Torn Asunder

It's amazing how people seem to forget you exist merely because you're asleep. Here I am, minding my own buisness, asleep and in pain, and forced to eavesdrop on a conversation I truly did not want to be overhearing.

"You're awake." Caleb's Irish brogue rumbled. I only knew whom he was talking to through the process of elimination. It was male, so Ixchel was out, and the way he spoke sounded nothing like Luka. But it sure as heck didn't sound like Andros' usual husky voice. He croaked and rasped now. "I'm harder to kill than most." Andros shrugged off his near miss.

"You need to stop f*cking after Valentine." Caleb stated bluntly and I flushed even though neither man could see through the privacy screen.

"Are you staking a claim?" Andros countered. I realized I was holding my breath for the answer only when spots flashed before my eyes. And yet Caleb still didn't answer. I carefully released my breath, even more anxious to know the answer than Andros was. But I honestly could not say whether I wanted the answer to be yes or no. It's one thing to fantasize about having the leader of a biker gang wanting you to be his girl, and it's another thing entirely to face the possible reality of it. I would be in a lot more danger, though that was assuming I even lived through this little Euro-trip. Since I was now seriously doubting the likelihood of that happening, I guess it didn't matter what Caleb's answer was.

But just to piss me off some more, the jerk didn't even give an answer. Instead Caleb just growled out, "Leave her the f*ck alone/ She doesn't need this shite right now."

"Like you're any better?" Andros rasped back. Neither one of them noticed the door opening and Luka observing their little spat. "Like anyone believes you just danced with her on her birthday. We all know you threw a birthday hump into her." Andros' tone was harsh.

I felt like I'd been slapped across the face, but Luka broke the growing tension in the room by clearing his throat, drawing their attention to him. The screen around my bed kept Caleb and Andros from seeing me, but my best friend would spy me if he dropped the death glare he was levelling at his fellow bikers.

"You two are pathetic. First off my girl still has her V card, so you're lucky I don't stuff my fist down your throat for that disrespect Andros. Second off, she's a light sleeper abd has probably heard this entire thing." Luka looked over at me and smirked when he saw he was right, I was awake. Though I really wish he hadn't said that last part, I was still grateful he'd come in when he had. Things would just be more awkward than ever now. Wonderful.

"Why are you here Luka?" I asked instead, opting to act like the rest of it didn't amtter. And it didn't, really. I had way too much to worry about right now to be bothered by two stupid-head bikers, who just want a grapple! I was worth more than that and wouldn't giveeither one the satisfaction. Not now. Luka seemed to read all that in the look on my face and grinned at me, apparently relieved to see it.

"Time to change the bandages my dear." Luka held up a bag that must be full of new supplies. God this part was so demented. It hurt, no matter what, and one of the horrible ironies of my current condition seemed to include a resistance to drugs and toxins, but I didn't get the speed healing that was supposed to accompany that metabolism. So instead I got to learn a whole new definition of the words pain tolerance, one I never wanted to. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried every single time. I dare anyone else to go through that and not earn every friggin tear.

Changing my bandages explains why the room was turning into Union station; it took more than one person helping to get it all done. Ixchel slipped into the room, rounding things out and raised an eyebrow at the still palpable tension in the room. But she ignored it and instead came over to my bedside, smiling down at me. I never told her that the Hunger had made me lick her blood up as if it were ambrosia. Or that ever since I had, I've had a weird sense of whether she was nearby or farther away. I would have told her about it, but now I'm thinking it was just in my head, because I hadn't felt her coming towards us. I swear my sanity is being held together only by how hard I can ignore some of the weirder crap happening to me right now.

Since pain is a surprisingly human feeling that really puts mortality into perspective, I've developed a sort of perverted excitment for this time of day. It's been a week since the attack and not a single time we basically tortured my body with pain, did the Hunger ever rise up. So it was becoming a twisted right of passage for me, giving me a sense of hope that maybe it was gone for good. I also feared that though, guilt making me believe that maybe it had stopped because something bad had happened to Dante. I wanted my normal, human life back but not at the cost of my twin. I loved him, he was the only thing that was always right in my life, and right now he was probably the only thing that was really holding me together. I had to help my twin, and I wouldn't be able to do that if I fell to pieces. So I always hoped I'd get a sense of the Hunger, so I'd know Dante was alright; but I'd also pray that the Hunger wouldn't rise up and take over.

The privacy screen stayed around my bed, a nod at my generally modest nature. Ixchel moved the blankets and new dressing robe out of the way and cut at the bandages wrapped around my body. I had several dark caterpillar lines of stitches marking me up now, but where the creature had bitten off and eaten a chunk of my flesh was the worse. It was too big to stitch closed, and it kept oozing blood no matter what we did.

"I'm worried about infection. This should be clearing up faster than it is." Ixchel said plainly, touching the bruised flesh around it, feeling for spreading infection. I gasped as tender flesh protested pain, but she didn't mean the injury. I'd been attacked and bitten by a creature that simply shouldn't  exist in the real world. It was a little bit logical that maybe rubbing alcohol was less effective against monster germs.

And then it happened. Luka had been supporting me up a bit and his grip slipped as he tried to shift positions. Ixchel's hand scraped over the open and bleeding wound as I was dropped and I screamed out in pain. As I did, that familiar ripple sensation pulsed out of me and I could suddenly Feel my twin.Oh it felt so good to know he was still alive, still my twin. I felt his awareness wrap aroun me, like his familiar arms would enfold me in a hug. My awareness of the room around my physical body disappeared as I sunk myself into my twin.

It was the dreamscape carnival again. Dante held me to his chest, white tuxedo eerie and bright in the gloomy dark. The blood that stained my dress brushed against him, but instead of spreading the stain, the blood was absorbed by the white of his dashing suit. The mask was firmly in place over his face, but as I buried my face into the crook of his neck, I knew it was him. The only time I ever felt this secure was with my other half, and Dante had once admitted that he understood what I meant by that. I opened my eyes asI felt Dante sway us, a slow dance without music. The other masked and costumed vampires circled us, a silent and exceptionally creepy audience.

"What's happening?" I ask my twin softly.

"They're taking me to Lucretia." Dante whispered back, brushing the hair from one side so I felt his breath along my jaw. "You make us dangerous and I think they're hunting you. You need my strength." Dante's voice sounded strange.

"What?" I frowned, trying to pull away to look at his face. But Dante's hand tangled in my hair, holding me to him. I heard him whisper 'Forgive me', and then the sharp pierce of fangs sinking into my neck. I screamed at the pain, but instead of feeling weaker, I felt something flood into me and my body in the sick bed arched, eyes opening back on reality as something akin to molten lava seemed to burn through my veins. My body strained at the restraints and I heard them creak and then give with a crack of torn leather. My body spasmed out of their desperately grabbing hands and I ended up slithering to the floor in a heap, dressing gown hiked up and embarassingly exposed. But modesty was impossible as my body twitched and shivered, the skin around hte open wound crawling shut before our eyes. The missing flesh underneath the now sealed skin plumped back out, the skin smoothing to uninjured perfection, my body going so far as to spit the stitches back out.

Ixchel knelt and fixed my dressing gown, giving me concealment and time to recover. Luka held me to his chest, and a stunned Caleb stared down at my now completely healed body.

"What the hell just happened?" Caleb demanded, unable to break eye contact with me.

The Hunger my twin had purposefully roused in my body wanted me to crawl to Caleb and sink fangs I didn't have into his femoral artery. It wanted sex or blood but I was too weak to give it either. "Dante." I cried my twin's name softly, not knowing what to do with this strange power he pushed into my body.

"Get back in bed." Caleb ordered Andros as he limped over to us.

"She sent out another Call. Last time running didn't work out so great so we do it my way this time." Andros rasped at his bike leader. Amazingly enough, the Sentinel leader let Andros' disrespect pass and allowed him to painfully kneel down next to me.

The Hunger very much liked having him so close, and injured as he was, he smelled deliciously like prey. But the strength of the Hunger had been used up healing me, and now I felt weak limbed and exhausted. Andros briskly pulled open the dressing gown I wore, baring my abdomen and breasts to the room. Luka immediately closed it again but Andros smacked his hand and jerked it open again. "Don't. I'm sorry but I'm trying to help." Andros commanded.

We could do nothing but watch as Andros pulled aside one of his bandages and dipped his fingers into the wound, coating them with his own blood. With swift, sure strokes, he painted a complex design onto my skin, a gruesome tattoo. When he finished drawing, he quickly leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. Suddenly I felt saturated with the scent of his skin. Luka pushed Andros' shoulder at the same time Caleb jerked him away, but Ixchel froze the room with a stern "Stop! Explain." she pointed at Andros.

"I bound her scent with my own. Muffled the Call. Other supernatural baddies will be antsy when she's around, but they shouldn't be able to sniff her out as well." Andros panted, skin sickly with pain.

"So you bought us time." Ixchel stated. Andros nodded curtly. "We've got to reunite them, and quickly or this will only get worse."

"Lucretia. He said they were taking him to Lucretia." I spat out, not knowing if they'd be able to make more sense of that than I had. Which was none at all. But the look Ixchel gave Caleb was one of unhappy recognition.

"We've got to take her to the Mercy." Ixchel stated and Caleb just swore.