Vampiric Interdiction

[17] He Speaks True

Karolinna fixed her eyes next upon the shade of coppery locks that shielded the the face of the woman next in line. As per usual, the human kept her head down and avoided looking at any of the other women in the group unless she felt their eyes. Katrinn’s long hair didn’t look silky as it usually did. This time it was mussed, almost straw-like, as though she had washed it with salt and hard liquor, and the only brushing it had endured was from her fingers.

The poor soul always appeared uneasy and ready to bolt at the slightest touch or if someone looked at her the wrong way, but today she was much worse. She shook consistently as if her entire body was on vibrate and although Karolinna had tried not to take too much notice when she walked in an hour before, her face looked like it had been through a slicer. 

Gripping her clipboard atop her denim clad legs and pulling the pen out from behind her ear, the faelna brought the tip to her paper.

“Katrinn? Would you like to say anything?” she asked,  her eyes scanning over the poorly bandaged wounds that had begun to dot red ever so faintly in the centres that littered the human’s cheeks. 

Karolinna wasn’t a completely thoughtless being, and contrary to popular belief she did care about some things. It was hard to tell when she really meant it or whether it was just an act, but this time there was genuine worry in her eyes and concern building in her chest. It was a strange feeling, and feeling sadness for a mortal’s well being would be something she would not dare utter or admit to.

Katrinn shook her hair from the orbs she peered through almost hypnotically at the floor, and the colour revealed nearly matched the green in her face. She looked considerably pale for a human, her skin tone almost rivalling Karolinna’s own pallid complexion. Without  saying a word, the young woman looked straight ahead toward the group leader, and it was clear she was uncomfortable with the immediate transfer for attention to herself and the horrid silence that fell over the room. Would she speak or just crawl back into her shell?

Opening and closing her mouth a few times, about to voice her thoughts but finding that the words were not there at first that she parted her lips, Katrinn gripped the edge of her skirt and pulled it down slightly over her knee. She grasped the hem of the navy fabric tightly. Karolinna then noticed a long flesh coloured bandage running horizontal across the dorsum of her trembling mitt.

“It’s okay, Katrinn. You don’t have to speak today if you don’t want to,” Karolinna offered the woman an out, prepared to strike a line across the page before her with the girl’s name scrawled upon the corner. Instead she lidded her pen, moved to tuck it back behind her ear and then turn the page to the next evaluation form.

“No,” Katrinn spoke softly, causing the Vici to dart her head back up again, “I want to speak.”

Karolinna smiled in as comfortingly a way as she could muster and nodded her head. She uncapped her writing tool and hovered it above the first line of the blank page once more.

“Go ahead.”

“This ..uh… this morning was better than most,” the brunette’s voice was shaky and she paused to clear her throat. “It was not absent pain, but for once it was absent him.” 

Katrinn didn’t have to say a name for the entire group to know to whom she was referring. Every session she sported a new lesion, and after surprisingly consenting to share her situation with the group the previous week, they all knew now who was giving them to her.

“I woke up with that familiar throbbing in my neck… and sure enough when I looked I could see he left his mark deep…But for the first time in a while I actual found something to smile about. After searching for him everywhere, he was nowhere to be found.”