Torn Asunder

"Shite, we've gotta move her now!" Caleb called out to the others, moving farther away from biting range. Not that I was gonig to try to take a chomp out of him. And not like he hadn't wanted me to do it anyways.

"What? Why?" Luka asked, remaining calm, but as his bestie I knew that he had to be confused and angry. At least he didn't have this gnawing, driving, needing sickness rushing through him like I was dealing with. I felt like something inside me was being torn to pieces and reassembled into a strange, new and horrible form.

"She sent out a Call." Ixchel replied, calm as she handed Caleb a pair of heavy duty handcuffs. "Here, these should hold her until we can move her."

I let out a snarl that was in no way, shape or form human sounding. Whatever those handcuffs were, something inside me recognized them as being more than just braclets. Ixchel gave me a grim smile, seeming to know why I'd reacted that way. "Yes, the Shadow Blood affecting you recognizes these doom cuffs. See, on a normal human, they're just handcuffs. On anything else, and they're much much more uncomfortable. It should help you keep the Hunger down." she explained, watching Caleb calmly click on shut around my wrist.

"Don't do this to me." My voice squeezed out, the words not wholly my own. The dark wrongness in my chest was trying to stop the last cuff from going on. Caleb looked me in the eye for a moment, apologetic and not at the same glance. He wrapped his strong grip around my wrist and forced my wrists together so the last cuff could go on, without ever releasing more than one of my wrists. They weren't risking the chance I'd make a break for it. As soon as the cuff clicked closed, I felt that clawing wrongness fade back, pushed away to a corner of my mind. I was lying there, panting and weak suddenly.

"Pick her up, I don't think she's up for walking around just yet." Ixchel commanded, suddenly the person in charge. Luka glared both Andros and Caleb away from me, not trusting them to behave themselves while I was so out of it and in their arms. I couldn't even wrap my arms around his neck to help hang on, the freaking cuffs were too damn heavy for me to move! I felt like the stereotypical damsel in distress, and the sad fact was that was EXACTLY who I was being! Not even by choice!

"Can someone explain to me what, exactly a Call is?" Andros asked, not being shy about pulling a black gun from his waist band. How had I not seen that earlier?

"Grab everything you need now and I'll explain it as we go. Just move!" Ixchel shooed him off, flying out of the room as Luka carried me after her. Step one was to set me on the couch where I stay sprawled in a listless daze.

Step two involved bags and strange supplies. I tried to make sense of the items Ixchel was bringing and what ones she wasn't, but there was something dragging my attention away. A strange sense of looking inwards to look outwards washed over me, and suddenly I felt the weight of my twin's passage through this city, weeks ago now. Like a strange ghost I could mentally follow a flash of his footsteps as he'd passed by near here so long ago.

"What else can you remember?" Andros prompted me and I realized that I'd been babbling my strange vision the entire time. My eyes opened and I looked at him, starting to have trouble telling what real and what wasn't right now.

"He's not there now. I don't know where he is. I need him. I need to find him. He was so near to here but gone..." I trailed off, knowing the words didn't make sense.

"Shhh..."Andros cooed, running a fingertip across my bottom lip to silence me. "We'll find him." he said softly to me. I couldn't help but notice that Caleb was watching us as Andros comforted me, and Caleb's eyes were dark and guarded.

"If we let you follow this echo of his, do you think you could track his movments?" Ixchel asked casually, but I could see the gold pulse in her core that was her heart beating rapidly. The Hunger was trying to rise up again, fight back against the soporific effect of the cuffs.

"We can follow." I agreed, not realizing that I'd refered to myself in a plural until I said it. But hte others just thoguht I meant them so I didn't fill them in on my continuing insanity.

"So we're hunting down an echo of her twin that no one else can see, and hope it leads us in the right direction?" Luka demanded incredulously, the only one seeming to not just buy into the supernatural angle still. I couldn't keep fighting against it when I could literally feel my twin's humanity slip away.

"What would you have us do Luka? Right now we need to get a move on, anything that goes bump in the night just heard a dinner bell as far as they're concerned." Andros grunted.

"It can't be that bad." Luka scoffed, huffing a little as he had to carry my weight again. He's strong but never really thinks about fitness, and with the amount of crud I've seen him smoke, I knew his lungs were shotty.

"For your sake, I hope you're right." Caleb muttered darkly, following Andros out as the tattooed man led the way with his gun. Caleb was hauling hte bags, letting Andros take point and Ixchel came along behind, locking the door.

Ixchel directed Luka to settle me into the passenger seat. Whatever strange senses I had that let me track my brother's fading trail worked best if I could physically see where it lead. Luka, Caleb and Andros all piled into the back of Ixchel's van and we started to drive. Anyone following us had to wonder just what the hell we'd been drinking, the trail I had us follow weaved around and took random turns as Ixchel narrowed down the area Dante had passed through. Quickly we figured out that the center area was the hotel they'd stayed in, and the rest fanned out to entertainment locations and the airport. The clubs had a less strong feel to them, the ghost of my twin's passage was fainter.

"They left Paris." I stated, voice weak. Caleb grunted, having already expected this, and Luka cursed. Andros just leaned forward in his seat and stroked a finger along my jaw, making me shiver as the Hunger bucked inside, held in place by the cuffs. His hand was knocked away from me as Caleb 'accidentally' shifted and thumped Andros into the side of the van. The new gang member chuckled in his chest, setteling into his seat. Ignoring the Hunger howling in my blood, I tried to figure out what the hell Andros was up to?

Either he was interested in me and had no clue how to save it for private moments, or he was deliberately trying to provoke Caleb. And the gang leader was not the sort of guy you pissed off lightly. He radiated a confident violence, and I had seen him quell bigger men with a few quiet words, so if Andros was looking for a fight, he'd get one. I also didn't understand Caleb's.... possessiveness. He didn't want the others to know he'd finger banged me on my birthday, but he also wasn't gonig to let Andros court me. So did Caleb want me for his own and just hadn't made his move yet? Or was he being a collosal asshole and screwing with me because 'I was one of his?'

"Valentine, you ok?" Ixchel asked me, pulling my thoguhts back to the now.

"I'm handcuffed, in Paris, hunting my twin down and really really Hungry. Yes, I'm perfectly alright, how are you?" I replied sarcastically.

Luka snorted. "Yep, she's fine." he muttered, knowing that I reverted to sarcasim as my usual approach to problems.

"So do we head to the airport and try to figure out which flight he..." Andros was asking Ixchel when suddenly the van jolted to the side with a crunch of metal.

The accident was over before I really understood what was happening. I could hear  the engine tick as it was cooling, and a slap of rubber where the wheel was turning aimlessly. I blinked, wondering why things looked wrong when it hit me, we were lying on our sides. The van had tipped and rolled, and when we landed, it was on the passenger side. The window next to me had broken, glass shattered and scattered, the cement a rough pillow just next to my face. I was held in place by the seatbelt, and grateful for the pain it caused across my chest and shoulder. Without it I would have been turned into paste.

I heard a groan from Ixchel and realized that some of the blood on me wasn't my own, it was hers. Blood. Oh god. The Hunger rampaged when it finally realized that what it wanted was so close. Even with the cuffs helping clamp it down, I could something inside me shift, turning darker and alien once more.I was shaking, fighting the urge to lick the blood I could smell wasn't my own. This was so wrong, so gross... My tongue scraped across the blood dripping onto my arm and I gagged as something inside me swooned with delight. I pushed away that feeling as hard as I could and actually felt it peel away a little, giving me room to spit out the taste of copper and try to pretend it had never happened.

My hands were still cuffed so I struggled with the seat belt as footsteps approached the toppled van. Oh thank god, hopefully whoever hit us had called an ambulance. The door above Ixchel was jerked open with a horrid sound of tearing metal and my hope shrivelled up. The man standing on the side of our van, pulling Ixchel's groaning body out was not a normal human. I could smell it on him, a sick wrongness that fouled the air and made the eyes water.

"No..." I groaned, trying to shift positions to stop him from taking Ixchel.

He leered down at me, eyes mad and teeth drooling. "Oh no worries little treasure. I don't want the meat bags." he chided, and I heard Ixchel's body hit the cement outside the van. I could only hope she was still alive and that the fall hadn't seriously hurt her. There was no noise from the boys in the back and I was convinced that they were either dead or useless now. None of them had had a seatbelt on when we were hit, and they had to have bounced around back there like pinballs.

My seatbelt finally clicked open and I fell the short space to the door. It hurt, letting me know that once hte adrenaline wore off, I'd be picking glass out of myself for a while and possible dealing with a broken arm. I wanted to cry, the pain jolting through me as I whimpered and struggled to find a way to escape the thing coming for me. And it was me he wanted, obvious as he tried to peel back the bent metal to get a better angle at me.

I pushed at the broken windsheild with my cuffed hands, not caring that hte jagged safety glasss vut into my palms as I tried to save myself. The Hunger wasn't rising up to make me feed now, it was taking over to protect me as my fight and flight responses took over. With a grunt I sent the safety glass flying out of the windsheild and the man above me cursed as I scrambled through the bent frame of the van. Running across cement littered with broken glass and metal shards while barefoot and wearing only a dressing robe is not my idea of a fun time. But when survival instincts kick in, I can guarantee you that you'd sprint across that shit like it was fluffy carpet too. I'd made it maybe a dozen steps before something slammed into my back and took me to the ground with a painful crunch. I felt several patches develop instant road rash and my head started to throb dully from the impact. I groaned as I was forcably rolled over onto my back.

The crazy thing attacking us looked even less human right now. His eyes were gone a pure jade green, consuming any trace of pupil or iris and somehow leaking onto his skin, dripping down like a strange ichor leaking out. I was moaning in fear as I tried to scrabble away with just my elbows and feet to push me, and he let me, mocking laughter trailing after me.

"I love a good chase." he purred, voice gaining a strange edge to it that added chills to my spine. "If I let you run, do you promise to make this interesting?" he asked me, walking slowly after me.

I rolled and quickly got to my feet, running towards what I hoped would be safety as the thing behind me started to laugh a fully belly rumble. I was biting my lips, trying not to let the sounds of fear escape anymore, panic riding me like a jockey. The Hunger was begging to take over and tear into that thing, but my fear and the cuffs were strong enough to hold it at bay. I could feel my terror hit my twin, a feel of him suddenly with me. A flare of alarm from him and I suddenly threw myself to the side, just in time to avoid the swiping claws the man hunting me shot out. He snarled, wanting to tear into me and I spun, barefoot kicking out to nail him squarely in the crotch. All that established was that he really wasn't a normal human because he didn't even flinch as I tried to grind his gonads into jam.

His hands looked flayed, the skin broken and peeling away as bone claws were forcing their way out of the fingers, replacing the human digits with something monstrous. "Dante..." I cried softly, wishing my twin was here as I faced my likely death at the hands of a nightmare. I reached out to him, wanting the comfort of feeling him close and the Hunger took over, crushing down even the cuffs to protect me. I don't know if it was Dante trying to help me, or my own fear of death, but my resistance and humanity was pushed aside.

I didn't black out this time, obviously I was adjusting to the sensation of this alien instinct taking over. But neither could I do anything to stop what was happening. One moment I was trying to flee away and get safety, but with the Hunger in control, that wasn't an option. It thrived on violence and lust, and since it wasn't getting the one, it'd settle for the other. I could feel my body harden, there was no other word for it. The usual supple, relaxed feel disappeared as it felt like my body became indestructable, and my awareness of my injuries disappeared. There was a strange growling sounds and with a jerk I realized it was coming from my throat as I snarled at hte thing htat hunted me.

"Oh....we get to play." the nightmare said, a joyous tone in his voice. His skin was peeling back, flaking off and dropping to the cement at his feet as his real nature pushed it's way to the surface. The last sense of him being human disappeared and I was facing something slightly smaller than the average human male, 5'4, but grotesquely bulky. He had the sickly pale scales of a deep sea creautre and boney spines were pushed through his hide at the claws and up his spine. His eyes still dripped the green ichor, heavily coating the face that no longer had human features. His nose was dissolved, leaving a nub of bone and a strange folded flap that dripped. His teeth were small, jagged nubs that looked like painful hell if he bit me.

Normal me would have some kind of snarky, trying-to-be-brave-but-probably-lame comeback for him, but this Hunger driven me just growled low in my chest. I wanted to run and hide, pretend this day had never happened, but the Hunger refused to move until the threat was repelled or devoured. There would be no more running away tonight. In the humans around me, I had seen their heartbeats as a golden pulse. He was a muddy yellow colour, and it pulsed only faintly, barely giving my new senses time to realize that he was about to pounce at me. Unable to really respond to the attack, I simply dropped to the ground and let him fly over where I had been standing, tackling down empty air. He hit the cement and rolled, quickly comnig to his feet as I scrambled to my own.

Now I had my back to the wreckage, a few blocks away and he stood between me and my escape route. His claws swiped out at me and I stepped back, feeling the air of his movement fan passed me, barely avoided. Whatever he was, it was faster than me in my current state, and I had a limited number of options seeing as I was still hand cuffed. Some part of my newly developing instincts recognized what this thing in front of me was and had me swing my hands at his head, trying to bash these cursed cuffs into his flesh. But he grabbed my wrists before I ever connected and clamped his jaws around my forearm. I let out a snarl of outrage, offended that a pathetic creature like this could hurt me. The Hunger pulsed stronger and I pulled out of his biting grip, careless that he kept a chunk of my flesh in his mouth to swallow down. With a strength I couldn't have posessed, I hurtled myself into his chest and rode him down to the cement, fingers tearing through his tough scaley-hide to rip chunks out. Now he was no longer amused, a screaming, clawing mess beneath my driving fingers. Faintly I was aware of the damage he was trying to inflict, a claw sinking into the meat at my side. Impossibly strong hands grabbed one of his claws and ripped the bone shards out, his scream turning from anger ot pain and finally terror as I held him down and literally tore him to pieces.

I was panting, covered in his green ichor and the red blood of my body and Ixchel's injuried and huddled over hte quivering pieces of monster when Caleb limped over to me. THe Hugner had fallen away as the threat to my life died under my fingers, and I was left sobbed and wretching as the reality of what was happening hit me and I broke down. He didn't seem to care about the disgusting things I was coated in, or the fact that I was a horrible, insane monster as he pulled me away from the thing and held me to his chest. I buried my face against his body and sobbed, crying so hard I never felt it when the adrenaline wore off and I blacked out.

When I came to, the handcuffs were gone and I was swaddled in bandages. I didn't take advantage of my freedom, the injuries I'd received and the trauma of the attack shackling me to the bed better than any restraint. The distant, logical part of my brain wondered how I was still alive, but the rest of me was filled with self-loathing and horror. I tried to breath to calm down, feeling the nausea rise in my empty stomach again. I don't know how long I stayed like that, barely hanging onto my sanity as my understanding of the world, myself and how I fit into it was shattered and rebuilt. But I managed to keep breathing and waited until my mind and emotions seemed to finally settle. I felt numb and fuzzy, which is when I belatedly realied that I was hooked up to an IV drip. And then I dimwittedly realized that I wasn't the only patient in the room.

Lying in a bed identical to my own was a very battered looking Andros. His head was heavily wrapped in bandaged, part of his face covered by them in fact, and his arm was in a cast. His chest was left bare, the blanket covering him from the hips down and I could see that his beautiful tattoos were now not so pretty. There were raw scrapes down one side, and I remembered that he'd been sitting behind me when we were hit. I looked around the room to see if anyone else was in here, but it was jsut the two of us. So having nothing better to do, I looked at him, watching the way his chest rose and fell steadily, the deep sleep of the heavily drugged.

Sometime between me falling asleep watching him and when I woke again, the rest had come in to the room. A serious sense of deja vu hit me as I opened my eyes to see Luka staring at me, looking worried. He surprisingly looked rather uninjured, though there was a fist sized goose egg at his temple. Caleb looked scraped up and still limped but otherwise was alright. And I smiled when I saw Inxchel peer at me from behind Caleb's broad shoulders. Somehow we'd all survived.

"Next time the things that go bump in the night come around, don't bump back." Luka told me softly, voice stern and full of emoiton. He looked so sad, and a little lost as his fingertips brushed the bandages over my wrist.

"Blame them. I was perfectly happy not bumping." I croaked, alarmed to hear my voice sounds so.... broken.

"How do you feel?" Ixchel asked me, and I gave a weak smirk.

"Like a Mummy." I rasped at her. She showed me a glass of water with a straw in it and I felt like praising her intelligence. I gulped the water down as quickly as she would allow me, wondering why Andros hadn't woken up yet with all the racket in here now.

"Well you're more than lucky to be alive." the Mayan woman stated plainly. She looked down at me, her dark eyes sorrowful and fathomless. "You reached out to your brother for help and it changed something inside you." she tapped my breastbone for emphasis. "You're no longer quite human Valentine. I'm sorry." she apologized.

I just swallowed, nodding because this was something that had occured to me earlier. What I had done last night..... there are things no human can do and that was one of them. So I was less than I used to be. Less whole, less human, less me. When I found my twin, would he even recognize me anymore? Would he want some monster trying to save him? I wasn't even the one that had been turned into a monster, I was willingly turning myself into one! How could I try and save him if I couldn't even save myself?