Elena.

My knees gave away beneath me, landing softly on the edge of the bed. Was it that he wasn’t going to come back? My thoughts trailed off until they were interrupted by a soft and anxious knock on the door. I opened the door to see a very cheery looking Molly. Before I could say anything, she grabbed my wrist and started pulling me down the hall and downstairs.

“Where are we-“ I began, surprisingly able to keep up with her. She didn’t answer me, she didn’t have to. We’d stopped walking. We were in front of the door Leverett had gone through.

“It’s fine.” She said, opening the door and slowly pushing me in. I tried to step back, only to feel the door shut behind me.

“Sit.” Came a voice from behind a leather chair facing away from me. His tone was stern, much too stern to come from someone that sounded to be in his twenties, at the most.

I sat in the only other chair in what looked like a study, which would still have me facing the back of his chair. I felt it was best not to move it. I sat down and waited for him to speak again. He reached out to a small table next to him for a cotton ball while he set aside a black covered one I’d guessed he had just used. This meant that I was only able to catch glimpses of him, just his wavy light brown hair every time he did this. i waited with my arms folded, one hand rubbing the opposite elbow out of anxiousness.

“It’ll heal.” Leverett said in matter-a-factly way, turning a little so part of his profile was visible. I could see small but deep burns on his nose and his lip, the dark burns making a harsh contrast to his sickly white skin, even paler than mine. I realized that I hadn't seen his burns because when he was walking to his study, he was walking to my left, so i saw the left half on his face, not the right, the direction he had turned now. He turned a little more and his chair, and stopped his hand halfway to the table. He must’ve been waiting for my response, I thought. I was about to reply but he began to speak again.

“Well isn’t that…interesting,” he said, as he began moving again, picking up another cotton ball, “you still have a heartbeat.” Leverett stated.

“We need a heartbeat to live.” I said calmly, expecting my voice to have been shaky instead.

"Do we really? There are billions of people up there," he said, loosely pointing towards the ceiling, "but are they really anymore alive than we are, just because they have a heartbeat?"

"That really depends on who you're asking, and your definition on being alive...doesn't it?" I said, asking the last bit to not sound as conceited as i thought I'd just sound, but that really was my genuine answer to that question...or was that his statement? That was a rhetorical question, wasn't it?

"Well...if your ‘philosophy’ were true, then the answer to my question really depends on the person I was asking, and there isn't a true answer to my question." He replied, a hint of defensiveness in his tone. He'd caught me off guard, so I didn't know what to say in return. Then the perfect answer occurred to me, but before I could say it, I felt a sudden pain in my stomach.

Pain? I hadn't felt that or any other feeling for the longest of time, not since my canine teeth had grown out. I flinched a little in my seat, instinctively placing my hands over my stomach. I either made some sort of noise, or no noise at all, because Leverett turned his face to see me, and got up from his chair briskly.

As he turned, I forgot for a brief moment the pain I'd been suffering when I saw his face. His face was the most beautiful and horrific thing I’d ever seen. His left side of his face was burnt and frayed. The harsh contrast of the dry black blood on his pale white face reminded me of a ripped piece of paper that had ink splattered on it. Some of his skin was peeling, his lip had a burn that went from his cupids bow down to a small right portion of his chin. The left side of his face was just as pale, but flawless. His large, doe brown eyes which were thickly framed with black eyelashes looked me over like I was a mildly interesting magazine in a liquor store.

"What's the matter?" He said in a bored voice, sighing and walking back to his chair to clean himself up.

"I feel...pain," i said as what I sure was pointless because of the obviousness. All the while I said this, I kept trying to keep myself from groaning, "I can go to Molly and-"

"Okay. Yes. Well, go." He replied, his right hand briskly gesturing towards the door, a cotton ball still at hand.

“Wait.” He said, getting up again. By now I had my handle on the door. “The only blood you’ve had until now were from containers, correct?” My vision was blurring, and I felt horrible, so I just nodded. I didn’t want anyone to see me this way, especially him. So I bit my lip trying to suppress a grimace of pain and tried to open the door. “Your body is rejecting this blood now, we have to go get human blood, now.” He said, finally sounding mildly interested in what was happening. I shook my head furiously. I knew what he meant. I had to kill. “You have to. You’ll die if you don’t.” Leverett said angrily.

“I’d rather die than be-become a mur-murderer.” I said weakly, leaning against the door, unable to support my weight anymore. I looked up to see his face, which looked down at me coldly.

“Well you’re more than welcome to die when Ryan comes back. And besides...we can't go until the sun goes down. We need to get you to a human right now.” He replied, and with that, his pulled me up into his arms and banged open the door to leave his study.

"Molly!" He roared, looking upstairs as he walked towards a couch and set me down.