The Guily Ones

...never killed nobody

Not long after Godric disappeared, I found myself still standing rooted to the spot, barefoot and bewildered in his front garden. His words lingered in my mind, and I nervously chewed on my bottom lip. A loud, suggestive whistle snapped me out of it.

"Wow, Ash, I almost didn't recognize you."

James was leaning casually against a car on the street before pushing off and sauntering toward me. I was too shocked by the fact that he'd found me—and how he'd managed to do it—to react. My heart pounded in my chest.

"How—" I began, but James cut me off.

"How did I find you even though you snuck out in the middle of the night?" James had reached me now. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. That's not how good girls behave, sweetheart."

Despite his conversational tone, he was anything but pleased. Not. At. All. I swallowed hard. He grabbed my arm—the one still in a sling—and yanked me after him. I might have healed much faster than a normal human should (which only confirmed again that I wasn't as normal or human as I had once believed), but I wasn't fully recovered yet either. What James was doing hurt like hell, and he knew it. Smirking wickedly, he kept dragging me along as I stumbled behind him, barefoot.

"James, I—" He spun around, his eyes blazing with anger before he slapped me across the face.

"Save your breath. Try to run from me again, and it'll be the last thing you ever do."

I gasped, turning to face him again. Staking vampires and hunting murderers? No problem. But standing up to my almost brother-in-law who had bullied me since childhood? That somehow seemed impossible. It was as if all my joints and muscles had frozen up. James grinned with satisfaction when I didn't move or argue.

"See, this is much easier for everyone involved," he said, looking me over. "And this time, no one's going to get in my way. You're all mine."

His last words were practically a guttural snarl, and every hair on my body stood on end. I tried to remain calm, to not let James see how terrified I was, since that had the tendency to excite him, but my voice came out thin and shaky. "What do you want from me, James?"

His grip on my arm was still painfully tight, but I knew any attempt to pull away would only make him angrier, which I was desperate to avoid. He stepped closer, his lips still curled into a grin.

"Oh, so many things, Ash, so many things." He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, ignoring how I flinched at his touch. He grabbed me by the throat, leaned in, and whispered in my ear. Where his breath touched my skin, it felt like I was burning. Like he was burning me. "You and me together—there's nothing that can stop us, hm?"

I didn't like where this conversation was headed. I tried to slip out of his grasp without making it obvious that I was pulling away. Though James rarely listened to reason, I still had to try.

"James..." I forced myself to say his name without the disgust that threatened to rise in my throat. "James, we've tried. We worked together, we were a team..."

I was trying to remind him of the "good" times. Or at least the times he must have considered good.

"You, me, and Tom," I said, swallowing hard. "We were a good team." His brother. He had to remember that I belonged to his brother. James furrowed his brow.

"Yes, we were," he agreed.

It seemed to be working. I nodded. "Yes, James, we were." Tears welled up in my eyes, and I placed my good hand on his cheek, even though it repulsed me. James' expression softened. "We had a good run. We were lucky." Now came the hard part—the unpredictable part. I couldn't for the life of me guess how James would react. I braced myself internally. "But our time is over. The luck has run out...it's all gone." I took a deep breath. "James, it's time to stop."

James was silent. Dead silent. And every passing second felt like an eternity.

Then James broke into loud, raucous laughter. Startled, I stepped back, his grip softening

"You..." James kept laughing, holding his stomach. "You..."

What was it about psychopaths laughing that made them so terrifying?

"You really have no clue, do you? About anything?" James wiped a hand across his eyes as if brushing away tears of laughter, then dropped back onto his heels and took a step back, eyeing me up and down as if seeing me for the first time. Breathlessly, he murmured, "Wow, he really did a number on you."

His eyes fixed on me again, though something about him seemed...different. His movement were off. James had been a gangly teenager, growing too fast to tall, so his movements never really seemed like they had been able to catch up with him. Now his movements possessed fluidity, a grace I hadn't seen before... 

"It's not about you!" he spat, and, ironically, I felt oddly hurt and rejected. I should have been relieved.

"It was never about you. Well, not exactly. Let's say it wasn't about you as a person." James made air quotes with his hands and started pacing as he continued speaking. "Your presence in Bon Temps was pure luck. You think luck has run out? You have no idea... And the fact that you're here, now?" He widened his eyes and whistled. "And looking like that? God is really smiling down on me."

He stepped closer again, his gaze raking over me from head to toe. Judging by his expression, he was definitely imagining me naked. My eyes narrowed into slits, and I crossed my arms over my chest. James laughed at my gesture.

"If it weren't for Tom, darling..." he licked his lips, then continued pacing. What did he mean by that?

"But never mind that. Get ready, I'll be back." He looked at me with a challenge in his eyes. "And you're going to tell me where you are and wait for me. And you're going to obey and do everything I say," he went on, "because if you don't, I'll cut the number of your new friends in half before you can beg for mercy."

That threat finally loosed the knot holding me tongue-tied. My voice  was sharp and cutting: "You won't touch my friends. Leave them alone, or I'll disappear completely," I hissed at him, but James just laughed.

"Oh, sweetheart, you talk like you'd have a choice."

James kept pacing, but that didn't stop me from shouting. At last, the suffocating fear lifted, and I could access my anger again—my strength. My drive."I do have a choice!"

James raised an eyebrow. A gesture that said 'Are you sure about that?'

"Of course I have a choice. You can't pull off the bank heists without my help. You need me cooperative, you need my brain, my knowledge..." I explained.

James had his back to me while I spoke, but when he finally spoke again, his voice was cold as death. "Bank heists? That was just a warm-up."

I froze in place.

He turned around, and I stopped breathing. "Something to pass the time, to get some money to keep us warm in the meantime. Now we play in the big leagues Ace. And for that, all I truly need is your body. And whether it's 'cooperative' or not, darling, I don't give a damn!" He eyed me up and down again, licking his lips before continuing. I could only stare at him, shocked by his words. "And what I have planned next—now that's going to bring real power. The power I always deserved." 

Again he moved. Too fast, too fluid. His grin was diabolical, filthy, his eyes narrowing as he bared his fangs. His vampire fangs. In a flash, he lunged at me. "A power that you're going to give me." And with that, he swung at me, knocking me unconscious.