I stumbled away from the window and into my room to pour myself a glass of water, my mouth suddenly so dry I could barely swallow. As I took a couple of mouthfuls feeling the cool liquid flow down my throat, my eyes fell on the bottle of sleeping pills I’d rescued from Daisy’s room.
An idea popped into my head, just a fleeting thought, gone before I could fully digest it, but as my mind began to replay that kiss between Lucian and Francesca, the idea came back with a vengeance, and as it took seed, I suddenly realised, it was the only thing I could do.
I sat down on my bed and began to replay my life inside my head. My mother’s death, but being too young to understand she was dead, then the abuse at the hands of my father, the pain, rape, torture, the cruelty, the control, the agony of having crude abortions performed on me and only just surviving sometimes.
Then my mind turned to my escape with Debbie’s help, Daisy, her kindness, meeting Lucian, starting to feel safe, then my father’s attack when he found me, the rapes and beatings before I was rescued. Me finally but stupidly thinking it was my time, time for me to have some happiness, to feel safe, secure. My time to have found love, to have a woman who treated me like a mother, and then just when I became complacent, too comfortable, suddenly it was all gone. Daisy was dead, my poor friend Debbie dead, and Lucian driven away by my own stupidity.
Maybe there might have been hope, that tiny sliver of hope of getting him back if I hadn’t witnessed Lucian quite clearly getting on with his life, moving on, obviously not needing me, not caring about me.
Feeling like I was on autopilot, or at least switched off, shut down from further thoughts, I uncapped the sleeping tablets and tipped a pile of pills into my hand. I tossed them into my mouth with a mouthful of water and swallowed, coughing and choking a little as some pills got stuck, and I had to wash them down with more water.
Deciding that might not be enough, I tipped out more pills and threw them down with the last of the water. Satisfied with my efforts I dumped the glass and pill bottle back on the table by my bed and lay back, propped up by my pillows and closed my eyes. I didn’t think about what I’d just done, what it meant, what it would do to me. I just didn’t want to think about anything anymore. I didn’t want to feel anything anymore. I just wanted the pain, the never ending, agonising, unrelenting pain to be gone. I wanted to be free. For the first time in my life, I was going to finally be free, free from everything that had ever hurt me. Very soon it would all be over.
I sighed, relaxing more deeply into the pillows as I felt the fatigue settling over me. I sighed, smiling for the first time in months at the sensation flowing through me, trickling down my arms and legs. I liked this feeling. It was more than just fatigue, it was a calmness, a complete relaxation of my mind and body. It began to change, becoming more a feeling of floating, of weightlessness. I could feel myself drifting and my mind was clear, an empty vessel. Nothing was troubling me, there was no more pain. I was just floating on a cloud of fuzziness, enjoying the feeling until gradually, slower than I imagined it would happen, things started to get darker. The room although lit by the bedside lamp, was still turning black and as it got darker and darker, I smiled again, letting myself go, letting myself drift slowly away until I fell down, down into total darkness where nothing hurt any more.
Lucian
“I’ve had enough of this shit, I’m going home. You two can stay though. I’ll just grab a feed off one of these ladies, so come out with me Damien so you can take her back. Knowing you, you’ll want to fuck them both won’t you?” Lucian shot his brother a questioning look.
Damien grinned at him. “You know me so well bro. So many women; the more the merrier I say. One cunt, two cunts, three cunts, four, fuck a cunt, lick a cunt and go back for more.”
Lucian made a sound of disgust and rolled his eyes. “You are such a motherfucker. Enjoy your cunts then but I want blood, nothing more tonight.” He said and turned to one of the ladies Damien had picked up. He quickly mind controlled her and with his asshole blood brother following with the other woman, they all went outside. He took the woman to the car and after checking all was clear, he nuzzled into her neck and bit down, loving that little pop his fangs made when they pierced the vein and he began to drink.
Once he’d had his fill he punctured his wrist and dabbed a few spots of his own blood over the bite marks and watched as they started to heal. He removed the mind control and the woman shook her head as if a bit dazed. She seemed a bit confused as to why she was outside but she’d been drinking so she’d more than likely blame the alcohol.
“I’ll see you at home little bro.” Damien grinned slapping him on the back before throwing an arm over each girl and leading them back inside the club. Lucian didn’t take the car he didn’t need it whereas Damien would when he came out with the two women later. One of the perks of being vampire was speed, and keeping to the shadows, he made his way back home.
When he got to the street where Fabian’s home was, he slowed down and walked at a normal pace. His eyes strayed to the old woman’s house and he wondered how Arissa was. He didn’t know why she was still in the house but maybe Mrs Appleby had left it to her or something?
He paused outside, standing in the driveway, and saw it was in darkness. Was Arissa out? Did she have a boyfriend or something? Had she made some new friends? He wanted to know how she was but at the same time he didn’t. If she’d moved on, he’d be devastated. Although it had been a few months now since that god awful moment she’d told him she didn’t want him, he’d still held onto a slim thread of hope that she might want him back one day.
As he stood studying the house from the outside, staring at the darkened windows, he finally became aware of the fact that there was a very faint glow of a light somewhere inside, so she might be home after all. He knew he was going to have to go and see her eventually because his sire was growing impatient with having Arissa’s father in the dungeon. Still, no one had ever turned up looking for him, so he’d either said nothing of his intentions to come after his daughter, or there was no one who gave a shit anyway.
Lucian stepped closer to the old lady’s house as if by being closer, he could somehow be closer to Arissa. As he stood there, breathing deeply, hoping for a hint of anything that smelled like her, he thought he could smell a trace of something, something like…he wasn’t sure, but whatever it was, it wasn’t nice. Suddenly his head filled with hazy images of her so hazy he couldn’t make out what they were exactly. His stomach tightened and nausea surged through him, overwhelming in its intensity. He had a feeling that something was wrong, seriously wrong.
Dread settled in the pit of his stomach, followed by sudden, overwhelming fear. As it swept through him, he was galvanised into action and shot across the road, into Fabian’s home. He burst into the living room and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of his sire sitting reading a newspaper. Sirene was curled against his side listening as he read articles of interest out from the paper.
Lucian was relieved that they were doing something so normal, so incredibly boring and not fucking, since they seemed to do a hell of a lot of that. No way would he want to go to his sire while he was fucking Sirene. Interrupting them during sex would probably have resulted in him being punished.
Unfortunately Fabian could walk in on them as often as he wanted but he wasn’t so forgiving of anyone who did the same to him. That was partially due to how fiercely protective he was of her and the fact that no one was allowed to see her naked but him. It was amusing actually given she was a witch and a vampire, so more than capable of taking care of herself. That was Fabian though. He was an incredibly intense person and he did everything with a level of passion that surpassed any of them, so it wasn’t really any great surprise that he loved with that same level of intensity.
“Sire, please, I need you to come over to see Arissa with me, please.” The words spilled from his mouth.
Fabian turned to him in surprise. “Why would you want me to go with yo
u? You’ve had three months to see that girl, or her see you, and neither of you have bothered. I’ve grown weary of it all and I want something done soon before I end up killing that bastard father of hers myself.”
“Please, just come with me. I have a strong feeling something is wrong; it was so strong when I was standing outside her house that I thought I was going to be sick. I feel anxious, nervous, fuck it, I feel scared. Please, I need to know she’s ok, there’s a bad smell coming from the house and I’m fearful for her sire.”
Finally he had his attention and Fabian put the paper aside before getting to his feet. “Very well my son, if you think something is wrong. I would have thought your blood connection to her would be too diluted after all this time, but if it makes you feel better, we shall go and see. Are you coming my beauty?” He turned to Sirene.
She nodded and with Lucian leading the way, they all headed out of the house and across the road to the old lady’s home. They’d nearly made it to the door when Fabian stopped, his nose sniffing the air. “You are right son. Something smells bad. In fact it smells…like…vomit.” He continued on, and tried to look in through the narrow window that ran down beside the door. “There’s a faint light coming from what appears to be your girl’s room. We need to walk around the house and see if we can get a look inside through a window.”
They walked to the side gate next to the house and once they’d gone through, they saw light showing from Arissa’s bedroom window. Lucian rushed past Fabian and when he got to the window, he cupped his hands either side of his eyes to try and see in through the window. The blind was drawn, but not closed off completely. He could see that the glow in the room was coming from her bedside lamp. As he looked harder, trying to see through the tiny gap in the blind, he felt a wave of cold fear surge through him. He could just see what looked like an arm, which wasn’t alarming on its own, but what really worried him was there was something on that arm, and there looked to be more on the bed by her side. It looked like vomit and a hell of a lot of it too.
“Fuck, she’s in there but there’s vomit on her I think. It looks like vomit from here and there’s a lot of it from what I can see.” He raised worried eyes to his sire. “We have to get in there, we have to get in there now.”
“Very well son but please stay calm. Don’t jump to conclusions until we’re inside. We need to find a way to get inside. I hope she’s not too security conscious.” He gave Lucian a crooked smile. “Come, start checking the windows.”
They all began to go around every window in the house and finally found a bathroom window open. Neither Lucian nor Fabian could fit so Sirene volunteered to shimmy through, and after a short delay she opened the back door to the house. At least by entering the house through the back door, they were unlikely to be noticed by neighbours who might call the police.
As soon as Lucian saw Sirene’s face, he knew it was bad. Her expression was filled with concern as she turned to him. “It doesn’t look good. We must hurry, I’m not sure she’s even alive. It looks like she’s tried to take her own life.”
“NO!” The word was torn from him in an agonised tone. “No, no, no.” He ran towards her bedroom. No, he couldn’t have lost her. He should have come to see her; he should have known she’d need to be watched, that she might be emotionally fragile. “You fool, you fucking fool.” He chastised himself as he burst into her room and saw her for the first time in a little over three months.
The sight before him filled him with dread. Arissa lay on her bed, one arm hanging off the side. She’d been sick; she’d been sick more than once as there was vomit splattered over her neck, chest and even some on the bed and floor. Her hair was full of it and the smell in the room was rank.
As he approached her, he could see her complexion was so pale, she appeared grey, and he couldn’t tell if she was still breathing. An empty glass and a bottle with just a few pills left in it were on the table by the bed.
Lucian froze, for just a moment he couldn’t do anything more than look on in horror at the woman he loved, lying there in a pool of her own vomit. God she looked terrible, so pale, so thin, damn but she was beyond thin, she was so gaunt, she was little more than skin over bone. Why? What the hell had happened to her? Was this because of Daisy and her father?
Fabian brushed past him and took her painfully thin wrist in his hand, feeling for a pulse. He frowned and with his other hand, he peeled her hair back from her neck and felt there for a pulse.
Lucian finally snapped out of his trance like state and rushed to his sire’s side. “Is she…is she alive?”
“Her pulse is weak son. I don’t know how long she’s been like this but she’s swallowed a lot of pills I suspect. She’s obviously taken so many her stomach couldn’t handle them. That’s probably the only reason she hasn’t died. We need to get her in the shower, put her under cold water and try and wake her up. She might need to vomit more pills up. I don’t know whether she’s already brought them all up or not.” He turned to Sirene. “My beauty, will you turn the shower onto straight cold water for me. Lucian and I will carry her through and put her under the water. We need to try and snap her out of this.”
Once Sirene had the shower running, Lucian and Fabian carried Arissa’s limp body through to the bathroom. God she weighed next to nothing, and he was almost afraid to touch her in case he hurt her. Her bones stood out everywhere on her body.
She reeked; the smell of the vomit coming off her turning their stomachs too but they carried on, and when they had her in front of the shower, Lucian stripped off his clothes, not at all concerned about being naked in front of his sire and Sirene, and took Arissa from Fabian before stepping into the shower.
The blast of icy cold water even took him by surprise as he held her under the spray relieved to see the vomit washing off her clothing and even more relieved when she jerked as the cold water sluiced down her face.
“Baby, wake up.” He shook her gently, but nothing. “Come on baby, it’s me, Lucian. Please wake up. I love you baby. Come back to me, please.”
She twitched again and a faint moan passed her lips. “Arissa, wake up.” He shook her again, a little harder than the first time. “Arissa, come on, snap out of it.”
Again she moaned and finally, much to Lucian’s relief, her eyelids flickered and she opened up her eyes. She looked dazed at first then turned her head, trying to avoid the spray of water. She began to struggle and given her painfully thin and frail state, he was so scared he’d hurt her if he held onto her, he lowered her to the floor, hastily turning off the shower.
Her eyes moved around the room, wide, confused, until she met his brown ones. Hers shot open even wider, and she surprised him by crying out putting her hands up to shield her face. What was wrong with her? She didn’t exactly look pleased to see him.
“This...this isn’t heaven?” Her voice was raspy. “Why are you here? What do you want? Why aren’t I dead? I want to be dead. I want to be dead.” She began to repeat herself, her voice broken, nearly sobbing the words like a mantra. “Let me die, I want to die.”
Lucian recoiled at her words and her reaction to him. This was not what he’d expected. In his mind she’d be delighted to see him, she would throw herself into his arms, they’d tell each other how much they loved one another and they would be happy. That’s how it should be. Not this; not her saying she wanted to die.
The thought was abhorrent to him that she’d sooner die than be with him and as he stared down into her frighteningly thin face, he felt crippled by the pain of her rejection. She didn’t want him, he loved her and she wanted to die.
Sirene’s voice was soft when she spoke. “Don’t pay too much attention to what she is saying Lucian. She’s been unconscious; overdosed on sleeping pills. She’s bound to be a bit confused for a while.”
“She said she wants to die. God, does she mean that? Does she want to die the final death or does she mean she wants to be turned vampire?”
“I’m not sure that’s
what she’s saying but there’s no point worrying about her words just yet. You need to get those clothes off her and give her a proper shower. Do you need a hand?” Sirene asked.
Lucian looked at her and then his sire. “You can help but I don’t want you.” He turned to Fabian. “I would prefer that you left us alone please.” The last thing he wanted was for his sire to see Arissa naked. He could deal with Sirene seeing her; she was another woman, but not Fabian.
Once Fabian nodded and left them alone, surprisingly without any argument, they stripped Arissa as quickly as they could and with her moaning and murmuring, largely her words being incoherent, they washed her. Lucian washed her hair until she no longer smelled of vomit but as he washed her body he was shocked at her appearance. She was so thin. Fuck she was beyond thin really. Every bone stuck out on her, every rib and every vertebra. What had happened to her? Was she sick?
He had so many questions for her, but now was not the time to get them answered. Lucian turned off the taps and got Sirene to hand him a towel which he wrapped around her frail body. Gently he lifted her onto the vanity, while he hastily dried himself and dressed again.
Then with Arissa sitting meekly, not speaking, her gaze blank, he dried her. Sirene turned up with panties for her and a nightgown which they got her dressed in and then he carried her through the house to the living room, placing her on the lounge.
“I had a look around the house while you two were looking after her Lucian and it would appear from the lack of food in the fridge and very little in the pantry that she has not being eating, or very infrequently. Until she is ready to speak, I’m not sure what’s happened to her, to make her feel taking her own life was the only solution.” Fabian frowned. “What are you going to do now my son? It would be unwise to leave her alone since she may very well try it again.”
Passion Follows Pain (Passion Series Book 3) Page 30