Reckless

Chapter 3 Part 5

Character POV: Roxanne

I'm laying down on my bed in my small home while Ariadne searches the place for what she is calling "contraband." The more the laudanum leaves my system, the worse the pain from my fractured leg is. I have to work on my breathing just to stay conscious. The male vampire comes through the door, shutting it firmly behind him as he walks over to the windows and pulls the drapes just as pink is beginning to stain the distant horizon. He turns back to me, his dark eyes scanning me as he says, "I can set that for you, but it will hurt. May I ?" he asks, gesturing to my injured and slightly discolored leg.

I cannot remember the last time someone asked if it was okay if they touched me before they actually made contact. Almost beyond words, I nod my head and he steps forward, grasping ahold of my leg, feeling it out despite my winces. He nods and says, "Good news for you, this isn't the type of break that would require surgery. However, the treatments we can offer you will not heal it in its entirety, not in this century, and I believe you are too weak to make the journey to one of your sister witches to either find a healer. You will have a pronounced limp, more than you had before, and some pain in varying degrees. But you will live."

"If you stop being so stupid and if I don't kill you for being an idiot," Ariadne snaps from where she stands with bottles, both of laudanum and of liquor. Her eyes have shifted to a red color, warning me that the beast is here instead of the woman who has saved my life twice. The man gives a rough clear of his throat, dragging her hard gaze to him as she cocks her head to once side in a predatory gesture. "Is there something you wish to say, Zebulun? You'd better make it quicker than death," she says sweetly, the warning clear.

Zebulun points to his eyes and then at hers as he says, "You might want to take a little alcohol for yourself, reign it in, unless you are intending on killing this witch you just saved yourself. Or, go outside and find something to hunt before the sun is up. Either way, take the edge off."

He turns back to me and rips off the metal siding on one of my trunks, then the matching one from the other side. He takes strips of cloth and starts binding the metal to my leg to keep it straight, and I knot my hands in the sheets as I bite down to keep from screaming out at the pain. I just have to think of anything else. I hone in on his name, why it sounds familiar, and then when it hits me, I blurt, "Zebulun, as in the second command of the Vampires?" When he nods, I laugh a little with disbelief as I ask him around a wince, "What in the hell are you doing helping me out?"

"Says the top general of the witches who has a history with my leader," he mutters, not really answering me initially. Once he has it tied off and pinned with a pin he seemingly created from nothing, he steps back away from me and meets my gaze again. A simple shrug of his shoulders before he says, "I go where she goes. It is not my place to question the woman who gave me my immortal life. If saving you is the most important thing for her to do, then I am coming with her. We're not as fickle as some of your witch kind are."

Ariadne walks to the window, standing off to one side so she won't get caught in the morning rays of the sun. She elbows the window opena nd in one fluid motion chucks the bottles out. "No!" I scream, lunging as I realize what she is doing. The pain that shoots through me pins me to the bed even as I hear the crash of the flass bottles as they make contact with the cobblestone street below.

Ariadne keeps one bottle, one that is almost empty from the blood bath below. She grabs a letter opener from my desk as she advances, stabbing it into the cork and popping it out as she points to Zebulun and says, "If she tries getting up for a drink or a fix, it's your job to keep her down. I don't care if it's by sitting on her or knocking her unconscious at this point." She rolls her eyes as she just starts chugging my booze.

"What is the matter with you!" I shout at her. "You disappear for a couple of decades and then you show up here and start trying to tell me how to live my life as if you are some epitome of morality?!?"

She laughs darkly, "This shabby little hovel in the middle of nowhere and being so out of your mind on drugs that you put yourself in danger for a thrill is not a life and you are so far gone that you can't see how lunging after your shit when you have a broken leg and causing yourself pain because you're so afraid to face life sober is a problem."

"You don't understand," I argue, getting so upset and angry that I star tto tear up and then hate myself for it, for making myself appear weak and in so doing feel weak.

"Zeb," Ariadne says without taking her now violet gaze off of me. "Please go into the next room. I have a feeling "Elizabeth" doesn't want strangers to witness this." He inclines his head to me, the portrait of a courteous gentleman before he walks away and shuts the door behind him. Once she has heard the door click shut, she advances on me a step as she asks me almost in a growl, "What am I not understanding exactly?"

"I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I was right back on that pyre, feeling everything I felt then." When she just arches a brow at me, finishing the contents of the bottle before chucking it too out of the window and sealing it, replacing the drapes. I realize that her low emotional intelligence brought on by being a vampire is making her a little thick, that she isn't trying to be deliberately insensitive. So, I find the strength to voice my demons. "I felt helpless and every day that I have to watch what I do for fear of being a target again kills me just a little bit more. So, I did what I could to just survive until I reached a point where living was possible."

"Right. And then you almost died." Ariadne corrects, winking, "Sounds like a solid plan." Seeing whatever look was on my face, she softens, crossing over to me and sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I saw you. You had resigned yourself to dying as long as it took out one of them with you. That's how little you valued your life and that is why I threw out all of your top notch stock, beautiful. Something needs to clear your head before it's just a skull."

"I am not going to stop going after the men who are killing innocent women, witches, and creatures. I can't just stand back and allow it to happen, even if the orders from my leader are to do just that. And what difference does it make to you?" I snap, unable to keep from saying what has been crossing my mind since she showed up again. As happy as I was to see her appear through the flames and help to save my life again, I kept thinking about how she would just walk away once I wasn't a project, a thing she could work to fix, any longer.

Ariadne stills, her eyes flickering to red as her anger builds. "And what exactly do you mean by that?" She croons, a dangerous edge to her voice that was not there minutes ago. The smell of smoke wafts off of her, almost too strong for me to breathe. It'll take at least two baths with heavy scrubbing for the smell to leave me. These clothes are probably ruined. But I have bigger concerns than clothes.

"I mean," I start, not afraid of her despite the shift in moods which could spell danger for anyone else, "you just left. You stitched me back together, taught me how to fight, and then you disappeared and never even checked in for decades. Your lack of care beyond the barest interest for a fix-it-up project is abundantly clear."

"Is that what this is about?" She asks, suddenly serious. "I saw you get all red in the face after you used me as an anchor. You expressed your concerns about the conflicting loyalties from the start. If anything, I was trying to spare you from any more uncomfortable experiences. If I would have known that you were just going to turn to drugs and put yourself in danger with no one there to watch your back, trust me, I would have made a different call."

"Prove it," I say, pushing this a little further. "Stay here with me. Help me to protect those that cannot protect themselves. Help me to get a little justice, or if not that, the barest hint of revenge." She looks away, but I can tell that I have her attention now, that she might actually be listening in some degree. I reach for her, taking her hand, and she doesn't pull away. She just looks back at me as I say, "Please. Please just help me do this, so that I don't have to do this any longer."

Ariadnelooks at me long and hard, her red eyes fading back into violet before she nodsat me and asks, "When do we start?" And I grin back at her.