Malignant

II.

"I did it right this time!" She confessed. Beth came from a line of powerful witches. She was still learning how to control her powers, but she was improving with the help of her cousin. I pulled my covers back and climbed out of bed. I hastily walked out of my bedroom and into the living room. Upon entering the living room, I turn to look at the door. "See?" She says, pointing at the door. There were no cracks or huge chunks of wood missing. It was perfectly fine.

I glanced in her direction without a word and turned on the backs of my feet. My stomach rumbled gently as if I hadn't eaten in days on cue as I entered the kitchen. I open the refrigerator door, the pure white light that emptied out slightly blinded me. There was nothing in there really. Well, nothing I wanted. I'll probably get something when Beth leaves. "So, what brings you here?" I ask as I closed the door to the fridge and reentered the living room.

Beth who was sitting on the arm of the couch slid down the side of it and plopped onto the cushion of it. "Nothing, I haven't seen you in a while. I was concerned so I wanted to see how you were doing." She confesses.

I sit down across from her, folding my legs beneath me. "I'm fine." I say softly. I break eye contact with my best friend. Beth and I have been friends since middle school. My siblings and I stayed with her family when my mom was killed until Child Protective Services inevitably placed us in foster care.

"Are you?" She asks, not believing a word I said. I nod my head slightly, sighing softly at her words. She asked constantly when she came around. It hasn't been often lately because I've been wrapping myself in my work. What can I say? I'm a dedicated person.

I pause for a second more to give her the impression I was thinking about it. "Yep." She did this a lot in hopes that I would tell her I wasn't okay. It wasn't going to come. Not that I didn't want to confide in her—because she was my best friend, but because there was truly nothing wrong. I was absolutely okay.

Beth eyes me a little longer, causing me to stare back. "So," She says loudly, looking away towards the television. "care to get out of the house?" She asks, glancing over at me one last time.

"Sounds nice, but I have to stay home and research this vampire. Gotta know what I'm up against." I inform her with a shrug. The light on my laptop comes on as I opened the computer that was still placed on the coffee table.

"What does he look like?" Asks Beth. She stands to her feet and makes her way around the coffee table to my side. I move my finger across the mousepad on the computer and tap on his file. His image comes up right where I had left it last night. "Oh wow," she says, leaning in. "He's hot. Why are we trying to kill him again?"

I shrugged my shoulders, unable to answer the true reason why The Council was trying to kill him. It wasn't listed. He just needed to die. Which isn't like the council to just say without a reason. Vincent hadn't committed any known crimes against us or humans. He was just here. Which is odd. Where the fuck did he come from? "I'm still trying to figure that out."

"I don't sense anything bad about him. He doesn't seem like a bad guy—at least not anymore." Beth says, reaching down to tap on the full image. She stares for a while longer before looking down at me. "Wish he'd invade my dreams."

"Alright, that's enough of that." I say, halfway closing the laptop.

"What happened in that anyways—your dream?" she asks. I close my eyes, seeing images of the dream flash in my memories. For some reason, I could remember every single bit of it. I could hear his soothing voice echo in my head.

"He did a lot of talking about our similarities before tossing me to the side." I say, absentmindedly scrolling through his file.

"And then?"