Hamartia

Chapter Fourteen: Olympus Born, Burberry Made

Song - Kris Wu - B.M. 

Recap: 

On the other side of a wide river – that smelt of sewage - in the small city of North Holingbrooke, cut off from South Holingbrooke by a strip of forest, a pink haired vampire slumped against the wall of a closed café, her shoulders drooping in inexplicable tiredness. Two other vampires stood by the counter, one of them surreptitiously glancing towards the windows paranoia clouding his judgement, and the other repetitively punched a young girl with glowing amber eyes in the face again and again. The candy-pink haired vampire was too weary to interrupt, and her stomach rumbled, so she slipped into the kitchen in the back. Her senses drank in the salty smell of blood; a human body was being bled dry by a hungry third vampire. As she walked over, she swung her hips seductively, it came naturally to her, and she didn't need any R&B song playing in the background to give her the perfect air of confidence or a rhythm. 

Chapter Fourteen: Olympus Born, Burberry Made 

"Spinning out, carousel, both of my hands waver..." A low voice sang under its breath, the tune that echoed the same song playing from the sound system in the café, "Don't make a mistake, don't regret, don't make a mistake, don't forget... Ah!" Smack. The sound of Knox's wet hand against the back of Noah's head echoed in the kitchen, successfully cutting off the source of the echo to the music that played overhead.

"Noah, I'm not here to wash up your own café's cutlery and kitchen utensils whilst you play games on your phone!" Knox was curt, and beginning to look tired from the hard day's work and the confusion of everything that had happened so far. He wanted to check his phone for the time, and to see if he had any messages from any of the others from the group he was in, but his manly hands were covered in callouses and soap suds and the cuts in his fingers stung from the heat of the water. Bits of food from bowls that hadn't been scraped completely floated about in the water, but from his experience, Knox no longer felt any disgust as his fingertips brushed against them. 

"But, it's G-Floozy, he's a good R&B artist, state of the art, you know, my auntie Kaitlyn reads the Daily Flabbergaster every weekend when it's published because you know how it's published on a Saturday, five minutes to midnight because, she stays up late after watching the real house wives of Harbruken. I personally hate that show, I think it rejects social constructs too much; the people on it don't even seem real anymore... So I started watching this new program hosted by that guy that was in the shaving foam commercial- what was his name?"

"Do you mean Shawn McAmders from the Dewy Face shaving cream commie?"

"Yeah, him, he's the green eyed one right? I thought he was kind of attractive in a hunky lumberjack social media-esque kind of way, yeah?"

"Get back to work. You're slacking off."

"Fine." Noah shot an ice-hot glare in Knox's direction before sliding down from his perch on the countertop and sauntering forward to help out with aggravated intention. He was aggravated and he had an intention – to help out. Knox glanced over to see how well Noah was getting on – Noah was staring at the plate with a dark look on his face, and suddenly Knox felt a little scared for his life. Noah noticed that Knox had stopped his work and looked up flashing a sudden smile which caught Knox off guard.

"You belong in a mental hospital..." Knox muttered under his breath, assuring himself that Noah was definitely probably insane, and that it was without a doubt a side effect of working at this café, and that this café was probably like one of those 'fun-house' types from a so-called fun-fair.   

As Knox worked at the washing up pile which had seemed to grow a lot, he looked at how the ends of his fingers had turned all wrinkly like his skin usually did when he had been in water for too long. It was another of the things that he knew that he wouldn't experience if he stuck to the rules and had remained a part of the clan rather than being kicked out. This was because of two things; one being vampires in clans have more money to go around meaning that they are richer and have better paid jobs, and the second thing being that vampires that feed well generally don't get unwell often, or experience any of the more mundane things in life. But it was Knox's dream to integrate further into the community as a friendly face and someone that the community could rely upon. And his love of cupcakes had given him a relatively good reputation in the neighbourhood. His reputation was built on kindness unlike the reputation that Lord Portly and most of the other vampires had. This was because they tended to be more liable to rule and law breaking, something which Knox strayed away from ever since he had become a rogue vampire.