Myrnin's POV!
Her scream broke my heart.
It was the most ear piercing, gut wrenching, most animalistic scream I had ever heard, and I've heard a lot. But screams are screams and even though this one came from the one I love, that wasn't the worst part of it. It was that the scream sounded entirely inhuman and mixed with the way her body twisted and writhed on the floor… I gagged and looked away, attempting to compose myself.
I couldn't push away the image from my mind, nor the sound, but that was most likely because she was still screaming, not that I could forget that.
But what was I doing? I needed to be saving her, not worrying about my addled mind! I whipped back around and went to kneel by her side, desperately trying to think of something that would save her. Oh, but the body was so mangled, so ruined.
As I spun around I realized I had made a huge mistake. Unnoticed before, perhaps because of the noise, was the blood. The splatter of sanguine blood was everywhere, soaking into the wood, pooling in a deep puddle, splashed against the walls, against Amelie, against me.
I may no longer have been mad with sickness but that much blood, so openly everywhere was hard to deny myself of and I found myself once again in a mental battle against my bloodlust. Sinking to the ground, I gripped it tightly leaving behind finger shaped gouges. The blood poured over my hands dying them red and only furthering my thirst. I snarled, fangs slipping out and reached for her throat.
A white blur lunged for me, shoving me to the side and landed on top of me. Cold, pale hands wrapped around my neck and I found myself staring at glaring, grey eyes.
"No, Myrnin! Regain control of yourself!" she hissed, eyes wild yet still commanding. She held me there until she was sure I had regained enough sanity to control my hunger. Her movements staggered, she crawled back to the sleeping Claire and pulled her unmoving head into her messy lap, sobbing and moaning, losing all her icy regency and gaining a real fragility that was breathtaking.
Only as I crawled over to the source of the mess did I realize that the screaming had long since stopped and only a deafening silence remained. At that exact same moment I realized my little bird was dead.
"C-C-Claire," I stuttered out, sinking to my knees, "Claire…Claire, please Claire, please please, please, don't die, Claire, please, don't be dead."
It didn't matter what I said, deep down I knew that, she was dead. Stone, cold dead and in such a wrecked state that not even a cursed immortality could save her. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this was impossible. She couldn't be dead, where was I without her. Her warmth, her smiles, her little beating heart, all those quirky things she did when a sudden thought over took her, how her emotions were always so evident no matter how much she tried to hide them and that beautiful way she looked at me; those were things I couldn't live without.
Amelie reached over lightly touching my shoulder and whispered quiet words of comfort, telling me that it would all be fine, we would live on.
But I didn't want to.
That thought hit me like a literal slap to the face, Claire had saved my life and it just wasn't fair that she couldn't live while I could. She was my only reason left, everything else I had destroyed with my uncontrolled bloodlust. I had ruined everything good that came into my life and the one time I managed to keep my darker side hidden beneath and the cruel, cruel life takes it away unprovoked. But, no, oh, no. Her death was my entire fault, punishment for the crimes I had committed against so many, life's way of keeping the balance, causing me the pain I had caused against the public. I had never understood the panic I had caused but now I certainly did.
I had never understood when people said they needed air but I suddenly was gasping for it, a strangled moan ripped through my throat. I truly felt dead.
Now standing, I ran from the room, gliding down the stairs and silently pushing past a stunned Eve.
"What's going on?" she yelled, bewildered. I simply kept on moving, not even given a second thought as to whether I should answer her. Out the door, into the night, down the porch, across the lawn, through the streets, into the lab, I was running in circles. Ripping open door after heartless door, pawing through hundreds of bent-out pieces of cold, unfeeling metal, twisted, randomly colored wires and switches and gears in every shape and size, it had to be in here somewhere.
The voices, the taunting voices were back to laugh at my scattered efforts. I collapsed on the floor shaking, ripping my nails through my skin, screaming at them to stop the merciless talkings, laughings, lies.
-Eve's pov.
Myrnin, or at least what I thought was Myrnin, blew past me at that speed that only vampires could accomplish.
"What's going on?" I asked, scared because well when you hear screams and see vampires running nothing good is happening, "Myrnin! What the hell?"
By the time my sentence was finished he was long gone. I turned around trying, and failing, to get his attention and was very much startled to see a bloody handprint left behind on the wall. Oh fuck.
Claire.
"CLAIRE! CB!" I screamed, pounding up the stairs, my heart racing and this terrible feeling making knots deep in my stomach. Nearing the top I slipped, looked down and…
Oh My God. Blood.
My hand shot out, catching the railing just in time before I tumbled down the stairs. My shin hit the step with an audible thunk and pain coursed through my leg, but I barely felt it. That was a lot of blood, too much blood.
"Claire!" I screamed again, louder now, running faster than I thought possible. Now reaching the final landing, I spun around the corner, gripping the banister for support and sprinted down the hallway to the door to the secret room which had been left ajar.
Not again, oh God please, not again.
My head was chanting worried thoughts now and I was so preoccupied I almost missed the dead bodies lying at base of the steps.
Vampires, Amelie's personal guards by the looks of it. Both had been decapitated in a brutal way with the necks all broken and jagged. My hand covered my mouth, muffling a scream and barely stopping myself from puking.
Staggering up the steps now, trying to avoid slipping on the inky pools of blood while being half blind by mascara stained tears, I didn't see Amelie until I ran into her.
She was blocking my way, standing there, frozen almost and not in her usual manner. Her eyes were frantic, scared, and blood was spattered across her customary white clothes and had created a sticky coating over her hands. She was sobbing slightly, the tears trickling down from her eyes and her chest was heaving in panic and apprehensive emotion. Her hair was down and that too was red with blood, pink in some areas and was in a matted mess. All these things made her appearance fractured and very un-Amelie, but the strangest thing was that she was barefoot. Miss Proper, the Queen of Civility and Etiquette was absolutely, completely, totally without shoes. That stupid, little, insignificant detail was what scared me the most.
Why the hell would Amelie be barefoot?
"Stop," she said, her voice shaking slightly, ringing with a very human-like tremble. That scared me too.
"Oh God, Amelie, what's wrong? What happened? What happened to Claire? What did Myrnin do? What did you do? Dear Lord, Tell me that she's alright! She's fine, isn't she? It's just a scratch right? It's not her blood, is it?" I asked, my own terror rising and sending me into sheer frenzy. The questions came pouring out of me in a jumbled fall for never, not once in all my time in Morganville, not when I found out that Oliver was a vampire, not when Frank's biker friend cut Michael's head off, not when Bishop showed up at our house, not when I watched sweet, innocent Sam die, not when my brother stabbed Shane and not one single time when Shane had gone crazy and tried to kill my boyfriend, had I been this afraid because never, not once had Amelie been this afraid. Amelie never lost her cool, that was kinda her thing, and I knew that if she had we were in for the scariest ride of our lives.