The Vampire's Maid: Escaped [discontinued at current time]

Part 1: Escaped

Elizabeth’s Story

“Good morning, Elizabeth.” 

I felt that I loved the man – for to me, he was a man – who sat beside me so completely that I couldn’t condense my emotions into words. The sketchbook, filled with the pencil imprints of his emotions, was still clasped between my chafed hands. He had saved me once again, forsaken his old life to run away with me into a world of fears, and I was saturated with love and gratitude and guilt. Not knowing how to say any of this, I settled for another three words.  

“Good morning, Ashley”

He grinned, the familiar dimple appearing on his left cheek. He kept his eyes on the road though, and swerved between the trees on the barely visible track at a pace that made me hastily fasten my seat belt. His hair was blowing around his ears; the retractable roof was still down. For a second, I’d forgotten the danger we were in. His foot on the accelerator and the tightness of his hands on the wheel reminded me. 

“Well, good morning to me too.” A voice drawled from the back of the car.

I blinked myself out of my thoughts. Tori was perched in the middle of the back seat, and once I’d started looking at her I found it hard to stop. With her make up on she was so much more vibrant than anyone – Ashley excluded – I’d seen during captivity. Make up, of course, wasn’t something Goliath had kept in his stock cupboard and June, Abriella, poor little Olive, and I hadn’t set eyes on any cosmetics in months. Tori’s eyes and lips seemed unnaturally bright, outlined and stained with lipstick. A sediment of black was gathering under her eyelids from her mascara. I was pretty sure she was wearing fake tan. Fake tan. It seemed like something from a different world. Wearing only a black dress, there were goose-bumps on her slim arms which she kept crossed over her chest. Seeing this, I pressed random buttons on the car’s dashboard until the roof closed up. The wind died to a murmur, and everything turned a bit darker, a bit quieter. She didn’t thank me.  

“My apologies,” Ashley said, ever polite, glancing at her in the mirror. “Good morning Tori.”

“Oh, it’s been wonderful so far. The party was totally invaded by a group of – of murderers. I was taken to that place. When I got there some guy called Joe told me that they were vampires. Vampires! Then he began to hit on me inappropriately.  All of my friends, as far as I know, are dead. And not to mention how my stomach is feeling. Have you ever had a hangover without going to sleep? Have you?”

She seemed on the brink of crying at the state of her hangover. Ashley and I were silent, but I saw out of the corner of my eye the way his eyebrows were knotting together in the middle of his forehead. He felt responsible for what had happened to her. After a few seconds she composed herself, and her voice adopted a light-hearted tone. 

“But enough about me. How has your morning been, Ash?” 

“His name’s Ashley.” I told her.

 She seemed to deliberate over this for a while.

“That’s a girl’s name. I’m going to call you Ash.” 

An amused smile played on his lips at this. It annoyed me slightly that she was giving him a nickname already, but Ash was a significant improvement on vampire boy. The thought of Joe made my stomach flip. 

“We need to go back for them,” I said. “There’s still time to save Joe, and June and…everyone.”

I’d been about to say Olive. To my frustration Ashley didn’t respond. He pressed his foot further down onto the accelerator, and that guilty look was on his face again. After a while he spoke with a sad certainty.