Los Angeles: today
Bonnie McCullough sat in an outside café, sipping a cup of hot coffee while holding a cigarette between her index finger and middle finger. People rushed by quickly a few feet away from her, going to their office jobs, totally unaware of that the sun shone and that it was a lovely day. Her hair shone in the sunlight like a beacon where it fell loosely down her waist and her brown sparkled with laughter as she listened to what the nearly eighteen year old boy had to say about his teacher.
Leaning back with a nonchalant look upon his face he reminded her a lot about someone she used to know long ago. Not just that, he was an exact copy of him except for the fact that he had a heart – his father sure hadn't.
A soft breeze caught his bluish black hair that fell down in his well-sculpted face, and Bonnie smiled at him, trying to calm him down. She fully successed to hide the amused feeling inside of her, he didn't even caught the scent of it, and later she thanked herself for not fully viewing it. He hated when people laughed at him, and would have made him even angrier.
Instead she just smiled reassuringly and stroked his hand.
"I hope Miss Summers will treat you better in the future, and if she doesn't, just tell me and I'll have a long chat with her," she said, and by that comment the angry lines in his face softened up. "Now... what did you eat?"
Her eyes grew searious, knowing that his hunger wasn't that normal. It sometimes got very violent, which was something she didn't like. She also disliked when he ate the things that gave him the most strength, as it often led to uncomfortable questions. Twice already had the police searched for the one that had brutally killed two persons a year ago, and only because of Bonnie's quick mind had Angel avoided to be suspected of anything.
"A rabbit," the answer came simply, and by a look at him she knew he told the truth.
Nodding as if something good, she inhaled of her cigarette and then exhaled a breath of toxics. He wrinkled his nose in protest for her smoking.
"You should really stop with that," he remarked.
"Angel, I know," she replied sourly. "But it was my choice to start with it, and now I'll have to live with it."
Angel looked as if he was going to say something more, but decided to drop it. Arguing never led anywhere, especially not with his mother. She was stubborn and would not give up a battle even if it costed her life.
She saw him drink some water and then restlessly scratch his left hand, and then feel at his ring. This was the fifth she had given to him as he always needed it, the deep-blue colour of the lapis lazuli stone in the thick silver ring gave him the ability to be in daylight, protecting him from the sun. Still she knew it pained him a lot to do so for too long, as it emptied his Powers faster. Therefore did he also wear his sunglasses wherever he went, except during night time.
"So what do you want for your birthday?" She asked.
If she had been able to read his mind, she'd be both angry and frightened. She had never told him about his father, every time the subject had come up she had shut him out by a cold silence. He knew he could read her mind to find out, but she'd know exactly what he did the moment she felt him inside her mind and shut him out from there as well. So he stood without options.
Looking at her, he almost said that he mostly desired was to know who his father was, even if it turned out that he was the cruellest man on Earth. He could never tell her of the pain inside, that there was something was awfully wrong with him, something that gave him the ability to kill people just by looking intensively enough at them.
His father would know, since it was from him he had inherited his immortal genes, he was also a killer. He could come to his father with his problems and guy things, such things that he had seen his class mates talk to their fathers about. Normal things.
Though he wasn't like others, he reminded himself, and therefore wouldn't anything be really normal. He would never fully fit in, he would always be someone that stood out from the rest, an intruder.
Angel forced away those thoughts and sighed inaudibly. No harm would he bring on his mother, no matter how much he wanted to.
"A new jacket would be fine," he finally said.
"Come on, it's not every day you turn 18!" Bonnie protested.
"I don't know what I want, I already have everything that I need."
He shrugged his shoulders and she pouted for a second until she nodded slowly.
A few minutes later Angel's head bolted up as if he listened, and Bonnie felt the tension in the surroundings. Someone was talking to his mind, and from what she saw in his face, he replied, though not as strongly as the other person.
"Who was that?" She asked.
"Nino, he told me of a few hunting places nearby," Angel answered, his voice much lower than before.
It had cost him a lot to answer to the other mind, and it was shown by a various mix of face expressions on his face.
Bonnie remembered her first encounter with Nino Sanchez very well, it was as if it had been etched into her mind, and nothing would ever erase it.
It was in the middle of the night, and she took a long walk outdoors, not at all to spy on her son, she knew he could cope on his own, but to stretch her legs. Fiftheen hours of sitting still was enough to drive even the most obsessed computer geek out on the streets, and she enjoyed the cool of the night.
As she entered the park there had been a feeling of extreme emptiness all around her. No birds, no wind, nothing. It picked on her mind that there was something alien in the area, but she waved it away since it also could be Angel. He hunted here from time to time, as there also lay a lot of forest areas in the large park.
She walked around the lake until she crouched down on knees to rest, aware of that the benches all were covered in dew. A branch snapped behind her, and before she could react, someone jumped on to her back and pressed her down to the ground. Feeling the heaviness in the body, she jammed her elbow into his stomach, though didn't achieve the reaction that she had expected. Instead he just laughed and pushed her further down so that she had a hard time to breathe.
"Why do you vampires always have to do these kinds of things?" She muttered, somehow managed to turn around and scratch him in the face and then force his face upwards a bit.
His fangs glittered temporarilly from the street light a few hundred yards away and easily grabbed her hand and forced it down to the ground. Struggling to get free she realized he had her in an iron fist, there was no way she could get out of this, so decided to lay still, which made him smile victoriously.
"Because we find it amusing, perhaps?"
She couldn't exactly place his accent, though guessed that it was something that was supposed to sound like spanish, as he looked as a latino. Even though she was in this situation she kept her inner and outer under strict control, if there was something that triggered a vampire it was fear. Not even if she got the chance would she run away, she would walk calmly, running was also dangerous as it spoke to the hunting instincts.
"Well then, finish it off. I don't have the entire night on myself."
She leaned her head to the side so that she viewed her bare neck and relaxed in her body, being tensed was something that only increased the pain. She was unaware of the fact she had viewed the same side that Damon had bitten her on, and two small scars were still visible on the side, for some reason it hadn't healed like they normally did.
Her actions startled the vampire for a second, it seemed as if she had no idea of that he was planning to kill her, but he smiled and nodded shortly.
He lowered his head against her chest and suddenly stopped dead in his motions. His eyes widened for a second until he backed off and helped her up on her feet.
"I'm terribly sorry, I didn't know who you were," he excused, with a slight touch of panic in his voice as he brushed off some grass and dust from her clothes, leading her out into the light.
At first Bonnie was extermely chocked over his actions, but then remembered something she had read in a book about vampires. Once you've switched blood with a vampire, you carried their mark, you were a part of their property. The one who touched their property would die, which Bonnie for some reason found extremely amusing. Of course that was not for all vampires, some of them – like Damon – didn't care if he intruded in anyones property as he was strong enough to kill those who came to challenge him.
The vampire introduced himself as Nino Sanchez and offered himself to take Angel under his wings, because for some strange reason he knew of Angel, and she simply nodded and knew that she had just got herself a body guard.
Sighing inaudibly, she accepted what Angel said. It was an obvious lie, but knowing what he was she couldn't keep him home during the nights. It was like forbidding him to eat, and famished he was even stronger than during normal times. There was something in his survival instincts that gained his strength at those times, for the fact of that a weak vampire was an easy pray, as vampires killed eachothers in battles for power. Yet had Angel only been in one, but in the middle of the battle, something had happened to his opponent that had caused him to give up a scream and then flee, which Angel had found very odd.
"I better get going, I have a test in 30 minutes," he said and rose, kissing her on the cheek.
'Probably to avoid further questions,' she thought but didn't say anything such. She never questioned his actions, he knew what he did.
"Good luck".
He smiled and left quickly, and again he reminded her of Damon. Always coming and going as he wished, and she cursed him for his evil genes.
She hated Damon for the way he was, for how easily he had manipulated her after Elena's return. She damned him for his irresistable charms and she knew that she would fall for it all again if he tried. But mostly she blamed herself for being so naive. It laid in his nature to manipulate those who were weaker. And most people were a lot weaker than him.
Bonnie finished her coffee and left, pondering over the thought of looking him up again, just to slap his face and maybe even cut his balls off, but waved it away as fast as the thought had appeared. She had problems as it was already, and didn't need him to mess her life up again. Not to mention the fact of that he would cut her throat off if she ever tried doing anything, for she would not success with either of those things.
Stifling a yawn she headed home to get some sleep, she hadn't gotten any sleep the previous night due to the writing essay she was working on in her afternoon classes, and she hummed lowly on a tune she had heard that morning and got herself home.
* * *
Bonnie had barely entered hers and Angel's apartment before she was stricken by an awful nausea that brought her down to her knees.
Peering down into her brain, someone explored her inner and she hated it. She had no idea of why vampires felt like reading her mind every God damned week!
Taking a deep breath she collected her mental powers and pushed the intruder away and then sat motionless for several minutes, recovering herself from the tough task.
"God that hurt," she whispered to herself as she rose and walked into the bathroom, taking a pain-killer and swallowing it with some water.
He – for she was sure of that it had been a he – had done a really messy job in her brain, and had made sure of that she suffered while he checked her out.
It was a mental rape, and every time that it happened she wanted to be just a normal girl, as the fact of that her psychic powers attracted other psychic beings in the world.
Walking into the combined living room and bedroom she walked past a large book-shelf and threw herself down on the bed that lay behind it. The piles of mess that lay all over the room she ignored, she needed sleep and needed it badly.
Before she drifted into sleep a thought came up in her head; someone had made a searious attempt to contact/search her, and would not give up that easily.