Page 8 of Vampire's Bite

Rook was my only hope, but it seemed like he was too far away. I could sense him at the edge of my consciousness like a figure standing in fog only I wasn't sure if it was a tree or my vampire. No matter how hard I tried, though. I couldn't make contact with him through the fog, or pull him closer and only saw bursts of images which at first were just like snapshots, like I was scrolling through someone's social media account.

Defeat wasn't something I was going to admit to so easily so I kept pushing, kept trying to clear the fog from my mind. Each time I tried it was like wading through icy water. My body, or rather my mind, wanted to withdraw as though it instinctively knew that it shouldn't be subjected to something like that.

I didn’t know how long it took me, but finally, I saw him clearly. It was like taking a deep breath for the first time in hours. Relief coursed through me, even if only for a moment, because I could see him, hear him, I just couldn't quite touch him.

He looked different than he had before, his eyes were flinty, his jaw was hard and his mouth was set in a grim line. The worst part was the blood that coated him from head to toe. I had no idea if it was his or someone else's. He was throwing punches, kicking, and biting people. I couldn’t tell if they were human or vampires, but he was definitely in the midst of a battle.

At first, I soothed my worry for him with the thought that the fresh blood clinging to his clothes had to be from whomever he had battled against, but then I saw all the blood that was on the ground, along with a body. Even if the dead person had been completely drained it wouldn't be nearly bloody enough to account for all that was on him, which meant that some of the blood was Rook’s.

He was hurt, I could tell by the way he was favoring his left arm and the tightness around his eyes. It didn't stop him from rampaging through everything and everyone he came into contact with. It was like watching a John Wick movie, except without the guns. Fists, claws, kicks, everything was fair game, though Rook and Cross seemed to dislike using actual weapons, not that the people they were fighting had the same restrictions. It was a bloodbath, quite literally based on Rook's appearance, and I could only watch and hope that each time I saw them fight they came out victorious.

I could see everything they did in the moments that I was able to connect with them, but I couldn't interact with either of them in any way. Immediately I knew something was wrong. I'd been counting on my bond with Rook to lead him to me, but that obviously wasn't happening. I watched as Rook and Cross interrogated vampires they thought might have taken me. Their tactics were brutal and unrelenting, making me want to turn away or wince, but I forced myself to watch, to bear witness to what they were doing to find me and save me.

Right idea. Wrong group.

Frustration that had been slowly bubbling within me had reached a rolling boil, and I wanted to scream because of it. I needed to signal to him somehow, to scream loudly enough he could hear, so I could tell him that it wasn't a vampire that was responsible, or at least not by himself. If nothing else worked, if I failed at everything, this was the one thing I had to succeed in. Nothing else mattered. I needed to make contact with him no matter what, or I'd risk losing him and Gran and everyone I cared about.

“Where is she?” Rook demanded as Cross held a vampire to the ground with a boot in the center of his chest. When the vampire didn’t respond quick enough, Rook twisted the man's arm behind him, and I heard a sickening crack. I wanted to beg him to stop to tell him that I wasn't worth destroying himself and his life over, and yet, the selfish part of me wanted to stand next to him as he burned the world down to make them suffer for everything they put me through.

They were brutal, tearing the vampires apart both physically and mentally. I cringed at the sight and the sounds of their screams, but I knew that Rook wouldn't stop until he found me. He was losing the humanity he once had in his anger over my disappearance. My emotions were all over the place because of it. I was both touched at his devotion and need to find me and terrified of what he'd let himself become to satisfy his own need. If I didn't want to be rescued so desperately then I might have been even more upset by what he was doing, but I didn't want to die in the dank, moldy room that the hunters were holding me prisoner in, and I didn't want to give them Rook either.

When Rook and Cross finally seemed to realize that I had been taken by vampire hunters, they became even more vicious, and I could see it all but do nothing to stop it. While I watched, Rook killed a man with his bare hands, and the look on his face was one of pure rage. His nostrils flared, his eyes blackened with the emotion he couldn’t hold back, and his skin seemed to flush even though that was impossible for vampires, their bodies just didn't work that way.

Cross tried to reason with Rook, holding him by the shoulders and speaking softly. “They don't know anything else. We need to stop before the court catches wind.”

Rook growled at him like an animal that had been interrupted from feasting on its kill but turned, walked away, left the mess in the alley. He was to the point that he didn’t care anymore about the rules or the court. Cross just watched his master walk away, his shoulders slumped before he withdrew his phone and called for a cleanup in their location as he once again started to chase after Rook.

Though I had seen a lot, it was still only in small sections, a few minutes at a time, and I had to think that more had happened than was possible in the time I'd probably been asleep but I honestly had no idea, I mean these were vampires after all. With each progressive instance that I saw Rook and Cross I knew that Rook was edging closer and closer to losing his humanity completely.

I had never seen my vampire like this before—not in life or in a dream—and it scared me. I tried to reach out to him again and again, but I could never reach him. If I could just talk to him I knew that I could calm him or at least put his mind at ease. I just needed to let him know somehow that I was still alive, but as I tried over and over again, each time with more determination and mental energy than the last, he seemed to go further and further out of my reach, until it was as if he were a million miles away.

There was something wrong, or at least something blocking the bond I had with Rook, which was why he'd had to resort to doing all these things to begin with. I had to imagine that it was also what was making it so hard to connect and interact with him while I was in this strange dream state.

As the images began to fade, I used all of my strength to hold tight to the scenes I had witnessed. Although they were terrifying, I found a small sense of comfort knowing that at least Rook had discovered I’d been kidnapped by vampire hunters. Surely, he would be hot on their tracks by now.

I hated to admit it, but there was also comfort in knowing he would kill them for this. Once he found me, and I had no doubt that he would eventually, anyone who had laid a finger on me would be punished, and that soothed something within me, which honestly made me wonder if that part of me was broken. I mean, who would wish harm on other people? Isn't that what the bad guys did? I'd never thought of myself as a bad person, but maybe I'd been wrong, because now my back was up against the wall, and I was happy to resort to violence to ease my suffering, and I was willing to watch Rook and Cross use whatever means necessary to find me.

My mind flashed with the image of Rook turning away once more. It was the last time I'd been able to connect with him and Cross and it was the most terrifying. It was burned deeply into my memory. I had never seen Rook so ferocious, and it seemed to give him more strength, strength that sent a chill down my spine. Up until then, I had only ever thought of him as my protector, but in that moment, I realized that he was just as dangerous as the vampire hunters. Maybe even more so.

Rook was out there looking for me, and I knew he wouldn't stop until he found me. But the question was, would he be the same man when he did? Or would the rage that I saw in his eyes consume him?

8

Cordelia

The connection with Rook and Cross had slipped from my grasp and no matter what I did to try and find it again it remained firmly out of my reach. Everything had shifted into what felt like an actual dream, softer, less fearsome and bloody, and this time I was acutely aware of my surroundings.

I was in my home and Gran was there, too. She was rummaging through my room, throwing items everywhere as she looked for something. “What are you looking for, Gran?” I asked. But she didn’t hear me and couldn’t sense that I was in the room. My text books and notebooks and papers had been flung far and wide and the two drawers on my nightstand had been pulled open and emptied which was mortifying since they contained things that I would never want my grandmother to see.

She was distraught and I wondered if she was confused again, perhaps trying to find me. There was no way I could get her attention and I hated seeing her like that so I tried to leave, to go anywhere else, but I couldn't move past the doorway of my bedroom. It was like my brain held me there. It forced me to watch as Gran tore apart my room, and the look on her face was one of desperation.

When she turned and seemed to look right at me I couldn't help but speak. "Gran?" I asked, hoping she would see that I was standing right there. She looked through me though, and didn't see or hear me.

I wanted to reach out to her, touch her, even breathe her familiar rosewater scent in, but while I could see everything and it all looked very real, I was acutely aware it was a dream. There was no fine detail like there had been with my connection with Rook, I couldn't smell anything, my hearing was dulled, as though I was underwater, and I felt almost weightless. With Rook I had been there, watching, smelling, feeling everything that was going on so intensely that it had almost hurt, even though I hadn't been able to see past the tunnel vision of Rook's attacks, now, even though I was able to see everything around me it was almost worse.

It was as if I didn't exist on the same plain of being as she did, and somehow even though there was nothing overtly scary about this dream, the fact that I felt so detached was more terrifying than anything I’d seen Rook do. Gran didn't look up even when I tried again to call out to her. I wanted to tell her that I was there, but she couldn't hear me no matter how loudly I screamed for her.

Tears streamed down my face as I watched Gran ransack my belongings. My desk drawers were her next target. Pens, sticky notes, paper clips, a small stapler, all of it got tossed from the confines of the wood as she continued her search.

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