Chapter 13:

I don't own anything

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Claire's POV:

It's Sam.

After all, who else would it be? But more than that…it's Sam.

It's the man who we've been trying to find, the man who needs blood, the man who has killed nine people already, and even though he's closer to sanity than he was with them, he still needs my blood. My blood is just the next part in the steps to make him return to normal, because of what Myrnin did to him and then forgot about him, and it seems fairly obvious that I'm now going to die. I won't be able to escape, especially with him wild like this, and nobody knows I'm here. Due to what I heard, I couldn't stay there…I just couldn't. To allow the possibility that I could die, just because we couldn't find Sam, when I was perfectly able to go out, it was stupid.

Almost as stupid as forgetting what to do when I found Sam…

Of course! I have the blood in my pocket; it won't be much, almost certainly not enough to satisfy him – and not as much blood as I must have within me – but it could be enough for me to distract him whilst I run. The machine will let me into the system to set up a portal, I'm sure of it, but I need a few minutes to do that, and I don't think I'll have that when he's biting into my neck to drain me dry.

I find myself unable to hold in a grunt of pain as Sam throws me to the ground, though I can feel that it takes him effort to do this, when it ought not to. He is far weaker than a full-strength vampire, and if I staked him, he would probably die. Whilst that could feasibly save my life, I know that I could never do that, not to Sam, even if he tries to kill me. There is a line drawn in every situation, and two vampires I could never stake are Sam and Michael – everyone else isn't innocent like they are, the latter being the vampire with the most good in the entire world.

Behind me, I know that he stands, waiting to pounce, and it seems strange that he hasn't attacked so far, but perhaps this is how he's going to be. Perhaps, as he returns, he'll be a 'regular' vampire, one who doesn't care for humans besides what they can give him – blood – and there'll be no hope, for him or for me. I don't know.

All I know is that he has bloodlust, and I'm a human with apparently very tasty blood.

"Sam," I begin by saying his name slowly, trying to assess my injuries, talk and subtly moving backwards to try and get my back against something solid. Then, I can see if I have anything to distract him with in my bag – my head hurts so much from when he threw me, so it takes too much effort to think of what I brought with me – and not have to worry about my front and back. After all, if he attacks from the front, there's very little I can do.

There's no reaction to his name that would indicate that he recognises even who he is, let alone my identity. Bracelets mean nothing to him, as shown by some of the victims from before who were Protected, and there's a great chance that I'm going to die here, today. It may take a while, especially if he's in enough control to play games, but I will not make it out alive. The chances are astronomically small, probably about as likely as it is that Amelie is my Mother, which is never going to happen, right?

"Sam, listen to me," I continue, trying to keep my voice low and steady as my back collides with something – a tree, I think. "You're not yourself. Myrnin didn't come and get you out of the grave, like he was meant to. You should be with Amelie right now, loving her, not trying to kill me." as I talk, I realise that discussing killing probably isn't the best idea, what with this vampire's state of mind, but that's too late now, so I continue my discreet searching of my bag in an attempt to find a bloodbag. I could have sworn I put some in this bag before…unless I set them down somewhere before I left the lab.

Shit.

I've come face to face with Sam, and I have nothing to fend him off. This is a definite bye-bye Claire moment, isn't it?

He's not facing me at the minute, something I'm thankful for, because that brief look into his once loving and peaceful eyes horrified me: there was nothing but a single mindedness for blood, something that made him violent and completely anti-human – a bit like that night in the Frat House, when he saved me from the boys. That makes it only slightly ironic that he's trying to kill me now, with the same expression in his eyes. Well, not trying; he hasn't attempted to yet. And I know he'll win.

There's not one word that comes out of his mouth as he turns around to face me, and I find myself deliberately avoiding his eyes; they're the thing that make him seem the most inhuman. The rest of him, bar a layer of dust and grime, is the exact same, with no decay or anything to indicate he's been in the ground for six months. He's just…normal. It makes it harder to accept that he's going to kill me, because if I had to be killed by a vampire, couldn't it be someone else? Anyone but Sam…anyone but the kind, sweet, gentle man who helped me, who saved the town before then perishing himself, just for it then to turn out that he didn't die and that he's back.

He advances towards me. I've got nothing to throw but my bag, with all its useless contents of food and drink, and that would just get him angry and not leave me anything. If he doesn't kill me straight away, I could use the food and drink to stay strong until Myrnin comes to rescue me. He'll realise where I've gone; it's just wondering how long it will take for him to know I'm here that's the issue.

He's getting closer and closer, and I don't want his fangs in my neck, for me to see his ginger hair as he tries to kill me. So I do the only thing I can think of.

I manage to make myself faint.

Myrnin's POV:

Given that Amelie has allowed me complete control of her army of vampires to find Claire, we should be able to make short work of this. Naturally, there are only so many hiding places, and though I worry sincerely that she will be dead by the time I find her, I cannot move any faster than I already am. In fact, Amelie has already called three times, amidst her pacing of her office, to inform me that I am far too highly strung to effectively find Claire.

To this, I merely hung the phone up, because any response I would normally have used involves Sam, and this wouldn't be the best idea, I don't believe, for we – I – must still explain why he is running around Morganville, killing people. Something tells me that Amelie wouldn't take kindly to being paid a reminder of her lost love, especially because Claire has gone there to find him – and if he kills my Claire…it doesn't bear me thinking about. I will merely have nothing to live for.

Paying no attention to the sunlight overhead, I run through the streets, sticking to the side ones as much as possible because they are preferable. Whilst it is easy enough to kill those in my path, I fear even now, that such actions would cause myself irreparable damage, and that Amelie would forbid me from leaving my laboratory for the rest of Morganville's existence. That shall not happen; I shall find Claire, I shall save Samuel from himself, and then Claire and I shall live happily ever after, for the rest of our lives. This will happen! There cannot be any other alternative; I refuse to allow…to allow Sam to kill Claire.

Nearing the first stop on the list in my mind, I begin to get the feeling that Claire hasn't gone this way; if it wasn't for wanting to make sure that she isn't here, I would have carried on in the direction her scent went in – but the possibilities about the age of the scent, whether she was kidnapped and many other things have me carrying on in the direction of the warehouses. Three locations are mine to locate, and mine alone, though I have been assured that 'back-up' to save Claire will be no more than thirty seconds away, incase she is with Sam. I hope to God that she isn't; my first prayer in hundreds of years is for her, for her to be safe and sound, with no physical ailments due to her being attacked by Sam.

Within seconds of entering the cool shade that delights me nought as much as it usually would do, I know for certain that she is not here. There has been no activity of any kind here for months, with the entire street seeming deserted for almost as long, and it is obvious that Claire is not here. The only reports from the other locations around the town are confirming that she isn't there, and it worries me, to draw the conclusion that she has gone back to the graveyard, alone, because that is the most probable place of finding someone who has risen from the dead.

That's it!

Insanity threatens to rage within my mind, to render me unable to do anything – like Amelie said I would be – because I know where she is! She can't be anywhere else, she just can't…and, almost coincidentally, the graveyard is on my list of places to visit. I knew that she would come here at some stage; she must have left the laboratory earlier than I thought, to be up here already.

She could have been here for an hour! An entire hour with Sam…she will most certainly be dead. No blood was gone when I returned, the stupid girl, and so the only blood available for him to take is hers. There is nothing else. She won't be able to fend him off, not for long.

Even as I think, my body is moving at breakneck speed, twisting and turning through the streets, no longer caring about keeping my speed hidden from the visitors to Morganville; Claire is more important than hiding the existence of vampires. Fall out from it will be down to Amelie and Oliver to deal with.

The only thing I'm responsible for waits for me in the graveyard.

~x~

Within three minutes, I am at the graveyard, and on the hunt for Sam and Claire. Thankfully, there are no funerals today to disrupt or distort my hearing; I am listening only for Claire, with no other human hearts to distract me. The size of this place is incomparable to anything else in Morganville, due to the fragility of the human life, particularly with vampires inhabiting the town, and it means that I cannot hear the entire way across the diameter. The area where Sam's grave is must be out of my hearing distance, it must, because I seem to be on the opposite end of the graveyard, with not even the noise of a bird to show that there is life here.

Either there's been an atomic bomb dropped and all life forms eradicated, or the animal life know that there's something up with Morganville. I hate to admit it, but even I will go for the latter.

Without realising I'm moving, I find myself leaping and twisting around graves, all senses alert to try and find Claire, to find Sam's grave, to find where I parked the car last night, because this graveyard is far too confusingly laid out. Copses of trees lie everywhere, and they all look identical, things which don't help me try to find the specific one through which one must walk to find Sam's grave. She could be anywhere in this entire graveyard, and she may already be dead, explaining why I cannot hear her heartbeat…

Her scent!

Joy fills me for a moment as I process what this means; she is here, in the graveyard, or she has been within the past ten to fifteen minutes. It cannot be that she has left just minutes before I arrived; if that is, then the world truly is against me, because there is no way that this would have happened if not. If Claire isn't here, or…or if she is already dead, then fate will have played a game so vicious, so cruel, that the insanity shall rise from within and consume me, leaving me unfit for survival. Amelie will 'put me down' to release me from my suffering, and things will never be the same, all because I didn't reach her in time before Sam killed her. Life would be destroyed in Morganville, all because of my lack of saving her.

No rationality lines my thoughts as I rush towards where I think she is, because it's the path of the scent, and unless she walked back from Sam's grave along the exact same path as her original one, she hasn't gone any other way.

And then, it hits me; the sound of her heart beating.

She's alive!

Knowing that she is alive doesn't cause me to slow down – it actually has me finding reserves of strength I never knew I had, because the desperation to find her, to make sure that she's safe in this place, is greater than anything else. All motor actions are automatic as I don't care about anything but focusing on her exact location, in order to be able to find her and save her, if she's in danger.

Which, of course, she is. This is Claire Danvers, after all; when has there been a dangerous situation that she has not been involved in?

Rage fills me as I round the corner to find her on the floor, her body slumped as though she is dead, and the redhaired vampire standing over her. She's alive, but I'm not sure by how much, and he's standing right there! Sam Glass…trust Claire to have actually succeeded in finding him when I am not with her, and to not be armed with something to distract the vampire who needs blood to actually be able to survive a little longer.

He doesn't hear me approach, and I notice how he continues to walk closer and closer to Claire, not bothering to rush, and that's when I realise that he looks just like a vampire hunting. Samuel Glass has, through my actions, become everything he has strived not to be, and now he is about to continue this by killing Claire; even as I stand here, I can see he's close enough to grab her now, close enough for his fangs to be in her neck within seconds—

"Stop!" the word flies out of my mouth, yet thankfully lacks the desperate edge I feared would be within it; it merely sounds like an order, one from someone with power and authority, one that must be obeyed. It works, because Sam turns around to look at me with a confused expression.

It's only then that Claire looks up, her head shooting upwards for our eyes to meet with an explosion of emotions: relief, fear, friendship and, above all, love. She's confused and scared, yet I can see that she loves me for rescuing her – or, at least, being here to rescue her.

"What do you want?" Sam says, his voice lacking any emotion, or even sounding like he was before; I remember being as hungry as he is, the gnawing feeling that has to be filled with blood, fresh human blood, and how it doesn't abate until blood is in your mouth, trickling down your throat…not until you've drained the human, and the taste festers in your mouth, and you realise that until you're quenched, there isn't a way that the hunger will go away.

"I want to help." My voice remains low and steady, yet with an air of authority to show that he cannot beat me. If he attacked, he would be on the floor within a second, no doubt about it, and I am sure that he is aware of this fact. "I want to assist you with your hunger, Sam, to help you get back to what you are. It's my fault you're like this, and I'm sorry for that. Yet I can help you. I can help with the feelings; they're horrible, are they not?" as I speak, I dial the number on the phone to alert Amelie and her guards to come here, that I have found Sam and Claire and that assistance would be most likely the best option.

The grin that spreads out onto his face isn't that of Sam; it's that of a vampire, a killer, someone vicious and uncaring – it is my face, when the mood takes me. "And what makes you think that you could help me, when I already have food?" he gestures back towards Claire, yet I have the feeling he cannot hear her gradual moving into a sitting position against the tree behind her. As so not to alert him to it, I merely give her one final look, trying to say carry on, and then look away, focusing back upon Sam.

"I know who you are, Sam, even if you aren't aware of it now, and you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you killed her."

I reach into my pocket and draw out five blood pouches, all filled with the type of blood that entices vampires the most: the blood of diabetics when it is filled with excess glucose – sweeter and more enjoyable – and I know that he's enticed. There's a light that flickers on in his eyes that wasn't there before, when he was discussing Claire…he wants this blood almost as much as he wants to kill.

"All for you, Sam," I encourage him, watching from the corner of my eye as Claire shifts herself closer to me, planning on moving past Sam via his blind spot to the side. "You can drink all of it – and more! There is so much for you, and it's for you alone."

I throw him a bag and he looks hesitant with it in his hands, the dilemma between choosing the kill and the easy feed evidently leaving him unable to make a decision. With encouragement from me, he begins to move it closer towards his mouth, the desire to feed greater than the desire for his property, Claire, to be allowed to live.

I see Claire moving slowly past Sam, hesitant to move too slowly so he'll notice her, but not wanting to move too fast incase his peripheral vision spots her; it's a wise speed, and yet I can see her desperation to be away, to get to me and be safe. There's a possibility that this will work.

Perhaps she could have gotten away, if it wasn't for the twig beneath her foot.

As soon as the noise is made, Sam drops the blood bag and flashes around to face Claire, the eye closest to me turning crimson red, his fangs sliding further down from his mouth. "Escaping, were we?" he murmurs, his tone the most threatening I could ever have imagined it to be.

In one second, everything flashes before my eyes. I see variations on what could happen if I attack him, if I merely jump in front of Claire to protect her, if I throw her to the ground, my body as her shield…every possibility runs through my mind, yet I come to no firm conclusion as to what to do, when Claire's eyes meet mine once again. Filled with fierce, wild, naked panic, the only thing I want to do is to save her, damning the consequences of any of my actions. All I care about is her safety, that she isn't harmed whatsoever, and this is the only thing that's on my mind as I move.

Simultaneously, one hand reaches backwards and pushes Claire to the ground, probably much harder than I intended, and the rest of my weight is propelled into Sam's chest, throwing him as far away from Claire as I can. As we move through the air, he tries to bite me, as well as throw me off, but he is far too weak to succeed, and only manages to alter our flight path. Before we reach the ground, I remove myself from his grasp and fly lightly to my feet, whilst...ouch, that must hurt him, with the angle his head crashed into the tree.

The redhead isn't moving, and so I take the chance to cast a furtive glance back at Claire, ensuring that she's safe; she isn't moving, but she's breathing normally, so perhaps I just knocked her unconscious, or perhaps she's playing dead. That's what she seems to be good at.

"You're not going to hurt her," I growl at Sam, even though he can't hear me, and rip open one of the bloodbags, having to force myself not to gulp it down myself. All the exertion and stress has left me nearing the hunger stage, yet it cannot be anything compared to Sam, and if it stops him attacking Claire…I will do anything. For this girl, I would die. I would rather not, but if it came down to me or her, I would perish, so long as the world still had Claire Danvers. That is the extent of my love.

Though he is unconscious, his throat still gulps the blood down as I force one, then two packets of blood down into his mouth, continuing this until all five packets – including the one he discarded –are within him. Claire still isn't moving, and when Sam has enough blood to match up how much he would have received from Claire in him, and after I've assured myself that he isn't going to wake up yet, I rush across to the girl lying on the ground. As I approach, I notice the tensing of her muscles, her eyelids remaining tightly shut, and the only thing my mind considers is that she thinks I'm Sam. She thinks I'm here to finish her off, to drain her, and she doesn't want to see her attacker.

"Claire," I whisper her name softly, urgency within my voice as I reach down to stand her on her feet. As soon as her name leaves my lips, her eyes shoot open, the panic subsiding within the cloudiness of the confusion in there; she's unable to understand where Sam is, I suppose. "Claire, you're safe now. Do you understand?"

Her head moves in a slow nod, though I get the feeling that she doesn't know what she's doing, where she is, what's happening; it's almost enough for me to knock her out and wait for her to wake up, because her being as innocent as this is only making me want to reach out and kiss—

Suddenly, her lips are on mine, an explosion of heat and passion erupting as she kisses me. Her hands twist into my hair as she kisses me harder, and, after a moment or two of a complete lack of understanding, I'm kissing her back harder and more furiously than I would ever have imagined in my thoughts, because this is more than I ever imagined! Not only am I kissing her, but she kissed me first…and that is all that matters.

Somehow, we find ourselves becoming disengaged from one another, and I can hear both Sam stirring, and the cavalry arriving. Neither of us speak as I move to greet Amelie, the sun already dropping furiously quickly in the sky, and within seconds, she is appearing over the crest of the hill, a golden angel flanked by what seems to be hundreds of fighters.

Her eyes rake the ground desperately for Sam, a need for him evident in her face, until I know she spies his stirring body on the ground, a good hundred metres away from her. She is aware he is alive, and yet as soon as her eyes latch onto him, it seems as if the rest of the world melts away; we are not here.

"Certainly an interesting way of solving an issue, Myrnin." Her voice is distant, even as she passes me by on her way to Sam, her guards following with further blood to ensure that he doesn't kill again.

"I do my best."

There's no response to this, not from anyone.

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-Vicky xx