Losing Grace Chapter IX: An Interlude, a secret circle series fanfic

TITLE: Green

DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them.

SUMMARY: "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

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Old Penguin: Gracie, peace? Yeah she really does deserve some, but then she wouldn't be a main character, as for Joseph he's a strange one. I'll grant that much and a shake just might make him angry. Ari and Harri was something I admit I planned it from the beginning…there was always the how though. Thanks so much for the compliment and thanks so much for reading and reviewing.

Sharmeen: The last chapter's events do present some problems in the plot department but I'll deal. I had always planned for the Harri and Ari to be soulmates but I hadn't always planned on Joseph being such an arse. (He's a pain to write because whenever I think I have him figured out, I decide he has emotions) He was actually meant to be based on one of my friends who's nothing like him…go figure. I think Ari turned out more like my friend… Thank you so much for telling me what I'm doing right. Yay! Now all you have to do is tell me what I'm doing terribly wrong… Thanks again for your reviews.

Terriah: Thanks for reviewing. Glad you liked it.

CHAPTER IX:

Peter sat in the rec room, staring at the impressions in the couch his stepsister had left. Gracie wasn't the same anymore. Peter couldn't believe how much had happened in two days, it had to have been building up, but why did it have to explode?

Peter sighed and switched on the television, the screen flew to life, and Home and Away's theme song burst into sound. He looked at the screen, the false drama not soothing him when a real one danced around him. He always felt like an observer in this strange place, as if he was the one watching all the beautiful nightpeople going about their business and he was the one stuck in some sort of perverse Perspex cube. Peter felt out of place. He wasn't born into this world, he was put here, a piece in the jigsaw puzzle that didn't quite fit.

Rosie Willow waltzed into the rec room, the lamia girl plopping herself next to the human.

"Heya Pete," the greeting was cheery, and Peter wondered why the girl wasn't out tracking her elusive partner.

"Hi Rosie."

"Seen Gracie?"

"Yeah a little while ago," Peter told her, "I managed to upset her more."

"Oh, how?" Peter didn't look at the vampire. He didn't belong here. He didn't belong on the couch sitting next to this exquisite inhuman creature. He didn't belong to the secrets these deadly beautiful people lived with. He didn't belong in the Circle Daybreak centre. This wasn't his place. He had no reason to linger here, nothing. No tie that demanded his stay. Sure Gracie was his stepsister, but she was only his stepsister. She wasn't blood, no matter the friendship between them.

"I told her I saw Hannah with Harriet Miller," Peter answered. Reaching for the remote control to change the channel, the actor's antics on screen boring him.

"Goddess," Rosie gasped, amazed at the human's actions. Did he want to cause his stepsister more pain? "Why'd you tell her?"

"I had to," Peter answered, pausing on the music channel. "Hannah said the Harriet didn't mean anything to him, was just a fast food restaurant."

Rosie wrinkled her brows. She was confused, "That's not any reason tell her. She's torn up enough with out adding that."

Peter faced the inhuman girl beside him. Her dark brown eyes searched his face, trying to find a clue to what was bothering him. "I know. I just thought she had right to know how he saw things."

Rosie looked at the boy sitting beside her. He was the same age as her. His slightly tanned skin would age, and soon he would become older, but that didn't change things. Rosie would always be eighteen. She had stopped her ageing, but she wondered what it would be like to age like a human. "Not all vampires see humans as walking talking fast food restaurants."

"Sometimes it doesn't seem like it," he answered. Oh sure, she could say that, yeah Rosie was able to say that there was some good in her species, but Peter didn't know. Rosie Willow was the only vampire he had ever met that didn't have an overpowering arrogance about them. Joseph Hannah had his I'm-badder-than-you thing going on while Boss as kindly as she was, looked down at him. Boss Cedars had condescendingly allowed Peter to stay the night in the centre. Any other vampire he had met had dismissed him. He was human, and therefore insignificant.

"Hannah's only one vampire, don't judge the rest of us because of what he does," Rosie defended her kind. She was used to prejudice. It was everywhere, even deep within the bowels of Circle Daybreak, but she had considered Peter a friend. Now she was defending herself against him. "You know Daybreak's policy."

"Yeah well, it seems Hannah's having a little trouble adjusting," Peter remarked. Turning back to his channel surfing.

"Why are you so bitter?" the question came unbidden.

"I'm not bitter," Peter denied. No, he wasn't bitter just out of place. He was a freak, a human, in a place where the supernatural thrived.

"I don't need to be a telepath to sense that you're bitter," Rosie told him, leaning back into her side of the couch. She relaxed slightly. Peter was broadcasting his insecurities; she knew that he didn't hate her in particular. He just felt irrelevant amongst the monsters. "You know that you are one of us right? It doesn't matter whether or not you're nightworld. You're a Daybreaker, that's the whole point."

"Why'd you join?" Peter stared at the television, willing it to swallow him whole. There was nothing he could do, he couldn't help Gracie, he couldn't do anything. All he could do was sit here, in a rec room in a Circle Daybreak centre having a conversation with a renegade nightworld vampire. Yeah, Peter was useless.

Rosie sighed; the memories of her past flowed back. Her running through alleyways, Rosie Willow may have come from a good vampire home, but she had taunted danger and one-day danger lost it. "I got into trouble as a kid," Rosie smiled, "I was from a traditional family, you know the type. Arrogant, think that world is their hunting ground." Rosie watched the television screen that had so engrossed Peter. "Anyway, my parents they cared, but not nearly enough to stop me from doing things I shouldn't. I won't lie to you Pete. I used to be a hell of a lot like Hannah. It took some serious arse kicking from CD agents to make me what I am." Rosie sighed again, "I got caught in some illegal business by some CD agents when I was fifteen. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I ended up here, working for them."

"So you gave up all your old allegiance because they made you an offer you couldn't refuse?" Peter snorted. He was unimpressed by her story.

"No, I didn't. It took a lot to get me from a snotty vampire brat to what I am now," Rosie got defensive again "I would have been in a massive amount of trouble if my district elders caught me. The CD agents blackmailed me. I little to no choice, face the elders' punishment or join CD and get off virtually scotch free. The elders would have been much more bloody in their punishment than Circle Daybreak. Yeah, I was blackmailed to join, but I like it here now."

Peter turned off the television. "Whatever okay?"

"What is your problem Haywood? As far as I know you have no reason to be so anti-vamp."

"I just don't trust anything with fangs," Peter got up.

Rosie changed. She didn't know how to make him realise that he mattered. That he was a really person in this dangerous world he had been introduced to. She felt her canines elongating. "Look at me."

Peter turned back around to face her. Her inhuman beauty shone brightly, and Peter breathed in.

"This is part of who I am, but it's not all of me," Rosie changed back, her teeth ached to feed, but she ignored it. This was slightly more important. "You're human, but you're not inferior, and you do belong here."

Peter stared at her still, "Then why the hell do I feel like I don't?"

~*~

Ari watched her; she was crouching behind a wooden fence. The slats were littered with splinters that wanted to embed themselves into skin.

It was an apparition of course. The real Harriet Miller stood beside him, motionless watching the translucent scene play out before them.

"Ready or not here I come!" the cry sailed through the air carrying all the laughter and joy of a seven year old with it.

The seven-year-old Harri bore a huge smile on her face. Hazel eyes gleaming with joy, steps thudded on the grass and Harri squirmed into an even smaller shape.

"Harri, where are you?"

Harri remained crouched, listening intently.

"Harri?"

The steps got closer and all Ari could hear was the seven-year-old Harri breathing.

"Found ya!" the yell came from a short little chocolate haired Peter Haywood. The eight-year-old giggled at the furiously indignant look on the seven-year-old Harri.

"You cheated," Harri stated matter-of-factly, as if it was the truest thing in the world.

The apparition faded and Ari watched the seventeen-year-old Harriet Miller standing next to him.

The brunette stayed motionless. "How much longer do we have to do this?"

Ari burned at the question. Did she imagine that he liked watching memories being played out before him, especially when they were his own haunting and bloody ones?

"Have you tried getting out of here?" Ari asked, his golden eyes narrowing. She shook just a little, and Ari released a smile.

"I don't know how."

"Try anything," Ari suggested. Was he going to stuck in this place forever? It was bad enough he was linked with her.

"I heard that," Harri snapped. She felt exhausted; the memories that had drifted out of them were draining. She had seen so much of Ari that it made her shiver at the thought of what he could do. The weirdest thing was that she could hear his thoughts: things that she was so sure never intended to grace another person's eardrums.

"I've heard every little thing you've thought too, if it makes you feel any better," Ari glared at the brunette. Why did it have to be her? He didn't care if she heard him. He had seen the little child that had lain within Harriet Miller grow up through her memories. He was sickened by the things Harri had done as a child. Plotting to get her younger sister grounded, manipulating her parents into buying her something far too expensive, knowing that they couldn't afford it. Then there was the worst of it; the things Harri had done since then. Harriet Miller was very aware of how people worked.

Harri wanted to slap him, but wouldn't dare. She too had seen what Ari had done when he was younger, and the fact that he had the ability to kill a man with his bare hands made her very wary of the golden-eyed boy.

"It doesn't," Harri replied, she wanted to wake up from this place. Wake up and find it was all a dream. She had a feeling that wasn't something that was going to happen anytime soon.

The sound of waves crashing on a shoreline reached her ears. Harri turned to face another memory from her past. The mischievous murmurs of the couple before her echoed her ears and she flushed red.

Ari glanced at her, the disgust in his golden eyes unwavering. The couple before her drew apart and Harri knew whom she would see. Joseph Hannah still had a hand tracing patterns at the small of her back. She remembered how they had filled her with pleasure, but now she was suddenly embarrassed. Ari raised an eyebrow at her. She looked away. She didn't want to see his opinion of her drop lower. Although, she thought, for it drop any lower it would have to bypass the depths of hell and keep on going.

Joseph began nuzzling at her neck, and the memory vanished violently as if it had never been.

Ari stared at her. The look in those golden eyes changed. Harri was glad, finally there was something else beside despise and loathing. There was pity in those eyes and the whisper of not forgiveness, but pardon. As he was letting her off for the crime she had committed. Oh, he would not forgive her, nor would he forget. Ari went towards her, and stopped. Reaching out with a hand to feel her neck. His touch sent prickles through her; it was like nothing she had ever felt before. She closed her eyes as he dragged his fingers down and across her neck, feeling for something. His hand drew away and Harri opened her eyes.

Light hurtled its way into her eyes, Harri blinked. She was crouched, her back pressed against her bedroom door. Her forearms lent heavily on Ari's knees, he was somehow entwined with her, "Why the hell are you in my bedroom?"

"I came here to kill you," Ari replied disentangling himself. His eyes still burnt her as she slid to floor.

Harri believed him, the murderous flash in his eyes before her dream was very real. "God, it's true isn't it? All of that was real."

Ari nodded sagely. Half glad that she didn't try to deny it. "Look, I need to tell you something about Hannah."

"Whatever it is, it doesn't matter," Harri was shaking; the knowledge her subconscious bestowed upon her was too much. It was okay to believe in shapeshifters and soulmates and stuff when you were dreaming, but that wasn't a dream. "Fuck, it can't be true."

"Harri stop deluding yourself," he snarled at her. He didn't want to go through all the crap that had happened in the swirling gold place again. "It's all true, we're soulmates, I'm a shape shifter, Joseph Hannah's a vampire, and he fed from you."

Harri looked up at him, he hazel eyes widening. Joseph? A vampire? No, that couldn't be true. None of it was true. "No way."

Ari rolled his eyes, what would he have to go through to persuade her that he was indeed telling the truth. "Think about it Harri, he fed from you. I don't want to know what else you guys did, but admit it to yourself. He used you for your blood."

"How do you know?" Harri was confused. Too much had happened. Everything seemed surreal. Ari's golden presence was unnerving and she began to feel dizzy. Everything was too much.

Ari refused to let a smug smile creep across his features. He knew it was wrong to take pleasure in Harri's confusion, but it was the only thing that made him feel better about the situation. Harri had less of an idea about what was going on than he did.

"Nightworlder," the word sounded as if a d-uh should follow it.

~*~

The number was scrawled across the paper. Blank ink marring the pale white scrap. Joseph looked at it. Should he? Oh he knew that she wouldn't care anymore, but there was something stopping him. He wanted to change didn't he? He wanted to become something that would be respected by those who knew respect was not fear.

He had talked to Boss. The woman had looked weary. Boss had smiled at him with understanding and compassion, but it all seemed false to him. Why would Circle Daybreak want to help him, Joseph Hannah? Joseph closed his eyes. The darkness of his flat surrounded him, another gift from Circle Daybreak, a gift of somewhere to live. Somewhere where he was supposed to change, but change into what?

Joseph knew he wasn't caterpillar to morph into a beautiful and resplendent butterfly. He was something else. Some darker, something that had never seen the light, but Gracie was his light and he had been drawn to her, a helpless moth to the flame. He wondered if Gracie had burnt him, burnt him with goodness.

He sighed, the number was so tempting, and he knew that Harri wouldn't refuse him…couldn't refuse him. Harriet Miller was just as fascinated by him as he was by her. Joseph lashed out, indecision frustrating him. He knew what he had to do. So why was he faltering? The glass he hit skipped across the kitchen bench, shattering on the kitchen tiles. The sound of glass shattering vibrated through the tiny flat. Joseph closed his eyes. He didn't need this. He needed her. He needed her support, her love, her belief that he could change, and he didn't have it. He had nothing. All he had was two numbers, one for a girl who would adore him and reopen the gates to his old world and one for a middle-aged man who specialised in counselling troubled nightworlders, somehow neither were appealing.

The phone glinted in the darkness; it's whiteness somehow glowing in the dim kitchen. Joseph stared at it. He knew he should do something, anything. This was where he would make profound life changing decision, but it seemed so mundane. So ordinary, weren't these moments meant to have some sort of startling clarity? Joseph's fingers closed on the smooth handset. It would be so easy; it was like stealing candy from a baby, he had no idea how to shut the damn kid up afterwards.

The dial tone echoed in his ears, and slowly he dialled the number.

~*~