Fallen

“All this time, you didn’t give a fuck.”
I wanted to scream “I DO! I DO” but I knew he’d never believe me. I loved him, I loved him so much…

Poison
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Walking home alone always scared me. I couldn’t wait to get to the mall and go to Hot Topic – since Merder had left.
Evangelina was working now, so I decided to pay her a visit, and be the first to tell her the good news. “Hi, Evange, guess what? I’m going to be married!”

Or something like that. I entertained myself imagining her expression.

I rode up the escalator, and immediately caught sight of my favorite store.

“Eva—”

Cold fingers flew over my mouth.

“Don’t scream. It will be so much easier for you if you don’t,” the vampiric voice purred in my ear.

I couldn’t make a sound. Passerby didn’t seem to notice.

David burst through the ceiling in a matter of seconds, much faster than human eyes were willing to move. A shatter of glass, and we were gone.

I struggled in the air, fighting for freedom. Bones could heal. Blood could be regenerated. I’d go to heaven and Dante would follow me if I didn’t make it. But if he turned me into a vampire…

“Why are you doing this?” I screamed in midair.

He didn’t answer. We landed on the hill where I was to be buried…the place Shadows had breathed my soul back into my body…

“Why are we here?” I asked, hoping for an answer, any answer.

“You’ll see.” David pulled out a small blade. Still holding onto me, he slowly drew it across my arm.

I clenched my teeth and tried not to scream, but the pain was biting and digging into me, and I felt a trickle of blood slide down to my wrists.

“Stop,” I gasped. “Stop!”

David ignored me and moved up again, letting the blood flow freely. He dipped his fingers in my blood and tasted it, closing his eyes. “What a pity I can’t drink it directly.”

He chuckled. “No…Matt will want to give you the bite himself.”

“Matt’s…alive?”

David put a finger to my lips. “Not a word to your boyfriend. But if you value your life, you’d scream for him…”

He plunged the knife into my arm again, and a fresh wave of pain coursed through my body.

This time, I couldn’t help it – I screamed, loudly.

We had only a few moments to wait before Dante arrived, his pearly white wings bursting with light. As he always was when I was in this position, he seemed extremely angry.

“For the third time, vampiric bastards…Grace is mine.”

“Where’s Matt?” I asked, through gritted teeth. The knife was still embedded in my arm. David ignored me.

“So, angel, are you ready to fight, or were you going to sing a song first?”

Dante folded his arms.

“Or better yet,” David hissed, “maybe you should pray.”

Instead of replying Dante punched him hard in the face. It was strange, seeing a tall boy like David being taken down by a boy so much shorter. Not that Dante was short – if he was short, I was …dwarf-size.

David quickly recovered and started biting him. I noticed that vampires liked to do that…whether to draw blood or to spill it.
The two drew their swords and immediately I heard clashing. They were really going at it. Well…there wasn’t much I could do. No holy water to throw over them this time. There wasn’t a way to get to Dante’s pocket without risking great physical harm – or even more physical harm.

I winced as I pulled the blade out of my flesh. “I’m still alive,” I muttered. “That’s good.”

“Indeed.”

As I turned around, I saw a horrifyingly familiar grin…

“Matt…”

Matt’s face was burned and scarred, as if the holy water were a corrosive acid that had eaten away his flesh. Snaking out from under his sleeves were more burn marks.
He looked as though he’d been burning alive at the stake and at the last minute someone had changed their minds and saved him.

“Sexy, isn’t it?” Matt asked calmly. “Yeah, you really would make a good vampire, Grace. You’ve got the fire for it. I always thought of you as a weak little girl, but I guess there’s more to you than I expected.” He paused, and amended, “a cute, weak little girl.”

“What do you want?” I asked, trying to get to the point. Dante looked like he was winning the fight with David, but I didn’t like sitting on the sidelines.

“Well…” He grabbed me. In an instant, I was captive again. “I think we both know I want you.”

“Sorry, taken.”

“Sucks for him. But don’t worry, once you’re a vampire, he won’t want you anymore.” Matt flew off with me, crying out for Dante, but knowing he was too preoccupied to hear me.

“The last two times, I didn’t take advantage of David,” Matt told me, as calmly as if he were discussing the different flavors of jelly. “But this time, this time he served as a good distraction. Now I don’t have to worry about him while I’m biting you.”

“I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why? Why me? You could have any other girl in the world, you could have Merder, you could date beautiful girls, why me?”

Matt looked at me for a long time. “Because…because from the moment I saw you I knew you were different. You …”

He seemed to be struggling to find the words. I watched helplessly.

“Never mind. I just knew. I knew you were the one.” Matt pulled me close to him. Oh, one could easily get sick of boys forcing kisses on them. But this time, Matt wasn’t kissing me. His lips moved for my neck.

“Dante…I love you…I always will,” I murmured, before his fangs pierced the skin of my neck.

Cold…I felt them, digging into me like icicles.

The last thing I remember was screaming NO.

Xxx

You’re right. I don’t give a fuck. I never gave a fuck.
“Shadows,” I heard myself say.
I was lying. I never loved you. Lies. Lies. And you believed them.
“What lies?” I whispered.
I hate you, I hate everything about you. Why don’t you come out and say it, you never loved me either. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking.
I tried to say ‘I always loved you’ but I couldn’t. “SHADOWS, YOU BASTARD!” I screamed instead. “I’m going to kill you!”

Xxx

Power. Coursing through me. No longer Grace Locke. I was Grace Locked. It gave me a sort of high, thinking of ways to kill Shadows. That damn angel. I licked my new fangs with a sense of responsibility. I would kill him, kill him, and take his soul so deep into hell not even Satan himself would be able to find him.

I felt him. His aura…

“Grace?”

I started to laugh.

Shadow’s POV

Her laugh was maniacal. It wasn’t the laugh I loved so much. I knew Grace’s laugh. This wasn’t her laugh. This…wasn’t Grace. Shadows fell to his knees. “Oh, God.” He bent. “God, why did you let this happen?”

“Praying, little angel?” Grace said softly, walking over to me, in hellish boots. Her batwings were folded behind her, black as the foulest sin. “Praying for help?”

“Why would I need help…Grace?” Shadows muttered, letting his eyes rest upon the monster he once knew as Grace Locke.
“I’m not Grace Locke, Mr. Shadows,” the vampire hissed. “I’m Miss Locked.”

“What’s going through your mind?” Shadows whispered, his heart hammering. Disgust. He didn’t want to touch her. That …thing. She was repulsive to him. “Don’t you remember loving me at all? Try to remember how that felt…We were going to get married, Grace.”

“Hell no,” snapped Locked. “I never loved you. We’re over, Mr—”

Despite his desperate urge to fight, despite his craving to tear her skin off, Shadows grabbed her and kissed her cold lips. Colder than when she’d been dead. As cold as Matt’s horrible vampire nails on his skin. The vampire’s chill.

Locked fought and kicked. “Get your hands off me,” she seethed, pulling away.

Shadows backed away, glad to be out of her presence. “It really is happening,” he growled. “All this time, you didn’t give a fuck.” But as he spoke, her eyes changed from the cold black into the quiet, serene light brown he’d once cherished.

“Oh, please,” Grace pleaded, her wings fading away to nothing. “You’ve got to help me, Dante. I can’t – I can’t stand to be around you, but I can’t live without you, please, I need you – ” She ran to him and hugged him.

Xxx

Grace felt herself being torn from Dante’s warmth, back into the terrifying winter chill. Shadows looked utterly repulsed by her.

“Don’t touch me,” he spat.

Xxx

After a moment, the black wings started to reappear on Grace’s back, and Shadow’s eyes began to clear…and they both longed for and hated each other at the same time.

Grace ground her teeth in agony as she grasped Shadow’s hand. Shadows seemed to be resisting the impulse to jerk his hand away.

“I love you,” Grace cried, as though it pained her to say it.

Through clenched teeth, Shadows replied, “I love you, too.”

They kissed, and it seemed to take all their strength for them to touch…

Xxx
“How?!” Matt screamed, walking in on them. “How the hell do you still love him?”

As if a spell had been broken, the two tore free of each other and glared intensely.

“I don’t love him,” Locked sneered.

Somewhere inside, Shadows felt his heart breaking.

“And you’re disgusting,” came his response, and he meant it.

Locked sidled up to Matt. “Matt, baby, that was a goodbye kiss,” she clarified sweetly, taking his hand.

Matt didn’t look satisfied. “Then I’ll let you kill him.”

“With pleasure,” the vampire said, pulling out an ebony blade. “I’ll wet this sword with his blood…”