Chapter 3

A/N: This needs severe editing so I apologize for the crap grammar and if anything doesn't make sense.

Less than 3 hours later Lexi was in the midst of a violent nightmare when Silas awoke to her thrashing and muffled cries. He took a second to absorb the situation and then drew her in to himself.

"Darling, wake up. You're having a bad dream. Lexi," he said, trying to bring her back into the world of reality.

Her violet eyes flashed open and she bared her teeth hissing and snarling. Silas shot back dumbfounded before quickly grabbing her wrists and pinned her against the bed.

"Lexi! Lexi," he said loudly. She was growling.

"Blood," she said, the only thing intelligible. Her lips peeled back, still showing all her teeth and her extended k-9s that were barely noticeable in the moonlight.

"Tony," he yelled, "Tony, get in here." She continued to writher and struggle against him, "Tony, get your ass in this room!"

A minute later a tired and sluggish Tony opened the door to reveal Silas still holding Lexi down.

"Whoa, man, if you wanted to get a group going you should have called earlier," Tony said amused.

"Shut up, Tony, look at her carefully," Lexi growled when he spoke.

Tony looked from her to SIlas, "What happened?"

"I don't know but you need to get some rope or something before my hold on her weakens. Quick, go to the closet there should be something."

Tony left and then returned promptly, his hands full of restraints. "Get her into that chair," Tony said.

Silas lifted her up and put her in the seat with some trouble. Tony began to tie her wrists and ankles to the wooden fixtures, and when he was done he stood back and look to Silas.

"Blood," she snapped out.

"What? why is she saying that?" Tony asked.

SIlas sighed and ran a hand over his face, "I don't know but she had a nightmare and.. then this happened."

"Why don't you give her what she wants," Tony said, "I'll go down to the kitchens and get some of that cow blood crap we have for cooking."

Silas watched her as she watched him. Lexi had a wild glint in her eye and she was breathing erratically. Tony got back and with a small cup of blood, "Alright, here goes nothing."

Tony, at a steady pace, brought the cup to her senses, she sniffed the air and her violet eyes darted around. The cup reached her lips and she took a cautious sip.

"Ah!" Tony said. Lexi had jerked her head to the side and her ended up nipping Tony's fore finger.

"Her teeth are sharp."

Lexi licked her lips and closed her eyes before she came to her normal self.

""Silas? What's going on?" she asked confused, she wiggled in her ties.

"Lexi, you here with us?" Silas asked.

"Y- yeah, why am I tied up?"

"You don't remember?" he made to release her from the chair and the situation.

"Just bits and pieces," she said. They both got her out of the tie and then helped her to rest on the bed. She pulled the covers over her shoulder and said, "I remember this really strong craving for blood but that's about it."

"Yep, I got my finger a bit too close and then you kinda bit down and got blood in you mouth," Tony said matter-of-factly.

She looked sheepish, "I- uh, I remember that part."

"Okay, why don't you get some more sleep and we can talk more about this when you wake up," SIlas said and then leaned down to her to press a kiss to her forehead. He sat down on the bed and pulled her into his arms. Tony left quietly, off to tell the others that the night activities would be cancelled and to only go to their day jobs.

Lexi had just been through something exhausting and something that she didn't understand, so she fell asleep almost immediately, in Silas' comforting hold.

A few hours later Silas awoke and at this point it was late morning. He slid out of bed and tucked the covers over his beloved's shoulders. He slipped out of the room and went to check on the other members of the household. Will and Mallory were in the gym, boxing, so were Tyler and James but they were running laps. Silas left them to their activities and went to look for Tony and Jenny. Finally he found them in the kitchen with tea and coffee going through a small pile of the most recent tabloids .

"Hey, Silas, how's Lexi?" Jenny asked.

"Yeah, I filled her in on the situation, figured you wouldn't mind," Tony said.

Silas nodded and said, "No, it's fine. We'll have to tell the others eventually anyway, I just want to know what's actually happening to her first. You two have any ideas?"

"Well, we do, but it's a little out of wack. How about: Lexi is a blood-sucking monster and she wants to murder us all," Jenny suggested, "Me and Tony both came up with that."

Tony agreed, "Yeah, she's a vampire. You've read Dracula by that Stoker man, how he came from that country in Europe and then the English land of Whitby."

SIlas gave him a look that said 'Are you that stupid?' - "No, Tony. Lexi is not a vampire. You really have to put down those ridiculous books of yours."

"Books of mine? Lexi reads just as much as me, thank you very much," Tony said, looking a bit miffed. Jenny snickered.

"So no ideas then?" Silas asked.

"Well, it's not an idea but Lexi said something to us all that I remembered, don't get me wrong, Tony is an ass but he might be right. So that when she was taken by that Nate guy," Jenny said and Silas had a hard look on his face, "She mentioned something about the guy that was there, Nate, I think his name was. That he had bit his hand and made her drink that blood and if that doesn't scream psycho to you I don't know what does. Anyway, so he made her drink his blood, and then what? She was 'hanged' but her bruising healed in almost a day, and injuries like that don't just heal that quickly. So what if, instead of being just injured, what if she had actually died and then became the undead."

Jenny finished her speech supporting Tony's theory and took a drink of her coffee.

Silas was in denial. "No. No, really? She's not a vampire, she can't be."

Tony sighed. "Fine, if she isn't then explain this morning, what made her like that if she isn't a vampire."

Silas looked tired when he said, "Alright, if you're certain then you're the one that is going to bleed into a cup to sustain her life force and the both of you can explain to the rest of the people that live here that Lexi is a vampire intent on drinking human blood. Deal?"

Jenny and Tony glanced at each other and finally agreed.

Silas walked out of the kitchen and made his way to the master bedroom. He took a leisured pace but when he reached the bedroom he could hear loud cries of fright coming from his beloved. Pushing open the door he found Lexi in nightmares once again. And once again he attempted to wake her, and she still flashed her eyes growling. However this time, whether it was to test Jenny and Tony's theory, he held up the side of his hand to her sharper teeth and let her bite down. He flinched but he didn't pull away. Unsurprisingly she drank sloppily for a few moments until he began to draw his hand away from her. She whimpered but was much more calm than the last time something like this happened, she leaned back into the mattress and her eye lids drooped.

He left the bed and went up to the attic. The others didn't know what was up there but they weren't allowed to go up. No, he and Lexi did not have a painting that was slowly rotting away so that they could live forever in a pretty standstill, the attic was filled with memories of his family and then his and Lexi's happy bond. His life growing up in the house wasn't a very happy one or a particularly sad one, just rather lonely. It was a large house that only had 4 members of its household, they came from old money that somewhere along the line was spent gambling by his great-something-grand-aunt. She had a slight addiction that ended up getting her the status 'the black sheep'. As a child he lived with his workaholic father, who was loving enough but he just didn't have the time, his neglectant mother who just didn't know how to look after him and his father's eldest sister, whose husband had died in the first war. However, his father then died of a heart attack, his aunt, distraught left for the countryside and then died from consumption in which she had contracted from a foreigner she befriended and finally his mother, who died of alcohol poisoning after the stress her body took before and after their deaths. Silas was also sure she was having an affair with the sister of a maid the next town over but he never mentioned it due to the fear of her intoxicated wrath.

So ultimately, the house and the money was handed down to him, after paying for the funerals and wakes of his last family members he used the money to restore the house into something worth living in. Eventually he met Lexi a few years after that and all was well. That was until the current 'vampire' fiasco that he was trying to wrap his head around.

In the attic now he was looking for a the most recent photo album, the one in which contained memories of his and his love's blissful times in the short time they had been together.

This attic was full of nostalgic memories, some he treasured and some he wanted to bury them so deep there would be no escape hatch.

He took what he was looking for along with some other objects and then climbed back down the stairs. Shutting the hatch on the attic floor he vacated the attic for the first time in a few months, he never went up there often, only when he needed to. Silas was never one to live in the past but would always remember what was important in life.

Silas went to check on Lexi for one last time before heading out. He cycled to her work place to explain her absence, that she had fallen ill with a severe cold and couldn't come into work today. The women were sympathetic and offered to bring round chicken soup and some bread (to which he denied prettily) and afterwards he arrived at the garage. Even though he was very knowledgeable about cars and other vehicles such as motorcycles, he liked the option of fresh air and exercise thrown in his day (along with the training and vigilante business but the people not involved wouldn't know that, like Jack his faithful assistant mechanic),it gave him some time to think on his own, privacy was sorely needed in a house occupying 14 people and the crime fighting.

Back at the house Lexi had just woken up, two hours had passed before she got up to go to the bathroom. She put a hand on the bedside table as she tried to ease herself into a standing position. She could stand but her muscles were sore for some reason and she didn't want to get any vertigo from getting up too fast. In slow movement she made it to the bathroom, she opened the door and pulled on the light cord. The brightness stung her eyes for a moment as she adjusted to the change , she took two steps to the sink and stood in front of the mirror.

Her reflection was a small shock. Her blue-green hair was in a state of chaos, her violet eyes were wild and out of control and her complexion was pale but not ill pale, simply a shade or two lighter than before the situation and her condition. She spent a few minutes trying to calm down and tame her hair but it wasn't much use, it was still a disaster.

Lexi pulled on a thick bathrobe and left the bathroom and gingerly patted her feet on the cool floorboards, down the stairs and into the kitchen. When she reached the kitchen she found Alfie lounging casually on the window sill with a few biscuits.

"Hey, Lex, how you doing," he asked, his voice echoing slightly in the larger room, they didn't have a dining room as they had no need for one so a while ago everyone got together and knocked down the wall between them, creating a greater sized kitchen where everyone could get together and eat, mealtimes were part of the day where everyone saw each other in their cluttered schedules.

"I'm good, thank you. What are you reading?" she said as she opened the cupboard to look for something appetising.

He looked at the front of the cover and then back to her, "Just Anna Karenina, Tolstoy."

"Oh, and what do you think of it?" Lexi asked, liking the distraction.

He smiled lightly and said, "It's okay, tragedy and all that."

An agreeable silence followed with Alfie continuing to read and Lexi cutting a few slices of bread and warmed up some soup, seeking comfort food.

She finished and said her 'see you later' to Alfie and went back to the master bedroom. She was feeling better now, less weak and less tired.

She took two steps at a time to get up the first set of stairs but then as she reached the top of them she slowed down drastically.

She was hit with a wave of nausea and regret for over estimating herself. Lexi made a start on the second set but her vision blurred and her tense hold on the banister weakened. Her body swayed. She fell with a faint gasp.