Bromley Mansion, Ground Floor, Kitchen

For the fifth time since arriving, Frankie watched carefully as his precious detainee sized up the drink he'd set down in front of her, then slowly, under his scrutiny, reached forward and took hold of the glass. He watched sideways as she brought it to her mouth, sneaked a glance over at him and held his gaze as she tipped it down her throat.

She'd been playing this game the past two days. Always keeping her eyes on his whenever she would drink, mocking, proving to him that she was being as placid as he secretly hoped to keep her. The problem with this was that he felt these moments, when they both took in their daily rations, were slowly becoming very intimate sessions.

He'd find himself focusing on her lips stained red before her tongue swiped across to lick up any evidence of it. He told himself that this flare of inner heat came from the sight of the blood even though it was clear he was kidding himself. His stomach had long been sated. Looking at her now, he could barely envision the dirt-streaked human that he'd first knocked out in 's office.

This undead Alison had taken him off guard with her change in attitude over the last forty-eight hours. Following her observation of his tattoo, she'd begun conversing with him as though she'd never thought differently of him. As though a switch had been turned in her head and she was suddenly receptive to anything he said and basically all up for building some form of familiarity between them.

Puzzled and on guard as he'd instinctively become, he'd taken to watching her subtly with all the expertise he'd gained at work. He remembered his first couple of weeks wearing a uniform and gun. There was nothing remotely close to familiarity between the soldiers. Nobody trusted anybody; even in the vampire community there was always that underlying tension. One would call it animal rivalry.

His first assumption was that it was another technique of hers to steal her way past his defenses in order to make another run for it, but if that was the case, she was taking it painfully slow. He'd purposely left a couple of openings yesterday, allowing her to lock the bathroom door when she showered, going as far as to letting her open a window to let in some fresh air as soon as the sun had set. Nonetheless, she hadn't set a foot out of line. Neither had she gotten into physical contact with him again.

It was bothering him to no end that he couldn't figure her out. Multiple opponents that he'd faced, whether human or vampire had been easy to predict and occasionally he even got bored with the rounding up of humans because they always, always chose the same methods of escape. They really enforced the fact that they were born creatures that liked to stay in groups and driving that mob into a corner was really the simplest task he had to master. The adrenalin rushes made up for the repetitiveness of it but the raids were never an impossible challenge.

He didn't get tired of looking at Alison though. Right now, it was the way her lips were flushed a darker color than before her feeding and how she nonchalantly leaned back in her seat now and pushed the glass into the centre of the table. A careless, relaxed gesture. There was always a new detail to be found about her and he would ask himself every time how he could have missed it. If he had been on duty in an environment that was far more hostile he'd have cursed himself for being inattentive. He didn't know that this discomfort of not knowing her inside out came from the growing attraction inside.

"Am I going to get bad behavior points if I don't ask for a refill?" the girl in question asked, sending a mocking smile in Frankie's direction, breaking his reverie.

"If I actually kept tabs on your behavior," he responded seriously, moving to take her glass and dump it in the dishwasher with his, "So it's your lucky day"

"Isn't that what you're paid for?" she probed, pulling up her feet onto the chair and wrapping her arms around her knees. There was the change. She'd gone from confident and sly to a little child listening to a fairytale at story time. Frankie had never supposed a vampire could look innocent but she actually managed it. When she wasn't angry or brooding.

"No. I monitor what you do"

He wasn't entirely sure how much she was allowed to know so he left out the gritty details of what he was doing. She didn't press the subject.

"I bet this wasn't what you signed up for. Babysitting seems kind of out of place for a guy in a uniform," She stated with a quirk to her lips. He suppressed the urge to tell to quit the mockery only because found himself enjoying the loose conversation too much to force her into silence yet.

"As long as changing diapers isn't involved, it's not the end of the world"

She laughed softly under her breath. Then her tone grew less euphoric. "Who has to worry about the world ending when we're already dead?"

"You don't look particularly lifeless to me," he observed, nudging the dishwasher shut with his heel. Alison didn't even give him the satisfaction of a deadpan glare but stretched out her legs, placing them on the tabletop and examining her bare feet thoughtfully. He'd noticed that she didn't care much about general manners. She had evidently been living rough for quite some time, where wasting time on politeness was unnecessary.

"Like anything you see in a vampire's face is actually true," she muttered. Of course he heard it perfectly clearly. He could sense her inner barricades slipping down over her brief good mood again.

"I thought you're one of the most honest ones I know"

She let her head fall sideways so that her hair spilled over the back of her chair and she was looking at him from an angle. Her expression was wiped clean. "What made you think that?"

"You speak your mind, no matter if it gets you in shit or not," he shrugged, "You say you don't care if you die or not and you mean it. Others, they can say it but in their last moments it can't be more obvious that they do. They were scared of dying. Permanently."

She turned back to look at her bare legs and the little child demeanor vanished with the smirk that adorned her face then. "Maybe I'm less honest than you think"

"Good, I was beginning to think you're abnormal," he feigned relief at those words even though there was surely a measure of hidden meaning behind them. It got her to grin back at him for a second though.

"Sure. Which normal person doesn't have a personal bodyguard, a dysfunctional family and a massive house to themselves?" she wondered with exaggerated surprise, raising her chin to fix her golden eyes on the window behind him, "Ah, and a Mercedes in her front yard?"

Frankie didn't even turn. He'd spotted the car when they'd first arrived but killed his admiration for the impressive silver machine in order to focus on the vital things at hand. Now that she mentioned it though…

"Sorry, I can't let you out for a test drive," he added expressionlessly, half-turning to secretly admire it too. No matter how vampires were essentially indifferent to material things that weren't blood, there was no killing the admiration for stylish cars.

"What you can and what you will do are two different things," she responded in a philosophical manner, abandoning her place on the chair and standing beside him in a beat, leaning her hands on both sides of the sink to get a better view, "Come on. Don't you trust me to behave when I'm cuffed and bound?"

That put pictures of the worst kind in his head and he had to force them away before they even wandered into his subconscious. The damage was done though. He attention was no longer on the sleek car but on the tall, slim female leaning, in a position that now seemed ridiculously tempting, against the kitchen counter with her chestnut hair spilling over her shoulders. The cuffs she was constantly in now were glinting at him conspiratorially. He cleared his throat and simply said, "No"

There it was, that judging look she turned on him. Only ten times closer than before. Her line of sight was exactly parallel with his nose so she even had her head angled up towards him. The curve her upper body and throat made towards him wasn't helping. He had his control in place but the fiery intelligence of her gaze made him waver.

"Sorry"

He blinked. "Why?"

"It's my fault you don't trust me. I shouldn't even expect it. I mean," she averted her eyes and let out a bitter laugh that transformed her again, from the seductive vampire to the human girl, "What kind of guy trusts a girl who pulls a hit-and-run on him?"

"What kind of vampire tells somebody she's sorry?" was the question that lay on his lips but he didn't speak it out because there was sincerity in her apology that made the comment irrelevant. Stupid even. He'd noticed the second she'd said her first words to him that she was made of the same stuff as his big brother. Different to the majority. Still full of emotion. Though, with the direction this conversation was taking again, he was beginning to think he might have that problem too.

So instead, he shook his head, "An idiot"

"Yeah, that the category I should be in," she mused, wandering over to the adjacent living room to skim along the shelves.

Political, crime and supernatural novels, non-fictional works from Dr. this and that, historical and archeological books that held beautiful pictures – taken by people that had previously been able to go out in the sun. Not a single photo album. Her father was a collector but he didn't keep the fragments of his own life. Not even a picture of her mother existed in this house.

Her focus slipped from the shelves that only held paper bound words and centered on the cupboard on the opposite wall, that she'd found out yesterday to be holding endless films that she hadn't expected her father to own. Most of them were untouched and still wrapped in their plastic covering. She bet they were mainly gifts from business partners or whatnot. Her father had only ever switched on the television to watch the news when she was a child, so that had left her free reign of it most of the time, and she doubted that had changed with his finding of immortality.

She could hear Frankie in the doorway of the room that was decorated only for the purpose of looking comfortable but really was the least homely place imaginable. Everything was too in place to be considered lived in. The porcelain ornaments on the coffee table were in a flawless formation, the spotless hardwood floor scratch free, even the novels sorted by author. Alison didn't like it. She still felt as though she was residing in a stranger's house, though her head told her it was her home for now and the future. A disgusting thought.

She wanted a distraction. A lightening of the mood.

She paused by the large double-window that was obscured from the exterior by the thick blinds and without seeking to see her captor's reaction, asked, "Do you feel like killing the rest of the day by watching a movie with the idiot?"

He didn't give an answer but a moment later the low leather sofa let out a sigh as weight settled on it and she had her confirmation. She sorted her way through the neatly organized rows of films, all the while with her back to him. She flicked her eyes across the spines, scanning the titles for something that had the least amount of cheesy lines, gut-filled violence or cliché storylines. Quite intent in her search, she wasn't prepared for the question he suddenly posed from across the room.

"Do you still trust?"

She slowed, her finger coming to rest on a random cover. She looked at it blindly and chose her answer carefully. Suddenly she felt regret sneak into her for putting on that guilty 'Oh I shouldn't have treated you that way' story just now. He'd gotten them impression that she'd meant it in a deeper context than that, that she had actually given him trust before.

"Why wouldn't I?"

He huffed. "I don't. I don't get any and I don't need to give any either"

She dislodged the film from its position, took it over to the television set and slipped it out of its untouched cover. "I think it's probably the worst way to exist. Being suspicious of everybody all the time isn't really for me. I had to trust more than I was prepared to for the last couple of years and in the end, it kept me alive"

"As a human, that's a different perspective. You have to trust and rely on each other because you're too weak to make it alone. Now, you don't need anyone," he stated flatly, watching her like a hawk from where he sat. His gold eyes drew her in and made her look up when she could no longer pretend to be fiddling with the movie.

"That's not true"

"Really?" he leaned forward slowly, elbows propped up on his knees, "But you don't trust me. Or your father. Or the people living around here. Do you trust them as blindly as you did those humans? No. Not because you're not in a life-death situation, it's because there's no ability to trust left in you"

He had seen right through her.

She didn't open her mouth to answer and it was a silent victory for him. He'd cornered her in her own convictions and was turning her world upside down with those basic questions. He wanted to see just how much of a human she still was. How far she was going to take this façade of still being a naturally good creature because he knew she couldn't be. That part was inevitably locked away in the transition and gave way to selfish ruthlessness. She'd shown that she could go to lengths to get her selfish freedom and yet, she insisted on these emotional attachments.

"I don't trust you because you work for my father. It's got nothing to do with what I am now," she finally said, perching on the sofa diagonally from his.

He smirked but said nothing more, choosing to turn his eyes towards the film that had begun its story with a dramatic touch of well-orchestrated music. The legendary Hans Zimmer if he wasn't mistaken. Apparently he was still in business but his newest soundtracks had a different touch to them, a more macabre essence to his music. Nobody had gone untouched in personality by the change.

It was an older movie. The characters were obviously still human, with movements that were comparatively sluggish and expressions that gave more away than any vampire actor nowadays. He couldn't remember having gone to see it.

Alison had her eyes pinned on the screen too but he could tell that she wasn't listening to a single word being projected from the expensive speakers. His hypersensitive hearing heard only her regular breathing but he swore he could pick up the extensive whirring of her thoughts taking place in her head. Still mulling over his words. In the semi-darkness of the house her face was illuminated by the television and he found the shades of light and dark on her features oddly pretty. Once more, he had to shake the observation from his head before it settled.

He was relieved of this constant temptation to watch her from his convenient angle when his phone buzzed abruptly against his leg. He reached into his pocket, retrieved the flashing device, threw a look at the screen and sprang to alertness in an instant. The Chief Commander.

In a breath he was standing in the hallway, leaving the heated arguments of the actors on the other side of the wall, and pressed the mobile to his ear. "Dalton"

"There's been some news. I thought it would be interesting for you," the deep bass of the chief's voice sounded through the line and Frankie was amazed at how oppressive the guy managed to sound even over the phone. He wasn't one to be messed with and there was no doubt about Bromley's choice of his head of security.

"Listening, Sir," the young soldier replied, knowing he was either expecting an order or something that was so gravely pressing that it couldn't wait for another week or so.

"Edward Dalton has left the company"

Frankie had to restrain himself to not growl his annoyance into the receiver. What the hell? His brother? The man that searched so vigorously for an alternative blood source? Not a chance. Had Bromley kicked him out? Not likely, he was the head of the scientific research team after all. Why was he getting this absurd call anyway?

"I don't understand," he said, leaning his weight on one hand that he supported against the wall.

"He was seen by one of the men of the hunting teams, leaving in the company of two humans in broad daylight. There was quite a chase involved but they escaped our squad. We assume that it was intentional of him to accompany them, otherwise he would have turned them in as soon as the men arrived. Have you been in contact?"

Breathe in. Breathe out. Control the voice. "No"

"Does he have an understanding of where you are staying or who you are with?"

"No. I didn't inform him of this job"

"His house has been checked and his recent phone calls traced. There is no evidence of contact with humans but it seems obvious that this meeting was arranged. Any ideas?"

"There was…a visitor," Frankie remembered, his blood running cold with realization as the day flashed back into his head, "A woman. I didn't see or hear the conversation though. She may have been human"

"There is no interior surveillance in his residence I presume?"

"No"

A brief pause on the other end. Then, in a tone that tolerated no disobedience, the Commander spoke, "Stay alert, Dalton. Any glimpse of him I want reported right back. Understood?"

Edward was gone. Edward hadn't been abducted. Edward had run off with the humans. Ed, his big brother, had finally chosen a side. The traitor.

"Of course, Sir" Frankie said and every word was ice.

The sound of the phone sliding shut in his hand resounded in the silent corridor as he let his head drop against the smooth wallpaper. The heated plastic and metal radiated warmth into his fist that hung by his side and he wanted to crush it as an outlet for his anger. Pissed wasn't even close to describing what he felt for his sibling right now. And those humans that had lured him away. Edward and his soft spot for the stupid species. If he found them, he'd tear their throats out until they were a bleeding mess on the ground.

He noticed that the house was silent because the television had been muted and he knew that she had heard every word of the conversation. That just added to his fury. He hadn't even noticed the loud voices, fake gunshots and screeching tires suddenly disappearing from his ears.

He opened his eyes and turned them on her figure that hovered to his left with a look of absolute smugness lighting up her face. It took a lot not to hurt her then and there and the phone suffered as a result. The corners pressed into his flesh and he knew if he squeezed any harder it would be history but seeing this gave him the rest.

Uttering a string of curses, he turned on his heel and headed to the stairs, fully intent on grabbing himself a nice, big whisky from the boss' study, screw him noticing the absence of a bottle. Halfway there, he realized he couldn't do that because he was on a permanent duty and would definitely pay dearly for being intoxicated with a rebellious prisoner on his hands.

Hissing through his teeth in aggravation, he stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath. It didn't calm him down a bit. The need to kill or tear something apart was itching at him and the only living outlet close to him was his prisoner. She still wore that smile and it was the best recipe for egging him take that leap over the edge and forcefully wipe it off her face. She didn't see the danger she was placing herself in. She didn't see where he was headed.

Edward, you fucking idiot.