Thank you so much to everyone who commented - it made my day! Thank you; Persephone, Dead Flower, Painted Empathy, Starwisher, MyosotisLuv, Stargazer, Kittykatt, Me, Kitten
Lyrics belong to the excellent Drive by Incubus.
Remember Part Two
It's driven me before and it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal.
I was your Other.
You stare at your love, at the lovely face and graceful body. Not even aware of your presence, of how your yearning fills your soul and overflows until your are a river of bubbling, brazen emotion.
Reach out, and try not to hold your breath, because creatures like you have no reverence for anything, not even the embodiment of your heart that is there, living, breathing, moving, clearly lost in the depths of their own mind. Let your fingers brush the cold glass that splits you, makes you not one but two.
But here it is.
A truth you have searched so long for, since your first waking moment in this world. You are sad that your hatred eats at you so, and sad that it is your own nature which will destroy you, as surely as it has destroyed others. But you see you salvation before you. So simple and pure.
You look at the one you love, that creature who so long ago ran from you in the walls of a pine-hazed maze, and who chose you above all else and paid dear the price for shying from duty.
But now the game has changed. For alone of the three of you, you know who you once were. They have only half-forgotten dreams that cling like thorns in a pulsing heart, pushing deeper in with each slow beat.
Death became you so well.
And this time?
This time, the axe shall fall differently.
X - X - X - X - X
Tamara Slone was deep in thought as she walked down the airy hall to the principal's office, the windows spilling in light and heat that made her brush the long curls of black hair back from her face time and time again, ignoring the prickles of sweat beading on her spine. God only knew what the miserable sod wanted her for now.
A strange sight in front of her eyes registered, and she stopped, and blinked.
There was a boy there, sitting down by the wall. The principal didn't believe in making your wait comfortable, but he had sat on the floor with his hands loosely linked around his knees. His head was resting on one arm – he was asleep, she realised and half-smiled.
She crouched down to peer at his face, wondering if she should wake him.
His eyes snapped open.
Next thing she knew, she felt like she was flying backwards, until her body hit the wall. Pain, flaring out along her spine as her neck snapped forward with the impact, and then Tam was only trying to breathe through it. It blinded her to anything for a moment, tears springing up to her eyes.
She realised the boy still had hold of her. His hands restrained her, one at her throat, the other pinioning her wrist. She recognised his fierce face.
Aspen Martin.
She knew of him, but had never exchanged more than insults after he had scratched her car and driven off.
Anger surged up, and Tam stared at him through the agony that seemed to have settled in her back like steel spheres taken straight from a furnace. Silver slices of lightning darted round her skull, pain mixed with anger.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded. Not only painful, but humiliating. And frightening. She was...completely at his mercy. This sort of thing didn't happen to people like her, not in a busy school, not in daylight, not ever!
He let go of her. The pain lessened a little as she could bend her neck gingerly, rub at her temples. "It's not wise to sneak up on sleeping...people."
She had the feeling he had caught himself. As though he'd been going to say something different.
I can't believe I thought he looked sweet, Tam thought. This is Aspen. He beat some guy's head in with a baseball bat because he didn't like how the guy was looking at him. Not exactly a contender for clear thinker of the millennium.
"Most people don't try and break my spine," she said flatly. "What's wrong with you?"
He looked sideways at her. A bright, intelligent face. It made her think of a hawk, if hawks had chocolate brown hair, except for the three ashen blond streaks that ran back from his forehead. His eyes were...
His eyes weren't human.
As Tam stared at him, the left slid from a metallic blue into sultry violet, while the right moved from a pale grey into amber. His eyes changed...and they were both different colours.
Dangerous. Jesus. What the hell was he?
He was smiling radiantly, a satisfied curve of his mouth that said he knew she was staring, and he liked it.
"Look as long as you want," he said casually.
His arrogance took her breath away. "People often stare at the freakish," she murmured pleasantly.
"Not as long as they stare at the beautiful," he countered. "What are you here for then?" He pulled out a packet of cigarettes "Oh, don't do the holier-than-thou look on me," he said. "I'm sure you have your vices too." The smile flashed again. "Tell me about them...I'd love to know." 'Love' was almost a sigh, his eyes so intense she felt he was trying to see into her soul.
There was danger in that stare.
Did her eyes scream vampire hunter, and human hunted? Was the sound of steel bars slamming in her voice, mixing with the screams of the people she had killed? Sometimes she thought she would go mad.
"I eat chocolate," she said shortly.
"Matches your skin." Smoke drifted from the cigarette in tiny spirals. Tam blinked – she hadn't seen him light it. "And your eyes. Though I prefer white chocolate, myself."
She flushed at that. She was used to dealing with people like him...there was always one. She looked the perfect Asian princess, Rob had told her jokingly, exaggerating as ever, with her large dark eyes and russet hair that waved down to her back, though her square jaw put paid to any ideas of beauty she might harbour.
But she smiled softly, and laid a hand on his arm. Static electricity made her hair stand on end and Aspen froze, his strange eyes fixing on her fingers. Then she dug her fingernails into his skin, enjoying the emotion that felt almost like a wave of heat as it shot through her, savage satisfaction.
He yelped.
"Has anyone told you you're an asshole?" she purred. Then stared.
Her nails had left gouges in his skin. But his skin was healing, the cuts were disappearing. What the hell? Oh no...he couldn't be...Aspen was a jerk, but a human jerk. Surely.
She looked at him, meeting that strange stare. One eye black and fathomless, one so pale it had no colour.
"Oops," he said softly. "Looks like my secret is out." He put the cigarette out.
On his hand.
Fear filled her, making everything crystal-clear and cold. She shouldn't have been afraid, because he was just a boy, because the principal was only three inches of plaster away, because she was Tamara Slone and her life was almost ordinary.
His lips drew back, and Tam stared. He had fangs. He was a vampire.
"Go on," he whispered around those monstrosities, his strange eyes seeming to shiver and ripple until the colour fell away to be replaced by an eldritch light that sparkled like diamonds made liquid. "Scream."
Buy time, a voice chanted. Isn't that what they always tell you?
"Argh, argh," she sad in the most derisive voice she could summon. "Oh help, the big evil vampire is going to tear out my throat. Shall I do a maidenly swoon too?" She edged back, hoping he wouldn't notice.
He was smiling. "I don't think that's very polite."
A little further back, and she was far enough.
Her foot lashed up and out, her back arching down and sideways, hands in fists near her chest. Thank god for kick-boxing. She had taken it up in case Ellie ever decided to send anyone after her.
He caught her foot in one hand, the impact sending a jolt down her whole body and for a moment, she almost lost her balance. How could he be so inhumanly fast? Looking into his glowing eyes, Tam had never known such fear. Raw, primal emotion that swept her from head to the foot he held casually.
Well, she thought. You just said it. He's not human.
She had hunted vampires...but that had been with guns and knives, surrounded by the rest of her, for want of a better word, friends. She had kept well back, not wanting to hurt these Nightpeople because they couldn't help what they were. They had harmed no one. But she had killed them by doing nothing to help.
Now, she began to see where the Ellie's hatred came from. Fear.
"What on earth is going on?"
X - X - X - X - X
The bell rang, and Rob scraped his books into his bag, trying to blink the exhaustion from his eyes. The lesson had actually been interesting, but he was just so shattered from all this damn vampire hunting. Ellie was obsessive.
He and Tam had tried to get out. Both had woken to find a gun to their head, with Ellie at the other end. The message was clear and short. Even fluffy, sweet Sharla Ferrars got the same treatment, and a furious Benjamin Skykes. He hadn't believed them.
Ben's sister was in hospital right now, holding onto life by the flat beep of a machine. Hit and run. No one knew who or why. Except the four of them. They all knew too much now.
"Working tonight?" a mild voice asked him. He turned to find Chatoya Irkil's green eyes watching him with the serene smile that so often graced her face. He supposed she was a friend, but she was a witch too – and Ellie knew that – so he tried not to talk to her in school.
Rob knew Toya was confused by it sometimes, but he didn't want it to be her he was chasing through the woods. Her whose eyes were filled with the helpless terror of the trapped deer.
"Um, yeah," he said hurriedly, his grey eyes looking anywhere but at her. "Oh, hey, Mal, didn't see you in history!"
Blue Malefici, one of his friends – albeit one who knew nothing about the group hobby because Ellie didn't quite trust him yet – gave a faint smile. "I wasn't there."
"That might be why then," Rob said inanely, wishing Chatoya would go away and stop putting herself at risk. "You going to Ellie's party this weekend?"
The spiky-haired boy raised one eyebrow. "Count me out," Blue said coolly. "I have to watch some paint dry, and then I have an hour or two of intensive observation of a brick wall."
Smart guy, Rob thought silently. Ellie had been planning to induct him into the group fun this weekend. Even though Mal had an aura about him that screamed knowledge, age, something that no teenager should have, he was sure the blue-haired boy wouldn't be prepared for the shock of discovering the Nightworld.
"Think you could take the time to ram your head into it while you're there?" Toya said sweetly, flicking back her black hair. Rob blinked. Had he missed something? He'd never seen Blue and Toya talking, or even arguing.
"What is this life is full of care, we have no time to stop and indulge in self-mutilation?" Blue moved closer to Chatoya. Intimidatingly close. This wasn't like him... Where had the constant smile, the wry comments gone? "Doesn't quite run. But why don't you?"
"From you?"
That was it. This was weird. Rob waved a hand between them, even though both of them were taller than he was, and Chatoya's eyes were smouldering dangerously. "Guys? What is with you?"
The girl's face seemed to tighten until she was the pale colour he had seen her only once before, before she had shown him her magick. "Nothing," she said shortly, and strode away.
"Rob," a sultry voice purred, and a hand appeared on his elbow like a fleshy spider. Rob swallowed his revulsion as he turned to face Ellie Ambler, pouting in dark lipstick and designer drag. "Where's Tam gone?"
"Principal," he said curtly. "Ellie—"
"Tonight, Robert," she hissed, leaning in so he could smell the overwhelming, spicy perfume she wore. "If she's not there, there's trouble. Find her and tell her."
Come to think of it, Tam had been a long time...and he had to find her anyway. Might as well do it now. He couldn't face lunch, and left Ellie scowling behind him, yet knew in truth he was fleeing from her.
X - X - X - X - X
Tam felt a pang of relief at the voice of the principal cut the air. Half twisting her body, she turned a pleading face to the man, whose mouth was agape. "What are you doing?" the man repeated.
Aspen didn't let go. But there was a honeyed lilt to his voice as he said, "Nothing...nothing at all."
Tam could only stare, aghast, as the man's face began to smooth over.
"There's some paperwork in your office you should be doing," Aspen continued. His voice fell on her ears like raw satin, rubbing along her body as if was solid. "You saw nothing...and you'll remember nothing, except that you haven't moved from your chair. You won't until I tell you."
With not a word, the man turned and walked back into his office.
"Now," he said curiously, eyeing her with blatant fascination, "what do I do with you?"
I'm looking death in the face, she thought. And I'm dealing with it. I'm seeing a vampire...and it doesn't surprise me. This is what my life has become.
"Leave me alone," Tam said calmly. She had to be rational. Getting scared excited him. She could see it, the way his mouth had parted a little, eyes becoming heavy with disturbing emotions. "I won't tell anyone."
"I don't give a damn who you tell," he said. His voice was little more than a rasp, honey-coated sandpaper. "They won't care. I don't want your silence."
He tugged on her leg sharply, making pain flare as it bent in ways it wasn't supposed to, and then Tam had lost her balance and was falling, falling...she could only brace herself for the pain. But he moved, and caught her, so she was dipped backwards like the leading paramour of a play, with his face hovering over her neck, his breath tingling on her skin.
This is not...but she stopped herself. It obviously was happening. She was alone. She had no way to tell anyone what was happening. What she wouldn't give for vampire telepathy. For vampire strength.
"You smell so sweet," he said, more a moan than anything.
Oh, god. She was in a hallway with a crazy, hungry and horny vampire.
"I take steroids," she whispered. "I'm brimming with testosterone."
"I don't believe that," he said, voice rich with delight. A hand flexed at her back, stroking her skin. Mental note, Tam told herself, next time, wear plate armour. "But now I'll have to taste for myself and find out."
"Bite me and I'll bite you back," she hissed.
He paused, looking intrigued. "You don't have the strength."
"I get mad when I'm in pain," she said. "And if you bite me, I will be in pain." She already was. Being arched back like this was making her back scream and blood fill her head in painful pounding.
His eyes became dreamy, slipping to her throat. "I'd like that," he sighed. Licked his lips, the hand cupping her head digging into her scalp. His head lowered, her heart thundered.
She could see no way out of this.
His teeth sank into her neck and with them came a shockwave of shimmering diamond energy that shot through Tam's head and hurled her into another world.
Lately I'm beginning to think that I should be the one behind the wheel.
X - X - X - X - X
Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you think.