Chapter Three: Elle Loves King.
Elle stared at her watch; her watch stared back.
12:02 am.
If she was going to leave, it would have to be right now. She could turn the key, start the engine, put the car in drive and haul ass home, or at the very least to the nearest tanning salon. That however, just wasn't Elle. Instead of abandoning her brother and friends she chose to pick up her cheesecake and go look for them. She pulled the keys from the ignition and swung open the door of the car.
Her large brown eyes searched the darkness around her as she stepped into the rain. The large icy drops of water assaulted her mercilessly. Within a few seconds she was completely drenched.
Ed said 'wait in the car'; Ed said 'if you think something bad happened leave'. Elle hesitated one half second before she slammed the car door shut. Ed used to eat play dough.
Thunder growled in the distance. All of the small hairs on her body stood up, something she tried to brush off a cold shiver.. Unfortunately she couldn't brush off the feeling of being watched quite as easily.
Ten feet behind the car, the one and only lamp post she could see, flickered. Elle frowned, she was just lucky that way.
Rain continued to come down in cold hard sheets. Each droplet was like a miniature icicle piercing what skin she had exposed to the elements. As a reaction, she pulled her sweater arms down over her fists, carefully so the desert she had made wouldn't slip from her grasp.
Elle never turned back to see the dark figure now standing beneath the lamp post.
She felt goose bumps form on her skin and shivered. Suddenly wishing she hadn't left the car, contemplating perhaps turning and running back into the vehicle.
Elle told herself she could do this, she could walk alone towards an abandoned warehouse, potential nest for vampires. She could do this, it wasn't that big of a deal, she would find her brother and Rocks up ahead, standing in the rain, complaining about how these 'Nightstalker farts hadn't even shown up'. Or…. she would find them lying lifelessly on the concrete, their necks torn open.
She clamped her eyes shut tightly, pushing that god awful image out of her mind.
"Ed?" Her voice was shaky and barely more than a whisper. Slowly she forced her eyes open, she began searching. "Rocks, Rae?"
Her eyes swept the unpleasant darkness around her, trying to pick out any sign that Ed was near by.
When a sinister boom of thunder possessed the sky above her, she jumped and stumbled.
"Damn it! Ed!? "She called despondently. Her voice echoed through darkness and a shiver went down her spine.
"Hey …" A man's voice, dry and raspy called from behind her.
Elle froze, that wasn't the voice of her brother, or Rocks, or anyone she knew.
She didn't look over her shoulder, she didn't pause, and she didn't pass go to collect two hundred dollars, all she did was run.
She heard two pairs of feet pounding at the ground, one hers, and one someone else's.
"Hey, I'm talking to you." He shouted. "I've seen you before! I know you!"
The overwhelming scent of rancid unwashed human hit her nostrils, it was sickening.
A hand grabbed the back of her sweater.
The scream ripped through the sounds of the storm like a knife. It overrode the bashing of rain on the roof; it cancelled out the distant sound of thunder.
King, who had been leaning against the wall, stood at full attention and charged for the door.
Ed shot up from his seat at the table and like lighting shot out the door after King.
"Fuck." Rocks cursed loudly, following after them both.
Elle was pinned to the ground, the side of her face forced into the concrete. She was screaming, and struggling against the man on top of her.
"Let me look at you! I know you! "The man screamed, spit dripping from his mouth. His disheveled cloths, the foul strength of his body odor, beneath it all Elle cringed, and screamed.
Lightning slapped the sky, it all happened during the flash.
The green door on the outside of the honeycomb hideout burst open, King was the first to come out, gun drawn. He ran to Elle and grabbed the man by the back of the neck and ripped him off of her.
Ed ran to his sister and dropped himself down beside her. He scooped her up off of the cement and pulled her to him. It was a brisk primal action, like that of a lioness snatching a cub up by the nape of its neck.
King had pressed one of his guns against the side of the mans skull before he could push himself off of the ground.
"Don't shoot him!" Elle shrieked. "Don't shoot him!"
King have her a sideways glance, the man had been attacking her and she was trying to protect him? His features contorted into a curious glare when he turned his attention back to the man.
"You okay?" Ed asked, frantically brushing his sister's long hair out of her face and forcing her to look at him. "Elle, talk to me. Are you okay?"
"He's not one of them." Elle pleaded her voice cracking. A glistening mixture of tears and rain steamed down her cheeks. Her wild eyes searched her brothers for understanding. She forced herself to speak calmly now. " He's not a vampire."
"Calm down." Ed said in a deliberately pacifying manor. "Shhh. Just calm down."
Elle hiccupped, wiping the salty water away from her face.
"Don't shoot me, don't shoot me, dontshootme." The man was muttering over and over again.
King clenched his jaw aggressively. "May I suggest you either give me a really good reason not to shoot you right now, or you fuck off and never fuck back?" He said.
The man nodded frantically. "I'll fuck off, I'll go. I'll go."
King stepped back, watching as the man scrambled to stand and then ran across the pavement as fast as his feet could take him. He turned and placed his gun back in its holster.
"Silly tweekers." He said, turning to look at Elle. His features, previously scrunched up in an intense scowl had loosened into a weak smile.
His smile fell when he laid eyes on the small young woman shuddering in her brother's arms though. Her long dark hair clung to her pale face and light pink dress, she seemed frail, breakable. After years with Danica, evil incarnate, and then a few more with Abby unbreakably resilient Abby, he had forgotten woman could be fragile. With her large dark eyes and small trembling figure she brought to his mind an image of a half drown Chihuahua.
She was but a deer in headlights. Elle stared at King, frozen by his gaze. He was every fantasy she had ever had since puberty, from every harlequin romance she'd ever read in the past six years. Rain pearled up in his choppy brown beard and glistened at her. His shirt clung to his broad chest, giving her a exhibit of his muscles.
The expression on his face made her turn her head down though; she did not want him to look at her with so much pity.
"Jesus Christ, man!" Rocks exclaimed, trudging towards Elle he offered her a hand to help her up.
"I got her." Ed said sharply, hoisting his sister up before she could reach out to Rocks.
"What kind of fuckin people do you have around here?" Rocks demanded as the group moved into the honey-comb hideout.
"There are the occasional habitual drug users, in the area." Abby admitted, crossing her arms. "This is the first time anything like this has ever happened."
"Fuck, Elle." Ed gasped, grabbing his sister's palm and examining it.
"It's okay." She whispered, pulling back her freshly scraped up hand.
Both of her palms were raw bloody from their rough contact with the concrete outside. Her knees were scraped as well and her dress was torn.
"Ouch. Come on, let's… disinfect those." Kevin told her attempting to user her into the warehouse.
"It's okay." Ed reassured her when she looked hesitant.
"Get the cheesecake." She replied softly. "It's still outside."
Elle sat under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the honeycomb hideouts makeshift sick bay. She still looked very much like a freshly traumatized half drowned puppy. Half of her discomfort came from being surrounded by very cold, very wet, very serious men… and King.
"Remember, crack is wack." King told her jokingly,
It was that easy, Elle was officially twitterpated.. The little twinkle in his eyes drove her wild. No one had ever looked at her like that, much less a handsome man. A handsome man who ran out into a rain storm and saved her. She was hooked from the moment he started paying attention to her; a typical reaction of a girl who rarely got attention from the opposite sex.
Ed glared at King from the doorway. He was watching over his sister as Kevin cleaned the scrapes on her palms and knees. He was also watching how his sister watched King.
"Ouch." Elle hissed
Ed now glared at the man touching his sister. Kevin had begun to apply a cream onto the palms of her hands.
"Sorry." Kevin told her.
"Thank you." Elle said softly, still fixated on King.
"Anytime." He told her, winking.
"This is my sister, by the way." Ed said, rubbing his face.
"This is her?" Kevin blurted, furrowing his eyebrows. He stared at Elle for a moment, his curiosity showing on his face. She furrowed her eyebrows, why was that man looking at her like a laboratory mouse?
"Yea." Ed stated. The irritated tone of his voice caused Kevin to look at his medical supplies once more.
"And her name is?" King asked.
"Elle." Elle said softly.
"Like the letter." King said.
"Yea." She confirmed, smiling.
Rocks, Abby, Rae and Dex stood in the kitchen together. Drinking.
"I cannot believe we forgot she was out there." Rocks stated, finishing off his beer. "Did you forget she was out there?" He asked Rae.
Rae wanted to tell him she hadn't noticed Elle was in the car with them on the drive over, but she knew it would have been a pointless bitchy statement. So, instead she pulled her switchblade from her pocket and used it to open up another beer for Rocks.
"How many knives do you carry around?" Rocks asked in amazement.
"Fifteen." Rae replied.
Rocks immediately lifted his fresh beer to his mouth and chugging the entire thing down. When he lowered the bottle, he wiped his mouth and rapped his knuckles on the counter top. "I'm going to go check on them."
"Med rooms last door on the left." Abby told him, motioning towards the hall.
Rocks nodded and walked out.
"If you didn't frighten me so much, I'd want to have sex with you." Dex informed Rae. He then gave Abby a sideways glance. "You too."
"How do you manage to conceal fifteen knives?" Abby questioned, ignoring the half drunken Dex.
"All done." Kevin said, securing the bandages on her hands with small metal clips.
"Thank you." She said sweetly, this time to Kevin.
"It's what I'm here for." He told her.
"Hey, you doing alright man?" Rocks asked as he joined Ed in the doorway.
"I am fine." Elle replied. She then stood and crossed the room to her brother.
"You left me in the car!' Elle snapped accusingly and kicked him in the shin.
"Shit, Elle!" Ed barked, cringing as he bent to baby his fresh injury.
It was an unexpected outburst from the previously quiet and sweet girl.
"Fuck, we forgot you were out there, man." Rocks confessed, and when Elle turned an angry eye on him he held up his hands in defense while stepping away from her. "Don't kick me."
"I told you to stay in the car." Ed pressed, suddenly realizing he should be the one angry with her. She had disobeyed a direct direction! "Until we came to get you- OW, stop kicking me…" Ed grumbled, finally taking a bit of direction from rocks and backing off.
Author Note: Hope you enjoyed it, promise to update soon, anyone want to be my Beta reader?