From Her Vein to the Floor

"Soothing,
I'll make you feel pure.
Trust me.
You can be sure."
- Muse

Torryn smiled, her eyes flicking from her food to Skylar, across the table from her. He was grinning like an idiot, a bite of lasagna falling from his fork as his eyes locked with hers. They hadn't said anything for almost five minutes, but this was still so...nice. They were having lunch at the nearby Olive Garden, and with Skylar working almost constantly when he wasn't in school, such a thing was a rare occurrence.

"You look nice today," the giddy boy said for what had to be the sixth time since they'd left her house. She didn't see where he got the compliment. She was wearing a pair of jeans with a tear in the left knee and a white top she'd had for years. Decent, sure; but nice? Not quite.

"Thanks, Sky," she replied with a light laugh, maneuvering another bite of spaghetti onto her fork. "You look pretty nice, yourself." He was in the same shape as her, dressed in a simple jean-and-T-shirt combo, though his clothes weren't as old or torn as hers. He grinned at the compliment nonetheless.

"Thanks," he said. "You're sweet." He tried to feed himself another bite of lasagna, but the morsel just didn't make it. It ended up on the small bit of table open between him and his plate. Torryn tried to fight back a laugh, but she just couldn't help it. A snicker sneaked through.

"You're adorable," was all she could think of to say.

He smiled at her once again, doing his best to get the food back onto his half-empty plate without touching it. "Thanks," he said, "I think."

She watched in silence as he continued to wrestle with the escaped food. He looked, as she'd said, utterly adorable; but still, her smile slowly fell. This was nothing like the late-night dinner she'd had with Antony, and she wasn't even thinking about the pre-dinner experience with his vampiric pheromones.

Their meal had been of spaghetti with meat sauce from a jar, much less elegant than this pricey lunch at Olive Garden. And there hadn't been these sweet smiles and cutesy compliments. There had only been seductive smirks and conversation of her race and his. It was thrilling, being so subtly pursued by someone so new, so dangerous...

"I love you," Skylar said out of nowhere, his voice soft and sincere. She looked up from where her eyes had fallen on her few remaining spaghetti noodles to find him gazing at her, a tender look to his eyes that matched his tone.

"I love you, too," she responded in a similar tone, the slightest smile curving the corners of her lips. Antony was good for a cheap thrill, but this...this was something real.

-

At four o'clock that afternoon, Torryn found herself watching as Skylar's car slowly faded into the distance. He was off to work again, off to another eight-hour day that would probably leave him dead tired when he got home that night. She would've loved a late-night rendezvous, something to make up for a rushed lunch at Olive Garden, but she didn't want to push him. Besides, she had things to do.

"Where have you been?" her mother asked the moment she walked through the front door, using that same lovely tone that she always adopted when talking to Torryn.

"Lunch with Skylar," she answered in her own bitchy tone, shutting the door none too quietly behind her. Her mother was on her feet when she turned around from making sure the faulty latch had actually caught, glaring. Clearly, she was in a worse mood than usual, even though this was one of her rare days off from work.

"Don't you take that tone with me," she snapped, as she often did when Torryn acted at all similar to her. "Did he have to pay for you again?" she asked nastily. "I'm surprised he's still interested in your lazy ass."

At that, Torryn could only smile. She pulled from her pocket the wad of cash she'd been carrying with her as just-in-case money, neatly folded and only slightly wrinkled. She had no idea how much was there, but she knew she had plenty more hidden in her room. With that comforting thought in mind, she threw it on the ground at her mother's feet.

"There's your rent. Call me lazy again," she said in a tauntingly pleasant voice, "I dare you." Without waiting to see the woman's reaction, she jerked the door back open and walked out.

From that point, she wandered from place to place, having nowhere important to go and not wanting to go home. She went to her friend Missy's house, then Andrew's, then Morgan's, until finally, it was about nine. She started for the McDonald's she'd met Antony at the first time as she pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

The noise of a crowd was apparent the moment the boy answered. "Yeah?" he asked, sounding out of breath and annoyed.

"Are you still making me fight again tonight?" she asked in return. She was curious as to why he was breathless and pissy, but she figured it would be best to avoid bringing it up. Angry people rarely liked being questioned.

"If you're still interested," he answered, calming down instantly. He was still panting, but his tone had lost its hard edge. "I figured you'd be calling me to cancel."

"Nah," she said with a smile he couldn't see, quickly crossing a dark, quiet street. "I would actually like to be picked up now, if you're not too busy. I wanted to call hours ago, but..."

"Why did you want to call earlier?" he asked. "You've never seemed too eager to fight before."

"Even I can get angry and in a violent mood," was her response. Then, in an attempt to avoid any more questions on the subject, she asked, "Are you busy now or can you come get me?"

"I can come." The sound of the basement's heavy metal door slamming shut filtered through the phone. "Are you home?"

"No, actually. I'm at the McDonald's where you picked me up that first night." She was already crossing the restaurant's nearly vacant parking lot, glancing around in search of anything to be cautious of. There was nothing out of the ordinary, however. She was soon alone by the place's front door.

"The one on Main Street?" A car door opened, then slammed shut.

"Yeah," she answered with a nod he couldn't see, "that one."

"All right. I'll be there soon." And with that, he hung up, without even the purr of the Ferrari's engine as a goodbye.

With a sigh, she flipped her phone shut and tucked it away in her pocket. And just like that, her silent, creepy wait in the McDonald's parking lot began.

-

"What made you want to fight today?" Antony asked before Torryn had even shut the car door. She sighed, swinging the thing shut with a soft thunk.

"My mother's a bitch," she said simply, offering him a hard-edged smile. "Is that enough for you?"

"Is that all you're willing to give me?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her as he drove out of the parking lot without even bothering to watch where he was going.

"Yes," was her simple response. She even turned her attention to the passing scenery in an attempt to more successfully end the conversation.

"Well, then, I suppose I'll have to make due with what you've given me." He wanted to pry, she could tell, but he said nothing more.

They were soon rolling into the parking lot of that decrepit office building, finding that it was even more packed than it had been the night before. Antony had to make his own parking spot on a patch of unkempt grass off to one side of the lot, wincing as he did so. Torryn almost laughed, but then, she realized. If she were driving a Ferrari, would she be any more eager to drive it over a crumbling curb to park it on the grass?

As she slid out of the car, she noticed a group of men gathered near the building's front doors. They were staring at her, not looking too happy, and she frowned. This couldn't be good.

"Antony, why-" she began, but he stopped her.

"They don't like you," he said simply, shrugging as he shut his door. "They think you're cheating, from what I've gathered. And they don't like that they keep losing."

She turned to him with a grimace. "What should I do?"

"Fuck 'em up," he replied with a broad grin. With that, he started toward the group of men with his best bad-boy swagger. And damn, was it sexy. She was quick to follow, adopting a similar stride as she took her place beside him.

There were seven of them, she saw as she and Antony drew closer. They all turned to face the pair, scowling and glaring and looking as intimidating as possible. But were their looks working? Were they scaring her? Hell no. These were guys from the crowd, mere humans who likely had little fighting experience. Besides, with Antony at her side, how could she lose?

"Do we have a problem, gentleman?" Antony asked as he and Torryn stopped a good foot from the small group. He was smiling now, taunting them, and Torryn had to fight back a similar expression. His cockiness was beginning to rub off on her.

"Obviously," one of the men, the biggest of the crowd, answered, his eyes darting to Torryn for an instant before moving back to Antony. "We're not stupid, kid. We know."

Only then did Torryn begin to notice something odd, something...off about these men. A strange, musky scent hung about them, earthy but something...more. It was heavy in the air about them, almost palpable. The more she noticed it, the more cloying it became, clinging to her skin as if it wished to crush her.

"Know what?" Antony asked, arching an eyebrow as he so often did. He crossed his arms, a hint of that cocky smile still curving that lips. He seemed oblivious to what she was smelling, what she was feeling.

Her eyes moved past the leader, and she began to assess the rest of the group. They all looked normal. A little bit on the muscular side, but even normal guys could go to the gym on occasion. But then, she caught the eye of the group's only playful, smirking member, and she gasped. The chocolate brown of his eyes flashed golden amber, the pupils slitted and wolf-like. He wasn't human. They weren't human.

A flash of lightning overhead and a rumble of thunder went unnoticed as the group's leader said simply, "She's not human."

"Neither are you," Antony retorted with a careless shrug. Torryn turned to him, eyes wide in alarm at what she'd just seen and what he'd just said. Had he known the whole time?

"But we don't fight," the man hissed, eyes narrowing further. "We only bet. And we don't appreciate losing because the two of you think it's all right to cheat."

Another flash of lightning, another loud crack of thunder; but Antony laughed, grinning to show his slowly lengthening fangs. "What, then?" he asked, his tone suddenly the low, seductive one of a vampire. "Do you want to fight us?" He wasn't secreting any pheromones, wasn't even paying any attention to her, but Torryn felt lightheaded for an instant, her eyes on those fangs. Her hand went to her throat, fingers trembling. The wounds had healed before she'd even left his house last night, but the feeling was still there.

She heard a soft chuckle from the wolfish crowd, and she turned to find the amber-eyed man watching her from the back, smiling knowingly. He mocked her with those eyes, with that smile, with the way he watched her. She glared at him, wishing she had some fangs to bare or some fancy eye-color change to show off with. But no. She was just a Progeny. All she had was inside, invisible until she fought.

"Perhaps," the leader said slowly, his angry expression shifting to a contemplative one. "Cheaters should be taught a lesson, after all, and it would be a nice way to make ourselves feel better after all we've lost because of you." He stepped toward the pair, his movements just as slow and thoughtful as his words had been. His eyes flashed amber as his companion's had, but he didn't stop there. In a heartbeat, he was an oversized wolf, his shaggy fur the tawny brown his hair had been. He was roughly half the size of the nearest giant, gas-guzzling SUV and six times more threatening. He bared his fangs at the pair as the rest of his pack followed suit, becoming a menagerie of large wolves in a split second.

For the first time, Antony actually showed a bit of shock. "Now that's just not fair." But the leader snapped at him, not bothering to consider his words. They all rushed forward a moment later, one giant mass of fur and snarls, and Torryn found herself momentarily paralyzed. Wolf-people. Werewolves. They weren't real. They just weren't.

Antony caught her hand and started dragging her along as he ran. She followed, nearly tripping, though she somehow managed to stay on her feet and keep up with his quick pace. He tried to go for his car, but a couple of the wolfmen cut him off. He had no choice but to head for the edge of the parking lot, toward the quiet, vacant street.

"Antony!" Torryn cried only seconds later, a set of claws tearing into her back. She stumbled, nearly fell again, but he didn't let her stop. His hold on her hand tightened further, his speed doubled, and he jerked her right along with him. If she fell, she would be dragged along the ground in his wake, so she had no choice but to force herself to stay on her feet. Her back stung, blood sailing through the air behind her in little ribbons and droplets, but she did matched his pace. She wouldn't fall behind.

Sadly, the werewolves didn't look ready to fall back, either. As wolves, they were naturally faster than a mere living vampire and a half Progeny. How were they managing to stay ahead of them now? Torryn and Antony were moving quickly, but not that quickly. Were the wolves just toying with them? Frightening them and stringing them along until, finally, they could only collapse and suffer more at the wolves' hands?

Another clap of thunder sounded, the accompanying flash of lightning dousing the whole scene with an eerie light. As if things weren't already bad enough, it finally began to rain, and it wasn't just a light misty sprinkle. It started to pour. The good news of this was that it would make seeing a bit harder for the wolves, but that also meant poorer vision for Antony and Torryn as well.

Torryn cried out as a pair of jaws closed around her calf, oversized fangs sinking into her flesh. But Antony tugged her along relentlessly, leaving her to scream again as the teeth were jerked back out of her leg. How did he expect her to keep this up? She was at the back, trailing along behind him where the wolves could easily get her, now with a wounded leg. The wounds weren't deep enough to cause any real damage, but with the constant stinging and pain, her pace was bound to slow. Did he think she was going to be able to keep running for much longer?

"Antony," she said, having to shout to be heard over the rain. Some of it went directly into her mouth, and the following bout of coughing didn't help matters. But he didn't let her slow.

"Just a bit longer," he responded, glancing at her over his shoulder. There was fear in those beautiful eyes. She could see that even through the downpour. "Just a bit longer." Putting her faith in him, she gritted her teeth against the pain and picked up the pace, beginning to run alongside him instead of trailing along behind.

They rounded a corner, cold rain pelting their faces, but they still didn't slow. They could hear barks and growls behind them, sounding very distant beneath the rain, yet their pace didn't slacken. Antony led the way into a narrow alley, a passageway so thin that Torryn had no choice but to fall behind again. They hit a dead end, but that didn't seem to matter. Wolves their size couldn't fit down here; and besides, they'd run past without a thought. The rain had blurred Torryn and Antony's scent trail and their vision so much that they had no idea where their prey had gone to. They were safe. For now, at least.

They were by the dead-end wall, a slight overhang from the surrounding buildings shielding them from the rain. They stood chest to chest, barely inches apart, with their backs to either wall of the alley. She was panting, but he was barely breathing hard. The red of her bra showed through the soaked white fabric of her shirt, but his black shirt gave away nothing. She had her eyes closed as she tried to catch her breath, but he was gazing at her without making a sound. All of this would've been very awkward if she'd been paying attention.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly. When she opened her eyes, she saw that he was frowning, his eyes filled with a very uncharacteristic worry.

"No," she answered simply. Her knees were quivering, her legs about two seconds from giving beneath her; her back and leg stung like a mother; and to top it all off, her shirt was ruined, her jeans completely done for, and the back of her bra torn clean through. Exhaustion was beginning to kick in, and all she wanted to do was collapse. Life sucked at this moment in time.

Gently, he placed his hands on either side of her waist, gazing intently into her eyes. Her expression didn't change, remaining tired instead of showing either a positive or negative reaction. "You aren't used to this much pain, are you?"

"Oh, no," she replied, her voice laced with sarcasm as a slight glare entered her eyes. "I get hurt like this all the time. You know how I am, always getting chased by werewolves."

He sighed, already opening his mouth to utter an equally sarcastic response, but he stopped when her legs finally did give. He managed to tighten his grip on her waist in order to catch her, but not before her wounded back hit the brick wall behind her. She let out a sharp cry and fell forward, into him. She found that she could stand on her own feet again after a moment; and when the spots and black edges tinging her vision finally vanished, she saw that Antony was looking at her again, a frown creasing his brow.

"We need to get to my house," he told her, gradually loosening his hold on her as he decided that she was all right. "But I can't carry you there. We need to make it back to my car."

"Can you carry me there?" she asked, gingerly shifting her weight more to her uninjured leg. Her knees were shaking again, however, and she knew she wouldn't be standing for long on either leg.

"No," he answered, "not in this rain, not without being noticed by passerby or caught by those werewolves. Which is why we need to do something about that pain."

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "What can we do about it here?" she asked, her eyes already darting around the dark alley in search of some solution that she might have missed. When she turned back to him, she saw his teeth lengthening into the fangs that he had long since hidden from view. "Vampire saliva?" she blurted, already panicking. "You're going to bite me? Right here? Right now? Where people could see us?" Memories of their dinner together flooded her mind – his teeth in her neck, his hand on her breast, his fingers beneath her skirt...

"What choice do we have?" he asked, fangs fully lengthened and glistening even in the darkness of the alley. Or maybe that was just her... "Besides, we're less likely to draw attention to ourselves if I'm not carrying you. If we just walk back to my car, no one will even notice the blood through all this rain."

"But Antony..." She trailed off, her heart hammering in her chest, so close to his, and he smirked as he finally realized what the problem was.

"No pheromones," he promised. "No touching, no grabbing, no contact beyond the bite." His smirk grew, and she swore her knees went weaker as he whispered, "For now."

She watched him for a moment, searching his face for any hint of a lie, but she found none. She couldn't argue. "All right," she finally said. "But if anything goes wrong, it's your fault."

"Fair enough." One hand left her waist, gently moving away the sopping wet hair that had been plastered to her neck by the rain. She tilted her head to the side slightly and closed her eyes, the throbbing pain in her back and her leg becoming more obvious as she was given the chance to focus on it.

She shivered when she felt his fangs pierce her neck. They were so sharp that she felt no more than a needle-prick of pain, then nothing as the vampire saliva leaked into her vein. The softest moan escaped her, her head lolling to one side. Already, the stinging of her wounds was becoming a pleasant tingle. She reached around him, her hands sliding slowly over his wet shirt before gripping his shoulders. But then, he was gone, stepping back to study her face.

"Is that enough?" he asked, seeming to barely notice as her hands slowly slid down his back. His breath tickled her nose, laced with the coppery scent of blood.

"Yeah," she nearly groaned. Another soft moan escaped her when she leaned against the wall, the rough brick scratching her wounds. "Perfect."

He cocked an eyebrow at her, a small smirk on his lips, but he didn't comment. "Let's go. Try to act as normally as possible." He started off down the alley, the weight of his hands sliding from her waist, and she had no choice except to follow, a quiet moan escaping her with every step.

A girl could really get used to this kind of pain medicine.