Taking What's His

Chapter Nineteen

I could feel them standing over me.

Didn't mean I had to open my eyes and acknowledge them though.

I rolled over, giving a muffled groan as I reburied my face into the pillow beneath my head. I was still exhausted from driving for a full fourteen hours, and felt positively sick from all the red bull I had chugged from the night before. My head was pounding, and I definitely needed a shower...but for now, I still needed to sleep. Unfortunately for me, it didn't seem that I was going to be left alone anytime soon. They had been standing over me for the past hour or so already.

"You can play dead all you want Delilah, but we're not going anywhere until you give us a valid reason for being so stupid." Ruby bit out in a menacing tone, and I let out a grunt as she jabbed me in the side.

"Leave me alone...you can torture me later." I mumbled into the pillow, letting out a yawn. Seriously, who did Ruby think she was? My mom? Scratch that--my mom didn't even text me once while I was away, although I was pretty sure the school would have called her to explain that I was M.I.A. for an entire week.

"Ha! Leave you alone? You can bet that we are never doing that again! Seriously, I can't believe you! You take out Ashton and leave town for an entire week...we have no idea where you are, if you're even alive, you wouldn't answer any of our text and calls...you...are...so...stupid!"

I was irritated at the moment that Ruby was one to make her point, and even then continue to preach even after I had stopped listening.

"Yeah yeah, I'm an absolute idiot. Now leave me alone," I murmured, waving her lazily away as I shifted under the covers. I could hear her hiss in frustration, and I already knew her fangs were out to show her aggravation.

"You don't get it! This isn't a fucking game Delilah! Y-You could have--"

"You could have died."

How quiet Ashton's words were sent ice shooting through my veins. I was glad I was turned away from him, even though I could feel his gaze burning into my back. I'd rather that than actually having to look him in the face. Laying in bed, the weight of my actions dawned on me. I knew how selfish I had been, how selfish I was still being. They were just trying to protect me...but they were protecting me from something I didn't want to be involved in in the first place. I didn't ask for any of this, so was it any surprise that I took matters into my own hands and took off? "I know..." I breathed, crushing my face into the pillow.

It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't mine mine mine mine....

I felt the air stir and heard the quiet click of my door closing. They were gone, if only for the moment. I felt a pressure on my chest and tried to hold back the liquid that burned behind my eyelids. Eyes tightly shut, I surrendered to a fitful sleep.

--

My exhaustion didn't seem to fade. Even after hours spent in bed, every time I stirred I still felt drowsy, my limbs heavy and my head pounding. I didn't have the energy to grab my phone and check the time; the sun was my clock, and I could tell by the way the light that flooded my room changed of the passing hours. It finally set, and my room was enveloped in darkness. I could constantly feel a sort of tug on my subconscious, like something, someone was trying to reach me.

Tune it out, tune it out...

I was uncomfortable. It was too hot in my clothes and my hair felt itchy on my face. I tossed and turned in everlasting discomfort, before finally, something forcefully pulled me out of my fitful dozing. I peered groggily around my darkened room, and sucked in a sharp breath as crimson eyes met my own. Ashton was leaning against my window sill, peering steadily at me in the dark.

"There's another vampire in town."

"...Mm."

"He followed you?"

"Yeah..."

I heard him curse under his breath as he stood to his full height, beginning to pace around the small confines of my room. I looked on nervously, tightly wringing my blanket in agitation. "Seriously, can you stop that?" I asked finally, letting out a tired sigh. Ashton wheeled around to face me, his face twisted in anger. I quickly recoiled in fear, my body beginning to tremble in a near instant. He studied me for a moment before clicking his tongue and turning away from me.

"Do you know him? Know why he followed you?" Ashton questioned, his back still turned to me. He was facing the wall my dresser stood against, littered with unfinished homework, bobby pins, and a few portraits of my friends and I that were taken back in California.

"I know...his name is Demetri. I met him on the beach with my friend...and ended up having a one-on-one conversation with him about what he was--" My words were abruptly cut off as Ashton slammed his fist down on my dresser, hard enough to make the wood splinter. "H-Hey, what the hell!?" I yelled, scrambling out of bed and over towards him.

I grabbed his arm and his opposite hand flew to grip my own, squeezing it uncomfortably tight as I tried to pry myself away from his painful grip. "You must be a complete imbecile," he hissed, bringing his face close to mine. "You were damn lucky this time! Our kind is everywhere out there, and merely waltzing up to one and declaring you know what they are is like hiring them on the spot to be your executioner! This...Demetri guy or whoever excluded, but that's a fucking death sentence for a human like you Delilah." Despite the harshness of his tone and his painful grip on my arm, his eyes betrayed the emotions swirling just beneath that bubbling anger of his.

I finally stopped trying to pull away, and let out a heaving sigh as I leaned into him and rested my forehead on his chest. "...I'm sorry. I know nothing I say will probably ever make up for my stupidity, but you have to see this from my point of view as well. I'm just a normal teenage girl who's suddenly thrown into a world I've never experienced before, with death constantly hovering over my shoulder, in the guise of my friends. That puts a lot of stress on me. Not to mention what seems to be an obsessive vampire stalking me that even has you and Ruby worried. Mentally...I just can't handle this."

Ashton's breathing was shallow as he leaned down, his other hand raising and hesitantly patting my head, in what I presumed was an attempt to calm me. "...You're not the only one at fault. If anything... I owe you an apology as well. I know better than anyone, this is no way to live," Ashton whispered, and I felt the slightest tremor go through him before he released my arm and wrapped his arms completely around me.

"Besides you, and even Ruby for a short period of time, the only skin I ever had to worry about protecting was my own. And the difference between you and Ruby is that you're still human." His hand crept down to the small of my back, bringing me closer in his embrace. My own arms snaked around his neck, my eyes wide as I watched varied emotions play across his face, his eyes beginning to softly glow a beautiful crimson.

"Do you know how much I worry over you? To the point I can't even sleep at night..." His other arm gently took hold of my left hand and brought it from where I had hooked my fingers around his neck.

'His hand is so big compared to mine...'

He brought my fingers to his lips, gently kissing them, before he looked past to me. I watched as his fangs popped out, and even though I began to instinctively quiver in fear, I knew he wouldn't hurt me. I gave a small nod, and he drew my fingers back to his lips. Grazing my forefinger across his soft lips, I winced in pain as his fangs pricked me skin, and blood began to flow freely from my finger. His tongue lapped up the pooling liquid, his fangs pressing into my flesh to draw even more out. It was a strange sensation...besides the pain of when he first bit me, when he drank my blood my body felt hot, as if I was getting aroused. I stifled a moan as he bit me again, my body beginning to feel as if it weighed absolutely nothing.

Though my mind was clouded with a fog filled with incoherent thoughts, I could still register the way his eyes looked at me, burning crimson, smoldering, asking me a silent question. And despite my past, despite my recent trauma, despite everything, I knew the answer he wanted was the one I was most willing to give.

"More."