I'm Hungry

Prologue: Of Blood and Hunting

Every year they hunt humans for sport. This year is different. Victoria stumbles across a human called Bella that she just can't seem to kill. And if she doesn't, then the vampire coven will kill her for it. Dark vampire AU. Vicbella endgame

A/N: New Vicella fic. Didn't think I'd come out with one so quickly, but here it is. Chapters will be shorter so no month long waits (ah, let's hope, right?). Tentative schedule is an update every other week on Tuesdays.

Trigger warnings for sensitive content in this story, such as violence, bullying, and cutting, etc.

Victoria wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, leaving a crimson smear on her hand and the pale skin of her cheek. Her stomach was full and she felt warm from the inside out. Another satisfying meal.

From next to her James also picked up his head, sighing out in relief as he finished feasting. He was a messy eater and his face was streaked in red gristle and gore. "Mh, you really did pick a catch this time, Vicky. The blood was just superb," he complimented. He had red flecking his stylistically ripped tee and black leather jacket. She too was wearing some rock tee and jacket but her's wasn't messy. She always was a careful eater. And careful in other ways too.

"We need to hide the body before anyone catches us."

"You worry too much," he told her with a belch. "No one has come close to catching us in over 200 years."

"And thanks to who? To me, and the rules I have in place. It's getting harder and harder to be anonymous in this world, James. You know that," she hissed, getting up from the now cold and thoroughly drained body at her feet. "Which is why these bloody hunts are so stupid," she began to grumble as he wiped at the blood on his face with his palms and then sucked it off the skin there.

She kicked at the body, hearing the snap of the leg bone. "As a collective we can't keep doing this. It's dangerous."

"I know it is," he agreed with a hiss, looking unnerved to have this conversation. "But to speak up against it or try to stop it, would be stupid. They'll laugh at us. Or worse, have us killed."

"Not if we leave the coven. We don't have to ascribe to their out dated ideals. Besides, they were supposed to offer us protection. All they do now is put us at risk of being discovered. Times have changed, the human world has changed. They're getting smarter now and sooner or later the coven is going to get discovered and I don't want to be there when it happens," she protested as the crickets played their night symphony around them.

James stank of fear. He never was brave. She had always looked over her brother for as long as she could remember. She had been the one to direct him, to keep him safe. To keep him fed. He was never a competent vampire. Victoria feared to think where he would be if it wasn't for her. Probably at the end of a pike and on fire.

"So you want us to run away? We can't just do that! It's the middle of the Hunt and we're expected to do our part. You know the obligations."

"I know," she said steely as she grabbed the body, careful to not get blood on her and carried it over to a freshly dug hole in the ground. Lifeless eyes stared back up at her and she tried to ignore them. She was a vampire. This was what they did. Kill for sustenance. But she hated taking humans on for sport. It wasn't right. She had once been human too. And how weak and defenseless she had been then. She hadn't minded trading that weakness for the power she held now. And yet, despite her immortal abilities, she was still beholden to others more powerful than her.

Life was just one huge ladder to climb and keep climbing, hoping to reach the top rung as the waters rose under you, hungry with sharks that snapped at the weakened steps until they caught up to you if you didn't move fast enough.

"That is why we must wait out the hunt and then make our exit," she said, throwing the body in and beginning to cover it. James stood by her side and fiddled with his fingers, racked with nerves.

"You want to just run away from them?"

"We can't tell them we want to leave. They'll end us on the spot." Fresh in their minds had been the murder of a fellow acquaintance of their when he had approached the triage and asked to leave so he could adventure somewhere else. Carlisle, their leader, had rushed him and snapped his neck right then and there and sat back down in his throne like nothing had happened before the felled vampire could even touch the ground, body cold.

The message had been clear. Leave and perish.

"So, we run. We've always been good at it," Victoria said. And they were. They had been on the run from the vampire who had turned them. A crazed man who had a sort of obsession with James and her for unknown reasons. He had killed a whole town full of people for them.

She still had nightmares when she thought about it. Some horrors could never be dulled by the passage of time, no matter how much time there was. And they had escaped him for so long, being in the Cullen Coven was supposed to be an added layer of protection from him because they had grown tired of running.

But it seemed they had only run into another sort of trouble. And now they would need to flee it again.

"But until we can run," at this Victoria patted the dirt off of her hands, done with the hasty burial, "we need to finish the Hunt. Give no indication that we intend to leave. Understand me?" she asked, a stern finger warning James.

James nodded his head, ducking it a bit. "Do you really think...?"

"We won't know until we try," Victoria stated. And then they walked deeper into the woods, already planning their next Hunt victim.

High school was going to be boring. Again, Bella groused, as she pulled herself out of her rusty truck and trudged through the crowded student parking lot. Whoever said high school was the best years of life, obviously hadn't been to Forks High. It was boredom hell. Bella felt much like a mindless zombie shuffling through and fro from classes and then home. Maybe it was the lack of friends that made her school days lackluster, but honestly all the people here were idiots, besides Angela, and Bella didn't want to make an effort to get to know any of them even if it made her look like an outsider.

So what, she was a friend snob. But the students here were honestly so stupid and she felt like she was more mature and smarter than all of them combined. Even some of the teachers were dumb, acting like they had never peaked beyond high school and thus picking a job as a teacher and coming back here to relive their greatest memories and bully the students.

It was sickening.

She hated this all. She wished she had a way of leaving, but she knew her father didn't want that for her. He wanted her to finish school. To go to college. But she wanted to be free. Wanted to travel the world without a care.

His expectations were stifling. That was why she needed an outlet for her inner pain. And what better way than to let it be expressed in crimson. Little scars littered the inside of her wrists. Delicate cuts, small, carefully placed. She didn't want to seriously hurt herself. She just needed to relieve some of the silent pressure inside her. The pressure of words she couldn't say in fear of disappointing her father or her friend.

She didn't cut often, just whenever she knew nothing else could relieve the pressure inside her. Like the stress of finals, of Jessica bullying her again, and of a close spiral with depression. Her long baggy sweat shirts helped hide the marks that steadily creeped higher and higher on her arms. Thin pale arms that were often supporting books in their grasp. Books she devoured to make her forget this monotone world around her.

It was when her books failed her, when her alcohol couldn't burn the way it should, that she toyed with the razor in her back pocket. Always in her back pocket, she made sure it was there because she never knew when she might need it. Sometimes she let it prick her finger tips, just to see the red drops playing on the shiny steel where her distorted reflection rested.

It was why on the first day of the new year, she found refuge in the bathroom stall on the second floor, one rarely used, to use that razor. It was barely third period and already Jessica had made the day hell. Why couldn't the damned bitch choke on her Starbucks already? There was no rhyme or reason for her hating Bella, and yet she did. Bella didn't want to waste time trying to figure out why this was. There was no point. It wouldn't change anything.

Only her razor could change something. She rolled up her sleeves, deciding which arm it would be this time. Settling on the right, she quickly ran the blade on her flesh. Red dots sprouted up and Bella let out an easy sigh. She felt better already.

The bathroom door slamming open startled her and she nearly dropped her blade into the toilet. Hastily, she hid it and grabbed some toilet paper and wiped away the blood, dropping it into the toilet and flushing it down.

When she came out, she saw who it was that entered the bathroom like a mad woman. It was the new girl.

Victoria or something.

She was a tall woman, looking a bit more mature than her reported 16 years, with bright red hair that looked like rose petals flowing down her strong shoulders. Her skin was pale and her eyes looked like they had flames contained inside them, a melange of reds, oranges, and yellows that weren't normal but that immediately caught everyone's attention.

There was something about her, an edge no one could put their finger on, but that had attracted everyone, getting their attention. Victoria had been the talk of the school. The way she held herself, strong and powerful. The way she talked, by not really talking to anyone. The way she looked at everyone, as if they were prey and she was god about to decide what to do with them. It was all...so different.

Bella had stared at Victoria all period long but she wasn't the only one. Even the teachers were a bit wordless. Victoria had transferred in with someone else, but Bella couldn't really recall him. He'd paled in comparison to this flawless goddess.

Victoria's eyes snapped to Bella as Bella left the stall. There was a fierceness in her eyes, a focus of that of a hungry animal hunting for food. It paused Bella, made the air in her chest constrict. Nothing was said. Not a motion made.

Victoria let out a deep breath she had been holding in and then shook her head to ground herself. She offered no explanation for what had occurred, instead going to the sink and washing her hands. Bella slowly approached the sink too, washing her hands because she didn't want people to think she'd used the bathroom and not washed her hands. But from the corner of her eyes she watched Victoria. The woman washed her hands, and dried them, using her fingers to comb through her locks.

Through the mirror's reflection, Bella could see that Victoria's eyes had dimmed with color. They weren't as bright as they were before and Bella wondered if it was a trick of the light. Her mouth went dry as she finished washing her hands and dried them too.

Then she left, swearing she could feel Victoria's eyes on her back as she did so. But she wasn't brave enough to look back.

The rest of the afternoon, Bella was deep in thought. There was something about that new girl. Something that...spoke to Bella. Bella had always had an unhealthy association with things that want to hurt her or do hurt her. Maybe that's why she can't help but be drawn to Victoria. Despite her body telling her something is off about the beauty and that distance would be smart, Bella wants to get close to her. Victoria is like a shard of glass that people warn not to touch the sharp edges of because it will make Bella's fingers bleed.

But Bella likes the pain of that. She likes physical pain because it makes her feel grounded when other things hurt her emotionally. And something tells her, Victoria has an interest in her that is mutually shared. Whereas Bella expects hurt to come from this, what does Victoria expect from her?

She'd stormed into that bathroom, sniffing the air, before giving up. What had that been about?

Whatever it was, Bella was going to figure out.

Squaring her back, she decided a week into the new school semester, that she was going to talk to Victoria.