Who Said Vampires Will Never Hurt You?

Chapter Fifteen - Bella Muerte

Who Said Vampires Will Never Hurt You?

Chapter Fifteen - Bella Muerte

I heard screaming and whipped my head around in time to see a huge hoard of Vampires literally leaping from their confines in the shower. Snarls, gasps and horrified screams along with grunts and the sound of claws scraping through the air met my ears in a loud cacophony and I jumped, twirling around just in time to stake a Vampire. I ran in to help Gerard who was battling with two Vampires with a look of sheer fear in his eyes; forehead already soaked in perspiration and fingers visibly shaking. I shoved my pole through the Vampire's back, and when he fell to the floor, turned him to dust by staking his cold; unfeeling heart.

Gerard smiled gratefully at me for a second before we heard Mikey yelling from inside the shower room. We ran in there, kicking the stinking bodies of the creatures of the night from our paths, pushing each other through the door with impatience, Gerard looking visibly worried - Elena even more so. She managed to get into the room first, instantly gasping before breaking into heart wrenching sobs. Gerard stiffened from beside me, eyes going wide and panic quickly shifting into overdrive.

"Mikey?!" He called, shoving his way through the door with urgency when he didn't receive an answer.

He froze next to the door frame, and then broke down and started yelling; cursing, screaming and crying with so much ferocity and hate it made me quiver in my shoes.

And then the rest of us could get inside the room and I saw what was so distressing.

It was Mikey.

He was lying on the floor. Blood. His blood. So much blood. I gasped and then gagged. He'd been brutalised and shredded. The Vampire's sharp teeth and claws had worked their power and evil into my friend. Bloody, gaping holes in his flesh bled onto his ripped clothes, and his face was contorted into the worst expression of pain I had ever seen. Gerard screamed at the sky, sinking onto his knees as they trembled like jelly and couldn't continue to hold his weight. Mikey had tried hard; but like life was always determined to tell its little participants; your best is never good enough. He'd died saving us from the Vamps, killing them with a determinedness only he could possess and making sure - even in death - that we'd be okay. He'd been murdered saving us. Michael James Way, our protector.

I started to cry; the image of Mikey lying on the floor imprinted into my brain and burned into my sight so that every time I closed my eyes all I saw was his lifeless body behind my eyelids: still; unmoving; incapable of giving or feeling love. Never to experience the rest of his life. He was never going to escape this Hell. He was never again going to see the sun setting at night - casting the sky with a beautiful rainbow of reds and oranges - or see it rise again at dawn; illuminating the harsh reality of our world while making it perfect, lighting up the new sky with streaking water colour pictures of faded pinks and pale blues. Never would those beautiful eyes of his witness the night fall black and twinkling golden stars burst over the horizon, glittering only for life; but most probably already burnt out and dead by the time they reached our sight. Dead...

I started to cry furiously, not even bothering to scrub at my eyes as crystalline tears made their way down my pale cheeks, dripping endlessly off my chin and the end of my nose, salty tastes sliding delicately into my mouth; reminding me everything was real.

Looking behind me with cloudy eyes I realised everyone else was crying, too. Elena and Gerard the hardest, sobbing their eyes out and praying and grieving for Mikey. But Lou Taylor, Sam and Kit were crying for the bassist of their favourite band, mourning their new friend and old hero. Flame was sobbing into Ray (purely as friends, of course), not ashamed of their tears, Bob was sobbing at the loss of his old friend; his moody demeanour let down, and I was standing off to the side alone, crying into the cold wall and trying to stop the headache that threatened to burst my head like a dam. Thoughts of Mikey pooled at every inch and crevice of my mind, all the bad and good things that we had gone through together. I cried for the good and the bad, for the heartache, the pain, the loss and the misery. I cried for the hollow feeling I felt in my chest as I looked down at his body, devoid of feeling and happiness. Would I ever be happy again?