11
Oh, my Merlin, oh, God, oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, save me. Please, please, please, Barty, if you can hear me, please help me. I—I'm sorry. Alice whispered every prayer known to both wizardkind and a few of her Muggleborn relatives as she fought the urge to cower away from the tall, female vampire that stood in front of her, fangs bared and was currently hissing at her, an expression on her bone-white features that suggested Alice was nothing more than dung stuck to the bottom of her boot.
She wished her Auror training would kick in, that would grant her the chance to remain brave and stoic, but she'd never actually encountered a real vampire before, and she didn't feel anything at all except a cold, debilitating fear and sense of failure that was almost crushing, knowing that this clan of vampires would likely deliver on her earlier threats to hurt her if she didn't cooperate and start telling them what they wanted to know.
There was nothing that could stop her, after all. Yes, she could have if she had her wand, but she didn't bloody have her wand on her, she'd dropped it while running like an imbecile and now it was too late.
At this rate, Alice was all but powerless, unarmed, outmatched, and alone. Barty didn't know she was here.
The man likely hadn't even noticed his friend was missing with how deep a sleeper the Death Eater was quickly proving himself to be. Though she cursed herself for not remembering that little detail about Crouch, back when she'd dated him before she had met Frank. He certainly wasn't going to come to her aid if he couldn't find her or didn't even know how to begin searching.
The already-injured and weak Auror presently found herself thrown to the back of a dank, dark cave.
No fires were lit which made it impossible to see, though Alice could hear the Dark creatures' rough, grating voices as they talked back and forth to each other in a series of low hisses and snarls she couldn't decipher.
This continued back and forth for a while, and the only thing Alice could make out at all was a lot of what was being said was about her, since she caught a couple of the male vampires pointing long, sharp claws her way.
The last vampire, one of the males and not the leader, but clearly the female's mate and second-in-command, stood in front of the witch at his mate's command, towering over her and staring down its nose at Alice with a cruel smirk plastered all over its bone-white pallid features that instantly made her think of Severus.
Wouldn't surprise me if Snape's one of them, Alice thought meanly to herself in a moment of anger and spite that was manifesting out of her fear at her situation. At this point, she wished Snape of Crouch or Frank would come.
Even Remus. Someone, anyone, to help her out. Alice swallowed down hard as the male vampire squatted down so he was a little bit higher than eye-level from Alice in her current seated position, resting against the wall of the cave and clutching her injured, bound arm close to her chest, cradling it with her good hand, as in the hopes it would ward off further attack this way.
"So, what are you in here for, witch? Are you a friend of the spiders? Or the centaurs? Are there more of you?" it wondered out loud as it raised almost non-existent eyebrows that were more or less translucent, and a smirk as he took a clawed finger and placed it carefully against the fabric of Alice's shirt, just underneath her already battered collarbone, and dragged it slowly in a threatening way across her trembling chest just then. "Help me to understand, human, why our group found you out here. But that's what your answers come in. Tell me, witch, why are you in the Forbidden Forest alone?"
Alice made an odd little strangled noise at the back of her throat, indicating she was unwilling to answer the questions that were being posed to her and forced her mind to go blank just in case vampires were skilled in the art of Legilimency and Occlumency. In her chest, she could feel her pounding heart, seeming to pound harder and harder with each passing moment. Alice could tell with each additional second of silence that passed by, the vampire that was assigned to interrogate her as to her presence here in the Forest was growing more agitated.
Alice had a sinking feeling in the pit of her nauseous stomach that this whole business of the creature running surprisingly gentle hands up and down her body wasn't going to last long. It was meant as a trick, to lull her into a false sense of security in order to get her to spill it.
She wasn't falling for it, and this vampire knew it and was very quickly losing its patience with her, she could see it in the creature's narrowed, blood-red eyes.
The gasp that escaped past her lips was out of her mouth before she could stop it as the vampire's claw shot out towards her, wrapping its long, thick fingers around her neck and pulling her closer, baring its fangs.
She was so close to it now that Alice could actually feel its icy-cold breath on her face. She shivered, from a mixture of the cold, the fever she was sure she was developing, and of course, her own fear. She thought she was going to faint.
Her debilitating fear that coursed through her veins right now was the only thing keeping her from allowing herself to relax enough to faint while caught in the clutches of this—this Dark monster. She very nearly screamed when it hissed at her before it started talking.
"Don't you realized, human, what I'm going to do to you if you refuse to give me the information I want?" The vampire narrowed its crimson eyes. "All you've got to do is tell me who accompanied you into the Forest, why you're here, where your partner is, and we'll let you go. Just tell us those simple facts, and we won't have you for a snack, though your blood does smell truly delish, witch…" As if to emphasize his point, he let just the edges of his fangs barely graze the skin of the column of her throat, a move which elicited a whimper of fear from her.
Breathing felt physically painful and it was only when she felt a claw entangle itself in the back of her hair that Alice felt something within herself snap and give way.
She could not let this creature hurt her, not when she had the baby that was growing inside of her to think of. The growl she let out came from somewhere deep within her, a wild and feral noise, from a primitive place.
For a moment, Alice didn't recognize her own voice as her limbs failed, elbows aimed upward at the head of the vampire currently holding her in a vice grip.
Her screams filled the cave they'd brought her to and a bone-white claw was quickly clamped over her mouth to dampen the sound and prevent Barty from finding her. When the vampire spoke, his breath ghosted along the contour of her ear and made her stomach lurch.
"Don't worry, little dove. I won't kill you. Yet." Dread filled Alice, turning all of her muscles ice-cold and heavy. Was he going to bite her, turn her into one of them? Oh, Merlin, no, she would rather die first before she'd ever let that happen.
It took three solid breaths for Alice to get over that fact, and a third for the vampire to start to drag her deeper towards the back of the cave, and a fourth for her reeling mind to start thinking on a plan of defense that would culminate in her escape.
Though before she could start hashing out the details in her mind, in mere seconds this vampire was straddling her, positioning her wrists under his knees to keep them immobile and settling the weight of his elbow just below her diaphragm, purposefully baring his fangs. When Alice tried to get a good breath in, it made her chest ache.
She realized with abject horror seeping into her veins that the creature was doing this on purpose.
"Shh…" the creature shushed her in a voice that was almost kind. Alice blinked owlishly up at the Dark monster that was holding her captive and was stunned. He was smiling at her, and his almost-translucent face was almost kind. Except for his burning red eyes, which held nothing in them to behold at all. No emotions at all. "Stay nice and quiet, now, witch, we don't want you causing a scene here, do we, sweetheart?"
This was the first good up-close look she'd gotten at one of them since they'd managed to corner her alone, and she was more than frightened by how calm this savage beast seemed to be. His face was almost kind.
Merlin, but this vampire was smiling at her. Looking into his chalky face, Alice felt like she was going to be sick and that she could hardly breathe, let alone scream for Crouch to come and save her again a second time in one night. She was definitely going to owe him.
"Wh—what d'you want with me….?" She finally managed to gasp out in a desperate, pitiful whimper.
It was a miracle she could even find her voice, and she knew if she tried to speak any louder, she was going to start crying, and Alice pointedly refused to seem so frightened. Her Auror training would grant her that much in this stressful situation if nothing else right now.
That almost innocent smile only spread wider onto his face, making him seem almost pure of heart. But Alice wasn't fooled. Just like at Barty. The man was a charmer.
"Our kind don't like trespassers, witch. You're invading our territory, and you won't tell us why you're here. I guess, then, the time for talking is over, don't you think?" he growled, baring his fangs, and hissing at her.
Before Alice even had time to part her now-cracked and bleeding lips, the vampire swooped down on her like a hawk that had eyed its prey, the length of his long fingernails almost seemed to grow of their own accord. Alice squeezed her eyes shut as hot tears marred and stung at the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision.
And then—total agony. For the first few moments of feeling the creature's claws dig into her collarbones, Alice screamed. She screamed until her mouth was filled with the taste of her own blood from biting her tongue.
This was it. She was sure to die here. This vampire was going to torture her until she suffered from copious amounts of blood loss from him sinking his fangs into her skin over and over again until the Dark creature finally took pity on her and sank his fangs into her throat and drained her of her sweet, precious life force.
Though whether or not she would be turned like them, she didn't know, and she didn't want to know. As much as it would kill her to do it to herself, Alice would not let herself become one of them, and if that happened, it was into the sunlight with her.
The pause as the vampire raised his claw to strike again was all that it took for both of them to hear the noise.
The echo of someone's footsteps coming towards the mouth of the cave. A furious glance was exchanged between the leader of this group's mate, who'd come over to check on this one's progress, and Alice before everything exploded into a violent, furious frenzy of motion. Alice screamed, loud and hard enough to make her throat ache as she tried not to choke on her own blood, though what little strength she had faded, and she collapsed. Her airway had started to constrict, and she fell to the floor choking for breath.
It hurt, Merlin, it hurt, everything hurt. Her face, her chest, her stomach, her throat. Her entire body was betraying her. This was it.
This was how she was going to die. Cold, alone, and unforgiven, she was sure of it. Alice squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable, but before she could mentally prepare herself for the feeling of the creature's sharp pangs impaling her skin, flashes of green light and the guttural sound of someone bellowing like an enraged dragon at the top of her lungs told her that someone had come to her aid.
She needed…needed her wand, her wand…where…was her wand…whoever it was needed help, they couldn't take on all of these whelps by themselves… could they? When she tried to get up, Alice realized how futile it was as her legs protested and her head started to spin, and she collapsed back onto her knees before falling face first back to the mouth of the cave. Footsteps echoed along the cave floor from the mouth. They were quick and determined. She recognized those black boots and those footsteps. His.
"Barty," she whispered hoarsely.
She didn't think she'd ever seen her friend move that quick in his life. His scuffed black boots and tail ends of his black leather trench coat moved into her rapidly fading line of sight. Her vision was blurry, but Alice still tried to get a good look at the Death Eater's features.
Crouch was standing above her, the hand not clenching onto his wand shaking violently as he looked at her. "Nononononono, Merlin, Alice, what happened? Fuck, bloody hell, what the hell happened, sweetheart?" she heard Crouch swear frantically in a panicked tone.
Just hearing his voice, the worry laced within was enough to cause Alice to burst into tears all over again. Her entire body ached and hurt like hell, and she felt too tired to move, so she just rested there and felt the mixture of her tears and blood drain onto the cave ground beside her.
Reaching out a trembling hand, she managed to grip onto his leg and pulled herself closer towards him.
Crouch knelt into a literal, well, crouch by her feet and looked down at her. He was pale, paler than she'd ever seen the man, and Barty was very clearly confused as to what she was trying to do, and he said as much to her.
"What are you doing, sweetheart? Don't get up."
"Scared," Alice whispered in a choked voice, and she swallowed down hard past a lump in her throat as there were storms brewing in his darkened brown eyes tonight. She didn't see any sign of the other vampires, so she could only assume that Crouch had killed them all.
Barty never said a word as he knelt beside her on one knee and picked Alice up with a strength she didn't realize the man possessed and rested her head on his lap.
Crouch was delicate and tender in his movements, being extremely careful with her, to better assess her wounds. Every touch was done smoothly and sparingly to keep from hurting her. Once Barty had Alice firmly secured in his lap, he rolled her over, so her forehead was resting against his thigh. The position she was in felt awkward and uncomfortable, and she listened intently as he talked to her.
"We're gonna…I'm gonna get you help, Al," he breathed in a frantic voice. "We'll get you to the Hospital Wing, I don't give a fuck what happens to me anymore, Alice," he was saying, more to himself than to her now. His shaking hand smoothed her flyaway strands down as he brought his face closer to her eye level. "Just hang on, Al."
"T—talk, Barty," she begged, meeting his gaze.
"What?" Confusion intermingled with concern in his darkened brown eyes, but Barty still didn't speak.
"Tell me," Alice pleaded, feeling her strength begin to wane. "Let me know…" Her face twisted and contorted as a wave of pain wracked her body from her fresh injuries. "That it's gonna be okay, Barty. Please. I need to hear it."
"I—I can't lie to you, doll." Crouch licked his lips and flicked his tongue out as if to taste her scent on the air and dabbed at a spot of blood with a rag he'd conjured. "That bastard did a number on you. I—I don't have any dittany on me, or I'd use it on you. This is gonna scar and unless I can get you to the Hospital Wing, there's not a fucking damn thing I can do to fix you up, Alice, love."
"Promise me that we'll head back?" Alice's voice trembled with emotion at the question, as well as pain, her tears mingling with the fresh blood on both of her cheeks.
Barty's face went grim as a graveyard, but the Death Eater managed a determined nod, his features set in a look of hardened resolve she'd never seen in him before.
"You've got my word, Alice. I—I promise, love."
Alice barely managed a weak smile as she realized without any semblance of hesitation in her heart, that she somehow had managed to trust Crouch and believe the man when he told her that everything was going to be alright and work out in the end. Somehow, she had to try.
Crouch's concerned face and the sound of boots and scuffling cloaks coming to their aid were the last thing that Alice could see and hear, coupled with the brief sound of Barty swearing under his breath, though if anything his grip tightened.
But even in the embrace of blackness as her consciousness began to ebb while she rested in his arms, a horrible, dull aching pain began to fester from her womb.