TITLE: Losing Grace formerly titled GreenDISCLAIMER: 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.
NOTE: I changed the tittle…I didn't think Green suited it much…but anyhow still the same story.
NOTE 2: Sorry if there are lots of mistakes but I have no time to proof read so…bear with them.
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Old Penguin: Yeah Green was the title of something I was playing around with when this saga developed, and Losing Grace hit me the other day and I was like yay that suits it so much better. Yeah it is a bit calm, I know it's kinda boring at the moment but you're right something is going to happen…and you'll find out who Joseph rings…I have no idea how long this is going to be…aiming for fifteen because I think I can finish it in fifteen but we'll see I thought I would finish it by ten…. I was wrong. I'm glad you like my characters…I try to make them realistic and well sometimes I think I fail but it's not really real finding out that vamps and 'shifters really exist. Anyhow thanks for the humongous review….and thanks for reading.
Terriah: I'm sure you're not as evil as Harri…besides Harri's not evil she's just, um…misled? Yeah that's it…Harri's just misled; she had no idea what she was up against till now. Hope you don't get offended by what Harri does since your name is Harrie for short. Glad you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reviewing.
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CHAPTER XI
Ari strode towards the darkened warehouse. Harriet Miller was running through his head. Not just thoughts of her, but her actual thoughts. It made him feel like he was slightly mad, and somehow he knew he was. He knew that it was going to be impossible to ignore it. Impossible to ignore the link that was binding them together by the minute. Still Ari had to try, he could never have feelings towards the brunette whom the Old Powers had decided he should be with.
Ari saw a figure waiting at the brown wooden door. He sighed; all he wanted to do was sleep. He would leave tomorrow. He didn't want to deal with anyone who would make him stay, and he knew Rosie would insist on him staying.
"You didn't do it," Rosie's voice cut the darkness. The dim streetlights barely illuminated his partner's face, but Ari could see and hear the concern that made her voice sway.
"What are you doing here?" Ari asked. He didn't want to have this conversation. He wanted to send her back to the CD centre. Send her back to her little box of a room in the agent's hall. Ari didn't want to hear the worry in her voice. He didn't want to hear her tell him that he should go back, absently he wondered how many agents had been sent out to find him.
"Looking for you," Rosie glared at him, her beautiful ethereal eyes chilling him to the bone.
"How many are there?" Ari didn't move, he knew Rosie's strength. He didn't want her to be able to capture him. He didn't want her to be able to bring him back.
"I don't know Ari, Boss bumped me," Rosie gave a short little laugh. The sound was cold and tinny. Ari remembered all the times he had shared with the vampiric girl before him, they had been exciting times, good times. Times when he didn't have a soulmate, times where he could love Gracie without consequences, even if he never told her. Yeah, he and Rosie had been through a lot. He didn't want her to be the one to drag him back in. He didn't trust what she had said. Boss wouldn't be stupid enough to bump of the only agent that had a chance to find him. Although Ari had begun to question his superior's intelligence. His ex-superior. Ari was leaving Circle Daybreak.
Ari stayed silent. He watched Rosie, her eyes bored in to his. She was waiting for something, he could tell by the way she stood. But what was it that she needed?
"They let Gracie out," the news vibrated trough him. Gracie was out. Would she be a danger to Harri? Ari remembered the way she had so adamantly told him that she would not regret carrying out revenge. The newfound fear was strange to him, why did he care if Harri survived the night? He was meant to be ignoring the link that made him feel these things. Ignoring the way she wandered through his mind with nonchalant ignorance.
"How is she?"
Rosie smiled at him. The canines hidden behind curved lips. "I didn't see her. I saw Peter though," the vampire's eyes clouded with frustration at the human boy's name. "He said that she was still pretty upset."
"Oh," Ari still stayed out of her reach. He was certain that Rosie could move faster than him. He might be able to fly, but it would take moments to change and Rosie could be on him in less than a second.
"You did the right thing," Rosie told him. Ari wondered. Was it the right thing? Was it right for him to leave Gracie in that cell and go after Harri? Was it right for him to put Gracie in the cell in the first place? Did he do the right thing in not letting Gracie go and devour her soulmate and Harri?
I'm not so sure, the snide voice in his head said. The voice that was being overridden by the wave of thoughts from his soulmate. Ari blinked, he couldn't focus. A panicky scream-thought entered his mind. What was wrong? What was happening to her? The concern for Harri poured into him like a surging waterfall. He had no idea what was happening; only that something was.
"Ari?" Rosie's voice broke through his trance, "Are you okay?"
Ari shook his head, now foolishness washed through him. Not his own, but hers, it was only a spider. "Yeah," Ari paused. Rosie had step nearer to him in concern. Ari stepped back, "Yeah I'm fine. Look I don't want to fight you."
Rosie shook her head exasperated. "I don't want to fight you either," Rosie sighed. "I don't see why you can't go back. You didn't kill her, you didn't break any of the rules."
"I can't face her," Ari answered honestly. He could never look Gracie in the eye and feel like he hadn't failed her. He would have done anything for her, but he couldn't do the one thing that called out for him to do. Ari Lindsay could not kill Harriet Miller. She was his soulmate. Ari knew now why Gracie had worked so hard to have a relationship with Joseph. No one could live with this connection without being emotionally close.
"I think you would be more able to face her now than before," Rosie couldn't understand her colleague's resistance.
Oh, but you don't know. Ari wanted to tell Rosie, tell her why he was unable to face Gracie. Unable to look into her warm grey eyes and not feel divided; the thoughts of Gracie warred against the link, slashing against it, trying desperately to tear it down. Ari knew they wouldn't succeed. The Old Powers had determined this.
"I failed her Rosie."
Rosie's eyes widened, their beauty beyond words. The wanting to tell him that he was wrong made the sparkle. "You didn't fail any one. If you had of killed Harri you'd have failed her, and most of all you would have failed yourself."
"You don't get it Rosie, I can't go back. I have to leave this place," the further he was from Harri and Gracie the easier it would be. He would start a new life for the second time in his life. He wouldn't be a vengeful child anymore, or a love stricken teenager; Ari would become something else in his new life. Something that he wouldn't have to run from, something that wouldn't have to do unspeakable acts to gain peace inside him.
"You're right," Rosie sounded angry, she let her voice tear at him, "I don't get it."
Ari wanted to roll his eyes at her. He couldn't just leave; to turn his back on her would be a good as committing suicide. She would be able to jump him by at least his third step. Ari sighed, "Please, don't force me to go back."
"If I don't some one else will find you. I don't really thing you want Jensen or Halleday on your arse."
"Thought you said you didn't know who was sent to find me," Ari was confused. He recognised the agents' names. She was right he didn't want Jensen trying to find him. The man was ruthless in carrying out missions.
"I don't. I'm guessing, I know what those guys are like, and I know what Boss is like. She didn't like losing you," Rosie shrugged, some ease had returned to the conversation.
"I'm not lost, I know exactly where I am. Hiding is not being lost," Ari wanted to glare at his ex-boss, but seeing as she was not there he settled for his ex-partner.
Rosie glared back, silvery determination glinting in her eyes. Her hair shimmered in the streetlight. Ari knew she was going to try and take him in.
"I'm not a hostile Rosie."
"No," Rosie conceded, "but you could be."
Ari watched her carefully. Her face was deadly serious and her body had moved into stance Ari recognised from fighting beside her. Not against her. "Rosie just let me leave. I don't want to go back, I can't look Gracie in the eyes and tell her what I was going to do. I can't look her into her eyes and not feel like I betrayed her."
Rosie almost snorted at his passionate outburst. "Why not?"
Ari sighed, he couldn't tell her. Oh because I found out that Harriet Miller is my soulmate, but I still love Gracie. Yeah, Ari could see that going down well. I'm still in love with a girl I can't have. Realisation hit him like a brick wall. Except brick walls don't normally move that fast. "There are just some things she can't find out. Some things that are better left alone."
Rosie's eyes narrowed, and Ari held her glare. He was not going to surrender. "Look this is what I know: You are in love with Gracie Bismarck. She is very angry with Joseph Hannah and Harri Miller. You looked after her this afternoon, and made sure she would not do anything that she would regret at a later date. You left with the intention of committing her revenge for her and not coming back. Ever. Now you are here, at your uncle's warehouse," Rosie paused in her explanation, "Here's what I guess and why: I can't see any blood, nor smell death on you. So I'm guessing you didn't kill Harri. I can sense frustration and confusion on you. I'm guessing something completely unexpected happened when you went after Harri."
Ari still held her gaze. Well what she had said was true. Something completely unexpected had happened when he went after Harri, but would she guess what. Ari wanted to close his eyes and collapse. Then maybe he would get some peace, some peace from the vampire in front of him and the human girl invading his mind.
"Am I right?"
"Yes," Ari answered truthfully, hoping that it would make her go away. He knew that it wouldn't but he could help but lie to himself.
Concern washed the shadowed face, and Ari wondered how much Rosie had changed from the days when stoicism had been her life. "What happened?"
"Nothing," the pointless lie was a reflex, but he did not to want to tell her. The more people that knew about his link with Harri the harder it would be to ignore.
"Bullshit," the response was reflex too. Rosie knew when Ari was lying, and he had openly admitted that something had happened a few seconds ago.
"Maybe," Ari didn't give an inch, "Please Rosie, let me go. I don't want to fight you."
Rosie looked back at the situation. She didn't want to fight him either but she didn't think she had a choice. He was termed as 'a potentially dangerous threat.' CD policy said as an agent she had to attempt to take in a hostile regardless if they were on the case. "Then come with me."
Ari wanted to yell, but he knew that wouldn't change things. They were back at square one. She would attempt to take him back, and he knew he wouldn't go willingly. He remembered how Gracie had fought him earlier that day. She had scratched at him, trying to knee him in the groin, but he had won. Succeeding in taking her back to the CD centre. Ari knew that he would not win his fight against Rosie anywhere as easily. He has witnessed her fights and knew that she knew exactly how to disarm him.
Rosie's probing eyes didn't leave him. Ari watched her just as carefully; he didn't want to be unaware of her movements. To be taken by surprised would be more embarrassing than either of them could comprehend.
Ari noticed Rosie's twitching muscles, but that didn't mean anything. It could just be a feint. Design to lure him in making the wrong defence; still Ari didn't want to be the first to strike. Rosie was a friend.
Neither of them made an attack, the blood too close between them. "I can't do this," the admission of weakness came from Rosie. She knew her duty. She knew that she was bound to take him in, take him back to the place and organisation he had abandoned. Abandoned because his self-pride had been injured. "Even if you had failed, she would forgive you."
Ari was surprised at the vampire's concession. He didn't think she would give in, but then it could all be a ploy. A ploy to get him off balance, "There's nothing to forgive." That was the truth. How could Gracie forgive him for having a soulmate? He couldn't forgive her for having Hannah as the other part of her soul, because she hadn't done anything wrong. Gracie didn't go out of her way to get an ungrateful vampire as a soulmate and he hadn't gone to great pains to be Harriet Miller's soulmate either, although now he was suffering great pain.
Confusion clouded Rosie's eyes, she didn't understand. What was making Ari so stubborn?
"I can't let you go either," and with that Rosie did the only thing she could do. A wave of glittery-power hit Ari's mind. The knowledge that rebounded back at Rosie made everything clearer but by then Ari was flat. His eyelids drooping over his vibrant golden orbs.
Joseph let the garbled message of the machine warble into his ears. He waited for the single tone to beep and then promptly hung up. What could he do? Leave a message on the man's answering machine: "Hi, My Joseph Hannah, and I need help. My soulmate dumped me."
No, Joseph glared at the phone in the darkness. He had no idea what he had planned to say to the man who Boss had recommended, but it definitely wasn't that. Joseph stared again at the scrap of paper Harri had given him. Her scrawled handwriting evoked the memory of her writing it down with bursting enthusiasm. It was bright memory in the darkness, because he had felt whole again. Joseph had never felt like part of him was missing. Now, when he knew who Gracie was, he did. He could feel his emptiness clawing at him, a wildcat that did not like being kept in a cage. An emptiness that was trying to reach completeness, and it knew how. Joseph supposed he should do the right thing. Call back and this time leave a message, pleading for the help he knew he needed. The help that he knew they needed. Joseph wanted to shed a bitter laugh at the thought that he and Gracie needed couples counselling, but it was true. He and Gracie needed help.
The phone still sat there, glistening in its whiteness. It was distracting him. "It's not that I don't want you. I do want you. I just don't want to cry anymore." Gracie's words echoed in his mind. He didn't want to make her cry anymore, but he had spent his life inspiring fear. It wasn't just something he could stop. Tears were his forte, as he had gotten older he knew all the different tears he could cause, and the exact actions that would set those tears in motion. Oh, he would admit that sometimes he had the intent to make Gracie cry. Was it wrong to internally torture the girl you loved? Joseph knew others would think so, but what Gracie had said was true. Ignorance was bliss. He had been ignorant in his life before Gracie and he had experienced the happiness it had caused. He had been trying to regain that bliss, but this time he had knowledge and it was that, which was the cause of his pain.
Joseph dialled, and the phone rang.
The glistening pane of glass revealed an image she did not like very much. Ari's view on her keep barging into her thoughts and she wanted to smash the mirror before her into a thousand shards. The silvery surface showed her hazel eyes and long brown waves in a new light. Harri has always thought she was attractive, beautiful even. Now, she couldn't see it, her reflection had been distorted by the unsavoury thoughts that Ari had bulleted into her mind.
She could feel herself changing, wanting to change, just so she could be looked upon by Ari in something that wasn't revulsion. Oh she knew their agreement. They were going to ignore it. They were going to ignore the thing that was trying it's hardest to tie them together for eternity; maybe she could change by then. Harri doubted it was possible, or was that Ari's doubt? The knowledge of what Ari was also scared her. Seeing his memories of shifting did nothing to remove the knowledge that there were other beings besides humans out there. His memories reinforced the words that had been forced through his lips. There was such thing as vampires, shapeshifters and witches, and her soulmate was one of them.
Harri wanted to vanish into oblivion, nothing like that could be real. The images of Ari's past came hurtling at her every time she tried to deny it. And if Ari was a shapeshifter, that would mean that Joseph was a vampire. That thought did not comfort her, did that mean Gracie knew what he was, or was she part of this 'secret society,' too? Harri did not know whom to trust. It would be so easy to dismiss it all, becoming paranoid was not on her list of things to do.
The challenging gaze of Joseph flickered in her memory, and she knew that she had been playing another one of her games. Joseph Hannah was just a boy to be amused by; she didn't harbour any deep and meaningful emotions for the boy. She was just enjoying the challenge. The challenge of seducing her friend's boyfriend, but then Ari's words floated back to her, as if they were from an aeon ago. "…Joseph Hannah's a vampire, and he fed from you." So she was just a part of another game, a game where she was the prey not the hunter. The two games were being played parallel to each other, each thinking that they were the predator. Harri didn't like that thought. No, she didn't like that at all, considering herself weak. That was a needle to her helium balloon-like ego. It was rising higher and now it would burst.
Harri stared at her reflection again. She could not see the confidence that she had once drenched herself in. Eight hairy legs crawled over her image, and Harri backed away. A scream escaping from her lips, she knew it was just a spider, but it was a big black hairy spider. The arachnoid scuttled across the smooth surface and Harri felt like she could breath again.
A wave of stupidity washed her and she knew that a spider should be the least of her fears, after all, she now knew vampires, shapeshifters and witches were real.
Everything seemed scarier. She supposed it was like thinking the world was flat, only to sail off the end of the world to find out that it was round. The nightworld was round, the nightworld existed and it added a new dimension to…well, everything. Harri tried to smile, and found that it was empty. She was too drained, too painfully aware that she had lost a chance of true happiness.
A firm knock rapped her door, startling her. She got up and opened her door; half hoping that Ari was back, but knowing full well it wasn't him. Sally Miller stood at the door, the cordless phone in hand. "It's for you," the twelve year old handed her the phone. Harri didn't even offer her thanks.
"Hello?" Harri put the telecommunications instrument to her ear.
"Hi," the sensual voice greeted on the other end. Harri controlled the urge to thrust the phone away from her. Joseph Hannah was a vampire. A vampire…
"Hey," she tried to put a false smile in her voice but had a feeling she wasn't succeeding.
"When can I see you again?" Harri was startled at the question, a blankness overtook her, and suddenly she felt light hearted, like all the thoughts that had been pouring through her mind had ceased.
"I don't know," Harri said playfully, amazed that she was able to make herself sound like she meant it. Quickly the memory of what she had said cut into her mind. She was trying to prove to Ari she was not as horrible as he thought she was. This was not helping. "Have you talked to Gracie yet?"
She didn't want to hear the response, Harri just wanted to go to bed, and maybe she would believe the delusion that tonight had been a dream. "Yeah," Joseph's voice came through to her.
Oh, "And?" Harri was sure she didn't want to know. Nothing in his voice betrayed what he was feeling and that made Harri angry. A second thought came to Harri. What if he had killed Gracie? After all he was a vampire.
"It's over," the words were flat and emotionless. Harri couldn't play this game anymore. Ari kept on appearing in her mind. If Joseph and Gracie were over that meant Ari and Gracie could be together. The pain of that thought hurt, and Harri didn't know why. She knew the soulmate link was responsible for that pain, but she didn't understand it. How could two people be linked for eternity, that was just plain irrational.
"I'm sorry," Harri was shocked at those words. Yes they had come out of her mouth, but she didn't know if she had meant them. She knew that before this evening those words would have meant bliss for her, but now… now there was only uncertainty.
Joseph didn't say anything. The silence unnerved her, and she wanted to hang up. Hang up and make sure she didn't do anything stupid.
"Look, do you want to get together on Sunday?" Joseph's voice made the invitation seem trivial, but Harri knew she didn't want to be hunted again. The thought of being prey made her shudder.
Harri didn't know what to say; she knew she should say no. After all wasn't that what she had promised herself she would do. She would prove to Ari that she was capable of being a decent person, and that's what a decent person would do wasn't it?