Forever Is Not Enough

To Dust

1932 - Santa Fe, New Mexico

There was something about the way a hard-working woman tasted, Elena just couldn't explain it. She'd had her fair share of debutants and Daisy Buchanans, with their silky hair and shimmering dresses. The taste of their powdered and perfumed skin always tainted the taste of their silvery, sweet blood. They were too soft, too breakable; Elena was always left the task of gathering up the remaining parts of their bodies from the floor and disposing of them, lest Damon find them and spend the rest of the night scolding her. No, she had come to like the stronger women, who fought with their calloused hands right up to their final breath. The new decade had brought plenty of these sorts of women into her grasp. They came in all colors and shapes, some of them still carrying the faint scent of their once-expensive perfumes on their skin. Elena loved the feeling of biting into their strong necks, their firm muscles squirming beneath her.

She had her current prey in a corner, her hand around the woman's neck while she thrashed at Elena with her thick arms. Elena smiled, a familiar rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins. "Are you afraid?" she grunted.

The woman whimpered under Elena's firm grasp, her rough hands scratching at Elena's face. "Please," she begged.

"Answer me!" she barked.

"Yes! Yes! I'm frightened! Please, let me go!"

Elena fought her way to the woman's neck, her fangs barred as she dodged the woman's swinging fists. The woman squeaked out another muffled plea, but Elena had wrapped herself so tightly around her neck that she could hear her blood vessels popping under her hand.

Elena pulled back as the woman's breathing grew heavy. Her dirty toes had begun to curl and she knew it was time to finish her off.

"Please," she whispered, in a final attempt to save herself. Heavy tears fell down her face and onto the front of her dress.

Elena wiped a tear away with her thumb. "Don't worry, dear, it'll be over soon."

"My children," the woman gasped as Elena's fangs reentered the wound in her neck.

Elena stiffened and pulled back, wiping blood from her face. "What did you say?"

The woman's eyes were unfocused and struggling to stay open. "My children," she breathed. "They won't have anyone to take care of them."

-

Elena stumbled, inebriated by the fresh blood in her system, up the stairs in search of Damon. She needed to confide in him what she had just seen, for it had been many years since anything had shaken her so.

She had last seen him in the kitchen of the inn they were staying at. She thought she had found the perfect woman to sup on right away. She was from Oklahoma, seeking work after her father's farm went under. She had no friends and, Elena incorrectly assumed, no family. Damon had stuck around, looking for someone to his liking. He never came back to their room, but he had to be lurking about somewhere. Elena turned the corner, wondering whether she might find him still in the kitchen. No, she thought. He would have fed by now and he never would have done it in the there.

A lamp fell to the floor, rousing her from her thoughts. It was she who had knocked it over. She clumsily picked it up from the floor placed it back in its corner, leaving the shade crooked. She could hear all of the muffled voices around her, blending into one another. "Where did I leave my other shoe?" a man said. "Five for the whole night," a woman said elsewhere. She leaned against the wall next to her, closing her eyes and begging her head to stop spinning. "Listen," she whispered aloud to herself. "Listen for his voice."

She tried with all of her might to focus, to stop picturing the woman's tears as they poured from her eyes. A child cried from somewhere below her and she felt her stomach heave. "Damon," she whimpered, hoping he would hear her. She had no idea why she felt this way. It felt as though she had overeaten, but her dinner was relatively small. She feared something might be wrong.