My Guardian Vampire

What had she been listening to?

A seemingly simple question, entering my mind as something innocent and breif.
But there it stayed and bloomed, feeding off of curiosity, anger, and some fear.

And now I was having nightmares.

It kept coming up: the vision of her in the forest that first night, backing away from my brother trying to escape as he invaded her mind.

A bad memory, but that was solved. Nothing torturous.

But then she blasted the ipod...and there I was in my dream, left only to imagine what music had helped save her.

...The music that had kept her alive.

I think one of the things that bothers me the most is that I know it wasn't mine.
Someone else besides me had saved her, and that made me feel...
Insecure, I guess.

Sometimes I think the only reason she is with me is that she feels bad, a pity love because I rescued her.

I don't know where these thoughts come from, but I try to push them out of my head with the fact that we are together, and she would have ran away long ago if it wasn't real.
The thoughts get less and less frequent, but they still persist.

But if I'll take any love from her I can get, why should I care what type of love it is?

Because I want it to be real.

So now I'm sitting here, not sure that if I somehow met the band that saved her, I would be hugging them and thanking them...

Or trying to choke them.

And the thing that probably bothers me the most?
I think I know what band it was.

I feel like if I write it down or say it out loud then it will have been... that band that saved her.
But I have a strong feeling that it was that band from looking at her iPod. I couldn't even look to see if they were there actually, but looking at her other tastes in music... I'd say it's an almost definite thing.

Hell, if she likes my music she would definitely like them.

I know I'm being stupid, but there are some feelings I can't seem to control anymore.
I guess...
I just really don't want to lose her.

(Especially not to them).

I closed my book and sighed, looking up into space. The last of the spring air was giving its final stand against the summer night, trying desperately not to reach above the low 60's. I had been writing in the dark, so used to it by now that my writing without light was as good as it was with it. If I had walked outside the warm city glow would have provided some light to at least see my hands, but...

this was my old place, where the darkness was much more welcoming than the street outside.

I had said that I would only be gone for a few hours,
which was true.
I also said that I was going for a run.
And that was true, too.

But what was probably not as truthful was the way I had said it, like I would just be running around the Point for awhile to cool off.

That part—not so much true...

I had actually run all the way to New York City, a little bit farther than down the street.

Like 200 miles farther...

Sitting in this old abandon warehouse, I couldn't help but grin of the thought of Mikey looking for me around town for some imaginary reason, not having any clue I wasn't even in the same state.

The building was in the outskirts of the city, falling down, ravished by time and druggies.
I had no idea why I had come back to this place, as just the thought of it usually injected fear straight into my spine.

But this is where my feet had taken me, and my feet knew what they wanted:
Some familiar ground.

I was sitting in an old room in the top floor, the windows cracked with the glass littering the room, joining the stained glass of shattered beer bottles. Though the shards were invisible in the dark, I didn't really mind, almost liking the soft crunch they made when I had stepped in here.

I did, however, mind the needles.

I hate needles, and I always have. But it wasn't just that, it was the fact that I hadn't remembered them being there before.

Which meant either that someone was living here now, or that I was too drunk or high to notice them before...

Which was actually a good possibility, remembering (with a shudder) that past life...

I gritted my teeth at the memory.

I then leaned back on my hands, trying to relax. A small piece of glass abruptly sliced my fingertip when I did so, causing a small trace of blood to leak out.

I carefully took out the glass and then stuck my fingertip in my mouth, thoughtfully sucking the blood back in. Usually I wouldn't have bothered, but I was hungrier than usual.

I tried not to eat when Ali was around, because though she said she didn't mind, I could tell it made her a little on edge.
And well... Ali was around a lot.

She did admit that drinking human blood did freak her out slightly, though at first it more looked like it totally unnerved her. But we drank animal blood.
Mostly.

Because though animal blood keeps the hunger away, you can't live off of it forever.

(And that's where Ray saves our "vegetarian" asses).
Ray was the only one of us that had tried to pursue a career other than music, trying to become a doctor, (which didn't work out at all), and then a nurse. When he was a nurse it was better, as he only volunteered for night shifts. But then the band took off, and we had to move more...

And when the band started, we stopped hunting people.

At first, we deemed ourselves as monsters, horrible things, which made us angry.
So we acted like monsters.

But long story short: one day we decided to play music, and it was like nothing we've never heard before.

People began telling us that we helped them, our music was good for them.
We learned that we didn't have to be monsters. We could be good, we still had a purpose in this hell of a world.

So Ray took another job, one more mobile that he does part time: he operates the blood-donating van.

And after a week if not used, the blood is deemed unusable and is thrown away.
So Ray will sneak in a few bags for us, enough to feed but never too much to notice.

Ali knew about this, and was thankfully... ok with it.

Some of the glass from a window made a small tinkling noise as it hit the floor, taking me out of my dream world. I stayed motionless for a while, then realizing I looked like a complete jackass with the finger still in my mouth, I took it out and shook my head at my stupidity.
1) If it had been someone, I could have taken them no problem.
2) It was probably just some stupid rat trying to get the last of the sugar from a beer can, one of many that surely infested this place.

Now convinced I was a complete idiot, I stood up and brushed some glass off my jeans, figuring that I should leave now if I wanted to get home before someone got worried, probably taking me an only hour to get home at my normal running pace.

"Hey buddy!" someone said behind me, both surprising me that I hadn't heard them, and instead of a harsh tone it sounded almost friendly. I turned around and strained to see, putting my arms out to try to find whoever had spoken. I was then suddenly bearhugged from behind with a strength that surprised me.

I tired to break free without hurting the person, and then was scared shitless as I realized I couldn't. I tried to push more forcefully now, probably breaking a normal person's arms. Instead they only held me closer, leaning into my ear and breathing on my neck, causing a strong smell of alcohol to fill my senses. It burned my eyes and nose.

"I'd never thought I'd see your face 'round here," the guy whispered in a low, almost seductive sounding voice.

I suddenly placed the voice with the face.

'Oh, fuck.'

I used all my strength to break free, flashing out of the building, onto the street, and down the road, running faster than lightning on speed.

I felt him running after me, but thankfully I was faster. I heard him laughing as I ran, and I was only sure I had left him in the distance when the laughter ceased.

The laughter echoed in my head all the way home, bouncing around and beating my mind to a pulpy mess.