From Her Vein to the Floor

"She moves through moonbeams slowly,
She knows just how to hold me,
And when her edges soften, her body is my coffin.
I know she drains me slowly.
She wears me down to bones in bed.
Must be the sign on my head;
It says, 'Oh, love me dead!'"
- Ludo

Antony hadn't been lying, Torryn discovered once she'd stepped into the ring and stood opposite the little telekinetic girl named Cecilia. She was 25 years old, but she stood at a height of barely 5'2, and with bouncy, golden locks of shoulder-length hair, she looked nothing like an adult but every bit like Goldilocks. Her eyes, while of the beautiful blue coloring that Antony had promised, didn't make you melt with their beauty; they made you melt with their sheer intensity. In a pair of leather pants and a tight-fitting tank top decorated in gray camo, she looked angry, intimidating, and deadly.

She fit in here much better than Torryn did.

Torryn looked just as she always did, her long brown hair holding its less-than-scary gold-and-red tint and her eyes of their usual pale gray. She wore a pair of simple, grayish jeans and a tight-fitting cami of her own, hers in a simple black to match her pants. She was tall and big-breasted in comparison to the small girl across from her, but what good was that in this situation? What was she going to do – hit her in the face with her boobs?

She barely listened to the six-foot-tall, musclebound man in the center of the ring as he announced the fight, her eyes locked on Cecilia. She paced on her side of the mat, walking back and forth in the way of a caged animal. Her bright blue eyes never left Torryn's face.

The sound of the bell that signaled the start of the fight came so suddenly that Torryn jumped, bringing several light chuckles from the surrounding crowd, but Cecilia paid no mind. She was already darting through the space where the man had just been standing, lashing out with a tiny foot in a big-ass leather combat boot.

The heavy shoe connected with Torryn's stomach, immediately jerking her instincts into play as her breath left her in a rush of warm air. She gripped the girl's foot before she could even move away, tossing her against the chain-link wall as if she were no more than a child's creepy little baby doll. Even as she collided with the cage, however, Torryn felt a sharp pain in her left forearm, though it was only a muffled sting through the buzzing wall of her instincts. She looked down to find a small pocketknife sticking out of her wrist, protruding perfectly from a vein. She had just started to reach for it when it tore its way up her arm of its own accord, slicing the vessel wide open. The crimson red of her blood gushed quickly from the gash, spilling at an impossible pace from her vein to the puddle already forming on the padded floor.

The knife withdrew itself from her flesh suddenly, beginning to soar back to its owner like a shiny little plane, but Torryn quickly snatched it from the air, the blade lightly nicking her index finger and sending even more blood to the growing pool on the floor. Cecilia was on her feet now, and Torryn lunged at her with the knife in hand, still trying to tug itself out of her tight grip.

The woman dodged a couple of swings of the knife, but she noticed too late that Torryn's foot was headed for her side. The blow knocked her to the floor, where she slid momentarily in that pool of crimson, but she leaped back onto her feet in an instant, already lunging at Torryn once more.

Torryn moved to the side to dodge one punch, then ducked down to dodge a second. Another sharp pain erupted in her uninjured arm, however, another knife wedging itself into her unguarded vein. It ripped through her flesh just as the first one had, following the path of the vessel, but she caught this one before it had a chance to get far. She jerked it from her arm and charged at the woman, now wielding two of her own weapons. Hopefully, there were no more to surprise her.

As the knives attempted to escape her grip, she sent one toward the woman's stomach, just barely falling short when the woman jumped backward, allowing Torryn only to create a large tear in her blood-stained tank top. Torryn followed her back, however, lodging the other blade directly in her right shoulder. She jerked it back out, the woman grunting in pain as she did so, then let it sink into her stomach, creating another rip in her ruined shirt. She cringed as the full length of the blade slid in to her flesh like butter, her attempts to tear the knives from Torryn's hands ceasing as she stepped backward and slipped off of the blade.

That wasn't the last of her tricks, though, not nearly. Even as injured as she was, she had enough strength left to pull a third knife from her boot, this one nearly twice the length of the first two. It swung toward her stomach once, then twice, with Torryn jumping back each time. Cecilia fell back against the chain-link wall, but the knife kept going, swiping at Torryn again and again and again. She managed to avoid the blade a few more times, but the final time, it caught her stomach, leaving a deep gash across her belly button. She gripped the blade to keep it from reaching her again, the sharp edge cutting into her palm. It dug in deeper and deeper as Cecilia tried to jerk it from her grasp, but Torryn wouldn't let it go. Her vision was beginning to blur, growing dark around the edges due to blood loss, but she refused to release the blade. Better her palms than her stomach, after all.

Gradually, Cecilia's attempts to pull the knife from her grasp began to grow weaker and weaker until they finally ceased. Torryn took the blade's handle in her bloody hands and started toward the girl lying against the wall, her eyes barely open. Torryn's vision was continuing to grow dark, but she managed to reach Cecilia. The girl held a hand in front of her face as if to shield herself, though her blue eyes maintained their intense gaze through her outspread fingers.

Torryn held the blade before her slender, pale, blood-spattered face, almost as if she were going to use it. At the last moment, however, she settled for a swift kick to the skull, knocking the woman out instead of taking the more violent route and killing her with her own knife.

She'd won.

It didn't feel like a victory, though, as she dropped the knife and turned toward the audience. The menagerie of men and women out there merely gazed at her, utterly silent. It took her a moment to realize what was wrong.

Watching her was a sea of vampires, both living and undead, and the blood of a half-Progeny now rested in pools across the black padding of the floor. Those who did not desire blood slowly edged away from the rapidly dilating pupils of those who did, and all but the vampires eyed each other uncomfortably.

In a matter of moments, however, the stillness and silence that had fallen across the room ceased as the vampires gained control of themselves. A cheer went up from the crowd, begun by the bloodsuckers and joined by the others. The only place that remained silent was the area of the bleachers, where Torryn could clearly see Antony and his mother seated upon the top row. The woman's crazed eyes and translucently pale face were the last things Torryn saw before dropping to the floor amidst the spatters of blood, unconscious.

-?-

"Mother, stop!" was what Torryn awoke to, Antony's voice loud and mean and right beside her. She opened her eyes and groggily turned to see what was going on. She found Antony with a hold of his mother's shoulders, shaking her as she murmured unintelligible things at him. Her eyes were wide, her expression both fierce and confused, and she was altogether terrifying. "Stop! Now!" She was trying to shove past him, trying to get to where Torryn lay on soft satin sheets that smelled solely of him.

Quickly, Torryn sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the large bed. Her arms had been heavily bandaged, her stomach as well, but even she could still smell that the air was severely laden with the potent stench of her blood. She couldn't even imagine what the scent was doing to the undead vampire.

"Mother, stop!" Antony shouted again, but this time, she managed to push past him. He was knocked aside, toppling to the floor with a thump and a grunt.

The woman was on top of Torryn in an instant, shoving her back onto the bed as her long, sharp fangs sank into her neck. Her hair was caught up in the bite, but the vampire didn't even seem to notice, pulling fiercely from Torryn's vein as she was. The half-Progeny had only a moment to cry out before the vampire saliva began to take effect, immediately turning her pain into pleasure. She let out a soft groan as her vision began to dim once more.

"Stop!" Antony shouted again, a hard, dangerous edge to his voice that hadn't been there a minute ago. He grabbed his mother by her shoulders yet again and tore her away from Torryn's throat, her fangs ripping roughly through the girl's soft, delicate flesh to leave a pair of deep gashes that leaked blood like water from a faucet.

Antony threw his mother to the floor, and she rolled onto her knees with a hiss and a baring of her blood-covered fangs. Her pupils had dilated completely with hunger, an empty black swallowing up the beautiful blue of her irises. She sounded like a crazed big cat as she hissed again, a low growl beginning deep in her throat.

She lurched to her feet with such speed and force that Antony had no hope of stopping her, and she darted right by him to reclaim her place at Torryn's throat. The girl let out another quiet moan, giving in completely to the undead vampire as she began to pull from her vein even harder than before.

Antony gripped her shoulders yet again, and that low growl began in her throat once more, though she wouldn't remove her teeth from Torryn's flesh. The living vampire tugged and tugged, but his mother wasn't going to move this time.

"Stop!" the boy snarled. If she hadn't been so out of it, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness as she was, Torryn would've noticed the change to his eyes, to his fangs, to his very being. "I said, fucking stop!" The woman went sailing across the room, her head colliding with the wall, and she crumpled to the floor, finally unconscious and safely away from Torryn.

Antony moved to stand over Torryn, to gauge the amount of damage that had been done to her, and she felt his breath coming in warm pants against her cheek. "I'm sorry, Torryn," he murmured sincerely, his words sounding oddly muffled as he tried to speak around the oversized fangs that curved out over his bottom lip. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen." Before she finally passed out again, she caught sight of his pupils, dilated just as his mother's had been; but they hadn't dilated because of uncontrollable hunger – they'd dilated because of uncontrollable rage.

"Antony," she said softly, her voice raspy and confused as she reached a bloodied and bandaged hand toward his face, "your eyes..."

Unconsciousness claimed her.

-?-

It wasn't long after ten when Skylar finally stepped into the old building that housed the fabled Arena, clad in a pair of leather pants, a pair of combat boots, and a leather trench coat. The dark sunglasses he wore certainly helped the look – at least, if its purpose was to draw the unwarranted attention that its wearer was attempting to avoid. He felt eyes on him, dozens, maybe even hundreds, but he continued into the warehouse.

Judging by the excitement of the many vampires clustered in groups around the place, all nearly trembling with an obviously blood-fueled fervor, Torryn's fight had already come and passed. Her blood was likely what was being wiped from the black padding of the floor as he passed the ring, frowning. If her fight had already ended, where was she now?

He turned his attention from the ring just in time to see Principal Phillips and crazy old Samuel Abrams heading down a narrow hall at the back of the warehouse, speaking to each other in a very quiet, secretive fashion. Even if they weren't looking for Torryn, it would be a good idea to follow. Skylar was curious, and these men weren't exactly the "good guys."

As surreptitiously as he could, the boy altered his course from the bleachers to the hallway down which the two men had disappeared, stuffing his hands into his coats' pockets as he did so. He wasn't completely conspicuous. Not at all...

-?-

"I'm sorry, Torryn," Antony muttered more to himself than to the girl, carefully cleaning the fresh wounds on the side of her throat. She was still unconscious, so there wasn't much of a point to talking to her, anyway. "I didn't mean for you to get bitten again." The sound of voices growing closer to the half-open door caused him to slow in his work, his eyes darting to the door. They were still pure black, his pupils now dilated with a mixture of his earlier emotion and a slowly growing hunger caused by the smell of her unique blood. His fangs, too, were in the same state as they had been minutes ago. He looked like a monster in this state, but he had no idea how to change that.

As the door was pushed the rest of the way open, he turned his face away, hiding it as best he could in the shadows of the dimly lit room. He wished he had something better to hide with – a hoodie, a stupid hat, anything – but all he had here was this small bed, where he spent some nights at his father's request.

"Ah, Antony," came Samuel's voice, and the boy could almost hear his fangy smile. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Did you think they'd just leave her unattended?" he responded as calmly as he could, continuing to slowly clean the girl's wounds. Could they hear the distortion of his voice that his fangs caused? Could they hear that slight possessive, aggravated growl?

"Them, yes," the principal answered, his voice just as cool and calm as always. "But you, of course not. We should've realized that." Antony said nothing, and the principal continued. "Did her first fight go well? I wanted to watch, but I had some business to take care of."

Business? He and Samuel had likely found someone to torment and kill on the way here. That hardly sounded like "business" to Antony, but he said nothing. "Exceptionally. She fought Cecilia, and she won with little trouble."

"The...shapeshifter?" the principal asked, pondering the name.

"No, the telekinetic," Samuel corrected him with a chuckle. "I can see why she's so heavily bandaged, then," he added with a gesture toward Torryn. "But...why her neck?" That's when Antony turned, reaching for the bandages at the other end of the bed, and revealed the monstrosity that was his face to the room.

"You didn't," came a shocked, breathless voice from the doorway, and it wasn't Samuel or Elliot. Antony fully turned now, his black eyes landing on slack-jawed Skylar in the hallway. Before anyone knew what was happening, Skylar was through the door and on Antony, landing a blow to his face that would have broken an average human's jaw. As it were, however, all it did was sting a bit and leave Skylar with a set of throbbing, nearly broken knuckles.

"Ow!" Antony growled in annoyance around those oversized fangs of his, turning to glare at the human while cupping his injured chin. Skylar was already swinging again, however, this time hitting the poor vampire in the nose. Blood instantly began to gush, and again, Antony said, "Ow!" Before Skylar could do any more damage, however, the vampire decided to land a punch of his own. It seemed he'd put a bit too much power into it, though, as Skylar went sailing right back out the door and into the empty hallway.

Samuel laughed, lightly at first but with growing intensity, from where he stood at the foot of Torryn's bed. The principal, on the other hand, merely rolled his eyes and sighed. "You're acting like children," he remarked, and Antony fixed him with a glare made all the more intimidating by his blackened irises.

"He started it," he retorted, his words now muffled not only by his fangs, but also by the hand he now held over his nose and mouth. Skylar staggered back into the room, murder in his eyes, and the vampire quickly said, "I didn't do anything. It was my mother's fault." But did Skylar listen? Of course not. He lunged once more, a punch aimed at the vampire's stomach with much more force than before. Antony began a swift move to block the blow, but Skylar's fist never reached him. Instead, a strand of tangled brown hair tickled his fingertips, the sweet scent of blood rushing to his nose anew.

Between the two boys stood Torryn, her face solemn and Skylar's fist clenched in her hand, only inches from her stomach. Antony and Skylar looked mildly shocked to see her there, but Principal Phillips was indifferent, even when Samuel's over-the-top cackle began once again. "Like children," the principal said again, obviously disapproving of this entire situation.

"Torryn," Skylar finally managed to say, his eyes wide and locked innocently on hers. "You're awake."

"Isn't she so pretty?" came a crazed feminine voice from one side of the room, a voice that could only belong to Antony's deranged mother. The woman was at the Progeny's side in a heartbeat, her arrival barely shifting the tips of Torryn's long hair, and the younger girl released Skylar's hand and spun.

The blow would have been powerful enough to send the woman right back into the wall that had knocked her out the first time, but alas, she wasn't nearly quick enough to best the undead vampire. She grabbed Torryn's hand and jerked her forward, beginning to work at the bandages with her sharp fangs the moment her neck was close enough. A silvery sheen appeared to cover the dull, human gray of Torryn's irises, and she pulled back to try that punch a second time.

Antony's mother dodged the attack, and Torryn quickly followed it up with an attempted kick to the stomach. The woman grabbed the girl's ankle, however, holding it tightly to prevent an escape. Torryn was prepared, though. She jumped and spun, executing what should have been an impossible kick to the woman's face. The vampire released Torryn's ankle and staggered back, leaving Torryn to fall to the floor on her hands and knees. She was up in an instant, though, closing what little space had opened up between them.

The woman blocked another punch and dodged another kick, but a knee to the stomach took her by surprise, as did the powerful punch that followed. Torryn was moving with a speed that she hadn't possessed before, hitting with a strength she'd never known. Antony's mother sailed toward another wall, though she managed to catch herself just before making contact with the hard surface. Hunched over, she bared her frightening fangs and hissed dangerously, but Torryn barely flinched. The vampire was about to charge again when the bed suddenly flew through the air and hit her, sandwiching her between the headboard and the wall with just enough force to knock her unconscious. The bed settled back in its place, Antony's mother crumpled to the floor, and all eyes turned to Skylar.

"What?" he asked, his tone completely innocent. "She deserved it." A chuckle emanated from Samuel's corner of the room, but otherwise, he was greeted only with silence.

Then, suddenly, there was a light gasp, and Torryn's legs gave out from beneath her. Vampiric speed had Antony at the girl's side before she could even get close to the floor, and he took her in his arms and carefully fell with her. She rested on his lap now, leaning against him, and Skylar glowered at the vampire from a couple of feet away.

"Are you all right?" Antony asked softly, his voice a bit more clear now that his fangs had begun to shrink. His irises, too, had begun to return to normal, though his pupils were still a bit too dilated for comfort.

Torryn blinked once, closing her eyes slowly; when she opened them again, her eyes were back to normal as well, lacking the beautiful silver shine that had colored them before. "Yeah," she answered in a raspy whisper. "I just feel sort of like I have a hangover, but without the fun memories that usually come with one." Antony smiled gently and opened his mouth to respond, but Skylar beat him to it.

"You got to see me punch Antony in the nose," the human remarked, wearing a cute little smile as he knelt beside Torryn. "Isn't that a fun memory?"

Torryn laughed lightly. "Yeah, I guess so."

Skylar turned his smile to Antony, who now glared at the human. "How about when I knocked him through a doorway?" the vampire asked, his voice filled with obvious aggravation. "Wasn't that fun, too?"

Torryn shrugged. "I didn't actually get to see that part. Sorry." Skylar smirked now, and Antony's eye twitched in annoyance. Torryn began to get to her feet, and both of the boys rose with her, arms out to steady her.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Skylar asked, a frown upon his lips now.

"She's fine," Samuel sighed before Torryn had the chance to speak, boredom coloring his tone. "Now, can we get what we came for?"

"What did you-" Antony began to ask, but Principal Phillips held up a hand to silence him.

"It's of no importance now," the man said, his voice and expression just as serious as always. "This isn't the time, this isn't the place, and this surely isn't the right company." Torryn frowned, curious and confused, but she said nothing. "We should be going, anyway," the man continued. "There are many more fights to enjoy. The night is still young." With that, he and Samuel made their way out of the room, leaving the three teenagers behind to wonder.

"What do you think they came for?" Torryn asked softly, once she was sure the pair was out of earshot.

"I don't know," Antony answered, his worried gaze still focused on the open door, "but it probably wasn't anything good."

After a moment of silent contemplation, Torryn loudly cleared her throat. "Well, we should all be going. It's getting late, even if Mr. Werewolf thinks 'the night is still young.'" She rolled her eyes, but didn't mock the principal further. Instead, she tore the damaged bandages from her wounded neck without another word, letting them drop onto the bed. Antony's eyes tracked the movements of the bloodied fabric intently, his pupils dilating with what could only be hunger. His eyes moved to her neck, which she was beginning to gingerly touch with a pair of bloody fingers, testing the damage. His pupils dilated further. Luckily, Torryn didn't notice – but Skylar did.

"We really should be going," the human reminded the pair, his narrowed eyes resting pointedly upon the vampire. Antony snapped out of his blood-induced trance but didn't so much as acknowledge the suspicion in Skylar's eyes. He turned to Torryn and smiled.

"Yeah, I suppose so. Would you like me to give you a ride home?" he asked, his smile taking on a hint of charm.

"No," Torryn said, smiling knowingly at the boy, "thank you. I'm sure Skylar wants to spend some time with me. I have some stories to tell tonight."

"All right," Antony responded, his smile never fading. "Have a safe trip home, then. I'm sure I'll be seeing you soon," he added with a wink.

Torryn laughed lightly. "Don't count on it," she said, and stuck her tongue out at him as she took Skylar's hand. "Good night, Antony." Still smiling, she dragged him out the door, leaving Antony alone in the room.

He picked the bandage up from the wrinkled satin sheets of the bed with a sigh, his smile turning into a frown as he gazed at the blood stains. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he murmured to himself, unable to move his gaze. A full minute passed before he let the bandage slip from his hand and fall into the trash can beside the door.

The scent of Torryn's blood lingered vaguely on his fingertips as he finally forced himself to leave...