No matter how hard her mother shook her Rebecca Cross would not wake up the next morning. Her mother went to feel for a pulse but retracted her hand once she felt how cold her daughter's skin was. With a shrill cry, she woke everyone in the house.
“Mom! What’s wrong!” Nathan ran in.
“She’s not waking up!” her mom sobbed.
He ran over to Rebecca and shook her.
He took in her strange sleeping position, she was laying flat on her back, something she never did. She was the type of girl to lay on her stomach. Her arms were crossed on her chest, and she was just the picture of death itself.
“Rebecca!” Nathan shouted.
“Is she…” Abby trailed off.
The whole family grew deathly silent.
“No,” he father said in determination.
He strode over to his daughter and felt for a pulse. There was one, it was weak but it was there. He looked to her chest and saw it rising and falling softly.
“No, she’s alive. Come on.” He picked Rebecca up and carried her out of the room.
The family followed him to the bathroom and watched as he laid her in the tub. Then he turned the water on scolding hot to try and get some warmth and color back into his daughter. In a few seconds, Rebecca shot forward.
“Shh, we got you.” Her dad soothed her as she gasped around like a panicked fish.
“What’s happening? What are you doing?” Rebecca asked.
“You wouldn’t wake up.” Her mother sobbed.
“We thought you were dead,” Abby said through her own tears.
“I’m fine.” She grumbled getting out of the tub.
The blood went rushing through her body and she instantly felt light headed and weak. She took one step and then blacked out. Crumbling to the ground in a dramatic heap. Her dad quickly picked her up and held her in his arms.
“Go get the car ready!” He shouted to his wife.
“I’ll get some towels.” Nathan ran off.
“I’ll get her a change of clothes.” Abby also ran off.
They wrapped Rebecca in towels and drove her back to the hospital. They quickly took her unconscious body in and ran many tests, making sure she wasn’t on the verge of death first. The doctors got her to wake up and remain coherent.
After running several tests they came back with a result.
“Seems like Rebecca has some severe Anemia. We are going to have to do a blood transfusion.” The doctor said.
“What!? How? She’s never had this before.” Her mom said.
“Perhaps she has but only recently you’ve noticed. Also with her being a teenager, her body composition is always changing she could have just developed it. We think the episode was triggered by some extensive blood loss, has she lost any blood recently?” he asked.
“No, not that we know of.” Her father said.
“Rebecca?” The doctor turned to her.
“I cut my hand at school. On the lockers. It bled a lot. But this girl she like fixed it for me.” Rebecca said as slowly and cogently as possible.
The doctor inspected her hand for a second but found no major lacerations. Deciding it was better to go ahead with the treatment then to ask questions he went ahead and gave her a blood transfusion.
After four hours of sitting in a hospital bed and watching tv as someone else’s blood dripped into her veins, Rebecca was finally done. They fed her and watched her to make sure she was going to be okay, deciding it was best to keep her overnight.
The next morning she got to go home and once again missed out on school. Being home alone she picked up her phone and called Lyssa. She needed answers. The phone rang, rang, and rang until finally, she answered.
“Hello?” Bex said when there was no sound on the line.
“What do you want?” Lyssa sneered.
“Uh how about some freaking answers and explanations! Ever since you did, uh, whatever it is you did my life has been upside down.”
There was a sigh on the line.
“Are you home now?” Lyssa asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yeah but why does---” she was cut short by a gust of wind blowing in her face when she opened her eye Lyssa was standing in front of her.
“Ah! But how, you were, and I was, what the heck!?” she screamed.
Lyssa rolled her eyes and grabbed Bex’s phone hanging up the call.
“What is going on! What are you?” Bex said confused.
“Isn’t it obvious? Come on, I know your not dense or are you? Actually, I don’t even know your name.” she admitted with a shrug.
“My name? I’m Rebecca, Rebecca Cross.”
“Lyssa Norwood.”
“What are you?”
“Let’s see, I drink blood, run really fast, pale as the moon, never age, what do you think?”
“V-v-vampire!?”
“Yes.” Lyssa rolled her eyes.
“No, Vampires aren’t real.” Bex stood up pointing an accusing finger at her.
“Can we just skip to the part where you believe me? I really don’t want to have to explain this shit, again.” She sighed.
“Vampires aren’t real! What the actual f—”
“Okay let me talk slower for you, I am a vampire. I drink blood.” She snapped her teeth for emphasis, “You are a human, humans have blood. Yeah?”
“No! okay, you’re crazy, I am crazy. One of us is crazy!”
Lyssa rolled her eyes before she picked up Bex’s whole bed with one hand.
“Ahh! You’re a vampire!” she screamed in fear.
“Thank you captain obvious.” Lyssa rolled her eyes and set the bed down.
“W-what? But how? Huh? I’m confused.”
“Let me make it easy for you. Vampires are real. Just assume all the shit you know about them is real. Well, most of it at least.”
“Wait why are you telling me this? Won’t people freak out if they find out?”
“As if,” Lyssa snorted in amusement, “Think about it. What do you think would happen if you told everyone I was a vampire?”
Bex sat on her bed and realized she was right. No way anyone would believe her, they would probably think she was crazy.
“You got to love the 21st century. Now and days everyone is a skeptic. Even if I showed them my fangs I am pretty sure they would just say I got surgery or something. No one believes in the supernatural anymore. Which is fine by me, makes my life ten times easier.” Lyssa brushed all the stuff off of Bex’s dresser before jumping up and sitting on it.
“Well, why me?” Bex asked.
“That’s always the question. Why me? As if you are somehow special to all the other meals I eat. You bleed, I was hungry, bam. Nothing special, nothing about you Rebecca that drew me to you. Just an ordinary day in the life of a vampire. I’m surprised you lived to be honest. I thought I was going to hear of your death tomorrow.” She snorted in amusement.
“That’s not funny!”
“It is to me. When you’ve been alive as long as I have death is a cruel joke only the ignorant can’t appreciate.”
“Great out of all the freaking vampires I get stuck with the cynical one. You couldn’t be sparkly with nice abs?”
“Don’t come at me with that Twilight shit. You know back in the day Vampires used to be scary. People feared me! Now I am just the freak of the day.” She rolled her eyes.
“Oh yeah because having a Transylvanian accent and turning into a mangy dog is sooo scary.” Bex rolled her eyes.
Lyssa narrowed her eyes.
“You don’t think I’m scary?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, goth vampire sooo scary.” She mocked.
In a flash Lyssa had Bex by the throat and had her pinned against the wall, her feet dangling in the air.
“In case it wasn’t clear I own you now. You are my blood slave. Your life is literally in my hands.” Her eyes flashed red and she bared her fangs at Bex.
She smirked when she could both feel and hear Bex’s heart rate speed up in fear. She dropped the girl to the ground.
“I would think twice before pissing off the vampire k?” she teased.
Bex rubbed her throat and looked up at her in fear.
“S-sorry.” She muttered.
“Good, now let's get some basic things out of the way. Since you refuse to die, which is annoying, you are now my blood slave. You have imprinted on me and every time you are around me you will feel the need to offer yourself to me. We can talk about imprints later being as it’s sort of important and pertains to you. For now, just know I’m immortal, I have great power, I eat blood, and I am very smart. Also, I’m not the only vampire out there, there are others. Just not in this area because this area is mine.”
“Well am I going to have to, like, follow you around everywhere now?” Bex asked, standing to her feet.
“No, you’ll know when I need you, I’ll call you.” She said.
“Huh?”
“Here.” Lyssa took a few steps away from her and closed her eyes.
Almost instantly the throbbing returned. She hissed and held her hand to her chest.
“See, I’ll call you.”
“So you were doing it then!” Bex accused.
“Not on purpose it had been a while since I ate a good meal and my body was subconsciously calling to you. The only way to make it stop was to satisfy my hunger.” She shrugged.
“Well make it stop now!” she hissed.
Lyssa rolled her eyes and focused again. Bex sighed in relief when the throbbing went away.
“So I’m just your slave now? Coming to your every call?”
“Pretty much. You won’t last long, hate to break it to you. My slaves usually last a month tops.”
“What do you mean last?”
“I mean die. You’ll die from blood loss.”
“You’re going to kill me!”
“What!? It’s natural. You kill cows to eat burgers. I kill to eat too.” Lyssa turns away from her.
“No! I don’t want to die.” Bex begged.
“Ew, don’t beg. I hate that. It’s just how it has to be. Vampires need blood to eat. You just so happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sucks to suck I guess.” She shrugged.
“Oh my god, this can’t be happening. Not only are vampires real but one is going to kill me. This is worse than finding out I have cancer or something. I’ll never get to grow up. I won’t graduate, or get my first date, my first kiss. I’ll never get my drivers license—”
“Please stop, you want me to play sad music or something? Boo hoo, woe is me. Yuck. I hate that. Get over yourself. People die every day. Even if you hadn’t met me you could still die tomorrow from a car accident or something. Circle of life. It’s not like I wanted a new slave. I hate slaves. It’s your fault, you ran into me!”
“If you don’t want me to be your slave then just release me! Set me free and we can both move on as if nothing happened.”
“I wish it were so easy. You felt for yourself how painful it can be to break a bond, and you didn’t even break it. Imagine that pain but ten times worse, for both of us. No thank you, I think I’ll pass.”
“I’d take that any day over death!”
“The sheer pain of it might just kill you anyways.” Lyssa shrugged.
“There has to be something!”
“I can just kill you right now?”
Bex shut her mouth.
“Thought so. Just relax and enjoy life while you still can. I’ll make the process as painless as possible.”
“You’re cruel and heartless! I have a family you know, friends!”
“Yeah tell me something I don’t know. I forgot how to empathize over 200 years ago. You want my pity you are going to have to try a lot harder than that. Begging and waterworks won’t get you anywhere sweetie.”
“Fine!” Bex wiped her tears.
“Fine, what?” Lyssa eyed her.
“Fine, you wanna play like this then fine. I will follow you around! I will learn everything I can about you and about vampires. I am going to figure out how to save myself and then I am going to figure out how to kill you! You heartless monster.”
“That’s an easy one, stake to the heart, right here.” She pointed to her heart “Then when you bury me, cut off my head. I should stay dead then. You know the last guy forgot the head cutting part so here I am.” She shrugged her words dripping sarcasm.
“Ugh!”
“Well if you are just going to whine like a baby all day I’m out of here.” She walked over to the window.
“You can’t just leave!”
“Why not?” Lyssa eyed her in confusion.
“I still have so many questions! Like how often do you need to eat? What can you do? How old are you?”
“How often do you need to eat? To you, I am 17, and let’s just say I can do anything from turning into dogs to super speed. Don’t test me. Don’t bother me unless you want to die faster. I’ll come to you when I need you.” She opened the window and jumped out.
Bex sat on her bed and ran her hands down her face. She was an ordinary girl a few days ago, now she was a girl who had to figure out how to either kill a vampire or get this vampire to spare her life.
She couldn’t even really process how Vampires were even a thing. All she could process was that she was going to die in one month unless she figured out how to kill Lyssa Norwood first.
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