WIP: SURVIVAL

Riley decides that it's time that she puts her feelings of affection aside and has one final confrontation with Sebastian.

    I smoothed my hands over the large ripples in the black gown, then tugged the sleeves of my jacket over them to keep from fidgeting so badly.
    I couldn’t take the games any longer. Tonight, one of us was going to die. Honestly, I was hoping it was me. Even if I survived fighting Sebastian, I don’t think that my mentality would ever completely recover.
    “Admit it, Sebastian; You can’t kill me, because you’re in love with me!” I screamed the contention. I knew that I was making a false accusation, but I was looking for a good fight on the way down.
    “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said back, a little too calmly. His voice was disturbing- like the calm before the storm.
    “Prove it. Right now. Hit me.” I instigated.
    His pupils dilated, then shrunk back in. His eyes changed from grey to red, flashing in irritation. “You want me to hit you?” he asked, skeptical. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, but it looked like it took a lot of restraint for him to do so, because his knuckles were turning bone white from gripping his biceps so tightly.
    I could sense that I was getting under his skin, so I continued to pry. “If you can hurt me, I’ll believe you,” I pressed. My palms were itching, the voice in my head enthralled. Swing, it pleaded. I dare you.
    “I am not going to hit you,” he said, deadpan.
    Something in me snapped. Originally, I didn’t want to take the first swing, but I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. “Do it!” I yelled, reaching forward to shove him.
    “No.”
    “Why not?!”
    He caught my fist as I swung it at his jaw. “Because I don’t want to hurt you anymore!”
    “You never had a problem before. Why the sudden change of heart? Am I right?” I struggled to raise my arm, but he shoved it back down to my side.
    “Mariah, if you know what’s best for you, you’ll shut up.”
    “What if I don’t? You won’t touch me. You don’t have the balls.”
    His nostrils flared, and his chest puffed out, as if he was trying to look intimidating.
    “You’re a coward,” I sneered.
    His eyes widened, darkening to a deep ruby. “Excuse you?”
    “A two hundred year old vampire can’t even manage to tell a seventeen year old girl that he loves her. Pathetic!”
    His fingers loosened around my wrist. “At least I understand my boundaries. Unlike you, I don’t have to hide behind sarcasm and violent tantrums as a form of defense.”
     I gaped, unable to retort. My aghast expression mustn’t have pleased him, because he continued.
    “You want me to say that I love you? Fine, I’m in love with you, Mariah! Though I have a suspicion you’ve known that all along. So are you satisfied now? Does it boost your self-esteem? I know perfectly well that you won’t say it back.”
    All of my will to fight entirely vanished. My arm felt much more heavy, completely slipping from his grip and landed limp at my side. His words were slowly sinking in, curling around my brain and suffocating it.
    Unnaturally, my first reaction was to laugh. Not a nervous giggle, or an amused chortle: I completely lost it. Tears welled in the corners of my eyes as I went into a form of gut-busting hysterics.
    He took a defiant step away, his eyes narrowing. “Why are you laughing?”
    “This is priceless.”
    A low growl vibrated in his throat: a warning that I ignorantly ignored.
    “Alright,” I wiped at my eyes, “come on, let’s fight.”
    Sebastian’s movement was quick. His fist collided with my nose, a sickening pop signaling breaking bone. A warm sensation spread across my face, and a moment later the now too familiar coppery taste of blood flooded my mouth.
    I was too shocked to scream. After all of the times that I had taunted him about not being able to back his threats up, he finally struck me.
    I spat out a mouthful of blood-laced saliva, glaring up at Sebastian with a fiery resentment.
    “So what if I were to say that I loved you, too? Would I just be lying to myself? There is a thin line between love and hate. Maybe I’m just getting the two emotions confused.”
    “You are such a fatuous child!” he lashed, baring his fangs. “I should have killed you when I had the chance, instead of playing these asinine games!”
    I gathered my dress up in one hand, then kicked one of my Converse clad feet at his crotch. Naturally, he caught it, and yanked it upwards, sending me crashing down on my a*s. Thankfully the carpet slightly softened the blow.
    “What was it that you were looking to achieve from this juvenile confrontation, anyways? Did you want to just hear a confession of my feelings? Or do you want to die?” He pulled me back to my feet and wrapped his fingers around my throat, pushing me backwards into the drywall. I felt and heard it crack behind me.
    He grabbed the cross around my neck and shoved it into my chest, right over my heart.
    My body trembled from the shock, the current hit me at the core, rattling my entire frame. My knees buckled, and I didn’t even bother trying to hold myself up this time.
    The ground came at me quickly, but I didn’t care. I landed on my hands and knees, and screamed until my esophagus tore. The scent of his charred flesh was making me nauseous. I dry heaved and coughed up blood all over the white carpet.
    Sebastian yanked me back up by the cross and forced his mouth onto mine. I choked and gasped against his lips, sputtering at him to stop.
    Finally, I balled my fingers into fist and swung out, smashing them into the side of his neck. He choked and pushed me away, my blood smeared across his pale face.
    Taking advantage of the distance he but between us, I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out the silver dagger he had given to me days before, which he had expected me to use to slit my own wrist.
    With an feral yell, I dove forward, aiming the tip at his heart.
    Unfortunately, my depth perception isn’t good without my glasses, and my arms were too short to penetrate more than what looked like an inch. I tripped, dragging the blade downwards.
    The metal sliced just below his sternum and slid down to right above his stomach. He snarled, placing a hand on my chest and pushed me back to dislodge himself from the knife, and fell backwards into the wall.
    I didn’t hesitate, knowing if I did then I wouldn’t be able to go through with what I was about to do. I reeled my arm back and ran at him again, screaming the entire way.
    I shoved the knife as hard as I could through his tuxedo into his body, ignoring the cracks of his ribs as they broke from the blade forcing its way through. I pushed until only the handle stopped the blade from penetrating any further.
    My chest heaved up and down as I took in deep breaths of air. I unwrapped my stiff fingers from the hilt- it was the only thing that was keeping me standing- and fell down, staring in horror at what I had just done.
    Sebastian wasn’t moving. Dark blood oozed from his lips, through his white dress shirt where I had sliced his chest, and from where the handle of the dagger protruded, just below his heart.
    I couldn’t help it; I broke down.
    “Sebastian?” I croaked, barely able to speak through my hysterical sobs. I threw myself forward with tear blurred eyes. What had I just done? “Oh, God… Sebastian, I’m sorry!”
    I reached a shaking hand towards him, unable to manage the strength to actually get to my feet.
    His chest suddenly expelled, and he gasped. His arms shook as he reached up and wrapped his long, blood soaked fingers around the handle and yanked. It slid out with a wet, grinding noise.
    The dagger barely made a sound as it fell to the carpet, sending blood splatters across the already macabre ground. Instead of diving for it, I gawked.
    I couldn’t believe it… How had he survived? I thought for sure that at the very least I had punctured the very bottom of his heart.
    A cold sensation rushed through me as I realized the severity of the situation. I froze, both panic stricken and horrified.
    Sebastian was still alive. He had superhuman healing abilities, whereas even though I had Vires DNA, I was still untrained so there was no way my strength could possibly match up to his.
    I watched, petrified, as he took precarious steps closer, until he loomed over me. Underneath of his torn clothing, the skin of his chest was slowly stitching back together, like someone pulling up a zipper.
    I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but ended up vomiting at his feet.
    He curled his nose, then delivered a quick kick to my chest. I felt my ribs bend inwards at the impact and snap.
    “This is what we’ve come to?” His voice rose in volume through the sentence, until he was screaming. “You had this planned? You knew that you couldn’t kill me. It seems as if you have a death wish after all!”
    I reached an arm towards the dagger weakly. He stomped down on it hard, breaking it at the bend of the elbow.
    He squatted down in front of me, staring me in the eyes. There was no familiarity within them; I had unleashed his inner monster. “I really didn’t want to kill you. I thought that we could work through our differences. I’ve been called insane on quite a few different occasions, but I’ve never seen it for myself until now. Love really does bring out the worst in people.”
    I didn’t say a word- partially because I was in so much pain that the only sounds I could make ranged from a vociferous scream to pathetic whimper- which was probably for the best. I didn’t want to fight any more. I wanted the pain to end.
    “Oh, Mariah… You are such a beautiful mess. Mind if I have a taste?” He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled me up, sinking his fangs into my neck.
    With my good arm, I grasped onto the collar of his shirt, then moved my fingers to his throat. I tried to dig my fingers into the flesh, but I didn’t have enough strength. They slipped down and hung limp at my side.
    I was in so much pain that I couldn’t register anything new inflicted. I didn’t even realize that he had retracted his fangs until he spoke.
    “You brought me to this room to fight, and for me to kill you. And yet you’re still trying to live? Humans are so typical with their constant indecisiveness.”
    “It’s anything’s nature to try to survive,” I croaked.
    “Then make up your mind! Which is it: Do you want to live, or do you want to die?!” He threw me across the room, into the wall of bookshelves.
    When I hit the mahogany shelves, I felt my backbone snap. I landed in a crumpled heap on the ground, unable to raise my arms to shelter myself from the books that tumbled down.
    “I know why you did this. Sorry to ruin your plans, but I’m not letting you go. You’re mine now.”
    Everything in the room was dark, opaque shapes. I could barely make out Sebastian’s figure as he bent over me. I shut my eyes, trying to breathe, but my body was too numb. My thoughts were slipping, falling into a black abyss.
    I was exhausted of fighting, or trying to make sense of his words. I wanted this feeling to end. So I gave up and let myself completely sink into oblivion.