The Poison in Your Blood

I make it to the stairs and all of the sudden I’m slammed against the wall and Austin has his hand over my mouth.

“Don’t say anything,” he whispers.

I feel fear bubbling in the pit of my stomach. For the first time I realize that Zoe is barking wildly. I nod my head and he lets go of me and I instinctively cling to his body. I get as close to him as I can. “What’s going on?” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer me and even in my terror I’m a little irritated. I have a right to know what’s going on. I live here too and it’s scary that he’s hanging out down stairs in the dark while the dog barks like crazy. I give him a little nudge and he meets my eyes.

“Hush,” he says.

“I want to know what’s going on!”

“Nothing yet,” he says. “The car is back. I’m just waiting to see if they are going to break in.” Something about his voice tells me he’s at least partially lying to me.

“Then why are you telling me to be quiet!”

He looks at me with irritation. “Because if you don’t shut up they aren’t going to break in.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

Zoe is continuing to bark loudly and wildly in the back yard. It’s then that I hear the first sound of a car door slam. My heart starts beating in over drive and I look at Austin with horror. “Tell me what’s going on!”

He puts his fingers through his hair in a hasty maneuver and looks away from me, listening to the sounds, and then he takes hold of my shoulders. I don’t like how tightly he’s holding me but I don’t say anything. “I don’t know yet, Lana,” he says.

“When the fuck are you going to know?!” I cry.

“Shut up,” he says then and the noise comes from the front door. People are at the lock and he pushes me against the wall into the shadow. “Don’t move.”

“What about Anna…” his hand is over my mouth again.

“Shut up.”

I assume he’s serious this time and I close my mouth, my heart beating against my chest as hard as I think it possibly can. I’m actually a little concerned it might beat out of my chest and fly around the room. I know he can hear it and I know he can smell my blood rushing through my body and for a second that scares me because he could snap at any second and I’ll be dead.

Then the front door creaks open and I see a shadow come in through the crack. Its a few seconds before a second figure comes in and I have to force away the scream that’s building up in my throat. Austin still has his hand over my mouth and he turns to look at me. I’m terrified to my core at the horrifying blackness of his eyes. Even in the dark I can see them and what’s worse is the tinge of red in them this time. He puts his index finger up to his lips to show me to keep my mouth shut and I nod frantically against his hand. He releases me and suddenly I’m completely alone.

I can feel my body shaking as the shadows come into the house and look around. They don’t look like typical burglars. No ski masks or anything weird. One is wearing a fedora and a long black trench coat, the other is dressed in a black jacket and pants with his head uncovered. The silence is terrifying and I have to force back tears. What do these people want? Why are they in the house?

I see the moonlight gleam off a silver blade and my heart stops beating in my throat. These people are here to hurt somebody and I don’t know who or why. I haven’t pissed anybody off lately, and I’m about a million percent sure even Jon isn’t this crazy. I’m so afraid and I’m starting to feel nauseous and dizzy. I can’t see Austin anywhere in the darkness all I can see is these two figures standing in the foyer. They whisper something to each other that I don’t understand.

Then my heart goes into overdrive when I hear one mumbled sentence.

“We came to destroy the family, not the monster.”

I literally have to wrap both of my own hands around my mouth before I scream out loud. They came here to hurt me and Anna. They came here to hurt me and Anna and I don’t fucking know why and there is nothing I can do about it. I just have to stand here in the darkness and wait to have my heart cut out or something. My knees are shaking and I’m going to pass out. I carefully pull one hand away from my mouth and hold onto the railing against the wall and try to be sure my sobs are silent. No way in hell I’m going to be able to keep myself from crying.

I see a shadow move like a flash of light across the room and I can see Austin in the corner of the room, hidden behind the bookcase I bought a couple days ago. His eyes meet mine and he puts his finger to his lips again but I can’t nod or anything this time. It’s taking all my strength not to cry and run out of the house screaming.

Why doesn’t he just kill them? Why is he standing in the corner there looking creepy? Why did I come out of our bedroom? Why did I put myself in this situation? Oh my god why did I fall in love with him?

Zoe is barking wildly in the backyard and trying to claw her way into the house.

“Take care of the dog,” says one of the dark figures. The other nods and moves towards the opening that goes to the living room. The bookshelf instantly crashes down in front of the pathway and the bareheaded figure jumps back. The fedora figure looks up at the sound of the crash and in the darkness I can see his lips spread in a gleaming smile.

“Come out, come out, monster,” he says.

Even in my terror that word pisses me off. My boyfriend is not a monster. Monsters are scary things that hide under your fucking bed and pop out of the closets. I grip tighter on the railing on the staircase so not to fly down the stairs and slap that motherfucker.

“You can hide in the shadows like a coward, but I know what you are. I know what you are because of what you’ve done to my daughter! You’ve made her a monster! Come out and show yourself to me!”

I see black dots in my eyes and I take a breath through my nose to try and calm myself. The sound alerts the man in the fedora to the stair case and my heart starts up again. Oh man I’m going to have to get my blood pressure checked if I live through this. His gleaming smile spreads further and he takes a few steps towards the stair case.

“You think you can hide from me? You think the darkness will shield you?” His voice is mocking and he’s obviously gone insane at some point. Madness runs through his voice like a river and pours out in his words laced with poison. He thinks he’s some kind of modern day vampire hunter and I wouldn’t be surprised if the silver blade I saw was a stake.

He comes up the stairs and I’m wondering why Austin hasn’t killed him yet. I’m really starting to wonder if he’s planning on doing that. Once the man with the fedora is close enough I can see that his smile gleams because of a gold tooth in the front of his mouth. His eyes are blazing with insanity and I’m so terrified I’m paralyzed.

“Oh, even better,” he says. “It’s your woman. She smells so sweet. You haven’t made her into a monster like you did my daughter!” the man screams and all of the sudden he’s got a hold on my arm.

My heart beats so fast I can only hear it in my ears and I scream so loudly I’ve probably woken the neighbors. But the neighbors don’t call the police; I’ve woken up screaming from nightmares before.

“Shut up!” the man shouts and slams my body against the wall, the railing crashes into my back and I shriek in pain. “You, boy! Go up stairs and get the girl!” he shouts to the other figure.

“Yes, papa,” the other figure says and starts towards the stairs. I feel a blast of air pass me but I don’t see anything until the young man gets to the stairs. I would scream again but the fedora man has his hand over my mouth. He’s pressing bruises into my cheeks and I want desperately to bite him but he’s got his hand placed so tightly I can’t move my mouth.

“Get her and bring her down here! I want the monster to see! I want it to watch its family be destroyed like mine was!”

Okay, not I’m ticked off. He’s a man not an “it”! I use all my strength to get out of fedora man’s grip and I punch him in the jaw. He gives me a grin before he spits out a tooth. I feel kind of proud, even though I’m sure all my knuckles are broken.

“Oh, we’ve got a fighter,” he says in a mocking tone. “Tell me, princess. Don’t you fear the monster will tear you apart?”

“He’s not a monster,” I spit. The man laughs and I could easily tear his throat out myself accept his got a hold of me again and he’s breaking my wrist with his grip.

“I don’t think I’m going to wait for the girl to come down. I’m going to be rid of you right now,” he says and I feel the point of his blade on my throat. Then suddenly his attention turns away from me at the sound of a shriek and that awful sound of flesh being torn open. A few seconds later the body of the boy tumbles down the stairs and lands on the floor in a heap. Fedora man’s face changes to an expression of horror and he rushes down the stairs, dragging me with him and falls to his knees at the boys side. I nearly vomit at the sight of the boy on the floor. His throat is torn completely open though almost no blood is coming out. He isn’t dead, and he’s gasping and gurgling on blood. His father takes his hand in his and I can see how tightly he’s holding on. Oh man I’m going to die after this.

I know now that the blast of air I felt was Austin going up the stairs. He was going to protect Anna, and I know he’s going to get down here to help me but I’m pretty sure I’ll be long dead before he ever makes it.

The boy opens his mouth weakly and a little stream of blood comes out of his lips. His father holds tighter onto his hand.

“Don’t talk boy, just close your eyes and be with your mother now,” he says. It’s only one more gurgling attempt at breath and the body is still and the eyes glazed over. The man kisses the hand he was holding and presses the eyes closed before standing abruptly and he pulls me around so hard I can feel my shoulder dislocate and I scream.

“You! You’re going to pay for this!” he screams in my face. It’s then for the first time I hear a deep growl. The man turns around slowly and pulls me forward by my injured arm. I yelp again and then I’m washed over with relief. Austin is standing on the stairs, his eyes are blazing with that horrifying red color and he has he lips pulls back to reveal his fangs. God if he wasn’t so terrifying I’d run to him and kiss him on his lips. But for the first time ever in my time knowing him he really truly looks like the kind of thing you only see in your darkest nightmares.

“Let her go,” he says.

“My daughter was only 15,” the man says and tightens his grip on my wrist. God it hurts so bad I feel tears filling my eyes. “She came home a monster with black eyes and thirst for blood. She killed her mother! Now she’s trapped, locked in a cage no beast can break out of. Weak and starving because I can’t let her be free to feed! You did this to her! Now I’m going to make you see what it’s like to lose everything you hold dear!”

“I said, let her go,” Austin says in a growling voice that leaves me shaking despite knowing he’s going to save me.

“I won’t let her go until she’s dead!” the man shouts and suddenly my wrist is freed and the man is slammed against the railing hard enough to break it. “You don’t scare me, monster! I cannot fear something without a beating heart!”

“You should be afraid,” Austin says.

“Your kind brings death too quickly. I do not fear death,” he says. “I should have known a monster would let his woman suffer so much. How can a creature without a heart love a woman?”

“Soon you will know,” Austin says and pushes the man against the wall. He’s eye level with the intruders chest, and the fedora falls to the ground. I feel my stomach do a flip when he bites into the man’s chest and tears off a portion of his flesh. But that’s nothing compared to what happens next. He drops him back onto his feet and holds him down with one hand around his throat and I feel the vomit rise up my throat, the sour sweet taste of half digested orange chicken fills my mouth, and he thrusts his hand into the open wound on the fedora man’s chest. There is a shriek of pain followed by the sound of slopping squishing blood and he literally tears his heart from his chest. You’d think the fedora man would be dead now, he should have died but he’s still alive, still struggling to get out of Austin’s grip.

“Don’t leave me like this…” the man begs then. “Do not make me into the monster.”

“You made yourself a monster,” he says and tears into his throat. I turn around and vomit violently on the carpet until my stomach is completely empty and I only feel Austin’s hands on my shoulders before I finally pass out.

I wake up in bed and my shoulder has been popped back into place. I’ve got a killer headache and my mouth tastes awful. I look around the room and my eyes land on Austin. He’s cleaned himself up and he’s sitting next to me on the bed.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I scan my brain for how to form words and finally I open my mouth. “What the hell do you think!?” I scream then.

“Oh thank god you’re not in shock,” he says.

“You let him get his hands on me! You let him pull my arm out of its fucking socket! He almost killed me! Oh my god he almost killed me!” I scream and all the memories flood back to my mind. “How could you let him…?”

“Lana, Lana! Calm down!” he says and pulls me against his chest. “It wasn’t my intention to let you get hurt,” he says. “I had to get rid of the weaker link first. There were two of them, and had I let him get Annalise he’d have killed her when he found out his father was dead.”

“Why didn’t you kill them both when they first came in the house!?”

“Lana! I did the best I could. There were two men in here set on torturing you and your sister to death. I couldn’t take them both on at once, I’m fast but not when I have to take the time to kill somebody.”

“You…oh my god…you tore out his heart…it was so…” I’m lost for words and I’m rambling irrationally.

“Lana…I was so worried about you when I was up here. I know you can handle your own, but that guy was out of his fucking mind. I was terrified I’d get back down the stairs and you’d have a knife in your throat. By the time I got my hands on him I wasn’t going to make it easy. He wasn’t going to pass out before he knew how much it hurt.”

I shudder at the thought but I don’t protest. “Honestly…I was ready to rip his heart out myself.” I don’t add that it was especially after he insisted on referring to Austin as a monster and an “it”. He might not be human but he isn’t an “it”. “Are the bodies gone?”

“Long gone, and the downstairs is cleaned up so you’d never know somebody had their heart ripped out. I’ll have to have somebody come and fix the railing on the stairs once your bruises clear up.”

Its then that I realize how much pain I’m not in. I should be in horrible pain. I look myself over and see that my hand is wrapped in some ace bandages and my arm feels strange and there is a dull ache. “Why doesn’t it hurt?”

“I um…you kind of woke up about an hour ago, and I managed to get a couple Vicodins into you before you passed out again.”

“Christ! You aren’t supposed to be messing with that shit!” I say and I suddenly feel like some kind of over bearing mother.

“You were in a lot of pain, Lana. You broke your hand punching him in the face. You knocked his teeth out. I had to get you something.”

“Were you out making illegal drug deals?” I ask with horror.

“I only got two, for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get you to a doctor and they can give you something else,” he says. I feel horribly guilty now because I put him in that situation with my stupid human pain.

“I can’t…this can’t happen again…” I say then.

“It won’t,” he says. “I’m not going to let anything hurt you again.”

“No…” I say. “You don’t understand what I’m saying.”

“Are you leaving? I’d understand…it would hurt but I’d…”

“Oh my god! I’m never leaving you! I love you!” I say. The very thought of my leaving him is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.

“Then I don’t understand, if you aren’t leaving and you…”

“I don’t want to be in that position again, Austin. Where I’m completely defenseless, and you have to worry about if I’m going to live through it,” I say. His eyes narrow as realization sets in.

“No, Lana,” he says.

“Yes! I know, it’s a big thing…and I know you think I’m just talking because I’m scared from what happened tonight and…”

“The answer is no, Lana!”

“It isn’t a question!”

“You can’t seriously be asking me to…”

“I want you to turn me.” My voice is firm and unwavering and I’ve made up my mind this time. There isn’t anything going to change it.