Prey: Expansion

A/N: Shocking, I know, that I should actually update. But I felt bad about last time. Here you go! Oh, and BIG thanks to thor-a-dor for reviewing and sending me a PM when I didn't update! It made me put up a chapter immediately. And now, I work on the next one.

Disclaimer: I don't even own a copy of Twilight or the Host, which, BTW, everyfreakingbody should read. It was amazing.

Amanda, weakened in her control by her trip to the surface, promised herself that she would stay in the sewers for however long it took for her to learn self control. She breathed rarely, only when she became immensely uncomfortable. She killed almost every animal she came across- she would be that many pints more prepared if a human somehow managed to wander too close. Several weeks of this resulted in a newspaper article noting the remarkable lack of rats, and if this new change marked the triumph of pest control, or a sign of serious environmental issues.

Months...Passed...the news forgot about the missing college student, calling off the search...birds...sang...life...went...on...

Amanda, meanwhile, struggled. Not knowing about the difficulties with newborn vampire armies the Cullens were having, she was jealous of their experience and rich hunting opportunities.

"They get to be decades old, centuries! They live in a small town, very few people, and plenty of large animals with pints and pints..." she trailed off. "I bet none of them has ever eaten rat." she muttered.

Amanda sighed impatiently. Why couldn't she just get some self control? Why did she have to be a vampire anyways? She dwelt on the subject for several hours, moody and angry, eating rats like candy. They were about as filling as a noodle of Ramen apiece. She had to eat the whole pack to feel any better. But still... She felt this gnawing hunger at the back of her throat... This infernal, sinful desire...

She was forcibly jerked out of her reverie by a familiar smell.

Familiar?

She had smelled it before, numerous times, but never like this.

Not blood. Not anything...Human.

Venom.

One of her own kind.

A freaking vampire.

Strange territorial instincts took over her mind. She growled, low in her throat. On top of all this, another vampire? As the filthy creature turned the corner, Amanda stopped. A hobo? A bloodsucking hobo? Her humanity slipped away from her.

The hobo was on her territory. She bared her teeth, though her fangs were not quite exposed. Her human disguise that she normally kept up completely vanished. She was fully vamped out. The hobo snarled, ready for the fight. Although his head was covered, as was the rest of his body in a mass of rags. He was decades old; she would not be the only other vampire he had encountered. He knew what to expect from those of his kind. But, Amanda thought gleefully, I'm betting he's never seen the likes of me. She took a flying leap at him, morphing her body and clothing to match his midair. The vampire froze for the space of half a second, but in that half a second Amanda had her advantage.

She made a slash at his throat, catching where his jugular would have once pumped life-giving blood to his heart. Clear liquid tinged with pink dripped out of the wound. A result of the action was that his patchwork hood fell down, exposing the vampire's face.

Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. She had expected more age, wrinkles, not this... Apollo. A golden haired youth. But at the thought of him in wrinkles, there they were. His face sagged, drooped.

Did I do that? Amanda thought.

He clutched at it wildly, growling and pawing at her while trying to reverse this sudden deformity. She made some more slashes, taking advantage of his momentary distraction. It didn't take him long to forget about his face- self preservation was key.

But then... a smell.

Not venom. Something familiar, something that had plagued her for her whole existence as a vampire, something that was suddenly...much...closer...

Blood. And it was drawing nearer. She grew panicked. A human, walking in on a major vamp fight? When their reason was at their lowest? When there was no denying what she was?

It was as if adrenaline was coursing through her veins again, and she imagined the sensation of a thudding pulse. She felt alive. She growled, renewed in strength, in motivation. This was her life's work- protecting humans.

She tore at his body, shredding limbs with ease. When she had decapitated her opponent, she fumbled around in her pockets for some matches. She lit the whole pack and dropped it onto the remains, writhing and twisting in the muck. They caught flame and Amanda dashed away from the scene. She crashed headlong into the human, who was immediately knocked unconscious. Amanda caught him before he fell to the ground, setting him down gently. She was all too aware of the trickle of blood running down his forehead. She shut off all her breathing so as to not be tempted even further. She struggled to tame her wish to kill, to suck out every drop of blood from this already injured human body. It was so...hard...he was so...close...

She bent over his head, and licked the streak of blood off of his face. Delicious. Her fangs were fully extended, and she didn't need a mirror to know that her eyes were burning like coals. She tried to think of the human as a person, with thoughts and feelings and a life. She examined the body more closely.

It was a boy, and he was about her age- maybe a little older? Tall, brown wavy hair. Looking through his wallet, she found that his name was David, and he lived in the apartment complex across the street from where she used to live. She examined his head and, even though she was no Carlisle, she couldn't find any signs of serious head trauma. She brushed a bloody cowlick away from his face, and ran to fetch the water bottles. She poured one over his hair, making sure that she moved gently. She tried not to wake him up- what would happen if he did?

She wished that she could talk to him, ask him why he was in the sewers, make sure that he was safe, that she hadn't killed him, that he hadn't...seen anything.

Amanda knew that this was impossible. Her eyes would be red, fangs out, and she had questionable self control. Every moment that he was in there was another moment closer to her resolve snapping. How would a human taste compared to rats? She knew what she had to do.

She had to get him home.

Looking at him, at his sweet lovely face bleeding on the ground, something inside of her craved his safety. There was something almost...familiar about him...David...She mused. I know that name from somewhere.

There was time for that later. She picked up the body carefully, holding him to her as you would a baby. She pushed back a pothole cover and climbed the ladder up to the surface, becoming a short curly haired redhead with freckles. She adjusted her grip on David so that she was carrying him bridal style, and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. It was especially difficult because he was unconscious.

She remembered...wrinkles.

Could she manipulate the looks of others as well as herself?

It was a staggering thought.
Amanda looked at his bruised face. His forehead had started bleeding again, though not as thickly as before. He looked like crap. She imagined what she supposed he looked like normally, when he wasn't crashing into vampires in the sewers. As she pictured it, his head lifted up, the blood looked only like sweat, and his cheeks flushed with color. His eyes opened, and the corners of his mouth turned upward- as if they shared a secret joke.

Amanda was slightly spooked. "This is the freakiest thing I have ever seen." She looked down at him, at his quiet, staring form.

She made him blink, and the action made her head hurt. Ow. It seems that it was a bit much to hold together so many pieces at once. She relaxed the effect on her skin, making it just human enough not to sparkle. That was okay. The Irish were a pale people. So were vampires.

She was distracted for a moment wondering just how pale an Irish vampire would be, and what the crap a black vampire would look like. She never broke from her part, however. She was a human, David was conscious, and they were a cutesy schmoostsy little couple. She giggled at him. He smiled wider back, winking. She wasn't sure why she had added the wink, and was worried that someone would notice that it was completely weird and creepy.

Body language constitutes 80 of all communication, or so Will Smith says in Hitch.

It seemed to go unnoticed, this odd wink. People were rolling their eyes in faint disgust at the PDI of the young...couple. That was what they thought. Amanda walked leisurely down the street, making sure that her chest rose and fell, even though she couldn't trust herself to breath. She decided to take the illusion one step further when she was in front of the apartment building. People had to know that they might be unconventional, but...She kissed his mouth lightly. The skin was warm. It brought an almost alive feeling to her face. The doorman didn't even ask David a thing- just opened the door. "You have a nice day." He called after the two.

Once inside, Amanda was all business. She had no idea which room was his. She surreptitiously sniffed David's hair- drinking in his scent. So delicious- which led her to wonder- When is he going to wake up? I mean, Fr' serious- isn't it going to be a bit hard to explain? "Oh, you passed out in the FREAKING SEWER, where I just HAPPENED to be, but no prob! I rifled through your wallet after knocking you unconscious, and carried your limp body back home."

But he seemed pretty well knocked out.

She smelled the building, searching for traces of his scent. She got a confused mix of smells from all over the building, and she realized that she would have to do it the old school way.

She smelled every door on every floor until she reached a room on the third floor that was swimming in Eau de David.

But she couldn't be sure- not with the blinding headache she had. She let go of David's enchantment, glamour, disguise... (She needed a new word for that.) and his head flopped downward, eyes closing and face draining of color. Blood trickled down the side of his face. She inhaled deeply. Yes- this was his apartment. She felt a flood of relief as she found the key in his left side pocket looped onto a keychain. That will save me the trouble of breaking in, at least. She thought with some relief. She opened the door.

The room was messy, but the bed was mostly clear of clothing.

He was starting to stir. She laid him on the bed slowly, for a vampire. She didn't want to snap his neck after the considerable effort she'd taken to get him home safely. She took one last look at his room before leaving. He just seemed so...familiar. She shut the door and left the injured human in peace.

The lock...clicked...A minute...passed...David...Stirred.

Gasping, he jerked himself upright on the bed. He looked around in mixed confusion and worry. He patted his clothes until he found it. There, in his right side pocket. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He felt...something. On his lips. He brushed them with his fingertips, feeling the unnatural coolness that remained from her kiss. He felt that he had missed something, something he should have known.

But no matter. What had happened to him in the sewer? He was just doing his job, when out of nowhere came...

Amanda looked at a clock outside. How long had it been since she had become a vampire?

Eight months. She smiled, although her smile didn't expose a single tooth. How long had it taken Carlisle to gain his perfect self control? She sighed, and retreated back into her cave, her pit of darkness. Back where she belonged, with her rats, mutant cats, and filth.

They were all sort of similar- all of them were fairly crappy, and no one wanted them around.

Life is wonderful, She thought as she ripped the head off of a rat with her teeth.

A/N: Amanda has discovered a new level to her power- the power to alter what others look like. It doesn't work as well on others as on her, but it does work. And the Cullens will come back into the story sometime! Don't worry! The reason they're gone is quite simple- the story is currently post Eclipse. I have no idea what's going on with them, and I'm not going to speculate. Bella could be married, could be a vampire, could be captured by the Volturi or worse. I'm not going to write something that is going to be completely untrue.

I am writing a vampire book of my own- not Twilight legend- the vampire I'm talking about wakes up un-dead in his coffin after being "killed" by a rogue a few days previously, and must learn how to deal with the undercover vampire (homeschooling) community (mostly, they steal from the hospital, but have no real issue taking a bite of a human now and then) he never knew existed in his town while avoiding letting any humans see him- his efforts don't quite work, and the new girl in town is able to figure out his secret for herself just by seeing him too many times accidentally and a bunch of other stuff. In the end of course, they have to fall in love. I have most of it mapped out- I just need a title. I can't think of a thing. If you have any ideas, that would be beyond wonderful. I wonder if I'll get an award for the longest author's note ever.