AN/Thought I'd update this, hope people are still interested. Please review :)
Alec sat on a grungy dated sofa in the living room of the old house while Astrid paced around in front of the window. She still hadn't told him why they were here, but the house obviously held some kind of sentimental value.
'So..' Alec ventured 'This was where you lived with your parents before they died?' He didn't feel shy about bringing up the topic like an ordinary guy would.
Astrid stopped in her tracks and turned her back to him, she stared out the window at the overgrown garden, vines hung all over the gazebo and the gardens were lost in weeds.
'No, I came here after they died…after they were murdered. By a transgenic.' Astrid said the last bit with extra coldness in her voice, that night had been the beginning of the end. Her old life had dissapeared.
Astrid was twelve. She had just slain her first vampire. Her mother had made a fuss, like she'd just been on her first date. Joseph was there, he had smiled proudly down at her.
'Well done, Astrid. You just made the world a safer place'
She went to bed that night happy. She was so proud of herself, she felt fulfilled. She had a purpose, and that was to make the world a safe place. To kill the vampires which made it dangerous. She drifted off to sleep feeling secure of her place in the world, herself and her abilities.
Astrid woke with a start in the middle of the night. She was in a cold sweat, something wasn't right. She sat up in her bed, straight as an arrow listening. She heard nothing except the wind in the trees. Giving a sigh of relief Astrid pushed her fears out of her mind, it was just her imagination.
Just as she was about to drift back to sleep there was a bloodcurdling scream from her parent's end of the house. This time Astrid didn't falter, she jumped out of bed and grabbed the wooded stake she kept on the bedside table.
She kept her back to the wall as she snuck along the hall. She heard crashes from her parent's bedroom, and muffled cries. She came to the doorway and the sight made her scream. Her mother was dead, she was lying on the bed- eyes open, glazed over. Her neck was tilted on an unnatural angle, obviously broken. Astrid's eyes brushed over her neck- she hadn't been bitten. Not vampires!
'Astrid, run!' screamed her father, who had positioned himself between the attacker and his daughter. She froze. Fear overcame her senses and she couldn't turn her gaze away from her mother's lifeless expression of fear.
She heard a choking sound and snapped back to the scene in front of her. The attacker moved at lightning speed, pinning her father's hands behind his back with one hand and crushing his throat with the other. Anger overcame fear and Astrid threw herself at the attacker. He was barely a man, nineteen maybe. He wasn't a vampire, Astrid was sure she could take him.
He moved around her, so quickly that he blurred and held her in a headlock. Astrid brought her elbow hard into the bottom of his ribcage, and with her free arm twisted back the fingers on the hand that was holding her so hard she heard them snap. The attacker cried out in pain and Astrid took the opportunity to slip from his hold and dart away from his reach. They circled each other, both cautious of the others strengths.
Feeling weary Astrid snuck a glance at her father, who was slumped on the ground barely conscious gasping for breath.
'He won't last much longer, I severed his windpipe' the attacker spoke for the first time. His voice seemed to have a slight humorous tone to it. Astrid wanted to cut his throat. She didn't reply, and the man continued.
'I have instructions not to harm you, so I'll make you a deal. Give yourself over to me peacefully and I'll call an ambulance. If you want to fight, I'll win eventually anyway, but your father will die before long.'
'Daddy..' Astrid looked over at her father, he shook his head. She knew he would rather die and give her the opportunity to escape. But she couldn't. She would never forgive herself.
'Promise' she asked the attacker in a hoarse whisper. So young and naïve.
He nodded.
She took a step towards him. Closer and closer she moved until they were less than a meter apart. She didn't have a second to react as he whipped a syringe out of his jacket and slammed it into her neck. From there everything became blurry, Astrid fell to her knees, and then face first onto the carpet. She rolled herself over and looked up at the attacker through drowsy eyes. He was smiling.
'Youpromised' she managed to slip out before feeling her face go numb. The smile slipped from the attackers face, and for a split second he looked troubled 'Sorry kid, I don't have the authority to keep that kind of a deal.'
Astrid tried to speak, but she couldn't. She screamed silently, her whole body paralysed, as she watched him finish off her father.
That was the first time she learnt never to trust a transgenic. It was the moment she changed from a child to an adult. From light to darkness. From innocence to vengeance.
Alec watched the side of Astrid's face as she gazed out of the window. Obviously remembering a time past. Probably the murder of her parents.
'I'm sorry' murmured Alec said, and he truly was. The death of someone you had never met, only knew of as 'your parents' hadn't been so difficult for him, they had never really existed in his life. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like to lose his parents after knowing them.
So lost in her thoughts Astrid had forgotten he was there, let alone the fact that they had been talking.
'It was a long time ago. I'm a different person now.'
'Do you know who killed them'?
She nodded
' I found him again when I was thirteen'
'What happened?' asked Alec
Astrid replied without a hint of emotion 'I killed him'