Mara announced she needed to get sleep, she was exhausted. Vella went to her bedroom too. Mentally exhausted, she flopped a bit on the bed and pulled out her cell phone. She flipped it open and close a few times before she dialed Damon's phone number.

"Hello?"

"Hey sexy," Vella said, trying to sound upbeat.

Damon seemed to notice the trepidation in her voice. "It's nice to hear your voice. Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine, just been a really long emotional day," she replied.

"Why, what's happened?" Damon asked concerned.

"My friend is smarted than I gave her credit for," she said letting out a chuckle. "She figured out what I am."

"What?"

"Everything is fine though, no worries."

Damon wasn't sure that was true, he sensed something in her voice. "Are you still at her house?"

"Yup, like I said, it's fine," she said, then there was a sound in the background of the phone that startled Vella. "Where are you?"

"Oh!" Damon answered startled. "I'm in town."
"At this time of night?"

"Yes and I gotta go now. I love you."

"I love you too, Damon,' she said and flipped her phone closed.

Vella laid in the bed for a few minutes trying to shut out all of her thoughts. She decided to cuddle up to the fluffy pillows on the bed, thinking of Damon, and soon she was fast asleep.

A/N: Next chapter should be posted in a day or 2.

Thanks for reading!