From Her Vein to the Floor

"How did I get here,
And what went wrong?
Couldn't handle forgiveness,
Now I'm far beyond gone."
- Shinedown

The sound of the shower still running was loud in the background, but Torryn barely registered the noise as she shoved Antony aside and went for his father. They were going to try to square off, to act like big, tough men, but she was sick of being treated like something that needed protecting, like a girl. Antony hit the wall with a rough "Oomph!" and a thump, and Caesar laughed delightedly.

"You silly little girl!" he cried as he caught her wrists, stopping her two attempted punches with aggravating ease. "Why are you always so eager to play with me?"

"How has your jaw healed already, you asshole?" she snarled between gritted teeth, bringing her knee into the space between them. She lashed out with a strong kick to the stomach, but he wouldn't release her wrists or fall backward so much as an inch; he merely laughed in her face as he always did and tightened his hold on her arms until it was almost painful.

"I'm an undead, my dear," he told her. "What did you expect?" He swung her around and slammed her front-first against the open door so quickly that her head was spinning by the time he pinned her against the scuffed wood. She felt his breath against her ear as he began to whisper to her, but he didn't even get a full syllable out before he was jerked from her back.

A loud crash resounded through the small room, and she spun to find Caesar trying to pry his head out of a hole in the wall as Antony swiftly approached her. His expression was tight; there was fear in his black eyes. He caught her wrist in passing and led the way out the door without looking back.

"We need to go," he said to her in a hoarse whisper as he nearly ran down the stairs. "Now."

"But we're naked," Torryn responded dumbly as she followed along, almost tripping halfway down the stairs because he was moving so much more quickly than she was used to.

Another crash sounded from the top of the stairs, the obvious sound of splitting drywall, and Antony managed to speed up even further. "Naked and alive is better than clothed and dead."

"He won't kill us," she half-ass argued, though she had no qualms with following him out the front door and into the warm, sticky air of the day. The moment the sunlight hit her eyes, she began to wonder. How exactly had Caesar been able to move about the outside world so much? It was broad daylight with not a cloud in the sky.

"No," Antony agreed, jerking her from her inappropriate thoughts. "He'll do something so much worse than that." They began to hurry down the front sidewalk toward the street, but a heavy hand on her shoulder pulled her to a sudden stop before jerking her back into the shade of the front porch. She was against the wall in a heartbeat, and the ridges of the white siding digging into her bare back were the least of her concerns as Caesar's hand tightened around her throat.

"No more games," he hissed, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "I don't want to play your way any longer." But Antony ignored his angry warning, a swift kick to the side knocking his father back a step. His fingers left her throat, and she coughed and gasped until she could finally fill her lungs again.

"If you don't want to play, why don't you just leave?" Antony snarled, placing a hand on the small of Torryn's back. She wasn't sure if it was meant to comfort her or meant to comfort him, but she leaned into his touch all the same.

Caesar sighed, a rough exhalation forced from his airless lungs that signaled his growing annoyance. "Have you really not caught on? The two of you belong to me, and I will not be letting you get away." His lip curled in disgust, he added, "Really, I wish you would've become an undead. You would be such a better son if part of you wasn't fighting so hard to be human."

Her arm left her side and swung, and she had no knowledge of this act until her hand made contact with the vampire's cheek hard enough to knock his head to one side and leave her palm stinging. "How can you call yourself his father?" she asked, her voice strained beneath the weight of the tears of anger she wouldn't allow to fall. "How can you say that you want your son dead?"

His head turned slowly, a single droplet of blood dribbling from the corner of his parted lips. He seemed somewhere between shock and amusement, his face caught in a gasp though the corners of his lips were twitching their way slowly upward. "I never thought that you would be the slapping type," he drawled once his lips had curved into a flat-out grin. "You've never seemed like that much of a lady."

Taking that as an invitation, she swung, catching him in the jaw with a punch at full-force. He spun like a top and nearly toppled over, but he caught himself on the porch's peeling-paint-covered banister. He was already chuckling to himself when he slowly turned to face her, more than one droplet of blood now spilling over his lower lip to flow down his chin like a crimson red waterfall.

"There she is, the Torryn we all know and love!" he exclaimed excitedly, then paused to push a bit of the blood back between his lips with his fingers. His grin turned wicked, and his tongue snaked out to catch the blood on his lip and the tips of his fingers. "We've missed you out here." His arm lashed out with his usual impossible speed, catching her throat and slamming her back against the wall once more. Antony took a step forward, but Torryn held a hand out to stop him, and he obeyed, though murder still danced in his blazing eyes.

Caesar's breath smelled of blood as he let loose a low, deep chuckle. "What?" he asked in a murmur, something almost sexual tinging his tone. "You don't want to play anymore? Or do you want it to be only us, no pesky son involved?" She pulled in a raspy breath, and he tightened his hold so that she couldn't manage another. Her arm fell limply to her side. "Or do you just have a death wish?" he mused, smiling as her face started to burn and redden. She was lightheaded now, just barely conscious, but she smiled at him to show all of her white teeth. His own expression darkened, and he bellowed, "What are you grinning at? Why aren't you playing?" His hold tightened further, and she choked through her teeth, but she wouldn't stop smiling.

Finally, when the edges of her vision were starting to blacken, his fingers left her throat, and she collapsed to the floor, coughing and hacking and laughing. "I told you, Antony," she said, forcing delight to fill her voice, as she rubbed her red and bruising throat. "I told you he wouldn't kill us!" And as Caesar looked at Antony in confusion, she sprang to her feet and let her fist fly in a strong uppercut to the undead vampire's waiting jaw. She hit him as hard as she could, and she was pleased to hear the familiar sound of his jaw breaking – again, at her hand. He sailed over the porch's railing, arching elegantly through the air, and he was shrieking in pain before he even neared the grass of the small lawn. The sunlight engulfed him, twisting around him like a warm and inviting cloak, and his skin began to steam profusely. He turned his face from it, curling into himself on his knees on the ground, but the damage was already done. Even in the shadow he'd made for himself, she could see the flesh of his face bubbling like a fresh stew on the brink of boiling. She smiled.

"You bitch!" he cried, his words slurring through his lopsided mouth, and he was none of the charm and power he had been before. He struggled to his feet, still curled into himself with his arms tucked tightly against him. "You'll pay for this! You'll pay for what you've done to me!"

She cackled, doing her best to mimic the insanity he let loose in his own laughter. She remembered Samuel and all of his own evil craze, but he was quickly forgotten. "You're an undead," she mocked, stepping slowly, cattily, toward the top of the porch's short stairway. "You'll heal."

She felt a light touch upon her hand, and she looked down to find Antony's fingers slowly entwining with her own. When she looked at his face, however, she saw how uneasy he was, how unsure he was of this plan, of the way she was treating his father. "Torryn," he murmured pleadingly, and let his voice die away. That single word said everything.

"We can't let him live, Antony," she whispered to him. "We can't let him keep-" But the sound of rapid footsteps on the sidewalk stopped her heartfelt speech, and she turned just as Caesar's entire body collided with her. The wind was knocked out of her on contact, Antony's hand slipping from hers, and she and Caesar flew backward in a tangle of limbs and burning flesh until they burst through the screen door and into the house.

The weight of him on top of her, crushing out what little breath she had left, pressed her into the shattered glass of the window that had already fallen as more shards continued to rain down about them. The pain in her back was constant, harsh and stabbing, and the scent of her own blood suddenly hitting the air stung her nose. All of these sensations were distracting, dizzying, but she wouldn't let them incapacitate her.

Caesar went for her neck, trying to sink his fangs into her flesh though his jaw hung limply. His teeth grazed her skin; his gaping lower lip left a trail of stale saliva; but he couldn't do more damage than that. She was able to shove him away before he got a second try, and he tipped onto the glassy ground beside her as she rolled in the other direction.

She cringed as more pieces of the broken window stabbed into her side like little knives, but she pushed herself to her feet without stopping to dwell on the pain. The scent of her blood was everywhere now, cloying and astringent to her half-human nostrils, and the sheer thought of how much she must have been losing was enough to send her head spinning. But she held on. She had to.

"Torryn?" Antony called hesitantly as she turned to face Caesar, who only now stood, a string of drool drooping slowly toward the floor. It should've undone all of his formidability, all of his dark and charismatic rage, but the look in his narrowed eyes was enough to keep her scared. "Torryn?" the living vampire queried again when all she did was glare at his father across the broken and bloodied screen door.

"It smells delicious, doesn't it?" Caesar drawled in a barely understandable slur, his tone still menacing somehow. "Won't you let me help you to use it? You have to make a living somehow."

She wiped at a wet spot on her face and stopped a gag when she realized that it was a chunk of the vampire's half-melted flesh. She wondered how much of it now stained her clothes, but she wouldn't think about it. She didn't particularly want to, and she certainly didn't have the time.

"I would've been content with fighting in the Arena for you," she said softly, coldly, doing her best to hide the disgust that still rattled her brain. "I could have made plenty of money there, for you, for Antony, and for myself."

"Not nearly as much as you could make selling that blood of yours!" he cried, and she was surprised at how much crisper his words had become, how stable his jaw now appeared. "You know you're the only one with that blood in this city, in this state, maybe even in this country," he coaxed her in a deep and soothing voice full of charm. He wiped a smear of drool from his chin and smiled enticingly. Something in the air changed, and she knew that the pheromones were on their way. "You would have a monopoly in the business. You would make so much money, gain so much prestige, for such little work."

She swallowed – hard – and took in a tentative breath. Already, the pheromones were calming her nerves, lulling her into that false serenity she'd grown so disgustingly accustomed to. She fought against it, though, struggling to free herself from its gently massaging fingertips though she should've welcomed the reprieve from this stress.

"I already experienced what the position could offer," she said, and her voice sounded distant and strained. "I'll have to pass, thanks." He opened his mouth, undoubtedly to utter more of his coaxing words, but she didn't give him time. Barefoot, stepping on the broken glass without a care, she lunged.

Caesar dodged her initial punch, just as he always did. He sidestepped her follow-up kick as well, then ducked beneath her next punch. He laughed a good-natured laugh and caught her in the stomach with a punch of his own, knocking her back into the splintered wood of the door frame. It appeared that all of his pain was a distant memory now. The flesh that had been bubbling only moments ago was now whole again, lying flat and smooth to cover muscle and flesh, and his jaw appeared to have made a full recovery. His smile was wicked and perfect, the pale pink of his lips offset by a red smudge along his cheek and chin. He was picturesque, and as he stepped slowly toward her, still filling the air with pheromones, she could do nothing but look at him for a moment. He was just so beautiful...

"Torryn!" came a distant cry, too far away from her to matter, and Caesar rested a forearm on the broken wood above her head as he leaned over her. His smile disarmed her – or maybe that was just the pheromones. "Torryn!" came that cry again, louder now, just barely closer. Caesar was suddenly knocked away from her, and the heat of his body left hers to leave her feeling cold and vulnerable.

She was numb for a moment, almost oblivious to the scene before her as Antony and his father struggled and fought upon the glass-and-blood-covered floor, but it wasn't long before the pheromones began to lose their power. She came back to herself just in time to watch Antony sink his fangs into Caesar's throat with surprising ferocity, and the black of his eyes as they met hers sent a chill snaking along her spine. Whether it was a shiver of fear or a shiver of pleasure, she was afraid to decide.

"Good boy, Antony," Caesar cackled cheerfully, patting his son on the back as Antony's teeth tore roughly through his neck. Blood spurted everywhere, staining the floor all around them as well as Antony's bare skin. "This is how the son of Caesar Warren should act!" But the boy was sent sprawling across the floor beside the man in a heartbeat, and Caesar gracefully rose to his feet, brushing at his suit jacket as if that could rid him of the blood and grime that had built up there. "Alas," he began in a much more serious tone, "I can't allow this impudent behavior to continue. The two of you belong to me; it would behoove you both to act like it. We wouldn't want either of you getting hurt now, would we?" At that, the lucidity that was just beginning to take hold of Torryn's mind completely crumbled beneath a fresh onslaught of pheromones. They weren't trickling into the air now; they were being forced out like bullets out of a machine gun, rapid and numerous and targeted right at her.

She crumpled to the floor, completely numbed by the chemicals entering her body, totally oblivious of the splinters entering her back as she slid down the broken door frame. Antony lurched to his feet and charged at his father, but Caesar stopped him with one quick punch, knocking him across the room and into the wall. He fell to the floor, blood beginning to pool beneath him, and only the sight of his still form was enough to rouse her mind from its chemical haze. He'd been lying like that once before, back at her own house, back when Caesar had nearly killed him the first time...

Where's my phone? she wondered, urging her fingers to begin tracing a circle in the blood just above her knee. If she moved, maybe it would wake her up. Maybe it would keep her functioning. Where is any phone? She started to crawl toward the stairs, the sound of Caesar's maniacal laughter jarring her thoughts.

"Where are you going?" he asked, but she said nothing in response, climbing sluggishly onto the bottom step. "What are you going to do, pet?" he tried again, but there was only one thought in her mind – Phone. Phone. Phone. His laugh wormed its way into her ears, filling her mind to echo through the pheromone-addled space. "You won't make it far, my dear, with whatever it is you're trying to do." She felt more than heard his footsteps coming slowly toward her, and it sent a shock of panic through her, enough to send her scrambling to her feet and bolting up the stairs. The steps creaked behind her, his footfalls heavy and loud and way too close on her heels.

She fell atop the dusty remains of Antony's vampire friend in the bathroom doorway, the ash wafting up to darken her skin and send her into a fit of coughing. But she dug through it as quickly as her trembling hands would allow, searching for what remained among the dust. Her fingers brushed something leathery and square, likely his wallet, and she shoved it aside to continue her search. Just as her fingertips found something plasticy and more rectangular, she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders, the skin smooth and cold as death. She quickly clutched what she'd found out of instinct, having had enough experience with Caesar to know what was bound to come next; and sure enough, the moment she'd grasped it, his fingers tightened on her shoulders, and she was jerked off of the floor.

Her feet kicked up another cloud of the vampire's dusty remains as she was launched into the air and swung around, and she began to cough again as her back hit the wall across from the bathroom door. Caesar's hands were surprisingly still on her shoulders, pinning her to the wall at eye level, and some silly little part of her was glad for it at that moment, as her throat was terribly bruised and tender from all of the abuse it had withstood throughout the day, and any relief from the pain was welcome.

"What is it you were trying to do, dear?" he asked once her fit of coughing had ceased, his smile hard and mocking. She squeezed whatever she had in her hand gently, as inconspicuously as she could. She couldn't look to see what it was, keeping her eyes locked steadily on his, but from the feel of it, she thought it was a cell phone. It had to be. "Don't you know how disrespectful it is to rummage around in someone's body like that?"

"Isn't it disrespectful to sell other people's bodies to total strangers?" she countered, flipping the phone open when she found the crease at its bottom. The pheromones were slowly draining from her mind, leaving her alert and capable of remembering Skylar's number. Hoping the phone was on – and silent – she began to slowly, cautiously dial the number. 2...3...4...

Caesar cackled, throwing his head back and barking out laughter as if he'd never heard anything so funny in his life. "Oh, I suppose so," he said once he'd calmed down a bit, though that same amusement now filled his loud, booming voice. 8...0...3... "But while no one benefits from digging through a vampire's remains, everyone benefits from the sale of a particularly fine specimen such as yourself. You really shouldn't take it so personally, you know. It really is just business."

"Bad business," she remarked bitterly, glaring at the man. 5...4... "Dirty business." 5... "Completely illegal business that benefits no one but you." 3...She hit the send button and allowed her eyes to flick to the phone for just the briefest moment, unable to keep herself from looking any longer. The screen was glowing, the number displayed across it, the call going through. There was hope.

"Oh, so this is what you were after?" Caesar asked curiously, one hand leaving her body to tug the phone from her dusty fingers. He was nearly crushing her shoulder now, having to tighten his hold and apply more pressure now that the weight was so unevenly distributed. "Who's number is this?" he questioned as he studied it, intrigued.

"Hello?" she heard Skylar's voice – oh, bless that boy! – echo through, quiet and confused. "Who is this?"

"Skylar!" she screamed, panic adding a harsh edge to her voice. "Caesar's trying to kill us!"

"Well, now you're just being silly," the vampire said with a wicked grin as he flicked the phone shut, tossing it carelessly toward the stairs. It bounced down, one step at a time, each plasticy thump resounding through her, the footsteps of her final hope walking away. "You know my intention isn't to kill you, but to keep you."

"Skylar!" she shrieked after the phone, as if he could somehow still hear her. "Antony! Someone! Help!" But no one came, and no one would.

Caesar chuckled, low and dark, his eyes mischievous and pupil-black. "Calm yourself, my dear," he purred, and she felt those pheromones flowing into her system again, the feeling of his cold fingers as he gently stroked her cheek simply orgasmic. "All the screaming in the world won't bring you any help now." He tossed her to the side just as he had the phone, and she almost didn't feel it when her bloodied body hit the top stair and began to tumble downward.

Almost.