My Love for Her

4: A Brutal Attack

"Liv?" I whispered, suddenly feeling very sober. "Baby, are you okay?"

I went over to her bed, and sat on the edge. I pulled her hair back from her face, and was shocked at what I saw.

Her face was pale white, whiter than I'd ever seen it. There were tear stains down her cheeks, and she was still crying. There was blood staining her hair, and the bed sheets, coming from several cuts on her neck, shoulders, and more, as far down as I could see. I'd never seen her like this, shaking and crying with no control.

"Oh, my God, what happened?" I exclaimed.

She wouldn't, or couldn't, say anything. She just kept crying. I slowly pulled her out of the bed, walked her to the bathroom and turned on the hot tap. I pulled her hair out of her face, up into a bun, and used the warm water and a cloth to start cleaning her face and neck. I started to fill up the bath while I did this, then took off both of our clothes and sat us down in the bath. Olivia cried consistently the entire time I cleaned her up. I washed her hair, trying to talk to her and soothe her, crying along with her as I saw just how bad the cuts were. When she was clean, I sat her on the toilet seat wrapped in a towel, and quickly ran back into the bedroom to take the blood-stained sheets off of her bed. I left the bed stripped, and picked up our first aid kit. I covered her wounds as best I could. I brought Olivia over to our bed, both of us still naked and soaking wet, with most of her cuts now covered with plasters and bandages. We got into the bed, and I held her as she cried until she eventually fell asleep in my arms.

______________

Olivia may have eventually fallen asleep, but I didn't. During the entire time I'd been cleaning her up, she hadn't said a word. I couldn't understand what had happened. Clearly, she'd been attacked. What kind of attacker would have brought her back to her apartment? There was no way she could have walked back here alone, and there was no signs that the attack had happened in here. Had Nicholas's brother not brought her all the way back?

I couldn't help but think that maybe Charles had done this to her. We had trusted him to bring her home.

When Olivia woke up the next morning, she looked over at me with a glassy look in her eyes. She still looked awful.

I sat up in the bed. "Honey, we should bring you to the university doctor, make sure the cuts aren't infected. I couldn't do much besides clean the surface."

"Yeah, you're right." She swung her legs over the side of the bed, then swung one of them over my lap. "But, on the other hand, I feel a million times better now, and I have a sexy, naked woman in my bed." She ran her hands down my arms, and pressed her lips against my neck. "I don't think it'd be a good idea to let this amazing opportunity go to waste..."

"Olivia." I gently removed her body from mine. "I have never seen you like that. Let's get you checked out."

"No. I feel fine."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Of course I do!" she yelled. "I was fucking attacked, Alice! What, I'm not going to tell my girlfriend about that?"

"I assumed you were trying to distract me with sex," I replied honestly.

"I wanted to be close to you."

I sighed, and took her in my arms again. "Okay. Let's get back into bed, and you can tell me what happened. Okay?"

Olivia shook her head and stood up. "I can't just lie there. Charles attacked me, Alice."

I was mute. I didn't know how to respond.

"He's not... He's not human. He's something else entirely."

She began to pace the room, small as it was. "I don't remember everything. I think he tried to erase my memory or something, but I remember most of it. He had fangs, Alice. Actual fangs. Like vampires in movies do." She was standing at the window now. "I felt him in my head. I still feel him. He knows I'm remembering, he knows I'm telling you, we're both in danger oh my god he's coming we have to run Alice please run now!"

Olivia grabbed my hand and pulled me to the door. I tried to protest, remind her I was naked, remind her she was naked, and she let us stop to get dressed, although it was very rushed. She dragged me down the hall, through the front door and right into the sunlight.

"He can't get us now. Thank god the sun is out," she observed. "He would have been able to get us if it wasn't."

"What, and he could have gotten us in the dorm?" I was being sarcastic now. "I thought vampires had to be invited in."

"I'm not sure how much of the myth applies to these vampires." She seemed so serious, I could almost believe her. "But I do know that they can't go out in the sun. That's why Kim and Nicholas wanted to meet so late last night. So it would be dark."

She turned to me then, with worry in her eyes. "Alice, I think he tried to make me one of them last night. What if it worked? What if I'm becoming a vampire?"

Suddenly, we heard a voice behind us.

"You are."