Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Chapter 1

CHELSEA

She struggled, for breath and her future.

Her breaths came faster and faster, sounding like a trapped animal. And she was trapped, but she certainly wasn't an animal. At least, not yet.

The creature that held her by the throat was beautiful, her skin flawless and hair long. Even as the thing forced her to the ground, she smiled serenely, her enjoyment clear in her lapis blue eyes. It was all Chelsea Hamilton could do to hold her off, but she was young and inexperienced, barely matriculated at the VAMP training grounds, in her first year of practical education. A sting of bitterness hit her.

How fair is it that this happened to me? I don't want to leave. I just convinced them to take me.

She quelled that line of thought immediately. Firstly, it was whiney and unhelpful, secondly, she really needed to focus.

Chelsea, armed with nothing more than a spray bottle of antiseptic and a small sledgehammer, felt the pathetic-ness of her furious strikes. She was using moves she had barely learned as well as random swings of her mallet. The spray was running low, unfortunately; its acidity seemed to be more effective than the brute force of the hammer.

Her eyes darted from side-to-side, looking desperately for a way out. There was nothing. They were behind a locked door with the lights turned out. The door led to the disused assistant janitor's office, unopened since that man's untimely Change into those dreaded creatures. There was no reason for anyone to even consider entering. Chelsea knew that she herself would never cast a glance to the door. She hadn't ever seen the inside despite having attended school for three months now, and she probably never would have - not until she had seen someone come in here. Someone she knew. Someone she loved very, very much. Someone who was very gone, unlike her principal Mr. Lorbretti, whose voice she could hear ringing outside the closed door.

"I told you idiots yesterday that the school needed to be swept for the leeches!! Why are you just showing up now! I have students who could be changed at any minute, do you know how many have been attacked today? They could still be fighting for their lives!"

Lorbretti continued his rant, but Chelsea ignored it. She was more interested in the arms currently strangling her. She lost her grip on the mallet and her spray was gone. It was up to luck and chance now. Chelsea seized the strong arms around her throat and threw the vamp in the air, hoping she would land against the metal filing cabinets. No such luck. The creature flipped deftly in midair, landing cat-like on her toes, smiling wickedly. Chelsea rushed at her with the desperate strength of the hopeless. How ironic, she thought, that while Lorbretti is out there, looking out for our best interests, I'm twenty feet away, dying.

Chelsea could imagine the principal's face, mottled purple and red, his veins sticking out from his toned neck. From the sound of it, it seemed like he would strangle the VAMP officers. The actual name for the department was Vampiric Assassination and Medication Patrol, but let's be frank: no one cared enough about the bloodsuckers to get close enough to treat them. That is, if there was even a cure. Noah and Gemma (after they'd had a few drinks) speculated endlessly on the probability of a cure.

"I mean," Noah would slur, "It's been, what, since Ptolemy III that they identified the leeches? And you would think they were working on a cure then. So how come it's taken them this long to even mention a cure?"

Gemma would chime in, usually interrupting Noah. "Simple! because they a) don't care, which I highly doubt, or b) they've realized that nothing is gonna stop those parasites."

Gemma and Noah were remarkably articulate for drunks. The only way you could tell they were tipsy was because they didn't fight while intoxicated. If they inadvertently agreed on something while sober, they would backtrack furiously, denying and contradicting everything they had said previously.

Ah, Gemma and Noah. Her best friends, if you didn't count Maggie. Most didn't, nowadays. As Chelsea struggled for breath, her mind flashed to the time Gemma and Noah had shared with her at this place, this place she had thought she would be safe.

Mr. Lorbretti's rant ended suddenly, at least to Chelsea's mind. Chelsea's senses dulled sharply as soon as she felt the sensation her teachers had described to her. The creature had found her opening and struck, right on Chelsea's left hip.

The vampire's mouth slowly curved to a half-smile, a wicked crescent moon. She leaned down so that her face was even with Chelsea's. Feeling hazy, Chelsea managed to turn her head to face the monster. Big mistake.

The female's teeth were bared and her fangs were showing, dripping with blood. Chelsea nearly vomited at the metallic scent of blood, blood she realized was her own. The creature had eyes filled with detached curiosity, like the girl was an ant she held a magnifying glass over, waiting for her to burn.. She moved closer to Chelsea until the girl's entire vision was taken up by the monster's pretty, poreless face.

"I should bite you twice, in the interest of keeping my streak alive," the monster spat "but you would prove too weak for us."

The creature's voice was ugly compared to the rest of her. It was shrill and grating, reminiscent of fingernail scratching on an old-fashioned chalkboard. Chelsea wondered idly, as the poison in the bite caught up to her, if all of them had ugly voices. Too bad she wouldn't stay here long enough to find out. Then a thought occurred to her, and she tried to laugh, but only managed a wheeze, her body beginning the Change, her vision beginning to fuzz.

Hell, she would be joining the vampires in their prison soon enough. She'd find out there. But for now she had questions, and not a lot of time.

"Who... who are you?" Chelsea rasped. "What do you want with me?"

The vampire smirked saucily.

"I was Mary Jenner," she announced with an air of importance before changing her expression to a scowl. "And for some reason they wanted you. They said they wanted you safe. Special treatment for a trick."

Chelsea thought she had heard wrong. Her hearing was fading rapidly.

"Me?"

The female rose elegantly without answering and twisted the door handle sharply. She turned back to frown down on her latest prey. Chelsea was already frothing but had some mental capacity left, enough to process that the creature hissed, "Why her?" as she carefully swept out of the tiny office.

She also noted the crushed doorknob before the blackness swallowed her.