warning: violence
I gasped loudly and deeply when the fog left me and sat down from my lying position with a violent spasm. I threw my head back and closed my eyes in a desperate search for the oxygen I didn't need because I never stopped breathing, I just lost my sense of smell. In one long painful breath I came back to life and opened my eyes to find Alec right in front of me, sitting on a chair a few steps away from the couch where he had put me. My blood chilled in my veins when I met his intense gaze.
"Do not ever" I spat before I could get a proper hold of myself "do that again."
His entire face relaxed. His eyes softened and he gave me a hint of a smile.
"I will not" he promised but then added "as long as you don't force me."
I looked around to see we were inside of a small hotel room. Jane was nowhere I could see.
"Where are we?"
"Still in Rio" he answered without hesitation, "for now."
"I got the job" I said stupidly. That should be the last thing on my mind but I was very disoriented and my questions and observations were hitting me randomly. I couldn't unscramble them fast enough.
"You definitely did, dear."
Dear. He dares to call me that after what he's done.
I felt anger bubbling inside of me again but finding myself in such an enclosed space with Alec got me much less brave than in the alley. I couldn't find the force of my defiance, I barely dared to raise my voice at him. Thinking of Alec's "gift", as he had called it, made me cower before him and imagine what sort of dreadful things his sister was capable of doing.
My instincts kicked in. I tried to behave.
"What about my family and friends?"
"You are already dead to them."
I blinked in confusion.
"We forged your death," he explained patiently. "We have trustworthy people getting rid of your trail."
Everyone I know thinks I am dead?
Another question popped into my head before I could even digest that information but I was too scared to ask. I wasn't sure that I wanted to know and I didn't want to anger him. I needed to know though, and he seemed at ease and willing to answer whatever I threw at him. I looked deep into his eyes to be sure he wasn't indisposed and then I asked.
"Is Luke really dead?"
He sighed and his eyes flashed for a second. He hesitated for a moment before he answered.
"You know he is "
Oh, God. No, no, no, no. It can't be, not Luke. Not like this.
I buried my face in my hands and wept, I cried loud and ugly, letting his death weigh on my shoulders, taking my time to naturally calm down. Even after I stopped crying I could still hear a ringing in my ears and feel my stomach dropping, spiralling down like the skeletons of my last hopes to crash onto the ground and turn into dust. Alec had the decency to keep his hands away from me and wait until it was over, and after several minutes I did stop sobbing. I uncovered my face to dig for more, wanting so hard to hear anything that could soothe the pain of hearing those words that I stupidly asked what I already knew the answer to —
"Was it quick?"
Stop asking, you don't want to know. He would never tell you, he would spare you this much, you're torturing yourself. Stop talking about it.
I couldn't force myself to remain oblivious. It was so much easier but it wasn't fair at all, I had brought Luke into the mess my life had become and I should have to face every consequence that came with it. I didn't deserve to be spared.
"Marina, none of this matters now" he said in a way that made me feel like a child again. "There are better questions to be asked and I will answer them all when you get to them."
"I knew him for years , you can't really expect me to brush this off. God, I wanted to marry him and now he's gone forever all because of you. "
"You are very young. You will forget him."
He was getting exasperated.
Who is this, who is this merciless demon wearing Alec's skin? How could he have tricked me so well?
I took a deep breath to organise my thoughts and bottle my feelings and with herculean strength I composed myself and managed to speak clearly, my voice unwavering.
"You wrecked my whole life" I got up from the couch and looked down at him, advancing like a tidal wave with a confidence I didn't really possess. "Just messed it all up. Destroyed me emotionally, fucked up with my head, killed my boyfriend, forged my death. I can't go back now, I have little to go back to, and for what? What do you want from me?"
He got up from his chair and walked to me. I refrained from taking a step back to every one he took forward and let him approach me until he was within touching distance from me. He gave me a sympathetic look and I felt my heart burning with white fury. I wished I could sink my hands into his chest and rip his heart right out of his ribcage, wished I could crush it in my clenched fists until there was nothing left of it.
"Your gift."
"I don't have any..."
"You do" he interrupted me promptly, ready for my protest. "In fact, you are quite special" his voice became sweet when saying that and it was nothing but revolting. "It is rare that a human has a gift manifesting so strongly as you do. Whenever that happens they tend to become a very powerful vampire."
I looked through my memories for any indication of anything like that and couldn't find it. He had to be lying or at least be mistaken.
"You're wrong. You made a mistake."
He smiled.
"No, I did not. We have watched you since June. I made sure to see it in action more than once. You even used it on me, I have felt it several times. There is not a chance of a mistake, I have left no room for that."
I sighed in disbelief, running my fingers through my hair. They got caught in a disarray of knots that probably formed while I was running around the city and trying to escape Alec in the alley. I attempted to disentangle them but they were too tight, I managed only to get my fingers out after some effort.
"Let me brush your hair."
Absolutely not, don't ever touch me again.
The words jumped to my mouth, I felt them burning in my throat. Then I remembered being under his gift and his words made their way back to my ears - "as long as you don't force me ." I dreaded feeling that void again, I would have done anything to prevent it and so I did my best not to vex him. He took a brush from a brown bag on the floor and I quietly sat down on the couch again. I forced myself to stay perfectly still as he sat behind me, my back turned to him. I was shaking with quiet terror as I felt his hands on my hair, the small brush he held slowly making its way up until it reached my scalp. He seemed to be very used to doing that, I bitterly wondered if he brushed his sister's hair very often.
"You are behaving wonderfully now" he commented, amused by my sudden compliance. "I just wish it wasn't out of fear. I really do not want you to be scared of me."
I nearly snorted.
How could I not be? He was a monster through and through, and an incredibly powerful one at that. Whatever he wanted to do to me he could do so with little to no effort, he simply had to want to do it. The only reason I wasn't completely at his mercy, unconscious, for him to do with my body whatever he pleased was because he didn't want to. That thought made goosebumps run all over my arms like electric shocks.
"If you don't want me to be scared, perhaps you shouldn't scare me."
He laughed and it sounded so clear, so perfectly pure that I automatically relaxed my muscles at the sound of it and cursed myself.
"Am I scaring you now?"
He was, but simply by existing. By being so close to me and touching me, but only because I knew of what he was and more than just that, I knew what he was capable of. He was softly brushing my hair, passing his fingers through the strands and that would be as frightening as any other thing he had ever done to me had I not acquired the knowledge I did. I would have been just as scared whenever he held my hand or touched my face weeks earlier if I had that information then.
I remembered all those little moments, how many times I touched him before really knowing everything. I thought of how willingly and ignorantly I inched towards such a deadly creature, of how I put my fingers inside the mouth of a lion thinking it was a kitten. How I dangled myself in front of him so carelessly...
God, I have even kissed him. I got stupidly close to his teeth when he could probably just tear me apart with them.
Like he possibly did to Luke.
I shivered.
"You know, Marina" he said pensively as he pushed my hair aside to expose the back of my neck, "as a human, you are as much of a monster as I am. You are just a different breed."
I whipped my head around to face him like he had hit me.
" What ?"
"You are fully aware of the distinction between good and evil" he traced my jawline with the tips of his fingers, brushing so lightly that if I couldn't see him I would have thought a butterfly was batting its wings against my skin. "Yet, for your own selfish reasons, at times you consciously choose to do bad things. You can't plead ignorance, you are not innocent. What does that make you?"
My mouth slowly fell open and I stared at him at a loss for words. I raised my eyebrows and couldn't find anything to say to him. He smirked and brushed his thumb against my lower lip.
"You are not better than me in any way that matters" he slid his knuckles along my cheek, barely touching it. My breath was caught in my throat and I forgot to blink for a moment. "That is the beauty of a complex being. We don't always act solely based on what we believe in, we crave so much more. We long for things that are above our morals or any societal norm and sometimes, when no one is looking" he gave me a knowing smile, "we strip ourselves of the need to be guided by them entirely."
"No, I won't fall for that" I grabbed him by the wrist to stop his caresses. "What you did is unforgivable. I have never done anything like that, I am not a murderer. You're unredeemable."
His eyes lingered on our hands. He allowed me to keep my hold on his wrist and I didn't let go, too focused on our conversation. He was fairly entertained, I could tell. His smile reached his menacing eyes and he appraised me with a playful glint in them.
"I don't need your forgiveness. I have no wish for redemption either." He suddenly threw himself at me and I fell backwards, my back hitting the cushions on the couch and the weight of his chest on mine hurting my ribs. "I am a hunter and a soldier," he freed his hand from my grasp and pinned my arms down "a murderer is what you would be right now had I not stopped you that night."
I whimpered.
No, don't let him get to you. Don't listen.
I forcefully closed my eyes in denial but his words were already swimming through my mind. In truth, ever since he introduced himself to me I had felt vastly different from any other moment before we met. It used to be all soft and calm for me, I used to be always reasonably soft and calm, I couldn't remember ever feeling so unhinged and vicious before he came into my life and I grieved the loss of myself when I realised and accepted that. As I lied there with my eyes closed and Alec on top of me, mourning who I thought I used to be, he took advantage of my vulnerability and let go of my arms. He sat down, keeping me between his thighs and lifted my shirt.
He rested his forehead on mine and whispered my own words to me, filled with just as much lust as when he heard them from my mouth on that haunted night when I took my first step down to hell to reach him.
" You smell so fucking good."
He then sunk his nails deep into my skin right underneath my breasts, dragging them down all the way to my hip bones, ripping me open to make me bleed for him.
I screamed violently.
"No need for that, my love" he rested one blood-soaked finger on top of my lips to shush me. "If it hurts too much I can numb you again."
I fell silent immediately. Whatever he wanted to do to me couldn't be worse than being under his mist again.
I sealed my lips shut and swallowed my screams. I watched in consternation as he put his index finger into his mouth and sucked it clean of my blood, his eyes never leaving mine.
"You taste even better."
This can't be happening, it's a nightmare. How can this be happening?
Stop.
Just be done.
I closed my eyes again, I couldn't bear to watch him feasting on my blood but it must have annoyed him more than anything else I had done in that room until then because he raised his voice and snapped at me, digging his nails into my arms.
" No . Look at me."
I was so close to begging, so close to pleading. He would be even more annoyed at that but I could feel all my endurance fading away as he slowly surmounted it, I felt my very essence slipping away with my blood.
"I have waited so long " he murmured, smearing blood over my breasts "for you."
He went down and trailed his cold tongue along my belly, moaning and sighing in pleasure. His hands left my chest to rest on my hips and I pictured myself kicking him off of me and making him bleed instead, pictured myself strangling him with my legs and abandoning him on the floor alone and powerless to be discovered hours or even days later.
Better yet, to be forgotten and buried under the sands of Time.
I didn't do it, I lied there and cried my fury dry. The image of the bloodthirsty fiend he turned out to be almost blended with the kind quiet boy he made himself out to be at first but the two wouldn't become one in my head, the Alec I first met was to water what the Alec I saw on top of me was to oil.
"That is the beauty of a complex being."
"How can I not be scared of you? Look at this. "
He did. He paused and looked at me and then at him, both covered in my blood, and purred.
"Just a little blood" he pulled me into a sitting position, bringing my face to his with a hand on the back of my head, "you're much braver than this."
He kissed me and I felt something else dying inside of me, the metallic taste on his tongue cruelly washing it all away to never be seen or heard again, a part of me carried away by burnt shrivelled wings — every good thing I had ever done, every kind word I had ever uttered. I was once again lost in the perversely wondrous sensation of him and my defeat struck me like a lightning bolt, scorching and rapid.
I felt lost and corrupted.
I felt irrevocably tainted.
