Chapter Eighteen:
Harry
When she walked out the door, I buried my fist into the wall. The hole in the wall now stared at me with mock, as if to say 'That's all you've got?'. The anger built up inside me again as I stared the hole down and then I exploded by pushing the the couch halfway across the room. I yelled out in frustration and abused the furniture in my tiny apartment until my temper had subsided.
How could she do that? Doesn't she realize the importance of her safety? I thought. I understood that she needed her space and wanted to go out more often, but she didn't need to put herself in danger. What if I wasn't there to protect her? What if she died while I was dealing with Zayn.
As I continued to take my frustration out on my furniture, I thought how Zayn and Liam and Victoria were part of the reason why my anger was so bad tonight. When I had gone home to see what they were complaining about this time, it turned into a big fight.
"I don't see why you always go out all the time," Victoria complained. "No one needs to feed as much as you do."
Victoria was sitting on the couch, twirling her long, curly reddish blonde hair. Her blue eyes mocking me with every word I tried to use against her.
"I've been under a lot of stress lately, Victoria," I started. "Especially because of a stupid, little red he-"
"She's got a point, Harry," Liam interjected. "I feed a lot, and so does Zayn, but we don't feed nearly as much as you do."
I looked at Liam with a deadly stare. Liam always thought he was right because Zayn favored him the most. Sometimes I never knew why Liam was the favorite, he wasn't the best at anything other than agreeing with Zayn. Liam was a follower and would always contradict Louis, Niall and I about what we were doing wrong.
"Harry, we aren't trying to attack you. We just want to know why you're going out all the time," Zayn said. I looked at Zayn and saw him staring me down. His dark eyes were burning holes into my skin and staring into my soul. For the last couple months, he had given me that look daily. As if he was trying to figure something out.
"Why does it matter if I go out all the time, Zayn?" I snapped. "Last time I checked, I didn't need to tell your little bitches where I was going."
"Who are you calling a little bitch, you twat!" Victoria retaliated. I gave her a death glare again and flipped her the bird. Zayn walked across the room and stood in front of me.
"Sit," he said pushing me into the chair behind me. I landed in the seat with a muffled THUMP and watched Zayn walk to the couch next to me.
"Why does it matter if I go out all the time? It's not like we violated a huge law and the Coven is after us," I said. I felt my stomach churn with the irony of that sentence.
"It usually doesn't matter if you go out all the time, but you're gone for days on end, sometimes weeks. We don't know where you are going and you're a huge attribute to the Family. The only reason why we have been alive for as long as we have is because of this Family working together. When one of us goes rogue for long periods of time, we start to wonder," Zayn said to me. I looked and wondered why he was giving me this speech.
I wasn't the one that disappeared for months and acted as if I had never left when I got back. I was the one that held this Family together when Zayn left with Victoria for some random day. Did he leave a note or anything? Nope, just got up and left. Didn't come back for two months.
Zayn looked at me as if he was indeed concerned, but I knew him well enough to know it was an act. In my five hundred years with him, I knew how to decipher his looks and actions. Zayn was just trying to get information out of me and trying to get the real reason why I've been gone.
"Like you've got room to talk, Zayn," I snapped. "What all has Victoria contributed? Opening her legs for you?"
"At least he has someone to screw," Victoria snapped back. I looked at her and pulled out twenty pounds and waved them at her. She gave me a sarcastic grin and then returned to messing with her hair. I looked back at Zayn and saw he was giving me his death glare for insulting his girlfriend.
"Harry, you are one out best fighters and have incredible instincts. We need you more than anyt-"
"So I'm just part of your army against no one?" I interjected.
"Harry, you know that our Family has committed crimes that would result in death before the Coven," Liam said matter-of-factly. "We need to be able to defend ourselves against anything."
"Like your little killing spree on Lana's town and family?" I snapped. Those words were the best way to get Liam's temper going. Liam loved Lana so much and always regretted killing her family in front of her, especially her brother.
Liam tackled me from across the room, pinning me into the chair. The force of his body and strength made the chair fall on it's back and caused me to hit the back of my head on the hard, tile floor. I closed my eyes as my skull met the ground and grunted in pain.
When I opened my eyes, I found Liam wrapping his arms around my throat and starting to squeeze. As I looked into Liam's eyes, I noticed that he was starting to morph. His brown eyes were starting to turn to slits and his fangs were becoming daggers.
With every squeeze he made, I felt like he was trying to squeeze my head from my shoulders. He knew that choking me wouldn't do much, he would only be wasting his strength. After a few seconds of him trying to choke me out like a human, I punched him in the stomach as hard as I could and when he clenched his stomach in pain, punched him in the nose. With the force of the punch, Liam fell backwards and on to the middle of the floor.
When I stood up to gather myself, Victoria had completely morphed into her true vampire form and tried to tackle me. As she flew in midair and flew full speed at me, I simply stepped out of the way and watched her fly into the wall, like a witch flies into a tree. Victoria was good at being stealthy when it came to getting what we needed, she wasn't the most skillful fighter.
When I looked back at her, all I saw was a crumpled, pale grey, winged vampire. Her curly reddish hair tumbled over her body and wings. As she laid on the tile unconscious, her body started to morph back to the general form. Her wings slowly recoiled into her skin and her skin returned to its ivory skin tone.
I looked up at Zayn and Liam, who had healed and was now sitting next to Zayn, with a pathetic look. Liam was still glaring at me with the "You better not sleep tonight" look. I gave Liam a wink and smirked at him before returning my attention to Zayn.
"Why does she even try?" I asked Zayn. He looked at me with an irritated look and told me to sit down again. I rolled my eyes and obeyed him. Zayn took a quick look at Victoria to make sure she was okay and when I looked back, I saw her getting up. Her fangs hadn't quite gone back to normal yet so she looked like a pale walrus.
"Harry, you need to knock it off. You are part of this Family and you can't go out as much anymore. It's becoming an issue, especially when you don't tell us what the reasoning is," Zayn said through his gritted teeth.
"Watch me," I said smiling. I stood up, walked to the door, and walked out of the house and back to Bethany.
Just thinking about the argument was enough to get my temper going again, but I held it back and subsided it enough so I wouldn't take it out on Bethany. I couldn't take it out on her again, our relationship was hanging by a thread as it was. We didn't need anything else going on to ruin it.
It took me a good couple minutes to completely calm down from our fight. I looked at the clock across the destroyed living room and saw Bethany had been outside for over five minutes. I decided it would be a good idea to pull her back in so we could settle this, calmly and rationally. My only wish is that she wasn't terribly pissed at me.
If she was, I was kind of scared to see what she could do. She may have been only a mere human, but she had quite the venomous bite when she was mad. Her words would cut deeper than a knife into any being, human or undead.
I opened the door to the steps of the apartment and walked down them quietly. Since she wasn't on the steps, she must have been by the alley. As I walked over to the alley, I saw she wasn't there either. I knitted my brows together and looked down towards the dark alley to see if she was hiding.
"Bethany?" I called. No answer. A little worried, I ventured down the dark alley. After I took a few steps, I heard a crack and felt under my foot. It felt thick and rectangular, like an iPhone. My stomach started to churn with the thought that it could have been her phone. As I lifted my foot, I saw, to my dismay, her phone lying face down on the pavement. Her purple, bedazzled iPhone case stared back at me, scratched and dented in a corner.
When I picked up her phone and flipped it over, I saw the screen was cracked in multiple spots. I figured that some were caused by my foot, but the other cracks began in the dented corner of her phone. As if it was dropped. Suddenly, her phone lit up with a phone call. The cracks made it difficult to read the name, but I managed to read. Some girl named Linsay was calling her. I typed in her passcode and answered the phone.
"Hello?" I said.
"Who the hell is this?" the girl shouted through the phone. Her voice was shrill and slightly annoying.
"Harry, Bethany's boyfriend. Who is this?" I replied to the girl. Who the hell was this girl, screaming into a phone as if someone had just slapped her across the face?
"I'm her best friend Linsay," she replied, turning her voice from shrill and annoying, to stern and demanding. "Where is Bethany?"
"I don't know, she didn't return to the apartment," I said to Linsay. "I found her cell phone on the ground. It's cracked as if she had dropped it. Do you possibly know what may have happened to her?"
"Oh, no...:" she said quietly.
"What?" I demanded. "Tell me."
"She didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?" With every word, my stomach churned more and I felt the anticipation of bad news approach me.
The girl took a deep sigh and continued to tell me what happened. She told me how Jaeson had escaped from the mental hospital he was staying at and somehow managed to get to England, to seek his revenge on her. With every word Linsay spoke, I felt all my emotions pile up into one. I was angry at Jaeson and Bethany, worried for her, and hurt because she had lied to me. Now that Jaeson was here, I was fairly certain he was the one that took her.
"Everything makes sense now," I whispered to myself. How could you have been so foolish, Harry?
"What do you mean?" Lindsay replied, obviously hearing me.
"She asked me to teach her how to fight and protect herself," I said to her. "Now I know why. I have to go Linsay, I have to find her."
I hung up on Linsay and slipped Bethany's broken phone into my pocket. There was only one thing on my mind: Rescue Bethany. I could handle this Jaeson more than she ever could. Bethany was a good fighter, but I was better. I didn't her everything, just a few things that would defend her. I didn't teach her how to take someone down and keep them down.
My only disadvantage was the fact I couldn't track worth anything. I was good with speed and fighting, but I couldn't track. I only knew one person who could track anything or anyone. I had an idea on what I could have done, but I was thinking of any other alternative than my first idea. There had to be another way, I couldn't let it all come out like this.
But I had no choice.
With a deep sigh, I ran into the dark alley and disappeared into the night. As I ran at my high speed, I thought of what was going to happen tonight and how everything was going to change. How I could get shunned from the Family or even caught by the Coven, but I had to do it. This was it.
I ran up the steps of my Family's house on the outskirts of town and burst through the front door. I found Lana, Louis, and Angel all watching a movie in the living room and Niall and Jocelyn talking in the study. When they saw me panting and with the crazy look on my face, they came over to see what was wrong.
"Harry, are you alright?" Louis asked.
"What happened?" Jocelyn asked after Louis.
"I need," I got out before I took another gulp of air. "Everyone."
Four of the five vampires looked at me and asked what I meant, but Lana understood immediately. She walked away from the group to retrieve Victoria, Liam and Zayn. As they were walking over with Lana, I took a seat in the living room.
"Everyone, sit," I commanded. Everyone but Liam and Victoria sat down to hear what I had to say. "Now, you all have noticed that I've been gone more often than I should. I've been saying it was because I was feeding, but that is a lie. I haven't been feeding on anything. I met someone six months ago and just started to see her more often and staying nights with her."
Lana shot me the 'What the hell are you doing?' face, but I ignored it. Zayn looked at me as if to say 'I knew it' while everyone else was slightly shocked.
"She needs my help. She was kidnapped a little bit ago and I found her cell phone," I said pulling it out of my pocket. "I can't track worth anything and I need your guys' help. Please, help me. I love her more than anything in the world."
I looked at Niall, our best tracker and gave him a look of despair. Niall looked at me as if to say "I want to help", but looked at Zayn for permission. Zayn simply stared as if he had caught me in the act of something. He looked pleased, yet disappointed. The only thought that ran through my mind was "He knows". Over and over again in my mind: He knows, he knows.
"Let's go you guys," Zayn said. "We fight for our Family and the ones our members love."
I locked eyes with Zayn for a moment as everyone got up to slip into their dark, hunting clothes. I would have stared him down with my anger longer, but Lana grabbed my arm, leading me to my room. When she pushed me towards my bedroom door, I expected her to walk off and get herself ready, but she walked into my room with me.
"You should be getting ready," I said as I dug through my dresser. My mind had gone into automatic mode, nope not black, nope, nope.
"What were you thinking getting the Family involved?" she scolded. I ignored her question and continued to search for my black clothing. When vampires went to go hunt or feed, they wore black. It was harder for the Slayers to find us that way.
"I didn't have any other choice," I said finding a black, long sleeve shirt. I pulled my shirt I was wearing before off and slipped into the tight shirt. I looked at my jeans to see how dark they were, but decided to change into my black jeans. The metal buttons on my Rock Revival's would give away my location to a Slayer. "I can't track worth shit and you know that. Niall is the best tracker we have."
"You know that they're going to find her blood scent immediately. You're giving her and yourself a death wish," she said as I changed jeans.
"I know, that's why I wanted to bring the others. Zayn, Victoria, and Liam are the only ones that have an issue with humans. Everyone else seems to get along just fine with them."
"That may be, Harry, but you know that everyone will follow Zayn if they need to. This plan is going to come back to haunt you," she said as she walked out of the room to get in her dark clothes. I took a deep breath and looked into the full length mirror in my room. Besides my face and hands, I was completely covered from head to toe with black. My tight shirt extenuated my muscles and made me look stronger than I was.
After I took the glance in the mirror, I ran downstairs. Bethany's time was ticking away and I had no clue how much time she had left. I had to hurry. When I returned to the living room, I found everyone except Victoria ready to go.
"Where is Victoria?" I asked a little panicked. Louis nodded behind me and then Victoria passed through my peripheral vision. I rolled my eyes at her and then ran out the door. The others followed and Niall eventually caught up to the front with me.
"Okay, what am I looking for?" he said as we ran along the dark edges of the road. I took out Bethany's shattered phone and handed it to him.
"This was the last thing that she touched before she was taken. I hope it helps," I said as I jumped over a dead animal's carcass. Niall jumped over the carcass gracefully and then he took a good whiff of the phone.
"It helps a little, but I'm getting mainly your scent," he said. "Do you have some of her belongings at the apartment?"
"Yeah, some of her clothes," I replied. Niall nodded and then we proceeded to run to the apartment. When we reached the alley where Bethany disappeared, only Niall and I walked to the apartment. The others stayed hidden in the shadows.
"Holy crap," Niall said when he saw what my fit of rage had done to the apartment. "Either you two had some crazy sex or you got really pissed off."
"It was the second one, bud," I said giving him the "Grow up" face. "C'mon. Her clothes are this way."
I led him to our bedroom in the tiny apartment and showed him to her duffel bags. He immediately started going through her shirts and jeans, collecting her scent. Occasionally, Niall's face displayed a look of confusion. He would turn slightly back, as if to ask, but then return to his examination. I figured he was starting to find out, but I would keep it to myself for now. I needed his help and wasn't planning on losing it now.
Niall threw my girlfriend's clothes back in her bag and then led me out of the room. We walked out of the apartment and returned to the alley where she had dissappeared. Niall started to breathe in through his nose, taking in every scent in the alley. He crouched down to the pavement and ran his hand along the ground.
"You found her phone lying here?" he said looking up at me. I nodded and then watched him track again. Once he caught her trail, he started to run into the shadows of the alley. When we caught up with the others, Niall called for them to follow. Lana gave the a look, telling me that I was going to regret every moment of this.
"Trust me, I know I'm going to," I replied before joining Niall.