Bloodbank

Thirty Four

I had never experienced pain like it. I held a scream in my sternum - a scream that was fighting to be released. From the moment that Tenebris' teeth sank into my neck, it was excruciating, a pounding, stabbing, that radiated from my neck to the rest of my body. At first I attempted to hold eye contact with Scott, but it didn't take long for my vision to waver, for my eyes to droop. I was losing too much blood, and the poison was killing me faster.

Through those blurry eyes, I could still just about see Scott. I could see him staying where he sat, watching as though uninterested. His hands, whitened as they clenched into fists, told a different story.

I didn't realise I was making a noise until Tenebris' hand reached my arm, gripping my skin so hard it would leave bruises. It was a whimpering, begging, pathetic sound. It was the sound of me dying.

"She's had enough," Scott's voice echoed across the room, rippling and distant. He sounded miles away. He would not save me in time.

But Tenebris wasn't stopping - he continued to drink, gulping in my blood. Did I taste too good? Was the temptation too strong? Would he kill me before I killed him?

I gasped, my arms drooping to my sides. My posture sagged.

And then the weight on top of me was removed. Tenebris was gone.

The world tilted as I slipped from my chair and fell to the floor. Black crept around the edges of my vision.

"I said," Scott continued, his voice closer now, but still too far for me to grasp, "she's had enough."

My breaths were shallow, the wooden floor cold beneath me. The white dress had splayed out around me, a trickle of red running from my neck, staining the white silk. Tenebris and Scott stood before me, Scott's arms gripping Tenebris and pulling him away.

"I've never tasted anything like it," Tenebris said, licking his fingers, "I need more."

Tenebris fought back, trying to escape the grip of his son. But the poison was already weakening him, sapping his strength.

I tried to push myself up. I refused to die on the floor. I had to get the antidote - somehow. Scott was too preoccupied with his father. He never intended to help me. Yet again, I was a pawn. I gasped again as gravity pushed me down, my arms bending underneath me. This was it.

"Scott," I choked out, "Scott."

He wasn't looking at me. He was watching Tenebris.

The lord began to convulse within Scott's grip. His arms flailed, and he fell out of his grip and onto the floor beside me. His head lolled to the side, and he was staring at me as the rest of his body twitched. My blood lined his lips, still warm, and it began to froth into a foamy red.

I tried to scream, tried to move. He was staring at me. I wanted him to stop, I wanted to scream, but nothing was happening. My limbs weren't responding.

The waitstaff, their loyalty forgotten, fled.

I looked up to Scott again, still expecting him to help me. But he was staring at his father, a smile spreading from the corners of his lips.

Tenebris' body spasmed one last time, and then lay still. The red foam from his mouth was dripping onto the floor. Even as his face was vacant of life, he stared at me with glassy eyes.

Was that going to happen to me? Was it already happening?

At first I couldn't move my arms or legs, and now I found my face had frozen. Tears pooled in my eyes and dripped onto the floor. It took all of my remaining strength to move my lips, to try and snap Scott from his stupor as he continued to stare at his father's body.

I called his name, begged him, pleaded. He was going to help me. It was the plan.

My arm was beginning to tremble. My first thought was that I was shivering - it was the only rational thing I could think under the circumstances. It was better than the alternative; that the last stage of the poison was setting in. That what I had just witnessed happen to Tenebris was happening to me.

I called Scott's name again, my voice now laced with panic.

Slowly, as though he had to manually wrench them from where they were fixed, his eyes moved from Tenebris' body to mine.

Then everything happened so quickly it knocked the breath from my struggling lungs.

He picked me up off the floor, and we were out of the dining hall, down the stairs, in the basement. He sat me on the stair as he searched the cells, impossibly fast.

But it wasn't fast enough. My arm was beginning to jerk, my stomach convulsing like uncontrollable hiccups.

Scott was down the long corridor, entering one of the cells. He wouldn't get back in time. He didn't even have the flower.

I slipped down the stairs, onto the cold concrete floor. My legs were bouncing. I was sure I could feel the foam working its way up my throat.

I tried to call out for Scott. No sound came out of my throat.

A burning, gnawing was beginning in my stomach. The poison was eating me alive.

My head faced the ceiling, and I couldn't move it. So I couldn't see Scott until he was directly above me, pouring a tube of red into my mouth. I felt it trickle down my throat, unable to swallow myself.

Then his hand reached under my dress, pawing under the silk. I wanted to scream; what was he doing while I was dying?

He pulled his hand out, along with a purple-white flower. Somehow, he had hidden it in the lining of the dress. He had planned everything out, and I'd doubted him every step of the way.

He stuffed the flower in my mouth, forcing it, too, down my throat.

I only hoped he had done it in time.