Bound to You

“Eliza.” Val’s voice said quietly through the bedroom door, knocking two times quietly before opening it a crack, looking into the room. Eliza was laying on the bed, her back facing the door as she hugged a pillow tightly to her chest. It didn’t appear as though she had moved from her spot on the bed, though Zack’s side of the bed was neatly made, as it was every morning when he left Eliza in the room by herself. She sighed softly as she walked into the bedroom, closing the door and locking it behind her.

“Eliza, can we talk?” Val continued a few minutes later, walking over to the bed and sitting gingerly on the side of the mattress. She looked over at her friend, and sighed.

“Val, just go.” Eliza said, her voice cracking because it hadn’t been used in a few days. “I know Zack probably sent you up here, and I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want anything to do with him. I just wanna be alone.”

Val pushed a hand through her blonde hair as she looked at her friend, concern in her eyes. “Are you mad at him? Is that what this is about?”

“No.” Eliza said the word simply, turning her head to look at Val. “I’m not mad at him. I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad. I just want to be alone, Val.”

The blonde woman shook her head slowly before flashing Eliza a reassuring smile. “I’m not leaving you alone, El. You obviously need a friend right now.”

Eliza didn’t say anything back, but rather returned the smile before turning around again so that she wasn’t facing Val anymore. They sat in the room in silence for a few minutes before Val spoke again.

“So, if you’re not mad at him…What’s got you not talking to him? Are you scared again?”

“No.” Eliza told her. “I’m not scared of Zack. I never was.”

“Okay…” Val said. “Well, me just guessing what’s wrong isn’t going to fix anything, and it’s liable to just annoy you. So instead of doing that, I want to tell you what Zack told me. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure.” Eliza shrugged. “It doesn’t mean I’m going to talk to him.”

“He came to me yesterday just completely freaking out.” Val said softly. “He was frustrated, and on top of that he decided he needed to drink right away in the morning—he never does that, Eliza. Never. So, I got him to tell me what he told you.”

“That he loves me?” Eliza asked her. Val nodded even though Eliza couldn’t see it.

“Yes, he told me that he said he loved you. And that right after he said it, you started shutting him out, that you haven’t spoken to him since then. Why, Eliza? He’s so torn up about this.”

“If he was torn up about it, he’d try to talk to me.” Eliza shot back, turning around this time to face Val once again. The blonde woman saw tears burning in the corner of her eyes, and internally sighed when she realized that Eliza’s problem was so much simpler than she’d though it was.

“He’s trying to respect you, Eliza.” Val told her quietly. “He knows you don’t like confrontation, especially when it’s about your feelings and his. So he’s giving you space because he thinks that’s what you want.”

“Maybe that’s not what I want.” Eliza said, her voice coming out more desperately this time. “Maybe I want him to pick me up and just kiss me. Maybe I want him to hold me at night and not let me go right away in the morning. Maybe I want him to invade my space. Has he ever thought about that, Val?”

“No.” Val said. “No, he hasn’t. No man ever does. They’re clueless when it comes to women, and there’s nothing that can be done to cure that except telling them how we feel ourselves. He’s not a mind reader, Eliza. He won’t know any of this unless you tell him.”

“I don’t trust him enough to tell him how I feel again.” Eliza whispered. “The last time I told him, he just kissed me and fucked me! He didn’t tell me he loved me, or anything even similar to that.”

“And it hurt you.” Val concurred, knowing exactly how she felt. She had felt the same way with Matt not so long ago.

Eliza nodded, blinking away the tears and looking at Val. “I’m pushing him away, aren’t I?”

Val sighed, unsure of how to answer Eliza’s question. “I’m not sure, El. He doesn’t know how you’re feeling, and I don’t know if even you know how you feel.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Eliza asked. Val gave her a small smile before standing up.

“Honestly? I think your best bet is to just tell him everything you told me. You have nothing to lose by telling him how you feel, Eliza. Take it from someone he talks to; he’s not going to turn you away for it.”

-x-

“When will we see more evidence, Mr. Castro?” Nicole Dekker, prime time news anchor for K-Cal News at Nine asked the man she had yet to meet over the phone, tucking a strand of her straw-blonde hair behind her ear, letting her eyes adjust to the dim office she was sitting in. The only light in the room was a small desk lamp perched on the corner of her desk, the base covered by a mess of yellow sheets of paper from a legal pad with various notes from her conversations with Castro.

“Very soon, Ms. Dekker.” Sean’s smooth voice said on the other end of the line, nodding at one of the men standing in the corner. At the slight movement, the man nodded back before darting out of the room, off to do what Sean had directed him to do earlier. “You might say that this piece of evidence will be rather…in your face, perhaps.”

Nicole tried not to let the man’s words get to her; he was, after all, a source without a face. She had never met Castro, and had no reason to believe he was dangerous.

“How ‘in your face,’ Mr. Castro? I need something very compelling if the network is going to let me continue this story. Something big. Something violent. Give me a vic, a name…Something. Give me a murder, just give me something I can show my viewers.”

Sean’s mouth curled into a wicked grin at Nicole’s words. She had no idea that she was about to have everything she had just asked for handed to her on a silver platter. “Oh, you’ll get what you want, Ms. Dekker. I’ll provide the evidence; you feed the story to the public.”

“This doesn’t really matter, Castro; I’ll show the story anyway. But you don’t really believe this garbage, do you? Vampires don’t exist.”

“Oh, but they do.” Sean told her. “See, that’s why you’re my prime choice for this story. You’re the most unbelieving of them all. But in the end, you’ll believe what I have to say.”

Nicole rolled her eyes and stifled a yawn, looking at the clock in the corner of her computer screen. It read 3:22 AM. Her shift had been over for a little over five hours now, and she should be at home and in bed with her husband, sleeping soundly. She definitely shouldn’t be talking to a man as insane as Sean Castro obviously was.

Suddenly, the phone line went dead and Nicole groaned angrily when she realized that Sean had hung up on her yet again. She hung up her end of the phone and then shut down her computer before walking over to the door leading out of the office. It was late, and she was going home.

She had only just opened the door when she saw a figure standing at the other end of the hallway. She shrugged it off, assuming it was just one of the security guards who was on duty for the graveyard shift and walked towards him. The figure didn’t move, however, and as she got closer she felt a small jab of panic hit her heart. Something wasn’t right tonight; something was off.

“Hello?” Nicole asked the figure, stopping about ten feet away from him. “Are you okay? Look, the coffee machine’s over there if you need a little pick-me-up or—“

Nicole was cut off when one of the overhead lights turned on, and a scream escaped her lips. The figure standing there wasn’t a security guard, it was her boss. He was being held up by a large wooden stand similar to the one porcelain dolls were propped up on, his head tilted to the side. On his bared skin, Nicole saw two dark, deep puncture wounds that looked to be quite fresh. His suit was ripped down the front, exposing a pale expanse of skin. But this wasn’t what frightened Nicole the most. No, the thing that scared her most was the message carved into his chest, his blood still seeping out of the wounds and dripping onto the floor.

Is this real enough for you?