A/N: I should probably mention that this is meant to be a prequel to the trilogy done by Yellowfur, the stories being "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More Fanfic", "This Ain't a Scene, It's a Fanfic", and "The Takeover, the Fanfic's Over". You should check them out. Also, I now have co-writer who edited this chapter for me. Thank you, K. J. Callahan!
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"So we can take the world back from a heart attack
One maniac at a time we will take it back"
-"Phoenix", Fall Out Boy
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Confession time: I didn't actually scream. I yelled in a hoarse voice, "RUN!" Everyone else definitely took notice and scrambled to their feet, but I was already moving. But we're mortal, not to mention that Di, the oldest out of all of us, had eight more months until she turned twenty and we weren't at our fittest point in our lives and most people wouldn't even call us young adults. Suffice to say, I was quickly restrained by the vamp that had been sitting in the shadows. I struggled, but his muscular arms had me in a death grip. It actually hurt to move.
Di and Donnie were also being held by vampires of the group called Skinheads. They controlled the area around our home and must have heard us playing, not to mention that I could see that the sun had sunk beneath the horizon and the sky was streaked with purple and blue, with layers of pink. The first stars twinkled overhead, welcoming the moon into the sky. It wasn't a full moon, but it was a waxing gibbous. I love the night, and the moonlight on the ground always took my breath away. But right now I was more concerned with the fact that we were all about to die because I didn't keep track of the time.
Braeden had reacted the fastest to my yell and had managed to get to the weapons, but he was almost over run and only had a stake in one hand and the dagger in the other. Five or more of the bloodsuckers made a ring around him, hissing and staying just out of range. His face, glistening with sweat from our exercise and nerves, was just visible beyond the weaving and aggressive vampires that stood around them.
Donnie, his glasses knocked sideways, was standing very still in the grasp of the woman biker who was holding him. It looked like he was a wax sculpture and the female was just hugging it. His eyes were faced straight forward, not looking towards me or Di, or even towards his brother.
The guy holding me turned to look at a vampire sitting on the hood of an abandoned car in a driveway (he was making me bend and flow with him when he moved, which was very uncomfortable). He called out to the vampire on the hood, who was wearing a vest unbuttoned over his bare chest, "Yo, Tay, which one ya want?"
I had a very good idea he wasn't talking about which car on the street Tay wanted. My suspicions were confirmed when Tay jumped off the hood and loped towards me.
He had multiple piercings, almost like his face was a game board and the rings were game pieces. Two hoops in his nose, three in his left ear, two in right. And one final one on his lip, a hoop that probably got in the way of eating. The one thing that kept me staring at him was his golden eyes. They seemed to mesmerize Di, too. Her gaze seemed fixed to his face.
The guy holding me brushed the hair away from my neck on the side where the dragon's tail curled around in shimmery piles of ink. He then pulled my head sideways to show off… something. I guess my tattoo.
Tay raised his gold eyes at the sight of the tattoo, which was probably almost impossible to see (unless you were a vamp) in the rapidly gathering dark. He stepped closer and took a good look at it, then turned and stalked towards Donnie, who stood still as the woman pulled his head to one side, doing the same that the guy holding me had done and exposing his tanned neck. He barely glanced at Donnie before moving on to Di, who snapped out of it and was struggling with the skinny dude holding her, his eyebrows waggling excitedly as he tried to hold her down. Again, he wrenched her head to one side and pulled back her ponytail. There was much resistance on Di's part; her whole body seemed to writhe like a snake. I knew exactly what was making her squirm like that, and apparently Tay noticed it too.
He looked at her once and then moved forward, his eyes fastened on her neck. Tay approached Di like a tiger in the grass and softly touched one finger along her neck, running over the ridges and scars. She shuddered, then seemed to go limp.
He turned, taking the body of my best friend, again readjusting her head, then yelled, "Dinner is served boys!" The whole gang let out a yell as the crowd around Braeden, which had been pretty silent as they waited for their leader's okay surged forward and engulfed him.
"BRAEDEN!" I screamed as the bloodsucker holding me sank his teeth deep into my neck. He went deeper than was necessary and sucked hard. I scrabbled to push him off, but already blood loss was making it hard to see straight. Buzzing filled my ears, drowning out the yells and screams from Braeden and the crowd of vamps surrounding him.
A feral cry and a suddenly the arms around me were gone. I dropped to the ground, the impact jarring up my bones. I coughed, looking around from the position on the ground where I'd fallen. My neck burned where he had bit me and I watched in a shell shocked daze as four people dressed in matching officer's clothes approached, one holding a rapier, another holding a crossbow, and the other two with nothing but their fists. They let out a yell as my eyes rolled up into my head and I passed out.
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Fuzzy and incoherent as it is when you first wake up from being unconscious, I only remember after fully awakening. I was sitting on the curbside next to our house, holding a paper towel to my neck, where two fairly big-sized holes told all they needed to.
One of the vampire hunters came over to sit next to me, the others dealing with Braeden…. I swallowed a lump in my throat. About six vampires had taken a bite out of him all at once, and were planning on draining him dry. How much probability would there be that he was dead?
Almost as if he was reading my mind, the boy sitting next to me smiled encouragingly. "He'll be fine. He took a worse beating than you did, but he'll be fine."
Saying nothing, I stared at the ash and bloodied stakes littering the ground. They managed to nail four out of the nine or so bloodsuckers that were there, and hit the rest at least once. But I could still hear Braeden's screams and hear the chaos around us.
A night wind stirred up, scattering the ashes and making me shiver. It was much darker, but the moon worked just as well as the sun once your eyes had adjusted. Plus, I liked the cold silvery glow of the moon better.
"I'm Andy." The hunter offered.
He held out a hand and I shook it reluctantly. There was no arguing that they had just rescued us, but I hadn't trusted vampires or their hunters in a very long time.
The hand that Andy had offered me to shake was covered with tattoos, and on closer inspection almost his entire body was covered with tattoos. He also had two lip piercings and glasses with bold frames that looked like if I had drawn him on paper the rest of his face would have been drawn with pencil and the glasses would have been drawn with Sharpie. On his other side, a silver rapier sat, glinting in the cold light. At my dubious glance directed at the instrument, he shrugged.
"It gets the job done."
"Ah." I looked back out across the road. Donnie sat on the other side, feeling delicately at the bite on his neck. Self-consciously I reached up to mine. It was painful, but I also could now feel a pair of holes like a screwdriver would make in wood on my neck. I had seen the wounds and had them before, but never this big. It felt like someone had used a jackhammer instead of a little hand drill. From what I could feel, they were just about where the legs of my dragon tat connected to the body, though I wouldn't know for sure until I could look at them in a mirror, and the hunters weren't letting us leave until they finished. Freaking overprotective men.
"I like your tats." He nodded to my dragon. I self-consciously touched it, feeling red rush to my face, but the light was too dark for him to see how badly I took compliments.
"Thanks." We awkwardly sat next to each other as Braeden stirred from his spot on the ground. The two working on him stepped back to give him room. I got up to go over and reassure myself he wasn't dead, but Andy touched my hand, making me jerk back like I had burned my hand. Actually, my brain was doing the same thing that it did when I ever got burned: my mind was trying to catch up to my body, with a moment of just blank shock that took up my entire mind before I realized I'd already yanked my hand back. I gave him a stone-cold glare that gave a very clear message of "never touch me again, you creep", but I sat down again. Another long stretch of silence stood until a very unfortunate interruption.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" I jerked my head up at Di's shriek. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and was shying away from a slightly overweight member of the group, who was holding some antiseptic and a bandage, obviously about to attend to her wound.
"Calm down!" He sounded exasperated at her shying. "I just want to clean out that bite before it gets infected."
Again, my body moved faster than my brain and the pulse of shock that he was trying to see Di's wound made my only objective to get him away from my best friend. I stood up, almost pushing over Andy in my rush. Donnie noticed too and was yelling at the hunter to leave Di alone, but the hunter wasn't listening.
"Stay back!" I yelled hoarsely (did I mention my voice is pretty deep for a girl and I don't scream prettily? I sound like an old scratched record being played almost backwards). The guy didn't hear me and kept on advancing. Di backed up again and they were entered a circle of light that illuminated every feature of them with a harsh brilliance. The hunter again moved forward to help Di.
"NO!" Di pushed him back, the sheet slipping from her shoulders as she did so. Donnie and I stared in horror as the blanket tumbled to the ground, revealing in the spotlight the hunters had set up as a safe zone dozens upon dozens of little scars. The exact size and shape of a vampire's bite stamped up and down her arms, neck, and shoulders.
Andy turned pale, one of the hunters (the only one wearing a hoodie) muttered, "I think I'm going to be sick."
Even the one closest to Di took in a sharp breath and stepped backwards. I rushed to Di's side and picked up the blanket, quickly covering her with it. But we all knew it was too late; everyone had seen her mark.
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I love hot summer days, and tried to take advantage of it by just laying on the roof of our house the next day. Di came up too, but was strangely quiet as she rubbed sunscreen on her arms and exposed belly. I was wearing jeans (like, jeans that covered me to my ankles. Everyone says I'm weird for liking to wear pants in the summer), tennis shoes, and a white t-shirt with a pair of Converse sneakers on the front of it. Plus the necklace that I always wear: the actual necklace was two lengths of black braided leather and the pendant is about the size of a dollar bill if you folded it in half. The pendant is silver and kind of abstract. I got in Hawaii when I went there with my grandparents when I was ten. I was kind of surprised it lasted the eight years it did.
Di was wearing a turquoise bikini top that really made her red hair look as if it was on fire. She had pulled it back into a braid, and had a black ponytail on her wrist in case the one in her hair snapped. Her shorts were really quite short – shorter than would make me feel comfortable, and she was wearing beaded gladiator sandals that actually belonged to me, but I had let her wear them because she looked really good in them.
She passed me the sunscreen and I started work on my face, soaking in the warm sun until it felt like it was pouring out of my eyes, nose and mouth. It was just overflowing and the warm shingles on the roof didn't leech any of the heat. I was listening to a CD that I had found in some guy's duffel he'd left in his room on Jonquil Lane. He must have been a college student, because the CD was shoved in as a bookmark in a biology textbook for a course at the local university. It was a home-mixed disc, so I really had no idea what was on it. I just laid back with one hand over my eyes to shield the sun and let myself float on the music.
Last night hadn't gone well after Di's unfortunate slip-up. The hunters had been hurriedly ushered away by Donnie while I escorted a very sick Braeden back indoors. They were very insistent on staying, but eventually were helped along by my throwing of a water balloon out the third flood window and hitting one of them on the shoulder. It burst open, scattering them and soaking the one I had hit – the only one wearing a hoodie along with his uniform (who even wears uniforms anymore, anyway?). After that, they had quickly packed up and left.
Donnie was taking care of Braeden until the time Cat got irritated from staying in bed till his blood level was back up and ordered him out, in which case he would come and join us girls on the roof. Probably he would flirt a little, get hit with a towel, then lay down and just enjoy the day with us. Whoever said there wasn't any pleasure in an action/horror movie scenario?
After last night accident, we surely needed to take a break before heading into town for new clothes. Di was sensitive about her scars, and had only told the group once. I had already known, but the boys and us hadn't met up until afterwards. It was a very dark time for both of us, and neither of us liked to talk about it. I had actually resorted to throwing knives and other dangerous objects at random people that passed underneath our stolen apartment window (I say 'stolen' because we technically weren't supposed to be there). I don't think I hit very many, but now throwing water balloons out windows suffices.
The cloudless sky overhead was deep blue in a giant ring right around the middle of the sky. Near the sun and the horizon it was a light blue, lighter blue than Eli – I mean, my eyes.
It was actually getting uncomfortable laying on my front under the sun, so I rolled over onto my back, letting out a soft noise of contentment as the warmth began to sink into my shoulder blades and back. I love heat. During the winter I would take a shower in the mornings and baths in the evenings, not to mention heating rice bags, wearing sweaters and jackets, and drinking at least one cup of tea to keep warm. It was enjoyable (I still love snow and such), but I really enjoy it much more in California. I actually considered for a moment singing 'California Gurls' by Katy Perry just to aggravate Di, but decided against it. She was a little out of sorts and was a bit touchy right at that moment.
A scratchy sound of bristles brushing back and forth over a smooth surface made me open my eyes and look up to see Bear in a t-shirt with the Batman symbol on it and black basketball shorts with no shoes and a navy blue towel draped over his shoulder opening the sliding window (for some reason they happened to have a window that opened sideways like a sliding glass door).
"Hey." I took out my earbuds and watched him silently as he laid his towel horizontally from mine and Di's, near our heads. Di was asleep, so I wasn't about to disturb her. Apparently, neither was Bear. He quietly and slowly took the sunscreen and started spreading it on his legs, glancing up at me every once and a while with the expression of someone who wants something very specific.
I watched him for a while, finally getting fed up and snapping, "What?"
He started working on his arms, quiet for several minutes. He finally replied, "I want to know what did that to her."
"You know you should ask her yourself."
"Last time I did that, she poured jelly down my shirt." We both laughed for a little, remembering, then went quiet. The bugs in the grass buzzed, adding just a bit of white noise to the still day. The air was filled with the complete stillness. We lived far enough away that it was almost impossible to hear anything in the city, so even if there was a huge fire, we would only know because of the smoke.
"But I just want to know. I mean, just that guy trying to help Di with her bite set her into a frenzy. Why would it? He was trying to help. We've all got marks." It was true. Each if us had at least three bites somewhere.
"It's…. hard to explain, Bear." I snuck a glance at Di, still fast asleep. Her skin was a rosy pink from the sun, but I would wake her up before she burned. The scars were still a pale white, though, and made it look like she had left little droplets of glue all over her upper body.
"It wasn't a good time for either of us."
I stood in the door to our apartment, staring with dismay at Di. Her hair was short; cropped just at her jawline in a raggedy cut that bespoke more of a decision for convenience than style. I myself hadn't completed the dragon around my eye, so the tail curled up to stop abruptly at ear level, and both of our faces and clothes were covered with a think layer of grime.
Her arm was bleeding in about sixteen different places, but she didn't say anything as she stared back at me with a haggard expression. I didn't have to say anything either; we both knew that I was in a state of shock. She'd never come home with that many different marks before.
Sighing, I shifted my makeshift purse and took out some antiseptic and bandages. It wasn't going to be easy to clean all the different cuts, but at least this wasn't the first time we'd had to deal with it.
Di hissed as I pressed a paper towel with cleaning alcohol against her arm, but relaxed her grip on my wrist a little once I held it there for a bit. She tightened her grip again, however, when I moved the towel to pat down the rest of her forearm. Then together we wrapped the bandage tightly around the wounds.
"Oh, my God! Di!" A voice from behind us gasped. I turned –
I cut out of the memory. "It was a very bad time for both of us." It didn't make it any better that people kept on trying to trade other individuals to the vampires in turn for protection. This ended up meaning we were almost kidnapped five times.
Donnie looked back at the sleeping Di for a bit, just looking at her silently. I sat, staring at him. Another long pause stretched onwards.
"You know she'll tell you again when she's ready. Just… people react so strongly to them that she doesn't care to talk about it anymore. I don't think she cared to talk about in the first place."
Donnie turned his gaze towards the city's horizon. He sighed after a good long time staring at the skyscrapers flash and glitter in the afternoon sun. "You're probably right. I just…. She's part of our group now. It used to be just me and Cat. And then… you guys found us. And now… I don't know. I just want to know what's going on with her."
"Don't worry. She'll tell you when she's good and ready. But I'm not telling you before hand."
"Hmm." Bear stood up and stretched. I did the same, feeling my vertebrae pop as I bent in a way that I hadn't while I was sitting.
"I still say we need new clothes and sitting around here isn't gonna get very much done."
"Tomorrow." I agreed. "It's a Saturday. Any shops that are still operating are going to definitely be open then."
"Right. And the Bear Force needs their matching uniforms."
