LeBlanc and the police entourage left our house and I finally sighed.
It was over. Hours and hours of police questioning, hours and hours of interrogations and hours of being in terrible pain from injuries tylenol and ibuprofen couldn’t numb.
But now, Scarlet crept out from my room, looking uneasily where the policemen had disappeared.
“They believed you?” she asked.
I nodded. “Demetrius was a serial killer. I’m sure they’ll find his fingerprints or DNA or something in the asylum so I’m just a victim.” Finally. It was almost unreal.
Scarlet wrapped her arms around me, nuzzling my shoulder with her face.
“You and Blacke should probably stay out of sight for a long time though. They’ll be looking for you.”
“I know,” she said. “But what do we do now?”
“If you’re up for it, I’m sure Lee and the others would be glad to have you back. Start writing some more songs, getting out there.”
“But I want to spend some time with you,” she protested.
I turned to hold her close and leaned her head against my chest. “I know. I’ll be there, too,” I reassured.
Scarlet was quiet again, listening to the beating of my heart. “Thanks for staying with me through all of this. It was a lot.”
“Life is always a lot,” I responded. If anything had been drilled into my teenaged brain it was that. Life sucked, and not in a good way. “But I have you.”
She smiled with a soft snort. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
A week later, The Tad Unhinged restarted their practice sessions. Christian let Mr Slithers loose in his room while song lyrics were being debated. My teeth were grinding together as I went through and carefully removed the background of one photo and replaced it with the snake scales I’d photographed forever ago.
When I looked up I found the snake gently weaving in front of me, examining me again. My body was hot, admittedly. And Christian had reassured me that he really only did that climbing-up-on-people-thing for their body heat. The snake slowly coiled around the lower legs of the chair and then around one of my legs, sliding his head along my black jeans like an alligator in a swamp. His tongue flicked as he eyed me.
There were goosebumps on my arms as he did so. His tongue was a bright, almost bloody-looking red as he tasted at my clothes.
Ellias yelled something in frustration and the snake froze for a moment.
We stared at each other.
Christian hushed him, glancing at the creature slowly working his way up to my waist.
“Do you want me to get him?” he asked me.
The snake licked me again. I blinked. There was such an innocent expression on that face for such a predator.
“I think he’s okay.” His weight pulled at my clothes and then he stuck his head under my jacket.
The goosebumps returned with a shudder as his body was cold and smooth.
Christian came over and gently hefted the many pounds of snake away from me.
“Bad boy,” he chided and turned the snake to another direction where he started to slither away.
I let out a sigh.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Sierra startled me by saying. She was right behind me, and I hadn’t even noticed when she’d gotten up from her own computer.
Scarlet wasn’t here. Neither was Blacke as they’d both made the difficult decision to wander off for a while. She promised she’d be back in a month but I knew it would probably be longer. The unfortunate reality was that she and her brother were murderers. And people would still want justice for that.
And on top of that, they needed some education from their new vampire friends a few towns away so it wasn’t like they were that far but it did mean she wouldn’t be sharing my bed with me. Which was unfortunate.
I rubbed at my jaw where the aching hadn’t stopped. I’d been grinding my teeth a lot. They hurt every morning like I’d smashed my face into concrete and by the night they were starting to feel better but it always restarted in the morning.
Scarlet would be back. Blacke might have a harder time sneaking into the town’s populace. That tended to happen when you chopped a guy’s head off in front of a police officer. ButI was sure they’d both come back before long.
It still felt like it would be forever.
“You look tired, Lexi,” Lee said from across the room. Everybody was staring at me now.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“We can handle this here on our own if you want to go lay down,” Lee reassured me. “I’m sure Christian doesn’t care if you use the couch.” Lee looked at him to confirm and he nodded his approval.
“I’m fine, really,” I said. “Just a little tired. Nothing serious.”
But Lee rolled her eyes in that I-know-you’re-actually-completely-exhausted-way I’d come to know pretty well. We’d seen things together. And some things were hard to forget. Some things made it hard to sleep at night.
“I’ll just go use the bathroom, real quick,” I told them and set my laptop aside to stand. The snake had started to find his old route back toward my chair but shrank away as I stood.
There was still silence after I got out of the room and went to the bathroom. I ran the cold water and let my eyes close for a few moments. So much to process still. If I thought my brain was broken because of what my father did, it was definitely functioning less than optimally now, but it was functioning so I could recover.
So the psychiatrist said, at least.
I splashed some of the cold water onto my face and scooped some into my mouth. It immediately got spit out as it tasted wrong. I blinked at the red in the sink. Nothing crazy, just some gentle wavy lines mixed in with the water and saliva.But there was no reason for it.
And then I slowly turned the water off and looked up in the mirror, leaned forward and pulled my lips back. Two tiny streams of blood were welling up along my gums and I pushed my lips back with my finger to get a better look.
My heart sank and I put a finger to one of the canines and pushed. It wiggled under the pressure.
…Shit.
The End.
For now.
AN: If you have any feedback, I'm here for it. The story's gonna get shuffled into a full epub eventually and cleaned up. Some problem area's will be fixed and a couple details that didn't make it in the book will be added. Although some might also be removed, not sure yet.
TY to everybody who's been supporting this story, it means a lot to me.
Oh, that is a cruel way to end it. Sequel bait but I'm not expecting a sequel.
I hope there is. Scarlet is in for a surprise.
Yknow, I had a feeling
And it's over! In a way that makes you so totally want more, haha...
Thank YOU for sharing this with us, despite life sometimes throwing wrenches, spanners, and kitchen sinks every now and then!
It's been a ride hasn't it? Feels like yesterday I was furiously slicing bagels to punk music trying to work out how to spell Scarlet and Blacke. (Scarlett(e), Black(e)) and alas, they've had their character arcs and are ready to venture out on their own like little birds from the nest.
Can we get an epilogue? An epilogue would be nice
There will probably be another holiday special or something. If not a proper epilogue
Made it to the end! That ending only makes me want more though
. Good luck with the editing process and everything that comes after.
I will be writing other works. And don't worry the story is safely in the Public Domain so no publisher will be getting it taken down. (Not that this story was going in the manuscript pile anyway)
NOOOOOOOOOOO i want more
damnnnnn what an end! i want a sequel!!!!
Oh~ I was proven right instead of wrong immediately this time! Thank you for the story! TBH I like how it ended, but I do wish we at least knew *what* they had to do to survive. She kinda just brushed it off when talking to the vampires as if she knew, but she only knew what biased info Demetrius had given them. Did they just need blood? Do they still need organs? Why is it they don't *need* to hunt people? Or did I just miss that somewhere?
I thought it was kinda funny that they were like "You can only get shitty jobs that pay under the table" Well. criminals aren't always known for being poor.
Okay, tbh a lot of it gets handwaved because I forgot about it.
it's one of those things that'll get cleaned up when I go back through and patch things up. So the summary of it is this: the vampirism is a virus that makes it extra difficult for the human body to replenish its blood supply. It also causes a few shifts in physiology (none of that glistening in the sun nonsense). But the reason they need to consume blood is for the bits and pieces that the "virus" can put back together. Organs aren't necessary whatsoever in this process, they're just a good source or extra 'bits and pieces' and since Demetrius started out as a cannibalistic serial killer, he probably wouldve practiced this and passed it on to them. All they need is blood. Human blood is easier to digest but they can become dependant on it so quitting cold turkey has some side effects that aren't actually that bad in the long run but they didn't really mess with it until Scarlet was on her own for an extended period of time. I only felt it needed to be clear they didn't need to kill people so I didn't worry about going in depth about it.
And yes, I considered sending Blacke off to be a mobs clean up guy quite a few times but decided against it because these poor children have been through enough. The poor things have a lot of trauma to process and Lexi is going to have a lot of PTSD she's not even aware of yet.
The other thing that I kinda never got around to explaining was why the asylum had a security guard in the first place. But whenever Blackes been involved it's been kinda high stakes so I never really had the moment that felt right to bring it up. But when the hunters leave the west coast for the East Coast they free up Blacke and Demetrius to do the same because for like a couple years or whatever they haven't been able to because Blacke obviously doesn't want to lead hunters to his sister. So instead of delivering human blood to her he hires some poor sap to wander around the grounds (he does this a couple times actually, never mentioned it tho) until he or she wanders a bit too close to he darkness where Scarlet can, you know. Eat them. My editor actually reminded me like ten times I had to put it in there somewhere and I was like yeah I know we'll find out at the end.
And we did not but that's what epilogues are for. And idk I had a dream the other night they went on to be superheroes beating up old Nazi Vampires and what not so maybe there's another book here but it will be separate~ different vibe, different story
@SRFox Wow thank you for such a detailed response!
I wasn't even thinking of having them need to do violent crime. They can smell people, just rob rich houses when people are gone or just do identity theft. Leave it in offshore bank accounts, Bitcoin wealth, etc. As for the guard around the asylum, I just assumed the place was used for crime of some sort and they were just making sure others didn't come by. (Who paid, though? IDK anyone affected by said crime, I guess)
Glad we'll get an epilogue!
@SRFox See, I figured it was some kind of stalker/rapist following kids into the asylum and posing as a security guard to get close. Wouldn't be too hard to set up motion sensing cameras and show up when someone triggers them.
The horror tag in an abandoned asylum had "ghost shenanigans" as my first pick, but that was shot down fairly quickly. Quite unfortunate, as an infinite supply of ghost guards sounds like a great way for the shut in vampire to stay fed.