I Hope They Taste of Me Forever

That wasn’t the last time I saw Travie. He came back every Sunday night since then, just to ‘check up’ on me. When he came, we’d just sit and talk. Sometimes we wouldn’t even talk. We’d just… be. We weren’t friends. We were, as Travis had put it, in-betweens. He had stopped flirting with me, thankfully. It just creeped me out a bit when he did, knowing that he was so much more powerful than I was and he could easily kill or hurt me whenever he wanted. Matt didn’t know about Travie’s regular visits, obviously. He would have tried to stake him first chance he got. I had considered that Travis might have just been luring me into a false sense of security so he could kidnap me later, but nothing ever happened. Not until a month after our last run-in with the Dandies.

Matt was hunting, as usual, and I tagged along behind him as the extra precaution. We defeated a few small street groups consisting of three vampires on average. It was a Sunday night and weird as it sounds, I couldn’t wait to get back home and see Travie. Wemay not have been friends, but I still enjoyed his visits. He was the only one I could talk to. I couldn’t talk to Matt, because he couldn’t care less and would just tell me to shut up and stop being such a kid. Well that’s what I was. Anyway, Travis would listen to me. I could tell him anything and he’d answer my questions and he’d tell me the facts. He didn’t really try to comfort me when I cried, but he told me truths that made me feel better. I knew he was careful with what he said and did around me. He’d had a few slip-ups, but when I asked him what he meant he’d snap shut like a clam protecting it’s pearl.

Regardless of everything, I liked having someone to talk to. Someone to keep me company. Someone who treated me with respect, and not like a child or a pin in their side… although now that I think about it a pin probably couldn’t hurt a vampire anyway… maybe that’s why he had so much tolerance for me… Anyway, as I was walking and waiting until we could go home and I could see Travie, I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t see him again. Not for a pretty long time, and never under the same circumstances. That night, everything changed. We should’ve known that something like this would happen sooner or later.

To answer your questions, yes, of course involved vampires.

And yes, it did involve the Dandy clan.

And yes, it did involve their leader.

Matt and I turned a corner into a deserted street. Usually this wouldn’t have bothered us, but it was a big street. A main road. And it was entirely empty.Or so it appeared. Immediately, we became wary as we walked.

You know what tactic I hate? The circling-your-victim tactic. You know, when the evil, nasty vampires wait until the hunter and his pathetic sister are in the very middle of the deserted road before appearing out of seemingly nowhere and surrounding them. Guess what? That’s exactly what happened.

The dandy vampires were once again dressed in their stupid suits that they wear, even though they know it’s just something else for their enemies to mock. I knew immediately that we didn’t stand a chance. We were lucky to get away from the five dandies the month before, and Matt only killed one of them. This time there were twenty to twenty-five of them, all fully skilled and trained, but I didn’t think for a second that Matt wouldn’t try.

Matt threw himself at the first one he could, brandishing the stake and looking like a crazy psycho murderer. The vampire defended himself and fought back, but none of the other dandies moved. They just watched their companion being destroyed and Matt started on another.

After around fifteen minutes, Matt had finished off only three of them when all the other dandies stiffened. All of their heads turned away from Matt for the first time all night and looked in another direction. I just stood there and followed their gaze. The Dandies all moved apart to clear a pathway for another Dandy, who swiftly and smoothly leapt from the top of the car he’d been perched on, watching the whole thing. He was even more absurdly dressed than the rest of them. He wore a brown suit and lighter brown bowler hat and some sort of disgusting dead animal thing worn as a fur scarf thing slung over his shoulder. His brown eyes caught mine and he smiled wickedly, showing his gleaming white fangs. He had untamed shoulder length brown hair and a pleasant face, but his charm didn’t fool me.

This was, without a doubt, the leader of the Dandies. The most dangerous, cunning vampire in the country.

As he walked through the gap cleared for him and joined me in the circle of around a 5 meter radius in the middle of all the vampires, I saw that two Dandies followed him a meter or so behind, one to his left and the other to his right. One had short brown hair under a white bowler hat, was dressed in a bluey-green pinstripe suit, and was rather short compared to the leader. The other was taller and had shoulder length brown hair like the leader although it was fashioned differently and his face wasn’t as attractive as the leaders, although it was still pleasant. He wore a white suit and a beige coloured hat.

'Beige? What kind of guy wears beige? Maybe he’s gay…'

I swear the guy shot me a dirty look as I thought that, but dismissed it. All this time with vampires was getting to my head…

Matt was now at my side, and the clearing we stood in grew a little bigger. The leader smirked a little. 'God I hate these arrogant bitches…' His smirk grew a little bigger and he stopped walking, the two behind him doing the same.

“Hello,” the leader spoke to us in a voice smooth as velvet. 'This guy was good.' “I’m William Beckett, leader of the Dandies. This is Brendon Urie and Michael Carden, and we will be your captors for this evening.”

I turned around and noticed that all the other dandies were gone. There were now only three standing in front of us. 'What a conceited little…' William Beckett raised an eyebrow at me as if daring me to finish my thought. But that was crazy. I was safe inside my own head.

“Captors, huh?” Matt asked gruffly.

“Yes, captors,” William answered, a patient look on his face. “It means we are going to take you back with us whether you want us to or not,” he explained as if he were talking to a two year old.

“I know what it fucking means,” Matt snarled, infuriated. “But we’re not going anywhere with you.”

“Oh I think you’ll find you are,” Beckett answered, inspecting his nails.

He didn’t even look up from his hand as Matt lunged at Brendon and Brendon easily stepped out of the way and held Matt’s arms behind him similarly to how Aiden had held mine. My shoulder still hadn’t healed, in case anyone wants to know. Mike swiftly walked over to my brother and started disarming him, removing all the stakes from his belt and all the holy water from his pockets, and every other weapon that I didn’t even know he had including a small crossbow.

Rather randomly, I decided that I didn’t like these vampire’s first names. I think I’ll stick with their last names. I know, I’m weird. Who else would be thinking about names in a situation like this?

“Now, Elle,” Beckett turned his attention from his nails to me. I was frozen to the spot. I couldn’t move. Even as he walked up to me and twisted my hair around his finger, I didn’t move a muscle.

“It’s Miss Williams,” I hissed. Another smirk crossed his features.

“Miss Williams, then. We’ll be on first name terms soon enough. Now, would you like to walk with me or should I have Mike carry you like a child? And just so you know, Mike doesn’t handle children very well.”

I glanced towards Carden who was staring at me indifferently, but I’d already made up my mind. There was no way I was walking with Beckett. I childishly sat myself down in the middle of the street and crossed my arms, looking away from all the vampires. Beckett sighed.

“So be it,”

He inclined his head towards me and I felt myself jerk upwards as two inhumanly strong arms grabbed my waist and slung me over the shoulder of their owner. I knew who it was, of course. Carden. I didn’t know whether Matt was happy that I declined Beckett’s offer or not, because when I looked around for him he and Urie were gone. I could see Beckett running ahead of Carden and I, and soon he was out of my sight. I knew I could kick and scream and scratch and be annoying, but I also knew that it would do me no good and be even more uncomfortable. Carden didn’t say anything and neither did I. He didn’t seem to enjoy the task of babysitting/kidnapping me, which made me happy that I’d pissed him off slightly, but he didn’t look like he was intending on letting go of me any time soon.

The journey was silent and rough. The wind was whipping my face and hair around as Carden ran supernaturally fast. At first I had tried to watch where we were going, but gave up when I realized all I was achieving was making my eyes burn.

After around twenty minutes we reached the place. I called it ‘The Dandy Mansion’, although I probably wasn’t the first to come up with that name for it seeing as it's completely unoriginal. I caught a few glimpses of highly decorated rooms complete with chandeliers and velvet carpets as I was rushed through the mansion, but did I get locked in a fancy room? No. I got locked in the dungeons. By dungeons, I do actually mean cold, grey, stone walls, thick iron cells, and no windows. Carden locked me by my wrists to chains connected to the wall and left, not saying a word.

'What a friendly guy…' I thought sarcastically.

I looked frantically around for any sign of my brother, but I couldn’t see him. The only light was a single moon beam squeezing its way through a gap in the wall above me, falling over the hard stone ground and the lock of my cell.

Most people in my situation would probably scream. Or cry. Or try to escape. I guess I’m not like most people. Instead I just hung my head and tried to sleep.

Let me ask you a question; have you ever tried to sleep when you’re hanging by your wrists from a cold, damp, stone cell wall?

Don’t.