Bites & Bruises (ManxMan)

Thirty Seven

I rolled to my left and she fell to the floor with a sickening thud. Skin against wet gravel wasn't a nice sound and I brushed off the urge to go comfort her. Cassandra had been a kind, gentle soul and the woman in front of me, if you could even call her that, wasn't my Cassie. 

Jackson had turned her into a monster. A pawn to use at his disposal. 

Rage bubbled up inside me and I snarled, throwing myself against the fence in an attempt to get to him but he just shook his head and tutted, hands behind his back and his eyes a light with something dark and dangerous. 

"I said only one of you gets out alive," He grinned, "I'm sort of hoping it's you, that way I can have a go with you before I rip that sniveling head of yours clean off."

I reached for him through the bars but he merely stepped back and chuckled, looking like Satan himself as he grinned and crossed his arms over his chest, watching with glee as Cassandra slowly picked herself up off the floor and then threw herself at me again. 

Pain ran through me as her claws sunk into my arm and I growled, grabbing a fistful of her matted, dirty blonde hair and yanking her head back without thinking, baring my fangs in a blatant warning. 

Cassandra ignored me and snapped at me. 

"You don't have to do this, we love each other, remember?"

She shook her head, a crazed look in her eye. "You never loved me, you used me!" 

"What have you done to her?"

I clenched my jaw and flicked my gaze towards Jackson who was smirking. "Just gave her a dose of reality. You did sponge off her, living with her for all those years... I don't know why she didn't leave you to bleed out in the forest all those years ago... Yeah that's right, I know all about your suicidal episodes."

Hurt bloomed in my chest. She promised never to tell anyone about those God awful years and a shiver of something dark and evil ran down my spine as I turned towards her. 

She pulled out of my grip and stumbled back, tears running down her cheeks whilst her eyes said something else entirely. She looked cruel and completely void of emotion as she stared at me. 

"I thought you were going to save me Payton, you promised!" 

"I was coming, there was nothing I could do to get here quicker," I watched her with narrow eyes. "Maybe you should have listened to my warning when I saw you all those years ago with this asshole."

"It's your fault I'm like this! If we hadn't seen you, if you had stayed away then Jackson wouldn't have... He-He wouldn't-"

"O-Kay, I'm getting bored of this now," The monster in question rolled back his shoulders and gripped the bars of the cage. "Get to it before I kill your precious little child Cassandra."

"No!"

"Child!?"

I took a step away from her and she growled, the sound pure animalistic. "W-What child? Vampires can't get pregnant!"

"Oh, you didn't tell your pet about your sick and twisted hobby?" He tutted and snapped his fingers, "Your innocent maker here has been trying to turn children, she couldn't have a kid of her own so decided the next best thing was to snatch children from their homes and turn them."

"That's not how it went!"

My gaze flickered between the two, mind racing. "What did she do?"

Jackson opened his mouth to answer when she began to talk over him, voice shrill and words stuttered as she paused her assault on me to whimper. "I-I found her outside a church, it was snowing and she was catching a cold, she-she was broken before I got there. I fixed her!"