Almost Lovers

by Cassidy Raindance

  I ran to intercept her at the door and she barely made it ahead of me, closer to the door but exactly where I wanted her. I grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled as hard as I could. I pulled her so hard that she lifted off the ground and flew into the back wall, dropping hard to the ground. I didn’t wait for her to get up. I ran to where she had fallen and snapped her left leg. Blood splattered all over the wall. I picked her up by the throat and carried her with one hand, feet barely dragging a bloody path behind her, to where Prussia sat in the middle of the room.

  “What did you want with her?” I yelled.

  “A snack,” she said through gritted teeth, “A…royal…snack,”

  I snarled at her and growled a deep, low growl. She hissed a gargled hiss back at me. I grabbed her by the head and her eyes went wide with the realization of what would come next but it came faster than her mouth could open to protest. I crushed her skull and enjoyed watching her face distort into different levels of pain in the blink of an eye.

  The last spray of blood splashed the crumbling walls of the dank basement. But I stood defeated and my heart ached at what I had failed to do not only for the Queen but for Prussia. Never mind the fate of our species. I hadn’t managed to save her frail life no matter how hard I had tried.

  I looked down at Prussia still sitting in the chair, streaks of blood from feedings so entangled with one another that she looked dipped in it all. I let a hand touch her hair and felt the single soft wave by the crown of her head that wasn’t matted with blood. I gave a light stroke to her cheek.

  “The perimeter is secured. Clean sweep has been completed,” said one of my men, “Do you want to take her with us?”

  “No,” I said, looking down at Prussia’s blood soaked and chewed body, “I don’t think the Queen would have any need for a corpse,”

  “I mean the one in the chair,” he said, “We took care of everyone in the freezer already,”

  “Is she not still alive?” asked the guard.

  “There is no way she could still be alive with this much blood,” I said, pointing around on the floor.

  I said it with anger in my voice and when I looked at the guard I saw him take a step back.

  “Very true, I’m sorry…” said the guard, “Did you check for a pulse?”

  I wanted to rip his head off. I gave him a dirty look and a deep growl uttered deep in my throat. His mouth clamped shut immediately. He had crossed a line he hadn’t known to be there. He couldn’t see me trying to say goodbye to her? He had to keep igniting false hopes? A human couldn’t lose that much blood and survive.

  I had been too late. She didn’t stir. She didn’t move at my touch. She didn’t wake from the noise of what had gone on around her. As I looked down at her again her skin looked pearl pale with an ethereal shine.

  I let my hand stroke her cheek one more time. And I felt her exhale. It wasn’t much. It was the smallest motion but I had felt it. Even if the chances were one in a billion, it ignited a hopeful spark in me that hurt immediately. Because I knew it more than likely to be an involuntary reaction of a decomposing human body than anything else but I still had hope.

  I grabbed her chin with a quick and gentle hand, tilting her face up to me and into the light. Her eyes were closed and blood coated much of her face. I saw the slightest quiver of her eyelashes, the faintest heartbeat I had ever heard gave a hollow tap and I didn’t need anything else. I ripped away the bonds that held her to the chair and lifted her, moving as fast as I could.

  “What is it?” called the guard that had stood solemnly waiting to be reprimanded for what I had made him believe were absurd ideas.

  “She’s alive,” I called behind me as he began to follow, “She needs a human doctor,”

  “She is?” he seemed as disbelieving as I had been before.

  “How did you know? I didn’t even hear her heart so how did you know?” I asked.

  I stopped and turned to the guard, my curiosity in how he knew she could still be alive outweighing needing to get her to a doctor. The guard gaped at me for a moment, his brain slow to catch up with him as he watched me cradle Prussia in my arms and look intently into his face.

  “Her blood,” he finally said after a long second, “I didn’t hear her heart either but I thought I could hear her blood moving still. Crazy, I know…and she didn’t smell like death. Everything else did but she didn’t,” his eyes were amazed and confused. It sounded good enough to me. I turned and began running to get Prussia to the car.

  With every step that landed I felt Prussia rustle more to life. After half a dozen steps I could hear her breathing return to a more steady breath. When I got her into the car I let the front passenger seat all the way back and tried to place her as gently as possible. As I snapped a seat belt in front of her, just in case, then I felt it. I wouldn’t call it a flutter. If I would call it anything it would be anxiety.

  I felt an anxiety return to my chest with a flood of worries that made me smile. I wasn’t just happy; I cared for her enough to worry a thousand little things about her. I wanted Prussia. I wanted to watch her sleep, to keep her safe, and I counted the minutes until she would open her eyes and look upon my face and know that I came for her. I wanted her to know she could be safe with me, that I could keep her that way.

  I closed the passenger side door and ran around to the driver’s side and couldn’t believe my ears when I started the car and heard her speak. She said it faintly and she struggled to say it but I had heard.

  “Take me home,” she said, again, “to Robert,” she added this time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT - Prussia

  I didn't know how I got into the car but I was alive and for that I was thankful. My entire body hurt. Shifting in the seat made me groan in pain. Looking around I realized that I was in a car but it had taken me a few seconds to realize whose.

  I closed my eyes and wished that it was all just a bad dream. I wanted to go back to sleep and pretend like this had never happened. But I knew that I could never go back. There were things I had seen that could never be unseen. There were things that I knew now that I could never shake.

  “Take me home,” I said to Sebastian.

  For a moment I didn't think he had heard me but the look in his eyes when he looked at me said that he had. And that I had surprised him. That didn’t make me feel good considering how much pain I was in. His look confirmed how bad of shape I must have been in. But one thing gave me hope.

  Before we had been attacked, Robert had said he loved me. And in that moment I was the happiest I had ever been and if I could get that moment back I could put this all behind me. I had to find Robert. I needed to know if we still had a future.

  “Take me home,” I said, again, “to Robert,” I added this time.

  I could tell that Sebastian was distraught. But I had no sympathy to spare for him. At this moment I could only look at him as a monster. I didn't care how distraught he was. I just wanted to find Robert and I wanted to put all of this insanity behind me. I didn't know where I could go or who I could trust but I needed to get as far away from these people as I possibly could, if you could even call them people.

  "Of course," said Sebastian, in a quiet rumble.

  He didn't seem pleased about it. Maybe it was because I asked for Robert. But after having been through what I had been through, putting Sebastian's feelings aside and focusing on me was more than fair.

  The car purred to life as Sebastian turned the key in the ignition and within a few minutes we were parked outside of my apartment building. I had barely had enough time to assess my injuries. I could tell that I was covered in blood and had bite marks that bordered into chew marks everywhere I looked. The pain had become excruciating.

  I couldn't tell if I had stopped bleeding. The amount of blood terrified me. I couldn’t imagine how much I actually had left. Even being conscience didn't seem possible. It looked like someone had dumped large buckets of blood over me.

  Most of it was dry b
ut that added to my pain. Each time I shifted in the seat the mostly dry blood would peel away from the leather and send shooting pain through my body. And whatever blood I had left felt as if it were on fire and racing through my veins.

  My entire body screamed in agony almost to the point where I couldn't feel anything. Any more and I think my brain would just shut down, unable to process anymore. I tried to ignore the pain. I felt exhausted. I just wanted to sleep.

  Sebastian parked the car and came around to my door. Being so close to a monster in sheep's clothing shook me. I didn't want him to touch me but I knew that I couldn't get out of the car on my own and I needed to get into my apartment. I had a pounding in my chest wondering if Robert had found his way back and was safe.

  I winced but I didn't object when Sebastian began to scoop me up from the seat. I couldn't stifle my scream as all of my skin that touched the seat felt as though it had been ripped away all at once. The pain blinded me as it rushed my senses. My scream must have terrified Sebastian because he squeezed me close and that made the pain worse.

  I felt tears streaming out of my eyes and down my cheeks onto his shirt. I had latched onto his shirt and my hands had balls of the soft fabric. He must've realized that by simply touching me caused me pain because he released his grip and held his arms out. For anyone else it would have been impossible to hold me in this position for more than a few seconds but he didn't even bat an eye.

  "What can I do?" Sebastian asked, concern clear on his face.

  "I need to lay down," I said, "Inside. The sofa,"

  I spoke with labored breathing. The burning sensation running through my veins became worse with every moment. Everything felt like it was on fire. It hurt to touch anything at all. Just his breath too close on my skin was enough to trigger the pain. I had never felt anything like this in my entire life. I felt as though I were dying, being burned alive from the inside out.

  I didn't need to say anything else. He ran as if I weighed nothing. Through the entrance of the apartment building, Sebastian ran and carried me up every flight of stairs to my floor. He was barely winded when we got to my door.

  It concerned me how fast and easily he could run. Just one more unnatural detail though not nearly as distressing as the detail that followed. He shifted the way he carried me into one arm and, while that on its own was amazing, what terrified me the most is when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. One key in particular fit perfectly into my apartment door lock.

  I glared at him. But I still let him help me into the apartment. With his hand under my elbow he helped me walk through the door. I pulled my elbow away from his grip and headed through the linoleum floored entry into the kitchen area towards the sofa in the living room.

  There were no lights on in the apartment. It may have been dark but I knew my home and exactly where everything was, or so I had thought. Sebastian turned around to close the front door when I tripped on something. I fell into something slippery and I fell hard. That was when Sebastian found the light switch and illuminated my situation for me.

  There I lay on the linoleum sprawled out and covered in a thick sludge. When Sebastian turned the light on it was immediately clear what I had tripped over, or rather whom. I knew that gaze best in my nightmares, even if it only kept me company when unconscious.

  His eyes were exactly the way I remembered them. They looked deep into mine and at the same time they didn't look at me at all. His blood had pooled around him and coagulated, sickening and thick, which is exactly what I had landed in. I couldn't hear anything. I kept trying to scream as I looked into those eyes. Each time I screamed and couldn't hear anything. I tried to scream again harder, louder. My entire hope lay in front of me dead, without a doubt dead. Which is exactly how I felt inside.

  Sebastian stood over me in an awkward stance. I don't think any shoes are built to hold traction in pools of blood. His shoes were no different. They had no grip or traction. He tried to lift me up out of the blood. And while I couldn't hear hardly anything his reactions seemed to suggest that I made plenty of noise.

  I could hear again after Sebastian tried to cover my mouth. But even with my mouth covered and my hearing returned, I continued to stare at Robert – our eyes locked. I couldn’t feel the pain at all anymore. I’d gone numb. I couldn't feel and I didn't care. Maybe it was all for the best. Maybe I would be next.

  I kept eye contact with Robert even as Sebastian scooped me up and began carrying me out of my apartment. Sebastian had said something to me. I could hear the vibrations in his chest but I didn't look at him. I just kept looking at Robert. Those haunting eyes followed me all the way out of the apartment. And when we finally left I could still see them.

  I closed my eyes as we headed down the stairs. Wherever we were going, it didn't matter. Attacked in the park, kidnapped at Victoria's home, bodies dumped on my apartment floor, and keys to my apartment floating around. I didn’t consider any place safe anymore so it certainly didn’t matter where we were going. It just didn't matter. And so I slept and dreamed of Robert’s eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE - Sebastian

  “I’ll never leave your side again,” I told her once I had gotten her in the car again; “I’ll always keep you safe. I swear it on my life,”

  “You’re not even alive, Sebastian,” Prussia spit the words at me, “are you?”

  She knew the answer. I could read it on her face and I hated that this is how she had come to know of us, of my kind.

  “You can’t even say it,” she continued, her face a mixture of pain and anger, “You are a monster and I don’t want you by my side. I don’t want you near me at all, ever again! I want you out of my life forever!”

  She struck out at me and I let her hit me. It didn’t hurt physically. But it made me cringe on the inside. She searched my face but apparently my lack of a response hadn’t been what she had been looking for.

  “You don’t even feel,” Prussia shouted, “you’re not natural. Monster!”

  She began to sob. I couldn’t imagine what she had gone through in that room. I wasn’t sure what they had wanted with her besides a meal with a side of entertainment. If anyone knew the limits of pain that a vampire could and would inflict a human…it had to be me. I had had low points in my existence as all vampires usually experienced. But we rarely stopped to think of how it felt to the human. I had focused on me, on our game, Lydia and me.

  I hadn’t realized I would come to care for anyone other than Lydia. And here the one I cared for most hated me for what I am not who I am. And she had good reason to hate and fear my kind. I hoped that in time she would see I could be different.

  “I’ll never leave you,” I said quietly, “I’m sorry I let this happen to you,”

  And for whatever reason those words seemed to quiet her. Perhaps she didn’t think a monster could be apologetic. Or maybe she realized her anger shouldn’t have been directed entirely at me. Either way, she at least calmed down and stopped yelling at me.

  I started the car. The body in her apartment might draw attention sooner rather than later since the smell would soon follow.

  “Where are you taking me now?” asked Prussia.

  She stared off out the car window. I reached for her hand and my heart gave me a reprieving flutter for a moment as she looked at our hands together, clasped. And my heart sank just as fast as it had fluttered as her face turned to disgust and yanked her hand away from mine.

  “Somewhere safe,” I said.

  We didn’t speak during the drive which helped me focus on my thoughts and the road. I drove as quickly as I could. Though she seemed more alert, even if angry, she had still lost a lot of blood and needed to see a doctor. We had no way of knowing if she had been infected unless her blood was tested. We needed to see Tommy as soon as possible and I needed to talk to the Queen about the next move. Clean sweep had been a success but a great deal of damage had been done. And Lydia still needed to be dealt with.