CHAPTER ONE: THE WANDERERS (last part of chapter)

That night, Vash tended to Knives alone, and claimed to Vanessa that he had eaten.

As he slept, Vash's dreams were all nightmares, in which Knives was rampaging with a smile on his bloodied face, standing in a sea of blood and flesh. He awoke, sweat-covered and panting, each time wondering if allowing Vanessa to heal the infection was such a great idea.

And for the next few days, Vanessa wasn't allowed in the room with Knives, despite her protests that more antibiotic should be applied to prevent a relapse. But she was kept busy each day with nursing, and Vash usually tended the garden while everyone was at work.

But returning home one day late at night, she was greeted with the slurred sounds of merriment. Vash, Meryl, and Millie were assembled about a table full of booze bottles, talking loudly amongst each other in drunken stupors.

"Have you all eaten?" she asked them.

Vash muttered something and Millie hooted. Meryl swayed slightly in her chair.

Vanessa rolled her eyes, going to the kitchen to cook dinner for herself. Putting water to boil, she left to draw a bath upstairs. As she went, she began to hear yelling. Pressing her head to Knives' door, she heard him yelling that he was hungry. He said something about how Vash had forgotten to feed him. Vanessa went back downstairs, and asked Vash.

Millie was passed out on the tabletop, and Vash giggled.

"You forgot to feed Knives!" Vanessa told him, nudging him into attention. "He hasn't eaten all day, Vash!"

Vash looked at her with a glazed-over expression. "Oopsy, he's mad at me now!" he said in a happy stupor. He was completely plastered this time.

"Then I'm going to have to feed him," she sighed.

"Wha…?" Vash mumbled, then took a swig from a bottle.

Vanessa hesitated, but assembled a meal for Knives on a tray, and walked up the stairs. The room was silent. She undid the locks, and shoved the door open. It was dark inside. She set the tray on the floor and reached around the doorway, feeling on the table inside for the lamp. It was gone. She lit the lamp in the bathroom, and noticed that Knives' bed was empty. But he was still inside the room. She could hear his excited breathing from behind the open door.

Her heart racing, she took out her book and began to meditate on a page. She heard Knives, hiding, begin to stumble as he became disoriented from the 'spell.' But before the effect was total, he reached around the door and yanked her into the room. He slammed the door behind her, and threw her book across the floor.

Standing, Vanessa noticed Knives guarding the door, and so she casually walked to a stool and sat. "You've healed quite quickly, haven't you?" she said, calmly. She considered diving for her book, but in a dark room she knew its futility.

Knives smiled. "I was waiting for Vash, but you came instead…" he paused, thinking. "And you didn't bring a gun like he would have, but just as well…"

He walked towards her. "I hate being incapacitated, you know? And I've spent most of the last twenty years in just such a state…"

Vanessa tried to dash around him, but was caught again. Knives grabbed her wrists in one hand and forced her against the wall. She tried to knee him in the groin, but he pressed a shin against her legs. She was stuck.

"I thought I nauseate you," Vanessa scoffed. "But you're next to me now…don't you want to recoil in disgust?"

He snickered, holding his left hand straight out to the side, letting it begin to transform and emit a little of the light. "As much as I hate humans, it is amazing how nice to look at they can be," he commented as he noticed her features in the soft, unnatural glow.

"You've got a lot of gall," she sneered, unable to turn her head to see the source of the light. "You hate humans, but you're a human…"

He slapped her hard across the face. "Bitch!! I am not!"

"You'd look prettier with your hair down," he said, recalling the angel arm and moving his hands to her face. "I'll see you at your best before I kill you." He spread his fingers and shoved them into her hair, and began to pull the hair out of the pins. But as his fingers felt her ears, his eyes lit up.

She screamed as the pins bent and flew from her head, the pain intense (as though someone were pulling your hair out).

As his hands were occupied, she grabbed his side wound in both hands and dug her fingers in deep until he crumpled to the floor. She grabbed her book and ran out quickly, locking the door behind her. Panting, she locked up the door and pulled her cloak over her head. Without the hairpins, her ears were exposed. She began to sob. Her face throbbing, she took up her book and concentrated on the sleeping spell page, careful not to upset the delicate chemical balance of the mind. Vanessa stayed up all night, concentrating on the page, until Millie and Meryl walked up the stairs in the morning. They assumed that Vanessa hadn't slept (her hood is pulled over her head and face), and told her to go to bed for the day.

Vanessa obeyed, but cried herself to sleep. She would have to leave now, before the others had a chance to believe Knives when he would tell them about what he had felt.

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