Double Update! What are you thinking so far?
"Where are we?" Lauren repeated, jumping off of the chest and landing with a soft thud. I shuffled back even though she didn't take any steps towards me, everything I'd been told about her echoing in my mind.
'You don't want to get involved with that'
'She's not just another student.'
'She's dangerous.'
The look Camila gave me when I said she couldn't be crazy or a serial killer.
Right now, wherever we were, with her standing and looking down at me menacingly, told me that she might very well be either of those things.
"Don't worry..." she grinned eerily, or maybe it was just eerily because now I'm seeing her as a serial killer, "I won't hurt you yet; I'm just curious."
Yet.
I gulped as she took a step forwards, and then she squatted down so we were at eye level.
"Where are we?" I repeated, and she tilted her head to the side a tiny bit.
"We're in the cellar." She said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Don't worry." She repeated, but that only sparked my worry even more.
"Lauren?" A voice came from outside followed by a gentle knock on the door.
She bolted to her feet and towards the door faster than I could process what happened and when a slot in it opened, she was already blocking me from view of whoever was out there.
"Ally." She growled.
I tried to call out, but my throat was too sore to manage anything loud enough and my limbs felt too heavy to move.
"How are you feeling?" The shorter girl I now knew was on the other side of the door asked, completely unfazed by Lauren's behaviour, it seemed.
"Let me out!" The dark haired girl shouted, making me flinch as she jiggled the door.
But she'd just been out? At school?
"I have some-" Ally was interrupted by Lauren yelling again.
The girl sighed and handed something through the slot to Lauren who snatched it from her and tossed it over her shoulder. As it flung through the air, I identified it as a bag of blood like the ones in hospitals. Why the hell would she give her one of those? And why wouldn't she let Lauren out of the cellar? And why couldn't I move?
My mind swam with so many questions that I didn't notice when Ally left and Lauren practically flew to the other side of the room again where the chest was. I did notice, though, when she lifted the bag from where it had landed and uttered a "Disgusting bag of fucking shit." Before opening the chest and shoving it inside roughly.
"You're the only thing that'll quench this hunger now." She snarled, looking back at me, and I gulped and flinched yet again.
This must be a dream. This can't be real. Nope, just a dream. Or a nightmare... the point is I'll wake up any minute now.
Closing my eyes tightly, I tried to will myself awake.
"Why? Why is it you?" She asked, and now her cold breath gently hit my face as she spoke. I decided to try to keep up conversation because I obviously wasn't waking up and she was obviously still 'intoxicated'... whatever she had meant by that. It was better to keep her distracted by talking than find out what exactly she meant by only I could quench her hunger another way.
"Why did you shout like that at Ally?" I decided to start with, and opened my eyes to watch her sit cross-legged in front of me, posture straight but shoulders bunched up a little.
"I have to keep up the act a little while." She answered but I only frowned in confusion, "If I act like I was before I brought you down here, they won't let me out and if they won't let me out, they won't come in. If they don't come in, they don't see you."
She must've been able to tell that I was still confused because then she sighed and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. When they reopened, the green of them was lighter, almost golden, and there was a redness surrounding them, little vein-like lines running through it; and when she spoke, she looked as though she had fangs, "I act like an untameable beast driven only by hunger... well, I am a monster but I'm driven by something else now, too; now that I have you: Curiosity."
"What are you curious about?" I asked with a shaky voice, trying to ignore the way my brain was telling me I should just faint again because this was scary as shit and so impossibly real.
"Why I couldn't bring myself to kill you whilst you were sleeping." She reached over and gently stroked down my cheek and jaw as she spoke, and I froze up, "Why I've wanted to do that so badly for the past two months but I couldn't put myself out of this fucking misery."
"Misery?" I asked when she dropped her hand and it landed on my leg, so she began to idly draw patterns there.
"I have an addiction." She stated and her eyes seemed to return to normal, though the redness remained a bit and those fang-like teeth stayed put too.
"To?" If I could keep her talking like this, I figured, I could make a plan to escape. Maybe she'd fall asleep and I'd be able to call for someone.
"You. Humans. Their blood, to be precise." She took a pause as I looked over her face when she looked down, searching for something but I didn't quite know what, maybe a hint that this was all some sort of practical joke, "I've gotten over it once, years ago, and then twice almost, but you turned up. You... smell different tha-."
"I smell different?" I interrupted, and her jaw clenched as her eyes changed again, hand spreading on and grabbing my thigh a little. "Okay, no more interrupting. I'm sorry."
Her eyes shot up to meet mine again and for an odd reason, the gentle confusion in them comforted me as she slowly started drawing patterns on my leg again.
"You smell different to the others. You're blood smells better, sweeter, stronger." With each word in the list she inched her hand up higher but still, I wasn't so scared anymore. I wasn't scared when she grabbed my wrist and brought it up to her face, either, to take a deep sniff inwards. My heart rate increased, but for a different reason. It was confusing, but I might have been lying if I said I didn't like it even a little. She lowered our hands but kept her own wrapped around my wrist.
"I've been playing mind games with you since the moment we made eye contact. Do you remember?"
I nodded, slowly, and she held a strange sort of sadness in the smile she now wore.
"I can usually control it but whenever I'm around you it goes haywire, which only makes it harder for me."
"Hold on." I put my free hand up, trying to piece everything together as that previous confusion came back, "So, you're... addicted to blood?"
She nodded, "Blood... is my food source. Usually I only have animals', but now I'm addicted to that of humans."
"And my blood... smells different."
"Irresistibly so."
"And you called yourself a monster," I continue, my mind clearing a little as I started being able to put together what she'd said, "and your eyes changed colour and went red all around them, and then you got fangs, and your hands are always cold, and you... play mind games?"
She nodded again.
"What, exactly, are you?" I asked with cautious pauses between each word.
"What do you think I am?" She shot back calmly, her grasp on my wrist tightening a little though she didn't seem to notice.
"I have an idea... but I'm not sure I want it to be true, or that I even believe it." I sigh, and I hear moving around upstairs and she jumps to her feet again, slowly moving to stand just in front of me instead of all the way by the door.
"Yes! Ain't I just the best fucking vampire in the world?" Dinah, I think, yelled as the sound of a door closing followed her exclamation.
"Dinah! Language!" Ally called from somewhere else and, despite my situation, I had to bite my tongue to stifle a laugh.
Lauren must've noticed because she glanced at me before reaching back and putting a hand over my mouth. It didn't feel threatening though, just like a silent hush.
I shivered at the cold, and then finally processed what Dinah had said when she seemingly burst into the house.
'best fucking vampire'
So that confirms my suspicion that I didn't want to be true.
But vampires aren't real?
Maybe it's an inside joke. Maybe her and Lauren just share the strange craving for blood she was telling me about, or addiction. Maybe it was just a coincidence.
"How's Lauren?" I heard, much quieter than before.
"Same as before." Ally sighed quietly, "I'm getting really worried. Maybe we should tell Kay-"
The last part of her sentence was cut off my Lauren being at the door in a flash and kicking it roughly. I was surprised it didn't break.
"Dinah!" She called out in a hoarse voice that I knew she was putting on, "Dinah, Dinah, Dinah, did you get the good stuff? Please, I'm hungry." She added with a bit of a whine as she glanced over her shoulder at me.
Suddenly the slot in the door opened and she quickly moved to block the view. No words were spoken as it remained deadly silent for a few moments, making me almost scared to breathe. Then the slot closed and Lauren hit the door a few more times. For good measure, she let out a loud roar that had me jumping out of my skin.
When the girl's' voices moved away until I could no longer hear them, Lauren turned to me and sniffed sharply, any trace of softness gone from her now as I shuddered against the wall.
"It's dangerous for me to do that with you in the room." She simples states as she strides towards me, dropping to a squat where she was sat before, "It riles me up and makes me want to play with your pretty mind some more."
A flash that lasted no more than half a second hit me, of the world spinning and her leaning in to my neck again as she had before, and I realised now that it was a 'she had' and not an 'I thought she had'.
"But I won't." She shakes her head quickly when I'm left breathing heavily against the wall, "I won't take it that far, I promise. I'll just relax you a little. I don't want you to be scared." She hummed and reached out a hand to rest on the side of my head, the heel of her hand pressing into my temple slightly. A sudden desire, no, need to sleep washed over me and I was powerless against it, so as I felt my body slide slowly down the wall I didn't try to fight it.