I do not own Blood and Chocolate, nor do I own Twilight. Characters from these books probably won't be appearing in here, so really the books were only inspiration. I DO own my characters however.
"Take the Money and Run" by Steve Miller
"They headed down to, ooh, old paso
That's where they ran into a great hassle
Billy Joe shot a man while robbing his castle
Bobbie Sue took the money and run."
Paulette:
The door shut and the light turned on. I spun around wide eyed as I saw Red standing in my house, in my room. Panic struck me. Then in an instant I was on the defensive.
"Alright, freak. Let's go!" I said curling hands into fists ready to fight. He stood across from me silent. I turned to whatever resources I had. Without thought, I grabbed the cordless phone on my nightstand and tossed it at him. He was a blur reaching out to catch it. I threw a picture frame, a glass figurine of an angel given to me by my grandmother, and then my pillow.
Come to think of it, I don't know what damage I was hoping to do with a pillow. But he caught that and every other item thrown at him in midair.
"Are you trying to actually hit me or are you just trying to make noise?" he asked softly.
Noise? He's right. What was I thinking?
"MOM!-" my cry was cut off short by being slammed harshly onto my bed with a hand clamped over my mouth. Uh oh... This was the exact position I was trying to avoid. I bit down on his palm. My cry was muffled. He was hard as a rock! He removed his hand.
I leapt away from him to the other side of my room. I was back on the defensive. Red wasn't moving, he stood still opposite of me like a gunslinger. We stared each other down, neither of us making a move. I remembered the pain in my mouth and double checked to make sure I hadn't chipped a tooth.
"You heard me?" Red asked quietly.
"What?"
"My music, you heard it," he said.
"That was you playing the guitar? I thought that was a recording," I said. He smiled at the unintentional compliment.
"Thank you. Now, how could you have heard me playing?" he asked. I shrugged. "You're not making this easy, Paulette."
"Hey! You know my name," I whined.
"You sound surprised I know your name, yet I also know where you live and work," he said dryly.
"Well, I don't know you're name."
"It's Ben."
"Oh," I said. I cocked my head to the side. "You don't look like a Ben. You look like a Richard or maybe a Darien-" He rolled his vibrant orange eyes.
"How. Did. You. Hear. Me?" he interrupted frustrated.
"I. Have. Ears," I mimicked. His face flashed an unamused look.
"I was all the way in your basement. I had headphones plugged into my guitar," he said.
"It was fading in and out. I could only hear a few notes. Just enough to recognize what song it was." Ben's brow furrowed. He gave me an odd look that showed that he wasn't too sure about me. Wait a second? How come I was getting the third degree?
"What were you doing in my basement?" I asked him.
"Playing the guitar," he responded. Another flurry of anger rose up within me.
"Get out of my house," I sneered pointing at the door.
"Like it or not I live here now, Paulie," he sneered right back at me. I cringed at the name only family members were allowed to call me. I sighed keeping my gunslinger stance as Ben slinked around my room looking at the pictures on my dresser and the stuffed animals piled on the shelves.
"Don't touch those. What exactly do you want here, Ben?" I demanded to know.
"There's three of you," Ben said surprised as he held a picture of me, Layla, and Phoebe squashing together for a photo. "You're identical triplets? Funny, I thought you only had one sister." My eyes narrowed to slits. I bit my down on my tongue while I tried to gather everything I could to keep from screaming in a rage and pulling on his hair until his head came off.
"Ben," I said eerily calm. "What do you want here?"
"Well, I had to be close by. I have to protect my investments," he said.
"Investments?"
"Well investment, as in singular since there is only one of you. Unless they injected your sisters too," he said.
"Injected?"
"Remember when you were in Chicago? I heard you were in a terrible accident," he said. Apparently no one had told him Phoebe was in it too. Either that or he was being completely insensitive."They gave you a blood transfusion. One especially for the enjoyment of my kind. Now that it is inhabited in your system and regenerating itself we can suck you dry and sell your blood. I'm going to make a fortune."
My face was a complete blank. I felt it on me. He waited for a reaction, so I gave the only one I could muster.
"O-kay," I said slowly. Ben shrugged.
"I understand you don't believe me. To be honest, I don't really need you to," he said with a smile. "However, I do need you to be alive to be able to reach my demands. So rest assured that you're safe, your virtue is of no importance to me, and neither is your family."
"So... You want to sell my blood?" I said.
"You're a quick one, I'll give you that," Ben said sarcastically.
"My blood is special?"
"By George, I think she's got it."
"Are you a vampire?" I asked feeling stupid as soon as the words left my mouth. Ben stood up tall and threw his hands up in the air into fists.
"And there it is, ladies and gentlemen! She's figured it out!" he cried exaggeratedly. He gave me a dramatic applause. I narrowed my eyes at him. I snorted.
"I don't see why you're the one making fun of me. You're the one who thinks he's a pale, blood sucking, super powered, demon of the night." He cocked a dark red eyebrow at me. The teleportation speed, the inhuman good looks, the strange hungry look in his eyes. Come to think of it, that did fit the bill quite nicely.
"Want to see my fangs?" he asked and grinned without my accepting the offer. Now that he had a wide smile I could see sharpened teeth. That meant nothing though. There's tons of people who sharpen their teeth like that.
"Okay, weirdo," I laughed in disbelief. "And what exactly are you going to eat while you're in town?"
"I'm not just in town. I live here now," he said. "And I'm going to eat what I always eat."
"Which is...?" In a flash I was pinned against the wall roughly staring into the crazed orange eyes of the "vampire" holding me by the upper arms. He gave another grin with his fangs exposed.
"Blondes," he whispered menacingly.
"Not this blonde," I argued, even though I was in a very compromised position. I looked down at the ground to see that he was actually holding me above the floor up against the wall effortlessly. He gave another wicked smile. I gave a mocking version of my own.
"I, like yourself, eat animals," he said.
"What? Like a steak?"
"Only not so well done," he added. I narrowed my eyes in disbelief.
"So... You feed on cattle?"
"I feed on whatever's available," he said finally letting me down. He stalked around my room slowly. "It doesn't take much to keep us going. We only need an ounce or so. Unless we haven't fed in a long time, or we're relatively new. Then, well, its a lot like the scary movies. Human blood is the preference. But some humanitarians decide animal is more ethical. Me? I don't really care. Animals usually cause less trouble." I was suddenly interested, forgetting the stalking and the cutting of the bus's brakes.
"Uh huh. And are you sexy like the other vampires?" I asked. He gave a devilish grin and suddenly appeared in a laying position on the bed with his elbow propped up. He licked his finger and rested it his hip.
"What do you think?" he asked waggling his brows. I thought he was good looking as hell though the cheesy act was not exactly doing anything for me. I cringed dramatically.
"I think I'm going to throw up," I lied. "I mean, can you seduce people with your thoughts or your eyes? Can you read minds? Can you make people do things with a single thought?"
"Can you be more original?" Ben retorted. "I do not really need to do any seducing." The sad part was that he didn't. He was amazingly tantalizing with no effort of his own. He was an absolute Greek god until he opened his mouth.
"And if I could read minds, I'm sure you would be terribly embarrassed," he said. I narrowed my eyes at him.
"You think I'm attracted to you?" I scoffed quickly. His brow furrowed.
"No, I meant I would know your every secret. It would be embarrassing," he said. I would have slapped my forehead and groaned if I thought it wouldn't give away the fact that I, indeed, was very attracted to him. "However, that's no secret."
It took everything in me to keep from belting, It is too!
"Okay, and are all vampires as delusional and self absorbed as you?" I said. He frowned.
"Methinks the lady doth protests too much," he quoted. I'm not one for quotes. That was Layla's area of expertise.
"Methinks the crazy stalker should see a psychiatrist," I retorted quickly.
"Can I ask a question now?" Ben asked. I settled down just a tad. My adrenaline had me fidgeting and pacing every which way. "How does an eighteen year old become that familiar with Led Zepplin?" I rolled my eyes.
"I do have parents," I said. "I can't help it if I was raised right." His smile was brief and genuine. He laid down on his back on my bed with his hands behind his head. His eyes were glued to the popcorn ceiling.
"This is going to be a wonderful friendship," he said.
"Try partnership," I said suddenly coming up with a brilliant idea. Ben cocked an eyebrow and turned his head my way. I folded my arms from where I stood. "I want a cut of the money you're making."
"What?" Ben snorted.
"My blood, my money," I said. "You're just the distributor. I'm the supplier."
"I'm not the distributor. I'm the collector. And I'm not paying you for doing something you're going to do anyway," he scoffed. I gave him a look. "What? Did you think I was going to scare the living daylights out of you and then walk up to you and ask permission to take your blood with hopes you'll say yes?" I decided not to embarrass myself with a response. I hoped I had kept the facade of dignity. Ben rolled off my bed and smoothed out the wrinkles in his clothes.
"That's very cute, Paulette," he said. "As riveting as this conversation is I'm going to let you get your rest. Wouldn't want you getting sick now, would we?" He went to the door and gripped the doorknob. He paused. "Oh. I almost forgot."
He turned and reached into his pocket. He pulled out something and then tossed it to me. I just barely caught it, fumbling as it nearly slipped through my fingers. He opened the door and let himself out. I looked at the object in my hand. A groan escaped me as I realized what it was.
The battery to my cell phone.
"Stupid vampire," I grumbled, unable to believe that I was being serious as I said it.