Criminal (1D)

Chapter 28

Niall

My ears buzzed and something was wrong with my neck. I felt like it was bending the wrong way, sending a strange cold feeling down my spine. I felt like this for a while, left to my own thoughts that seemed clouded and confusing even though I knew they were true. Jenna was there. We were alone in the bathroom. Jenna was looking at her wings and stomach so I came over to comfort her when Alena showed up. Alena. The elder vampire who turned me and the lads into vampires because of some affair she had with Louis. She thinks of us as her pets. Pets that she can leave alone after months of torture to make them obedient even though we never were. Well at least the lads weren't. Me on the other hand... I was like her favorite little purse dog. She was the reason I never really gained control. She bred me to be the monster. All of a sudden I realized I could twitch my feet. This was the painful part of the healing process. The coming to. The buzzing left and now I could hear voices and feel a pair of arms shaking me. My eyes opened automatically and I found the lads kneeling over me. Harry was shaking my shoulders and calling my name. I groaned as my neck slid back into place. Alena had snapped my neck when she bit me in our little wrestling match.
"That bitch!" I croaked. I sat up and rolled my head. I noticed that the bathroom door had been splintered and the window smashed as if someone rushed through it. I gasped. "Where's Jenna?!" I asked quickly. The lads looked down. I sat up straighter. "You didn't..." I shook my head and shut my eyes.
"She was gone when we got here. She called Liam and at the end there was a crash. We came as quickly as we could, but she was gone when we arrived and found you unconscious." Louis explained. I raked a hand through my hair.
"We've gotta get her back. Alena will kill her. Like.... Like the others...." Louis flinched at Alena's name.
"We'll get her back. As soon as we track Alena." Zayn said.
"But how? She's a recluse. We couldn't track her all the other times. How are we going to now?!" I asked.
"This is where Jenna's parents come into play." Liam said. My eyes widened in disbelief.
"You can't be serious! They hate us! They think we're evil!" I retaliated.
"Their going to help us if they find out it's their daughter that is missing." Harry said. My stomach did a flip and I gulped. I nodded after a moment of thought.
"Well I guess we've got our work cut out for us." I said softly and the lads helped me stand and we headed outside. We passed Jenna and my cars and instead decided to take the faster way. We pushed off the concrete and ran at top speed down the driveway, catching enough momentum to cause us to disappear into blurred out forms running at the speed of light. It took us a couple of minutes to run to Jenna's parents house and when we arrived I was oddly winded and was gasping for air. The lads had to catch me when we stopped so I didn't fly straight into the front door and bring it down with me. We knocked on the door and waited for the door to open. Jenna's mom answered and as soon as she saw is she tried to slam the door, fortunately we were faster...and stronger... We forced the door open and stormed inside. Jenna's dad burst through the walkway of another room and launched himself straight at me.
"You stole her!" He screamed, hitting me with punches that sent me to the floor. "You stole my baby from me!" I coiled up into a ball and tried to move away. I was weakened by something. Alena probably had some oldie venom in her fangs that weakened her prey. Maybe even vampire prey too. I opened my eyes and surprisingly found Jenna's mom holding her hand out to me. I reached up with a shaky hand and grasped her sturdy one. She pulled me up and helped steady me when I swayed.
"What has happened to you?" She asked. She pulled me down the hall and shoved me into one of the kitchen chairs. The lads pushed Jenna's dad into a chair next to me. He was beaten and bloody, but healing like we do. Jenna's mom took my head into her hands and rolled my head to one side, the other, then back to look at her. She took her fingers and opened my eyes wide and peered in at them. My gaze flashed red like they do when my eyes flash red and she took a step back. She picked up my arms and dropped them. They fell to my lap with a light slap. "Open your mouth. Are your gums hurting?" I opened my mouth and she began to prod my gums and push on my fangs that had been growing and retracting since I woke up. I felt completely numb.
"Alena snapped my neck." I said hoarsely. My throat suddenly felt sore and scratchy. Jenna's mom circled me and began to rub my sore neck. My stomach suddenly knotted and I gaged. My breath was gone. I leaned forward and coughed and wheezed for what little air I had until I fell to the floor and began having shaking fits. The lads vampiric sped to my side and desperately tried to fill my lungs with air. Suddenly my throat opened and my lungs expanded to take in all the air I could possibly hold. That was weird. Usually I didn't have to breath...being dead and all...
"What's happening to me?!" I gasped as I sat up.
"Where's Jenna?" Jenna's mom asked. I looked up and found her eyes wide with disbelief and fear.
"Alena took her. We need your help to get her back." Harry said. Jenna's dad stood up.
"We'll help you get our daughter back. But under one condition." Jenna's dad said. "You have to keep Jenna out of this mess with your creator. We don't want her being in harms way." He finished. I sucked in a breath and looked up at the lads. If I were to keep Jenna out of Alena's path of destruction, then I would need to let her go and live her life without me and raise our child alone since Alena seems highly focused on making me her personal feeding companion. But I also have thought about that myself. She at least deserves an easy life. But it will never be easy with our child. I decided that we had to kill Alena once and for all. But how do you kill an original vampire who created a whole line of vampires?
"We'll do whatever you want if you just help us save her." I said softly. Jenna's parents nodded and we then fell into a deep conversation about how we were going to track Alena and save Jenna. We also talked about what was happening to me. Apparently since Jenna was having our child, my essence and strength was flowing through her and to it and back, weakening my strength by the distance she was apart from me. I would get weaker and weaker until Jenna was near me again so some of my strength could be returned to me. We learned that Jenna's parents had a tablet that showed where all the vampires were in the world. Jenna's mom went and got it and when she brought it back, we were surprised to find her holding an iPad and opening a weird looking app that when I tried to touch it, it disappeared.
"Only angles can use this tablet." Jenna's mom says, annoyed by my constant hovering over her shoulder. In the app, thousands of red dots appeared around the world. Even some on Antarctica. Some where moving fast across the world and others, like our five dots almost overlapping, were staying still. I noticed that a thin white line was moving from my dot and touching a spot next to another vampire who was moving quickly across the country. My dot was also flickering on and off, probably showing my power. It seemed that the older vampires had darker red dots then new vampires. My dot was the same dark red as the lads, but flickering lighter shades. Even blue. And that frightened me.
"This is u guys." Jenna's mom pointed at our dots. "And this little white line is your power, Niall. Any vampire standing within the flow will momentarily wield your strength before it flows through them." Jenna's mom explained. She then pointed at the darker dot than us and the spot where my energy disappeared. "And that's Jenna and your creator." I nodded.
"It looks like she's going to Texas." Harry says as the dot begins to slow and hover around the state of Texas.
"Then I guess we go to Texas." I say hoarsely.
"Are you sure your strong enough to make the trip?" Zany asked and I nodded, standing a bit straighter even though I really wanted to sleep. The lads nodded and we walked outside. Jenna's parents followed, grabbing their coats and car keys. Jenna's dad liked the front door and unlocked a van. The lads looked confused.
"You can't run all the way to Texas." Jenna's mom argued.
"Yes we can. We've done it before!" Harry complained.
"Niall won't make it in his condition and I doubt you want to leave him here or let him drive with us alone." Jenna's dad says.
"Why not just let him drive your car?" Liam asks. Jenna's parents faces take on a look that says that they would rather die than trust a vampire with their car. I sighed and pulled myself slowly into the back of the car. The lads pile in behind me. Liam and Louis, the bulk, take up seats beside me. Positioned to grab me if needed. Harry and Zayn sat in the bucket seats to watch Jenna's parents. Jenna's dad climbed behind the wheel and her dad in shotgun. Jenna's mom turned the ignition and a shrill sound pierced my eardrums, making me gasp and clutch my ears. The lads did the same. The noise stopped when Jenna's mom pushed a green button on the dash.
"Sorry. We have a built in vampire identifier just in case. Well now we know it works..." Jenna's dad whispered the last part to Jenna's mom. We pulled out of the driveway and gunned down the road, turning onto the Maine road and making our way to the highway.