[A/N] This is my admission to the "Neck Flicks and Chill" Challenge. I just wanted to post it here too, to have all my works organized :P The first part is based on/contains parts of Bella's transformation in Breaking Dawn - Book Three, while the second one is basically a written version of the short movie "We've Met Before".
We've Met Before
1920 – Moline, Ohio
The pain baffled me.
Exactly that - I was baffled. I couldn't understand, couldn't make sense of what was happening. All I was aware of was the heat, the torturing flames that licked my skin demolishing everything in their path. But what I soon came to realize was that there was, in fact, no fire. I was not covered in flames. I was not burning alive –at least, not physically.
And in terror, I realized that the heat was inside me.
The burning grew - rose and peaked and rose again until it surpassed anything I'd ever felt. I wanted to raise my arms and claw my chest open and rip the heart from it - anything to get rid of this torture. But I couldn't feel my arms, couldn't move one vanished finger.
The fire blazed hotter and I wanted to scream. To beg for someone to kill me now, before I lived one more second in this pain. But I couldn't move my lips. There was a weight there, pressing on me. And in shock, I realized it was my own body. So heavy. Burying me in the flames that were chewing their way out from my heart now, spreading with impossible pain through my shoulders and stomach, scalding their way up my throat, licking at my face.
Why couldn't I move? Why couldn't I scream?
And most importantly, if I couldn't scream, how could I tell someone to kill me?
All I wanted was to die. Nothing could outweigh this pain. Wasn't worth living through it for one more heartbeat.
Let me die, let me die, let me die.
And, for a never-ending space, that was all there was. Just the fiery torture, and my soundless shrieks, pleading for death to come. Nothing else, not even time. So that made it infinite, with no beginning and no end. One infinite moment of pain.
The endless burn raged on.
It could have been seconds or days, weeks or years, but, eventually, time came to mean something again.
Two things happened together, grew from each other so that I didn't know which came first: time restarted and I got stronger.
I could feel the control of my body come back to me in increments, and those increments were my first markers of the time passing. I knew it when I was able to twitch my toes and twist my fingers into fists. Still, the fire did not decrease one tiny degree - in fact, I began to develop a new capacity for experiencing it, a new sensitivity to appreciate, separately, each blistering tongue of flame that licked through my veins.
My hearing got clearer and clearer, and I could count the frantic, pounding beats of my heart to mark the time.
I could count the shallow breaths that gasped through my teeth.
I continued to get stronger, my thoughts clearer. Through all this, the racking fire went right on burning me. But there was so much space in my head now. Room to think. Room to wonder.
Room to freak out.
Where was I? What was happening to me?
The panic that suddenly rose through me had my breathing go frantic, and I knew I couldn't afford that. How else was I supposed to measure the time that passed? I tried to control my breaths, counting the seconds.
Twenty-one thousand, nine hundred seventeen and a half seconds later, the pain changed.
On the good-news side of things, it started to fade from my fingertips and toes. Fading slowly, but at least it was doing something new. This had to be it. The pain was on its way out...
And then the bad news. The fire in my throat wasn't the same as before. I wasn't only on fire, but I was now parched, too. Dry as bone. So thirsty. Burning fire, and burning thirst...
Also bad news: The fire inside my heart got hotter.
How was that possible?
My heartbeat, already too fast, picked up - the fire drove its rhythm to a new frantic pace.
The flames retreated from my palms, leaving them blissfully pain-free and cool. But it retreated to my heart, which blazed hot as the sun and beat at a furious new speed. My wrists were free, though, and my ankles. The fire was totally extinguished there.
And then - oh!
My heart took off, beating like helicopter blades, the sound almost a single sustained note; it felt like it would grind through my ribs. The fire flared up in the center of my chest, sucking the last remnants of the flames from the rest of my body to fuel the most scorching blaze yet. The pain was enough to stun me, to break through my iron grip on the stake. My back arched, bowed as if the fire was dragging me upward by my heart.
I allowed no other piece of my body to break rank as my torso slumped back to the ground.
It became a battle inside me - my sprinting heart racing against the attacking fire. Both were losing. The fire was doomed, having consumed everything that was combustible; my heart galloped toward its last beat.
The fire constricted, concentrating inside that one remaining human organ with a final, unbearable surge. The surge was answered by a deep, hollow-sounding thud. My heart stuttered twice, and then thudded quietly again just once more.
There was no sound. No breathing. For a moment, the absence of pain was all I could comprehend.
And then I opened my eyes and gazed above me in wonder.
And everything was so clear.
Sharp. Defined.
The brilliant light overhead was still blinding-bright, and yet I could plainly see the glowing strands of the filaments inside the bulb. I could see each color of the rainbow in the white light, and, at the very edge of the spectrum, an eighth color I had no name for.
Behind the light, I could distinguish the individual grains in the dark wood ceiling above. In front of it, I could see the dust motes in the air, the sides the light touched, and the dark sides, distinct and separate. They spun like little planets, moving around each other in a celestial dance.
The dust was so beautiful that I inhaled in shock; the air whistled down my throat, swirling the motes into a vortex. The action felt wrong. I considered, and realized the problem was that there was no relief tied to the action. I didn't need the air. My lungs weren't waiting for it. They reacted indifferently to the influx.
I did not need the air, but I liked it. In it, I could taste the room around me - taste the lovely dust motes, the mix of the stagnant air mingling with the flow of slightly cooler air from the open door. Taste a lush whiff of silk. Taste a faint hint of something warm and desirable, something that should be moist, but wasn't... That smell made my throat burn dryly, a faint echo of the venom burn.
I also heard a faint, thudding rhythm, with a voice shouting angrily to the beat. Rap music? I was mystified for a moment, and then the sound faded away like a car passing by with the windows rolled down.
With a start, I realized that this could be exactly right. Could I hear all the way to the freeway?
I froze. How did I know there was a freeway here?
I instantly tried to bring up memories of how I had gotten here in the first place but to no avail. My new mind, sharp as it seemed to be, held no memories of my trip here, or of anything else for that matter. In terror, I realized I couldn't remember anything at all. Well, anything but one thing.
April Kepner.
I sat up so fast it should have turned the room into an incomprehensible blur - but it did not. I saw every dust mote, every splinter in the wood-paneled walls, every loose thread in microscopic detail as my eyes whirled past them.
I was April Kepner. That was my name. How I was aware of it was a mystery to me, but for the time being it didn't matter much.
I looked around the empty room, my nostrils flaring, searching for possible danger as if from instinct. There was a window by the door, through which I could see the forest unraveling before me. The room I had just woken up in, a little cabin as it seemed, was in the middle of the woods.
As my eyes scanned the room, they suddenly came across a figure, and at the sight of the possible danger my body reacted instantly. Air hissed up my throat, spitting through my clenched teeth with a low, menacing sound like a swarm of bees. Before the sound was out, my muscles bunched and arched, twisting away from the unknown. I flipped off the ground in a spin, momentarily preoccupied by the way my body moved. The instant I'd considered standing erect, I was already straight. There was no brief fragment of time in which the action occurred; change was instantaneous, almost as if there was no movement at all.
So by the time I found myself crouched against the wall defensively - about a sixteenth of a second later - I already understood what had startled me, and that I had overreacted.
In front of me stood an old, dusty mirror. And inside it, staring right back at me with eyes wide, was a stranger.
Her skin was pale and fair, not the slightest imperfection on its smooth like milk surface. Her hair, red and fiery, were falling freely on her shoulders, leaves and dirt caught up in them, giving her a wild look. She was dressed in what once would have probably been quite a lovely blue dress, only now it was all shred to pieces and covered entirely with dirt and dried blood.
At the sight of it – at the smell of it- the dry ache in my throat was suddenly all I could think about, and the more I thought about it, the more it hurt. My hand flew up to cup my throat, like I could smother the flames from the outside. The skin of my neck was strange beneath my fingers. So smooth it was somehow soft, though it was hard as stone, too. I was almost startled when the woman in the mirror copied my motion instantly, and I could but stare at her wide-eyed. And as she stared right back at me I could only be shocked at the sight of her glowing crimson eyes blazing like vicious red flames.
This was me? I certainly didn't recognize the perfect, symmetrical characteristics of the woman's face, or her impossibly gorgeous body. The stranger in front of me held a dizzying beauty, one that had everyone stopping in their tracks to gawk at open mouthed. I had no memories of myself being this beautiful. But then again, I had no memories of myself at all, so whatever. At least I was pretty.
I felt a smile making its way to my lips and my reflection smiled back at me, two perfect little dimples appearing at her cheeks.
I could get used to this.
Satisfied with my outlook, I decided to head outside and head towards the freeway in search for any signs of civilization. I walked up to the door and softly twisted the handle, only to discover that the door was, in fact, locked. Letting out a frustrated sigh, I stubbornly repeated the action putting just a tiny bit more force into it, as if that would magically solve the problem.
And then, a loud crashing sound later, I found myself staring wide-eyed at the broken handle in my hand.
What the hell…
My eyes darted from the handle to the little hole that was now on its original place on the door.
Had I just broken the handle? With my own hands?
I let the small piece of metal fall from my grip, focusing on the door itself. I reached to grab the wood through the hole and then, softly, I pulled as if to peel a piece of wood. And peel the wood I did.
A surprised chuckled escaped my lips, adrenaline rushing through my veins. Fascinated by the undeniable proof that I was stronger than I had ever believed I could be, I placed my hand, fingers spread wide, against the wall next to me. Then I dug my fingers slowly into the wall, crushing rather than digging; the consistency reminded me of hard cheese. I ended up with a handful of gravel.
With a grin stretching my face, I whirled in a sudden circle and karate-chopped the wall with the side of my hand. The entire cabin shrieked and groaned and - with a big poof of dust - split in two. I let out a little shriek and run outside as fast as I could, and in the split of a second I found myself about 20 meters from the cabin, staring at it collapsing into fragments before me with awe.
I started giggling in exhilaration, but that abruptly stopped when the act threw fluid to the flames in my throat.
Realization hit me hard, then.
I was not human.
I swallowed hard, a single question ringing in my ears.
If I wasn't human… then what was I?
And as if to respond, a flash of light suddenly appeared in front of me, so bright that my entire vision went white. Startled, I took a few steps back until my back hit against a tree, almost bending it over.
And then I wasn't in the woods anymore.
I was sitting at a table at the local diner, a beautiful, dark-skinned stranger in the seat ahead of me.
Only I wasn't really sitting there. I was only watching myself sit there, as if I was a third person inside the room.
My future self, as my sense told me, smiled up to the man in front of me. A man whose eyes were red as well, just a shade darker than mine. A man who was the same thing I was.
A man who was unbelievably, extraordinarily beautiful.
"I'm April, by the way." I told him. "April Kepner."
He was looking at me quizzing, as if he was trying to figure me out. "Jackson Avery." He replied.
My smile got even wider. "I know."
And then the scene in front of me changed again with a flash of light.
I was out the rain, the water sprinkling – warm and wet on my skin. Wet raindrops trickled down my body, dripping from my eyelashes.
"Why are you out in the rain?" came a voice, and I traced it all the way to the house across the street. A man, the same man that had been in the diner, closed the door behind him and came towards me in human speed, a large suitcase in his one arm.
"I like the rain." I answered nonchalantly. "Plus, it's not like I'm going to catch a cold or anything."
He rolled his eyes as he reached me, and instantly wrapped his free arm around my waist. "I'm sorry I had you waiting, baby." He murmured now, so softly that only I could hear.
I cocked my head. "I already told you. For you, I'd wait forever."
He flashed me a crooked grin before leaning down and caressing my lips with his own.
Another flash of light, and I was now jumping off a tree, right on the back of an alarmingly enormous grizzly bear.
I watched in terror as I launched myself at it, knocking us both to the forest floor. Its raking claws could have been caressing fingers for all the impact they had on my skin. Its teeth could find no purchase against my shoulder or my throat. Its weight was nothing. My teeth unerringly sought its throat, and its instinctive resistance was pitifully feeble against my strength. My jaws locked easily over the precise point where the heat flow concentrated.
It was effortless as biting into butter. My teeth were steel razors; they cut through the fur and fat and sinews like they weren't there. The flavor was wrong, but the blood was hot and wet and it soothed the ragged, itching thirst as I drank in an eager rush. The bear's struggles grew more and more feeble, and its screams choked off with a gurgle. The warmth of the blood radiated throughout my whole body, heating even my fingertips and toes.
The bear was finished before I was. The thirst flared again when it ran dry, and I watched myself shoving its carcass off my body in disgust. How could I still be thirsty after all that?
I wrenched myself erect in one quick move. Standing, I realized I was a bit of a mess. I wiped my face off on the back of my arm and tried to fix the dress. The claws that had been so ineffectual against my skin had had more success with the thin satin.
"Hmm," that Jackson guy said. I looked up to see him leaning casually against a tree trunk, watching me with a thoughtful look on his face.
"I guess I could have done that better." I was covered in dirt, my hair knotted, my dress bloodstained and hanging in tatters, revealing rather large parts of skin ranging all around my body. "It's just that I usually hunt deer so I'm not used to the fighting part."
"You did perfectly fine," he assured me. "It's just that... it was much more difficult for me to watch than it should have been."
I raised my eyebrows, confused.
"It's quite hard for a man to let the love of his life wrestle with bears," he explained, "especially with you being so damn tiny. I was having an anxiety attack the whole time."
I giggled. "Silly."
"I know. I like the improvements to your dress, though." He said, walking up to me with that cocky smirk of his. "And I have a feeling I know how to make it even better."
The woods were overflowed with light and I was now in a disk store.
My eyes were scanning the covers of the disks in front of me, my hand following my gaze, softly touching the name tags. SAM NEELEY, WILLIE NELSON, LOUIS NEWTON…
A hand came to hold mine, stopping my movements. "Can't you just sing for me instead?" he whispered in my ear, his breath brushing against my cheek, sending whispers of electricity through my skin.
"Jackson, no. Technology is evolving and so are we. We're doing this, end of story."
He let out a sigh. "So stubborn." He mumbled.
"You're all about spending money on anything useless like the latest brand of car or this" I grumbled, gesturing to the enormous wedding ring that was on my finger "and yet buying a simple vinyl player is suddenly too much?" I challenged him, one eyebrow raised.
He huffed in disbelief, and before I knew it he walked up to the cashier and asked "How much for the entire shop?"
"Jackson!" I hissed, running to his side.
He turned to me, a large grin on his lips. "Don't you ever dare call me cheap again."
"I thought we were going to buy a new house with the lottery money." I protested.
"That money can buy a hundred houses, baby. And besides, once we spend it we can always win another one." He winked at me. "The perks of being married to a psychic."
And then with another flash of light, I was in a dark room laid on the floor next to the fireplace, plackets wrapped around my naked body as it was tangled with Jackson's.
I sighed against his marble chest. "How do we ever stop?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, his fingers lightly tracing from the back of my neck to all the way down to my waist. My eyes rolled back into my head a little.
"We're never going to get tired. We don't have to catch our breath or sleep or eat or even use the bathroom. You have the most beautiful, perfect body in the world and I have you all to myself, and it just doesn't feel like I am ever going to find a point where I will think, 'Now I've had enough for one day'. I am always going to want more. And the day is never going to end. So, in such a situation, how do we ever stop?"
His hand made its way up to my jaw, tilting my head upwards so that I was looking up at him. "Would it be too bad if we never did?" he asked, his breath hitting my face.
I licked my lips. "Fine with me."
The scene in front of me turned white once more, and I now finally found myself back into the woods, staring at the demolished cabin.
I let out a sigh of relief, my hand flying to my once again aching throat, as the thirst was back. I was in my body again. Or maybe I had never left in the first place. I could never be sure.
Instinctively scanning my surroundings for signs of any threat, I was suddenly certain of three things.
First, I was a vampire. There was no other way to explain the thirst or the blood drinking.
Second, I just had a vision of the future. Of my future.
And third, I had to find Jackson Avery as soon as possible.
And without knowing where I was or where I was heading, I started running with the speed of light, disappearing in the trees.
1948 - Seattle, Washington
I was sitting at the diner's counter, my thoughts a complete mess. My hand was drawing random shapes on the napkin set in front of me, my mind in such a hyper state that I could hardly concentrate on the act.
Any moment now, I thought to myself but the seconds didn't seem to pass fast enough.
"More coffee, hun?"
I glanced up at the waitress and returned the smile she was giving me, even though I felt too anxious for it to be anything near genuine. "No, thank you." I told her kindly, wondering how could she not have noticed that I hadn't taken a single sip of my coffee the entire time I had been sitting right in front of her.
Yet again, humans never really noticed stuff much. I spent the entirety of my days around humans. I worked with humans, I interacted with humans, I even had a few close relationships with humans that could maybe resemble friendships. And yet, nobody in the twenty eight years of my life –or existence, whatever you want to call it- as a vampire pointed out how, for example, I hadn't aged one single day or how my skin was hard as rock or how my eyes went from golden to black and back to golden every few weeks.
The latter had been a great surprise for me as well. See, when I had first woken up all transformed –and just like every other new vampire, as I later came to learn- my eyes had had a bright red color and only switched to black when I was thirsty and needed to hunt. Most vampires' eye color didn't abstain much from that later on their lives, apart from the red darkening a little as years passed. And yet my eyes… my eyes were now the color of topaz shimmering in the sunlight. And I had discovered that that was caused by feeding only on animals and never on humans. I hadn't met a lot of vampires in my lifetime, but of those I had come across from time to time, not one had even thought an animal diet was even possible, and they definitely hadn't been willing to try it.
And why was I, you might ask. Why would a vampire -a creature whose looks, scent and voice were perfectly designed to attract human pray and whose strength, speed and intelligence made them the world's greatest predator- choose to not drink human blood as it so craves and instead follow a diet that to humans would feel like living with only tofu?
Well, the answer was quite simple. I didn't want to be a monster.
I thought that just because life threw you some cards it didn't mean that you couldn't take matters into your own hands and make the best out of the situation you were put in. And even though I never eventually remembered being one or what had happened to me, killing humans just felt wrong.
"Pie?" the waitress' voice pulled me out of my thoughts then, bringing my back to the present.
I shook my head. "I'm alright, thanks." I replied, suddenly fascinated by the fact that the lady in front of me had surprisingly not one, but two heartbeats. A quick flash of light and I was in a hospital room, a young lady I recognized as the waitress was laid on a bed, glowing with joy as she was looking down at a tiny wrinkled newborn in her arms. And then, as soon as it had appeared, the scene before me was gone.
I blinked and smiled up to the woman. Of course, only half a second had passed for all she knew. That's what always happened. "You're going to have a beautiful baby." I told her.
She bit her lips. "Is it that obvious?"
I shook my head. "No, no. You just… have that glow."
"You're sweet. Thank you." she said with a grin and walked away to the other side of the counter.
I glanced at the clock again and let out a sigh. Almost there…
My gaze fell down to the smudges on the napkin in my hands. I almost rolled my eyes when I finally realized what I had drawn and immediately put the little piece of paper in my pocket.
And that's when it finally happened.
I heard the diner's door jingle open behind me letting in a wisp of cold, autumn air. A non-detectable by human noses, delicious scent of wildflowers mixed up with ocean breeze filled the air at once. A scent I knew all too well without ever having smelled it. His scent.
I smirked.
I could barely contain myself and turn around towards the sound in human speed. And when I did, I froze. Even if my heart had still been beating, it would have momentarily stopped.
Because there he was.
Jackson.
The second I laid my eyes on him I realized my visions didn't do him any justice at all. He was tall and slender, but strong build at the same time. He had smooth flawless dark skin and short shaved dark hair, a strong face with his features molded from granite and full, sultry lips. A short, thin beard was covering his strong jaw, above of which stood prominent cheekbones, a well-defined chin and nose and dark eyebrows that were framing his deep red eyes.
I thanked God I didn't need oxygen anymore, because my every breath instantly hitched in my throat.
This was it. This was my chance. And I couldn't mess things up now, not after all these years I had been preparing myself. I hopped off the stool and with small, airy steps I walked over to his table.
He didn't notice me at first. I held still, standing right next to his seat for a moment, before I decided to draw his attention myself.
"You've kept me waiting a long time." I told him, loud and clear.
Jackson looked up at me, his eyes staring in mine for a moment too long before he ducked his head. "I'm sorry ma'am. I didn't know I had someplace to be."
I bit back a smile at the sound of his musical voice, so familiar and yet so new at the same time.
"You're… you're like me." He noted after a second.
"That's quite an assumption for someone I just met." I teased him. I knew the only reason why he was not entirely sure of my nature was the color of my eyes.
He didn't smile. "You're a…" he trailed off, looking around at the diner's tables, all full of humans.
"Oh." I gulped. "Well, yeah. I am that."
He narrowed his eyes at me. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
I shook my head. "No. Just from my mind." I blurted out, unthinking. My eyes widened. "That… that sounded crazy, I'm sorry. What an intro." I patched it up. Then, too softly for human ears, I mumbled to myself "Way to go, dumbass."
But the thing was, his ears weren't human.
If I could blush I'd be the color of red crimson by now. I cleared my throat. "Anyone siting there?" I asked, pointing towards the seat across from him. I knew the seat was empty, of course, but I figured I should ask. After all, who wouldn't want to sit across him and stare at his angelic beauty for as long as he let them? "It's the best view in the diner."
He gave me a puzzled look.
I blinked.
Crap. Fix this!
A flash of light and I was watching myself standing in front of Jackson from afar, a lightning striking right outside. Another flash and I was back.
"Because I want to see the lightning strike!" I blurted out quickly. "And that right there is a front row seat."
Before I even got to finish my sentence, lightning stroke outside lighting up the sky. The diner stirred a little bit.
Jackson glanced outside and then right back at me, looking rather shocked. "You can make lightning?"
I grimaced. It was a common knowledge that some vampires owned some short of 'powers' or a 'gift' as I liked to call them. Those could vary from my visions to something simple like, maybe, compassion. But most vampires didn't have any gifs at all, of course. And Jackson was one of them.
Not that he needed any to be absolutely perfect.
"Not my kind of gift." I replied eventually. "But if you already think I'm that powerful, then I'd say we're off to a good start."
He grinned at me, intrigued, and my silent heart almost started beating again at the view.
I sat down across from him. "I went ahead and made the assumption that this seat was empty." I exclaimed. "I'm April, by the way." I told him with a smile. "April Kepner."
He was looking at me quizzing, as if he was trying to figure me out. "Jackson Avery." He replied.
My smile got even wider. "I know."
He quirked one eyebrow. "How?"
"Oh, I'm really good at names. Like, our waitress here," I said, just as the waitress came walking towards us, carrying a cup of coffee. "is Betty."
Betty set my coffee down in front of me. "You don't like coffee much, do you? You left it on the counter."
"Thank you." I replied louder for her to hear, and she gave me a little grin before walking away again. I looked back at Jackson, who was now staring at my cup. "It makes me feel human." I answered his unspoken question.
"She was wearing a name tag." He noted instead.
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, well, I'm also very good at reading so…"
He chuckled, the soft sound ringing in my ears like bells. "So, what brings you to Seattle?"
The answer came fast. "I'm getting to know you."
He smirked. "Yeah, well, I know that. I mean-"
"I know what you mean." I cut him off. "Same answer. But I should ask you the same thing, Jackson, what brings you to Seattle?"
At the question he instantly looked away. A moment of silence passed before he spoke again. "I'm not sure. I've been a little… lost lately."
Sensing his unease, I looked down at my hands on the table. "Well… I'm glad you found yourself here." I mumbled truthfully. "I mean, I'm glad you're here, whether or not you found yourself yet." I rephrased.
Yet another moment of silence passed, and with a sigh I took hold of the menu next to the condiments. Then, it turned white before me and I watched as the waitress came towards the table where Jackson and myself were sitting, holding a sad looking strawberry shake.
Back to the present, Jackson was still sitting quiet ahead of me. "The descriptions!" I spit out to break the silence, maybe a bit overenthusiastically.
He gave me a look. "What about them?"
"I like the menu descriptions. That's sort of why I come to restaurants. Every restaurant has its own sort of style, like-", I scanned the menu, easily finding the shake I was looking for, and read aloud, "How about a nice strawberry shake, the old fashioned way? We take our cream straight from the farm to craft Finch's famous vanilla ice cream and blend it with handpicked strawberries. Even though we'll give you two straws, it's so good you won't want to share."
Jackson seemed amused. "Let me see that." He muttered, holding out his hand.
"Very homegrown, that one." I commented as I was passing him the menu. "Like a friend wrote it."
Just as he took a good look at the picture of the strawberry shake, Betty passed right through us and he glanced towards her nonchalantly.
I did not need to look to know what she was holding.
"Hey, is that…"
"Think so."
He stared at the menu incredulously. "Huh. Not what I would have pictured."
Through the corner of my eyes I saw Betty tripping then, and I instinctively jumped up from my seat to catch her. As soon as I helped her to her feet I noticed the poor woman looked as pale as a ghost. Ha! No, she looked as pale as me!
"Almost dropped it again." She muttered, breathless. "These floors must think I'm angry with them."
I giggled. "Oh, don't worry. It happens to the best of us."
Oh, the irony. With my perfect balance and impossibly fast reflexes, I would have to be staging it for me to ever trip.
Still, as I sat back down at my seat and my eyes locked with Jackson's, I couldn't help but add, "I recently fell myself."
Jackson huffed, shaking his head in disbelief. "How did you do that?"
I raised my eyebrows innocently. "Do what?"
"First the lightning. Now this."
I bit down on my lower lip. "Okay, so I'm a little bit intuitive."
That seemed to raise his interest. He leaned in playfully, his face inches from mine. "Only a little?"
I felt my mouth fill with venom, a hunger much different than the one for blood conjuring my senses. I shrugged, attempting to seem indifferent. "It's just something I'm naturally good at. I could probably make a killing at palm readings." I joked, chuckling softly.
I saw him raise an eyebrow before I heard the sound of a coin hitting against the table. "Let's see." He challenged and offered me his hand.
I tried to hide a little smirk as I took hold of his hand, turned it around, closed my eyes and began tracing my fingers along his palm. His skin was so soft, so smooth that if felt as if I was touching feathers. The lust hit me hard then, but I was not going to make any moves just yet. Instead, I held myself back and settled to simply feeling his skin against mine.
"What do you see?" came his curious voice eventually, and I sighed. It seemed like this was all I was going to get for now.
"You…" I mumbled, reopening my eyes. "…have very nice hands."
He threw his head back and laughed, and at that moment he looked so lighthearted and carefree that I simply stood there, gawking at him like a drooling puppy.
When his laughing stopped he stared down at the table, and as I followed his gaze I realized that we were still holding hands. I was about to pull away, embarrassed, but then I felt his thumb brushing against my skin, so softly I first thought I was imagining it. His touch sent whispers of electricity through my skin, and I took an unnecessary breath to settle myself in response.
"I've got to tell you…" he murmured, his gaze fixed on our united hands. "I'm feeling an emotion that I haven't experienced in a long time."
My silent heart flattered, my mind trying to push back the thought that it might be anything close to what I was feeling. "What?" I asked with a little voice.
"Hope."
And there was something about the way he said it, that even though it was not exactly what I had hoped for, I still felt warmth crawl up my chest, spreading to my entire body. Looking right into his eyes, I gave him a small, genuine smile.
And then the waitress came up again, and instantly he pulled his hand off mine, leaving my skin feeling suddenly cold and naked. Empty.
"Sure I can't bring you kids any food?"
I sighed, and took my eyes off his to look up at her. "No, thank you."
But only when I looked back at Jackson did I notice he was looking at Betty walk away like a child looks at its lollipop. "There's food everywhere." He mumbled, too softly for human ears to hear.
Ugh. Lovely.
"Yeah, well, I'm a vegetarian." I cleared my throat. "So there's, you know, not a lot here for me. In the diner."
He stared at me like I had just told him I had a pet dragon. "A… vegetarian?"
"We only eat animals." I explained, pointing towards my eyes. "Thus the eyes."
His eyes narrowed. "We?"
I realized my slip a second too late, while in the meantime staring at him like an idiot. How was I supposed to explain that the 'we' in my sentence was referring to the two of us? Get a grip, girl, I thought to myself and cleared my throat. "My family and I. Well, future family." Family a was far more general term than husband, and the last thing I wanted was for him to think I was engaged or something of that short.
"You're more than a little intuitive." His eyebrows were razed, his expression impressed.
I shrugged. "Well, I don't see the future or anything, just… glimpses and possibilities."
"Is that what I am? A possibility?"
"No." I smiled at him. "No, I decided on you a long time ago."
His eyes bore into mine with such an intensity I had to look away and take a few breaths to calm myself. How could he just dazzle me like that? I shook my head to myself.
When I looked back at him he was smirking. "So." He tucked his head to the side. "What happens next, April?"
I pursed my lips. "I think that's up to you."
And then everything happened too fast.
A crushing sound came from close behind me, somewhere by the door that led to the diner's kitchen. Plates shattered into a million pieces when they slammed on the floor, as Betty lost her balance, slipped and fell on the ground hands-first. Sharp pieces of porcelain penetrated her skin as her hands found the floor, blood overflowing the cuts almost immediately.
I was all too familiar of it, this scent that ruled completely. I felt the thirst-driven haze begin, a haze in which I was aware only of the thirst and the smell that promised to quench it. The thirst got worse, so painful now that it confused all my other thoughts and began to remind me of the burn of venom in my veins, a lifetime ago. The new fragrance was so attractive that there wasn't a choice into doing anything in my power to resist it. It was compulsory.
And yet, somehow, I had learned how to fight it. After almost three decades of practicing, I could now control myself, control the thirst.
But Jackson couldn't.
And so I watched in terror as he started to get up out of the booth, his eyes instantly turning a shade darker. Hungrier.
"Jackson?"
In a split second he was on his feet, walking towards the poor woman in determination.
"Jackson, no! Stop!" I shrieked, recklessly grabbing his arm to hold him back.
There was only one thing that had any chance of penetrating his focus now, an instinct more powerful, more basic than the need to quench the fire - it was the instinct to protect himself from danger. Self-preservation.
And I had thoughtlessly just become the threat.
A bubble of sound built in his chest, his lips pulled back of their own accord to expose his teeth in warning. He shot me a glare so vicious that I felt myself shrink involuntarily, his arm violently pulling away from mine as the rising sound ripped its way up his throat and out in the form of a feral snarl.
"Please don't…" came out a pained whisper, but it was to no avail.
Jackson turned around and fled, aiming right at the woman's throat.
The scene before me was suddenly overflowed with a flash of light, and I found myself back in our table, Jackson sitting right ahead of me with a smirk on his face.
Relief washed over me like a wave, and I let out a long, shaky breath.
"So." He said, tucking his head to the side. "What happens next, April?"
I huffed, suddenly irritated by his too-be attitude. That thoughtless moron he was, he had almost killed a pregnant woman and her baby! I felt the blood rise to my face as anger settled in me. "Well, we both become vegetarian, for one!" I replied angrily, and without giving him a chance to respond I leaned over the table, grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down, crushing my lips on his own with force.
I felt him suck in a surprised breath, his body going completely rigid before he finally relaxed against me. His one hand came to cup my face and his lips started moving against mine, creating the most incredible feeling I had ever experienced.
A tiny part of my mind became aware of the sound of a plate crashing somewhere in the background but I didn't even care to acknowledge it. I was too preoccupied by the intoxicating freshness of his breath as it mingled with mine, the tingles his eyelashes gave me as they brushed against my cheeks, the impossible softness of his movements despite his marble skin. To my account, he didn't seem to even notice the crashing either.
Only when I heard the waitress run back inside the kitchen did I allow our lips to break apart, and even then they remained only an inch from each other's as our eyes locked. We were both breathless, yet not from the actual need for air. This was so much more than that.
I blinked furiously, my forehead resting against his own. "Was that hope too?" I teased him, panting.
He licked his lips, looking into my eyes in awe. "No, that…" he smiled. "That was something else."
Unfortunately, I had to completely ignore the wave of emotion that overcame me then, as I heard Betty's harried steps coming from the kitchen. I straightened my body and urgently whispered, "We have to get out of here."
He nodded. "Yeah, let's go."
I took a second to thank heavens I had already paid for my coffee as we stormed outside the diner's door at a speed that could barely be considered human. However, I was sure that if any of the customers had known the reason behind our hurry, the wouldn't have minded it at the very least.
Once outside, with the door shutting closed behind us, I finally allowed myself a sigh of relief. My every breath got caught in my throat, however, when I felt his arm wrap around my waist, holding me close. I turned around to face him, only to be flashed with a radiant, brilliant smile.
"So…" he trailed off, his fingers tracing the line of my spine up and down, sending delicious shivers down my body. "Where do we go from here?"
I struggled with finding my voice. "Um… it's going to start raining in twenty three minutes, so since I know you hate the rain we could find something to do until then and after that-" My sentence was cut in half when he gave me a quick peck on the nose.
He chuckled. "That is certainly going to take some time to get used to. But I was actually talking about the next thousand years or so." He said with a smirk.
I blinked at him.
Man, he just got super serious, like, really fast. "Wow, uh… okay, how about we start off with a walk?"
He licked his grinning lips. "I would like that very much." He mumbled.
But as he spoke, his words got all the more blurry, his face all the more white, until my sight was completely overflowed with light.
When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer with him outside the diner. I was alone, sitting on that counter, looking at the napkin with a small drawing that was in my hands. It pictured a couple, Jackson and myself, leaning over the little table by the diner's window and kissing. I had to hold myself from rolling my eyes as I snatched the little piece of paper in my pocket.
And then, the diner's door jingled open behind me, a delicious scent of wildflowers and ocean breeze filling the air.
I smirked.