Four

 

            Kelly-Jo opened her bleary eyes.  Progress:  she didn’t puke!  She tilted her head to the right, where David was standing near the leather chair unmoving.  He was at her side before she could think.  He looked different, more beautiful.

            “You have finally awakened.”  He smiled gently, unsure, in a half grimace.  His voice rang oddly in her ears.  He stood at her bedside and was fidgeting, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  Kelly-Jo swore she could hear the slight groaning of the floorboards under his mass.  She had never before heard his movements they even sounded graceful.  She furrowed her brows, was he just so nervous that he forgot to be graceful and light on his feet?  Not possible, it was natural, not something they tried to do.

She blinked away the fog that still covered her eyes.  Pain oozed from her bones, she wanted to scream or hurl herself through a window.  She could picture the glass shattering in tiny fragments around her, falling like shiny raindrops to the ground.  His voice startled her out of her thoughts.

“Kelly-Jo, we have to,” he paused uncertainly, “talk.”  Was he nervous?  David was never nervous.  And those four words were a break-up in the making….  She didn’t like the way this was going at all.

She didn’t have time to continue questioning his motives since at that exact moment Anastasia choose to burst through the doorway.  Wait, is my imagination getting to me or did I just hear that, too?  Can I hear their movements?  Or did that witch just impair my brain?

“Has she awakened?” she asked David in a hushed voice, smiling wanly in Kelly-Jo’s direction.  Her teeth glistened in the candlelight that glowed sharply around them.

“Just one second ago.”  He responded, looking toward Kelly-Jo, but he avoided her face and her quizzical look.  She looked at the window, the curtains were pulled together tightly, so no light at all could enter, she cocked her head, they were normally left open since both David and Anastasia were immune to light.  She wanted them open and she moved to get up and open them.  She shifted her weight; pain overcame her and her entire body tensed.

“Ah,” Anastasia nodded, grabbing David’s gaze, holding it for a few too long seconds.  Her look spoke, it told him to do what he was supposed to.  Kelly-Jo looked intently at Anastasia, wondering what she was telling him to do, and why was she involved anyway.  If he was going to break up with her shouldn’t Anastasia be somewhere else?  Anywhere else?

“I am going to.  I was just about to.”  He half whined in a defensive tone.  Now Kelly-Jo’s absolute focus was on him.  She felt like she had never seen him before, perhaps it was just the lighting, but something was different.

“What?”  Kelly-Jo questioned, still not grasping the situation.  She narrowed her eyes, even her own voice sounded different to her.  Maybe she’d just been unconscious for too long  of a time.

They both turned their faces in the direction of her bed, and her, she assumed.  David bowed his head, gawking at his feet, perhaps they held the answers.  His hair shimmered and his skin glowed.  He raised his face and looked her in the eye.  “Kelly-Jo,” he addressed her, beginning his tirade of news, be it good or bad, well or poorly received, and obviously badly reviewed.  “Do you recall that I was taking you back when we ran into Esmeralda, the witch?”

Kelly-Jo thought pulling the memory from the back of her mind, she nodded, still confused.  What does that have to do with anything?  He wasn’t explaining this clearly, as usual.  She was thirsty, her throat scratched like an angry cat clawing at a prized possession of its owner’s.  But water sounded downright disgusting.  What do you want, Kelly-Jo? And what in hell’s name does he want?

“Well, she hit you with an extremely powerful spell.  There was internal bleeding, basically, you were going to die.”  His voice was soft, velvety even; it ran over her like sunshine, warming her body and her soul.  But as the words sank in she felt sick.

Her eyes became enlarged to huge round circles in.  She looked at Anastasia, who was standing back, allowing David to explain this, as she always did.  Why do the blunt ones never speak, she would know the news by now if she would speak.  Ugh!  His voice dropped as he continued.  “I had to turn you, Kelly-Jo.”  He said it remorsefully like it hurt to say and if he said it any louder his long existence would be cut significantly short.

Wait.  The room was almost pitch black except for a few flickering candles and she could see clear as a bell.  She could hear their movements.  She was hungry—for blood and that was why water didn’t even sound slightly appealing.  Oh.  My.  God.  I am a vampire.  “Turn me?” she questioned, she couldn’t believe her new, fine tuned ears.  “Like into a vampire, one of you?”  Is that an accent, their accent, I’m speaking with? She was sure her heart would be racing if she had one that could beat anymore.

“Yes.  I am so sorry. I really am.  I had no choice though, you were dying.”  He backed up a step, like he was scared of her reaction, like she would be upset.

She suppressed a smile with great effort; she had never been very good at holding back her glee but she had to due to the somber attitude of the both of them.  Anastasia’s face held no emotions whatsoever but she looked disgruntled even if she was a good actor.  Even in Kelly-Jo’s agony, even through her blood deprived hunger she honestly felt good.  Her eyes sparkled.  “Do I look different?”

“Yes.” David responded.  His eyes looked her over, but he seemed unsatisfied with what he was seeing.

“Do I look different, as in better?”  She asked, confused by his hard stare.

“Obviously.”  Anastasia commented, she looked bored as if this were a stupid, often repeated, conversation.  Which perhaps it was for her, but everything felt new to Kelly-Jo.

David punched the wall, “The least of our concerns are looks, Kelly-Jo.  You are a vampire now; we have to train you to fight.  We have to make you powerful and instead of years we have weeks, months at the most.”  He spat angrily.  Kelly-Jo winced, she never had seen him like this, he was so distraught about her being a vampire.

Anastasia was holding a mirror up to Kelly-Jo suddenly, the light beamed off of it.  Kelly-Jo appraised herself, she looked different but the differences were faint, she almost looked the same.  Well, other than her eyes which were almost completely red with only the slightest hints of their original yellow bursting through.  Her face wasn’t the promised perfect like she had expected.  Her faults were barely noticeable, but with intense scrutiny she could find them.  Another wave of pain washed over her.  She squeezed her eyes shut.

“The pain,” Anastasia explained, “will go away after you feed.”  Then, she flounced away.  Feed.  Drink huma—“Don’t think about it.”  Anastasia said in a shrill voice, as if she could read her face.   It was the only thing about becoming a vampire Kelly-Jo had ever been wary about.  It was the only thing that she didn’t agree with.  “They are our food, Kelly-Jo.”  She said more softly now, her voice was like a caress, an unwanted caress.  “It is like beef; they are not human so you can eat them.  Well, we are not human, so we can use them as means to survive.”

“I will take you hunting tonight.  You shall see it is not so bad.  Not even like pulling a tooth.”  David spoke rapidly, like he didn’t quite believe it himself.  Like maybe it was like slowly pounding a nail into a bone, making shatter in a million pieces and tearing out your spleen in the same instant, a lot worse than any pulled tooth.

 

He graced over the grass ahead of her.  It felt prickly under her bare feet.  Her shorts’ fabric rubbed against her sensitive skin in an annoying way she’d never noticed before.  She danced over the dewy grass to David’s side, smiling easily.  “Are you happy, honey?” he asked her seriously.

“Yes, I get to be with you forever.”  She answered, clinging to his arm joyously and entwining her fingers with his.  “Aren’t you happy, David?”

He didn’t answer her immediately.  The croaking of the frogs and the chirpings of the crickets floated around them, filling their ears.  “Yes and no.”  He sighed.  “Yes because selfishly I want you for myself forever.  No, because I know this is not the best life for you.  And I want you to have the best and only the best.”

“It seems better.  It’s amazing, David.  Everything that was beautiful is one hundreds times more so now that I’ve been turned.”  She gestured toward the trees, the leaves hung from the branches; they were a black-green in the silver moonlight.  Their veins were almost completely black as they fingered through the leaves, giving them the vital nutrients.  “I had never seen before today.”  The breeze ruffled the leaves, stirring them to dance gracefully.  The smells were brilliant, all so new and strong.  The earthy, clean air sailed up her nostrils.  She smelled a heard of reindeer grazing near a brook not far from where she stood.

“Keep pace with me, Kelly-Jo.”  The rushing thirst hit her forcefully.  Her throat grated into itself, she needed sustenance and soon.  She felt him grasp her arm she stumbled forward as he half dragged her.  He paused and briskly swept her into his arms.  “I am so sorry.”  He whispered into her hair.  “You will feel better soon.”

Kelly-Jo could smell humans.  They all smelled a little different, but mainly the same.  She dug her nails into David’s neck, he held her closer, restraining her.  Her eyes were wild and she felt her teeth lengthen.  She needed their blood.  She felt him going faster, not running though.  Why isn’t he running?  Does he not know hunger?  What is wrong with him?  She struggled, knowing it wouldn’t be hard to find a human, as their scents swirled around them, such careless beings.

  David took his hand away letting her stand on her own, but he held her hand.  He was giving her only a little freedom so she wouldn’t go crazy and kill half of the town in one night.  She could smell two human scents strongly, her focus increased.  They were in the alleyway somewhere.  Where are you little humans?  “Let me go.”  Kelly-Jo hissed.

“I will be right behind you in the shadows.  If you go crazy I will stop you and it will be painful.  Understand.”  His voice was harsh and he gave her a little shake so he knew he had her attention.

“Fine, just behand me.”  She felt his grip lessen to nothingness as she began to prowl the alley.  There were a few dumpsters near the end where an inconsistent light flickered on and off.  She climbed lightly on the top of them and bonded across them soundlessly.  She took in the two sleeping bodies below her.  One was a leathery skinned woman and the other was a grizzly man.  She jumped to the cracked pavement in front of them evenly.  Her shadow cast over the woman’s face, her eyelids flickered and then settled closed and she sighed deeply in a sound sleep.  Kelly-Jo crouched on the ground, letting her hands bare some of her weight.  Then, she pounced on the woman, holding her hand tightly over her dirty mouth.  Kelly-Jo bit her neck where she could hear the blood rushing through the veins.  It began to dribble out of the punctures in her neck.  Kelly-Jo began sucking on her neck; she felt her thirst being quenched for the first time.  It ran down her throat thickly, filling in the scratch marks that she had come to associate with the thought of her throat.  Once the woman was drained she was still hungry.  Impossible.  She went to the man, wiping her mouth with her arm; a smear of deep red appeared.  She placed her hand over his mouth, his eyes shot open.  She smiled, knowing he would think he saw a goddess.  She leaned forward he brought his arms up to reel her closer to him, she bit into his neck, he gasped and she began to drink his blood.  She felt him try to push her away, and then she felt him becoming weaker and finally twitching as the life ran out of him.  She stood up, again wiping her mouth and turned, smiling toward David.  He stepped out of the shadows and hugged her.  “That was wonderful.”  She gasped and turned to the blood-dry bodies that lay, lifeless behind them.  She was horrified by the sight.  She spun around to David.  “I didn’t do that did I?  Did I kill them, two innocent people?”  He nodded, biting his lip.  She collapsed into his chest.  “Oh, god no, please no!”

“He can’t hear you, it will be okay.  It’s fine Kelly-Jo.”

“No it’s not!  They probably had families who loved them.  And look I ruined what is by no means mine to ruin.”  She looked at the bodies, they were snow white.  The woman’s mouth gaped open and her eyes were wide with what had been fear.  The man’s leg was twisted in an unnatural pose that had to be caused by broken bones.  His hands were limp but you could see nail marks that he’d dug into his palms.  She turned her head away in shame.

David was holding her up by now.  He pushed her away.  “Do you want to be a vampire, Kelly-Jo?  Or not?”  He asked her testily.

She looked at him, her eyes wide with fear of herself.  Of what she had become.  Of the monster she was.  “I want to be one.  I do.”  She felt sick saying it, admitting to wanting to be this.

“Then get over it.  This is what we do, this is how we survive.”  He said it callously but she knew it was only so she would understand that she had to accept what she was.

She nodded, still feeling shaky, but she felt all powerful from the blood high she was riding on.  There was no more oozing pain in her nimble bones and her eyes had probably returned to their natural sunshine yellow.  “I’m sorry.  I guess it’s because I was a human only days ago.  It’s still so close to who I am.”

“The first one is always the hardest.  We all know that.”  He took out a knife and walked over to the maimed bodies and slit both of their throats in a fluid motion so the bite marks were hidden then he heaved their limp bodies into the rusty, brown dumpsters.  He looked up to her, their eyes met.

Author's Note

Thanks for all your reviews, I love knowing people are enjoying what I put effort into!

Reviews

[Nazarea]

Hey girl..sorry it took so long to get to this. But I loved it, as usual. One thing that reall stuck out was your paragraph when David is talking to Kelly Jo, and he says

"Yes and no." He sighed. "Yes because selfishly I want you for myself forever. No, because I know this is not the best life for you. And I want you to have the best and only the best."

I don't know if you've read 'Twilight' by S. Meyer, but this sounds exactly like a passage from it. The whole chapter has a Twilight-like vibe (Bella's first hunt with Edward, from Breaking Dawn). As a YA vampire writer, I know that its sometimes easy to get pulled that direction, but watch for it. Your story is really unique, so keep it that way.

Also, you rushed this chapter. There is so much that could be explained more, details. Think about it when you do a rewrite. And of course grammar and punctuation.

But for all that, I loved it and can't wait to read the next chapter.
N~

[Adam]

this story is an EPIC WIN!
^_^
I love it.

[fkglhf;hfg]

This was sooo good!
No joke, I was like, pressed against my screen while reading it, you're writing seriously draws me in.
I don't know whether to be sad for Kelly-Jo because she isn't sure how she feels about murder, or excited that she gets David forever. She's very realistic, because I'd be torn if I was her as well.
I loved this, and can't wait to read more.
-Rita

[Kady x Babe]

I absolutely hate you.
You've got an amazing way of pulling the reader in
and completely leaving them hanging.
I can't wait for the next chapter. :]

Utterly jealous of your skill BUTTers.
Keep up the writing, and I hope soccer doesn't
drain too much of the creative juice I treasure so much.!
:D

Looking forward to the read request from you soon.
haha. You'll be getting mine. :]
Keep posting.

Kady