Human

Chapter 17

   Fever dreams are strange.

   Different scenes keep playing in my head, a kaleidoscope of childhood memories each engulfing into each other. I can see baby Isla, and a pre-teen Eli. His hair much too long, and greasy from his bath-strike.  Another memory interjects on top of this lighthearted moment, teen Eli morphes onto his younger counterpart. He is refusing to look at me at the dinner-table, and the next thing I know theres a montage of me eating in the kitchen from that point.

  I can't seem to wake myself up. I try my hardest to kick my legs or raise my hands, but I've seem to have lost the connection with my body.
-Lilith

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    Jackson sits quietly on his bunk, waiting.  The sun rises in the distance, shining onto the blinds of the cabin.  Streaks of light peak through the gaps and run across a solemn face. 

   Lilith hadn't moved since he left her on the cliff. Her body had already been moved to the bed in the center of the room when he had arrived around four in the morning. He gritted his teeth, and locked eyes on the red teeth-marks on her arm.

   Supernatural's disgusted him,  revolted his sensabilities, and angered his morality.  His choice to become a bounty hunter had brought him pleasure on even his darkest days. The rush from the ability to punish his masters was an ecstacy he couldn't describe.

   Yet now he had to play nice, even cooperate with vampires to survive. There was an unspoken rule of the camp: Murder is encouraged, and only the strongest will survive.  The camps across the nation culled the weak among the species, leaving only the most psychopathic left.

   His eyes trailed along the outline of Lilith's body under the dull grey sheet. The only sign of life being her chest rising and descending slowly. Her skin was whiter than before, her lip's tinted a pale blue.
  
   Jackson knew Lilith hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours by now, but she still wouldn't wake up, no matter how hard he silently pleaded.

    Jackson knew he couldn't take on the whole camp himself, he needed the rest of the humans to stay alive. If at the very least take the attention off himself. It would only take one person finding out who he really was to paint a giant target on his back.

   However, a soft spot on his heart had already formed around the idea of Lilith, and he couldn't understand why.  She wasn't the strong, in-your-face woman he normally courted.

   His thoughts ran over his past girlfriends; fellow bounty hunters with the ability to kick his a**, or the one who had made her own town in the middle of the woods, surviving off the land and independent from the world.

   The only thing he even really knew about Lilith was her contract with the Varndell family, and her rocky relationship with their heir. His head shook, the growth of hair at the back of his head tickling his neck. He got off the bed, leaving a tangle of sheets behind.

   Small creaks from the wooden floor didn't disturb Lilith's unconcious body, and he opened the door to the bathroom. Quickly his hands grabbed for his small black pouch laying on the corner of the sink attached to the wall,  a simple small porcelain toilet to the right, and a cramped shower stood on the wall further in the corner; lacking a shower curtain. Water was even still pooled on the ground from someone's shower.

   His dark brown eyes gazed back from his reflection in the mirror. Stubble had started to form in a patch under his lips, and his hair a tousled mess atop his head.

   Reaching into the pack, he pulled out a single blade razor, and got to work on the hair on his face and the base of his neck. He worked gently to groom himself without incident.

   The down-time let him think more about his type of woman, although not normally the kind of thing you think about in life or death situations, but he absent mindedly blamed it on his hormones.

   The only supernatural he had ever been involved with had been a mermaid, posing as a human. He could still smell the sea breeze from her straight, long, coppery hair. His hands could feel the rough skin on her arms, which had turned to scales under his grasp. 

   "An embarrassing way to find out your girlfriend is a mermaid is to surprise her in the shower," he thought. The water revealed the scales on her entire lower body, and spaces on her neck collapsed into gills.  Her beautiful blue eyes turned a dark green, the same color as the scales scattered across her body.

   He broke it off with her that day.

   Jackson's hand came up to feel his work, and he lifted his shirt above his head. He grabbed the rolled up black shirt from his pack and changed.  The blood and dirt where difficult to scrub out with the small bar-soap in the sink.

   A door opened and closed roughly, making him jump. He left his shirt to soak in the sink and went into the main room.

   "Oh my gods," Lynn gasped. Her pink hand covering her mouth.

  "What happened," she stuttered.

   Jackson rolled his eyes.

   "Vampire happened. Is Layla okay," Jackson asked.

   Lynn lowered her chin, black hair hiding the sides of her face. The leftover burn Mark's on her hand was highlighted by the sun breaking in from the window.

  Tears formed from the sides of her naturally squinty eyes.

  "I don't know," she said, defeated.

  "Aurabelle was working on her when I left... I couldn't prevent them from hurting her. The faeries always think we're lying, when it's really them that are the liars," she trailed off, folding her arms in front of her flat chest.

  Lilith's body stirred, a groan escaping her lips. Her friend's gathered next to her, and Lynn ran a hand on her forehead. 

  "You okay, Lilith," she asked softly, wiping some sweat from her forehead.

  "Just fine, considering the circumstances," she said deliriously.