Give Me Envy, Give Me Malice, Give Me Your Attention

Thump thump thump.

Travis repeatedly knocked on the door to Ryan’s room, like he had been doing for the past three minutes.

“Ross, I swear, if you don’t open this bloody door I will break it down!”

There was no reply.

“Ryan!”

Still no reply.

“Okay, that’s it!”

As easily as if it were made of cardboard, Travis broke the two-inch thick wooden door down. He stomped into the room with an angry look on his face, only to realize that it was vacant. He looked back at the splinters of wood all over the ground guiltily as he ran out of the room, his vampire eyes working to scour the whole mansion for Ryan. After double checking every room on every floor, his distress began to grow. 'Where is he?'

“Travis!”

Someone called his name and his eyes returned to their usual dark colour as they saw the source of the voice.

“Hey Brendon. Have you seen Ryan? I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Damn. I was going to ask you the same thing. I haven’t seen him for days now. Well, I saw him in his room earlier, but he wouldn’t speak to me and he’s been really careful with his thoughts lately. Have you got any idea what’s up with him?”

“No,” Travis lied.

“Okay then… hey, what’s that?”

Travis turned around quickly to see Ryan’s broken door fall to the ground with a lound thud. He turned back to Brendon and gave him a sheepish smile.

“Guilty. I really need to find him.”

“Okay, well I’ll tell you if I find him.”

“Thanks man.”

Travis watched Brendon retreat and swore to himself. 'Where the hell is he? He hasn’t gone hunting, because I’ve kept an eye on all the exits all night, but he’s not in the mansion...' Crap.

“Hey Travie, you okay man?”

'Great.' Travis thought. 'Someone else that’s not Ryan.'

Spencer Smith’s head was poking out from behind his door in the corridor, obviously having heard Travie’slittle string of swear words.

“Hi Spencer. I’m fine. Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Spencer raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Sure. That’s why you broke down that door.”

“Look, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now,” Travis snapped. “So unless you know where Ryan is…”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Spencer interrupted, still a little taken aback by Travis’ impatient manner.

“Really?” Travis looked at him hopefully.

“Yeah. I’ve known him since we were kids, remember? And I think I saw him head towards the stairwell earlier anyway…”

“Yeah yeah, okay, where is he?”

“I think he’s up in that secret room in the roof.”

“Secret room?”

“Crap. Ugh, thanks to me I guess it’s not so secret anymore...” Spencer hit himself on the head with his palm. “Not long after we were turned, Ryan, Brendon, and me found this secret room in the roof of the mansion. We were running from something – I can’t remember what anymore – and we ran right into the wall. Literally, we ran into the wall. There was a small spiral staircase that led up to this little room in the roof, and there’s this one board thing that we can move and the moonlight comes in and…”

“Yeah, great,” Travie cut him off. “You should be a real estate agent, but I have something really important I need to tell him, so if you could…”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Spencer mumbled, looking at his feet.

“And why the fuck not?” Travis growled.

“I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it. I don’t even think Beckett knows, and they’ll be really pissed off at me if they find out I told you…”

“God, Spencer, this is important!” Travis was mad now, and was lifting Spencer from the ground by the front of his ruffled shirt. “You know how he’s been acting even worse lately, just when we thought he was getting better? Well I need to tell him something that might fix that. So stop protecting your little cubby house and tell me which wall I have to walk through!”

“Fine!” said an agitated Spencer, shoving Travis away from him. “Follow me.”

Travis did so without speaking, and Spencer was very tempted to make him run into the wrong wall, but knew better than to mess with someone as tall and naturally strong as Travis McCoy. When they reached the wall on the third floor, Spencer pointed at it and told him to run or it wouldn’t work. Travis was hesitant at first, but did as he was told and ran at the wall. Sure enough, he found himself in a very thin stairwell, but he didn’t stop to take in the rather grim and grey surroundings. He ran up the stairs as fast as he could, which was pretty damn fast, and reached the room in seconds. Sure enough, there was Mr. Ross, sitting by himself, eyes closed. His eyes flicked open, however, as soon as he heard Travis’ entrance.

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” Travis answered.

“How did you get here?”

“That’s not important. What is important is what Anna told me.”

Ryan didn’t reply for a few seconds, unsure of what to say, but then he made up his mind.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea I know what she said.”

“I think you should.”

Ryan paused, but then sighed in defeat. “Fine.”

“She loves you.”

“What?”

“She loves you.”

“No she doesn’t.”

“Yes she does.”

“Oh really?” Ryan was getting irritated at Travis’ lies. “Then why has she been crying in her room for the past four days?”

“She hates herself.”

“Fantastic. This makes me feel so much better.”

“She hates herself because she wants to love you but part of her won’t let go of Beckett. She doesn’t want to let herself be with you because she thinks you deserve someone more than her, someone who can love you completely.”

Ryan couldn’t think of an answer; Travie’s sentence just kept replaying in his mind.

“Look, I know you’re confused too, but you know that whatever happens, you guys need to sort this out. I don’t want to see either of you live these miserable lives without each other.”

Before Ryan had a chance to reply, Travis had disappeared.

'She loves me. She wants to love me. There’s a difference. Isn’t there?'

***

Later that night, Ryan went out hunting. Alone. It had been a while since he’d been hunting by himself. He pushed his way into a small bar, and immediately regretted it. This was the same bar they went to the first night he met Anna. He remembered making her feel better when she was frightened by the way Chiz was acting. He remembered both of them feeding from the whore woman. He remembered holding her when he walked her to her room that night.

He shook these thoughts from his head as he took a seat at the bar counter and shook his head when the bar tender asked him what he wanted. He wished he could have ordered the strongest drink they had, but as well as the fact that anything other than blood tastes like ash to vampires, alcohol can’t numb the dead. All it can do is make you drunk and make you do things you'll regret. Sometimes being a vampire sucked. Oh ha ha. Sarcastic laugh, anyone?

Ryan’s eyes swept the bar and landed on a group of five pretty human girls. He focused his attention on one of them; a pretty blonde with bright blue eyes and a tanned complexion. She wasn’t a slut, but the clothes she wore weren’t exactly of the most conservative nature. As he stared at her, he noticed one of her friends point in his direction and start giggling. The blonde flicked her head around and looked at him. She smiled flirtatiously, showing two perfect rows of unnaturally white teeth. Ryan took notice of the fact that she didn’t have fangs. She was normal. She didn’t even know that vampires existed. She turned her attention back to her friends, who kept throwing him glances occasionally.

“Hey can I get, um, a vodka, please?”

Ryan turned his head to look at the man beside him that had just ordered a drink. He recognized him… and in a second he remembered where from. His fists clenched in unnecessary anger as he remembered all those months ago when this guy offered Anna a drink. Back when Anna was human, and completely out of his reach. Anna… Anna… Anna…

“Do I know you?” the guy asked cautiously.

Crap! Ryan had been staring at him. Can you say awkward? Ryan shook his head and unclenched his fists, turning back to the blonde girl on the other side of the bar. He needed blood. And he needed it now. He would have drank from the guy that spoke to Anna, but he wanted female blood. Sweet blood. Anything to get his mind off the girl back in the mansion.

He quickly crept up behind the blonde. Her friends hadn’t even noticed him yet.

“Hi,” he whispered in her ear. She turned around to look at him and giggled.

“Hey.”

“I’m Ryan.”

“Callie,” she answered in a high, shrill voice.

“What do you say we get out of here and go somewhere less crowded?” he turned on his charm and could hear his voice sound smoother. He could see the hesitation in her eyes; she wasn’t stupid, but he knew he’d win in the end. A human can’t resist a vampire.

“Okay,” she breathed as their eyes made contact.

Ryan took her hand and led her outside. They walked for a few minutes in silence, still holding hands. Callie was smiling to herself, and Ryan was looking for some alley. His thirst kept growing, and he couldn’t contain it much longer.

“Ryan?!”

He snapped his head up to look at the source of the voice. It wasn’t Callie, it came from further up ahead. He groaned inwardly and looked up at Travis. Travis looked down at something and looked back up to Ryan. His eyes were hurt and unbelieving. Ryan glanced down and realized why. He quickly snatched his hand away from Callie’s, who was looking at him confused.

“No, Travie, it’s not what it…”

“How could… after everything I told you earlier…” Travis cut him off in a whisper.

“No, I swear, it’s not like that…”

“Ryan?” Callie asked. “What’s going on ?”

“It’s nothing,” Ryan answered her.

“It’s something,” Travis snarled.

“Are you, like, gay or something?” she asked, but neither Ryan or Travis were listening to her anymore.

“She loves you, I know she does, but…” Travis started again.

“No, Travis, we’re not…” Ryan tried again, losing his patience.

“And you told me you were in love with her! How could you do this?"

“I’M JUST THIRSTY, OKAY!?” Ryan yelled.

“Oh,” Travis muttered.

“Huh?” Callie asked.

“Sorry,” Travie murmured. “I thought…”

“I know. I’ll see you later.”

And with that Ryan grabbed Callie’s arm and they continued walking forwards, passing Travis on their way.

“Ryan, what was all that about?” Callie asked.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. My friend was just… mistaken.”

“What did you mean by thirsty?”

“Look, I’m sorry you had to be there for that. It’s just nothing.”

“… okay,” Callie muttered, sounding completely unconvinced.

After what seemed like forever, although it was only a few minutes, Ryan spotted an alley and turned into it, Callie in tow.

“Ryan, what…?” But she was soon silenced by fangs to her neck.

Her body went limp and Ryan closed his lips over the two small holes in her neck and sucked, waiting for the high of the blood to take him. The blood spilled into his lips as usual, but something was wrong. It didn’t taste right. It didn’t taste the way blood is meant to taste to vampires. It tasted the way it would taste if he were human again; metallic and sour. Ryan pulled away and looked down at the body. He didn’t get it. She was pretty, right? She wasn’t a bad person as far as he picked up, yet her blood tasted disgusting. Reluctantly, he lowered his lips once again to her cold skin and drank the disgusting liquid. He didn’t want to, but if he didn’t Callie would become a vampire and that’s the last thing he needed right now. Once he had drained her of enough blood, he discarded her body carefully and slowly trudged back to the dandy mansion.

Once he reached the front doors, he looked up at the towering house above him. He ran his long fingers through his hair as if it would relieve him of the stress. Clearly it didn’t work. He let his eyes glow as he briefly looked through the house structure in the direction of Anna’s room. She was sleeping, but still looked as messed up as she did when he looked at her last.

As he watched her breathe in and out, from habit more than need for air, he knew. He had to talk to her. He loved her.