I'm Hungry

Chapter Ten: Unpleasant Times

A/N: Whelp, I finally got around to this. Just got a lot of things to do and not enough time to do them in.

I felt powerful. Powerful, confused, and enraged. Not all of the feelings were mine, to be manufactured naturally. And yet, through the thick haze that fell over me, I could barely discern where I began and where my master ended.

My master, a voice hissed in my head. My body felt wrong and yet so right. I could barely remember the pain of the transformation but I was grateful for that. Something told me I would be better off not remembering.

My body moved quickly, awkwardly. I was still not used to the speed and power behind my limbs. Because of that, I missed my target entirely, overshooting and landing behind her. The redhead swiveled around to face me and I could scent her fear. But she wasn't scared of me. She looked at me with pity, with something like softness in her eyes.

Why was I fighting her?

My throat burned. I wanted blood but master had given me none. Saying I did not deserve it. Saying he would give me some if I defeated this woman. But did I want to defeat her?

"Bella, you do not have to do this," she told me, pleaded with me.

A distant memory, poking to the surface. I knew her. We knew each other. She had been the predator once, and I the prey. But now, no longer. My head began to throb. Why was it so hard to think?

Don't think, act. My master's voice rumbled in my thoughts and I lunged at the red head once again. This time I reached her, swiping out with my fingers and getting deflected. I could tell my blow was strong, for her retaliation had less force behind it than mine. I kept going at her, she kept dodging and deflecting, not wanting to hurt me. Where I had brute force, she had skill and ease.

"Bella you don't want to do this. You don't want to fight me. I'm not the enemy," she told me. I tipped my head, curious. My master told me she was...but...was she? Something inside me felt wrong at thinking of her as my enemy. Hadn't we gotten along? Hadn't I felt something for her? I hesitated, slowing down. My master's voice rang out sharp in my head. Capture her!

I shook my head, trying to refocus myself. By doing so, I left myself open to attack. She jumped onto me, pinning me to the grass below her. She looked down into my eyes, her own so frantic. "Remember, you annoying human," she grumbled and then leaned down and kissed me. It wasn't a long kiss by any means but I felt something inside me awaken. Something that sounded like my own voice, my own consciousness. She got off of me as I sat up, rubbing my eyes. I felt like I was awakening.

"V-Victoria?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

"Well...what do you know," she said dryly but in awe. "Kisses actually do have the power to do that. I thought it was only books and films."

"What are you doing!" Demetri snarled, upset by this scene. I could feel him screaming in my head but I wasn't going to be having any of that. I turned to glare at him.

"Out!" I snarled out, and he flinched from the force of my cry, almost as if it physically hurt him. His voice was gone, and I felt my mind clear. I turned to look at Victoria and her eyes were wide. "Bella..." she began slowly. "Do you have...powers?"

"Powers? Why would I have that?" There was so much more to contemplate and make peace with- such as my new found vampirism. To think I would have powers too? I felt too many emotions whirl inside of me. I needed a moment to sit down and think. I would not be afforded such a thing.

"No!" Demetri snarled out. He was boiling with rage. "I will not have my plans be ruined!" And he threw himself at me. Before Victoria got to leap to my defense, something activated in me again. And Demetri was sent flying back as if a gust of wind had knocked him back.

He landed right into the hut, destroying it with his momentum.

"Allow me," Victoria growled and went to kick his ass. She cracked her knuckles as she slowly approached him. "This is for everything you've done to me and my brother. And to Bella."

I stood back, knowing this was something only for her. It was her personal vendetta. If she needed help I would tag in, but for now, I was content to watch as she began to beat him into a pulp.

He was pathetic, really, trying to crawl away. But Victoria kept hauling him back and beating him up. He tried to fight back, but there was something about a scorned woman that meant he was not getting off lightly. I could not help but watch in awe at Victoria's moves, with the way she carried herself on the battlefield. Demetri almost seemed stunned she would hurt him at all.

"But I love you," he was blubbering. "You have to love me too."

For some reason, hearing him proclaim such feelings for her was setting me on edge again but I refrained from joining the fray as their fight left craters in the ground, shaking the earth around me.

He tried to call out to me, but he no longer held any power over me. Whatever my powers were, they stopped him. And with one last twist, Victoria had pulled off his head and it was all over with. Merely a minute of fighting, unremarkable, boring fighting, and he was defeated.

"Well, that was underwhelming," Victoria wrinkled up her nose as she lifted up his head and looked into his lifeless eyes. "I would have thought..." she shook her head and dropped his severed head. "It doesn't matter now. Bella, how are you?"

"I...I don't know," I told her earnestly. "It's a lot to take in."

"Let's go to my place. We can...we can talk there," she told me gently and together with a human pace, we walked home.

The door clicked open softly and I was able to see the place Victoria called home. It was a quaint three room apartment with an open floor plan. Though, most of it had been worn down by incessant pacing. James paused when he heard us come in. He looked worse for the wear. He had pulled his hair out of his ponytail and was wearing clothing with tears and rips on it, as if he'd ripped it himself.

"Victoria...! You're alright!" he breathed out, looking like he would collapse at the sight of seeing his sister in one piece. "I was...I didn't know what to do...and Demetri!" he could barely string sentences together.

"It's okay," Victoria murmured. "He's gone."

"Gone?" James echoed.

"I killed him."

James did collapse to his knees at this. He let out a sob. "That is...that is...finally," he managed to make out. He turned red rimmed eyes to me. "Bella?"

"She's a vampire now," Victoria explained.

"Hi?" I waved shyly at him.

James stared wide eyed at Victoria. "What do we do now?"

"Now...we leave the coven," she said. I wasn't as shocked by this news as James was, namely because I had never been a part of it. James rose to his feet.

"Leave the coven? But they'll kill us!"

"The coven's one job was to keep Demetri away. They didn't. So they broke their covenant. As such, as we can leave."

"This is a lot to take in," James said, placing a hand over his mouth.

"Imagine how I feel," I joked sarcastically. My stomach growled loudly.

"You need to feed," Victoria surmised. "You also need to learn how to be a vampire. How will your dad react to this?"

Right, my human life. It felt so distant right now. So unimportant. "I don't know," I told her. "I don't know where to go from here."

She cupped my chin in her hand, giving my face a look, assessing the situation I was now in. "It's alright, Bella. Because of me...this happened. But I promise we'll figure this all out and I won't let anything bad happen to you."

I smiled up gratefully at her.

The days flew by in a bliss. I never expected they would, considering I had been turned into a vampire against my will. However, Victoria was there to guide me and it made all the difference. She taught me to feed, to hunt, to keep out of the way of humans. James helped a bit too, but he mostly spent his time alternating between panic attacks and fretting over the coven coming to kill us.

I wasn't worried about the coven because I knew Victoria had a plan that would work.

The only thing that sat on my mind as worry was Charlie. How was I going to explain to him what had happened and continue with my high school graduation and then move out? I had to maintain being a human long enough in order to trick him. But that wasn't going to be easy.

Maybe I could never go back to him, back to school. I knew Victoria was more than happy enough to take me with her, on a nomadic lifestyle, which might be the case as we would be on the run once we pissed off the coven.

It was why she was having me practice my powers. Apparently I generated a shield of sorts that would protect me and anyone else from physical and mental affects. Would it be enough to save us from the coven?

I could tell Victoria was worried but she hid her worry well, training me hour by hour, day by day until I grew strong and fast and could control myself. And she even dared to reach out and hold my hand, smiling gently at me. I couldn't read her mind, but I could tell she was warming up to me because of my vampire state. She was no longer worried about hurting me, instead embracing me and our slowly budding relationship.

We'd spend hours not sleeping and just talking, about everything from our past lives. Mine was a fairly brief conversation; hers was hours long. She had been alive for well over two hundred years and had spent most of her human life working as a brothel maid, cleaning up the messes of everyone around her. Then she had been changed by one of the patrons who had noticed her and taken her blood. It had sounded like an awful way to become a vampire, much worse than mine. But she was here and that was all that mattered.

And I was determined to continue having her here, no matter who we had to fight. Usually so passive, I now had a thirst for violence and revenge. Guess being a vampire could make you be like that. And the coven was about to find out soon enough.

"We'll make our move tomorrow," Victoria announced, tracing patterns onto the back of my pale hand.

"Can I just have one last glimpse of what my life had been before we go?" I had not seen my father or friends in months.

"Of course," she said. "Because a new life awaits us after this." And she sealed the deal by kissing me on the lips softly.