The Blood Whore

Acquaintance

Chapter Eleven;;

Acquaintance;;

Cooper lay there for a while, her mind moving quickly without the inhibition of emotion. She had a few things she wanted to figure out, questions to ask. She knew it wasn’t her place to ask them, but maybe someone would answer them or give her clues to what she wanted to know. Aiden was the center of most of these questions.

God, she thought with disgust, I'm beginning to think like this is normal.

She headed to the desk so she could write these ideas down, wishing that the window gave better light to the room. That was when she heard escalated voices from downstairs. They were too angry, and were speaking too quickly for her to understand, but she recognized Nadeline’s voice among them.

They’re fighting. She thought in delight, This makes ‘divide and conquer’ a definite plan of escape. Then something else came to her. If all of the vampires were downstairs fighting none of them were up here, there was no one there to guard her. She had a brief glimpse at escape.

She headed out the door and was just about to try the room beside her own when she remembered the other human. Reason told her to keep walking, to try and sneak out of the dark house. Her conscience, however, wouldn’t allow this. She was safe enough from danger as it was to leave behind an innocent man.

Knowing she would regret this she tip toed down the hallway until she came to the room she’d found before. Slowly she cracked open the door, hoping the old wood would not creak. Luckily it didn’t, she allowed herself a brief moment of hope as she continued to hear the voices thunder from downstairs. It was almost deafening.

She snuck in and hesitated, thinking about closing the door behind her. They were thundering downstairs, which would be the focus of their superhuman hearing she was sure, but she didn’t want to risk it. She hadn’t realized there had been whimpering in the room until it stopped.

“Who are you?” A raw, male voice asked.

She looked at the man who had been grabbed off the streets and felt pity. Nadeline and Dalia had been cruel. There was a bite mark on one of his arms, swollen and red, and a slender cut along his collar bone, there was a thin trail of blood falling down his exposed chest from the end of the cut. One of them had ripped open his shirt. She noted the sweat seeping out of him, and his ragged terrified breathing.

Worse yet was that someone had brought in pizza, probably what he had requested, and left it just in front of him so he couldn’t reach it with his mouth. His hands were still handcuffed to the bed. Where did they even get the handcuffs? Cooper wondered, before quickly deciding she probably didn’t want to know.

“P-please, d-don’t hurt me.” He spluttered, beginning to scramble away from her.

“I won’t.” Cooper said as soothingly as she could. She walked closer, deeper into the room. It was very similar to her own. The bed was a canopy with regal red curtains. The blanket looked expensive as well, it had a knight riding a handsome horse on it. They obviously hadn’t cared for it since there was blood splatters all over it. “I’m so sorry they did this to you.”

He didn’t seem to trust her still, she didn’t blame him. “I’m human.” She said, but as she approached he tried to scramble away. His feet slid against the ground, his back was already pressed against the pillar of the bed. He had nowhere to go.

Not wanting to give him a heart attack she rearranged her hair so that he might be able to see where Aiden had cut her neck. “See? They drank from me too.”

This seemed to reassure him a bit. His eyes were still wide, but he stopped trying to scurry away. Cooper assumed he was just shocked. “H-How did you get out?” He was definitely a stutter friendly person.

“They, um, just left.” She said, feeling guilty for wanting to leave him behind. “May I?” She asked reaching out and looking at the hand cuffs. She saw where the keys went in. She figured she could pick the locks if she could find something small and thin, how hard could it really be?

“Okay, I’m going to get you out of here.” She told him, trying to sound brave. She went to the nightstand they had rested the pizza on. She placed a slice into his mouth as she slid open a drawer. “My name is Cooper, what’s yours?”

“George.” He said around a mouthful of food. He appeared to be calming, at least he wasn’t stuttering. “How did they find you?”

She plucked at pens and papers and books. Was there anything useful in the drawer? “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She replied. She barely believed it herself, and she seemed to be accepting things a lot better than he was anyways.

She saw a hair brush in the bottom-most drawer. Not stopping to wonder why it was there, she plucked it up. She pulled at one of the needles and yanked it out. It was small but it should work, right? She turned back to him, leaning towards his hands. Cramming in the needle from the hair brush she began to wiggle it around.

She stopped for a moment. Crap, she realized. They aren’t yelling anymore. She tried to pick up the pace, but she had no clue what she was doing. It was significantly harder than she'd thought. She was just moving things around hoping it would work, but she had no idea how she’d know.

George suddenly jerked away from her, and the hand cuffs came away. Cooper’s feeling of victory died in her throat when she looked over to see Nadeline waltzing over from the doorway. “Cooper,” she smiled. “Welcome over.”

Cooper didn’t say anything, but George scrambled behind her the moment he realized his hands were free. Cooper would have scoffed at him, calling him a coward, but it looked like he’d had a rough time earlier. “Was it your friends who attacked Wesley?”

Nadeline narrowed her eyes for a moment, then shook out her wavy brown hair with a giggle. “So Wesley told you about that? What an old teddy bear." She bent down and tapped the hand cuffs hanging around the pillar. “You’re clever aren’t you?”

“Very clever.” Another voice resounded. Cooper looked around astonished, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Dalia reclined on the bed beside her. “She realized that she had a chance of escape when we were all yelling.”

Nadeline smiled and clapped her hands, “You are going to be so fun!”

“You know,” Dalia whispered, pulling Cooper closer by the shoulder. Whispering in her ear, she continued, “We knew you’d gotten out from the beginning.”

“Yup, yup.” Nadeline said cheerfully, bouncing up and down. She spun in a circle and sang, “You never had a chance from the start.” She stopped spinning for a moment and stared at Cooper intently.

She was before Cooper in a heartbeat, “Someone already got a taste.” She looked intently at Cooper’s neck, and Cooper realized what it was that had got Nadeline’s attention. She flinched as the vampress ran a finger along the edges of her cut, but she dared not move away. “Who was it? It probably tasted amazing.” She licked her lips and Cooper saw the pointed teeth for a fraction of a second, and saw her eyes slowly going red.

“Stop that, Nadeline.” Cooper’s heart sank even further at the sound of Louis’s voice, but she felt a little more relieved when she saw the other vampires were there as well. Aiden’s hair was more mussed up; he had definitely run his fingers through it a lot. Wesley was grimacing and whispering something in the ear of the chubby vampress. Mary?

“But Louis,” Nadeline pouted.

“No, Nadeline. I need to feed now.” He said, his voice was scary when he was obviously asserting his authority. “The ones who attacked Wesley probably followed him here, now we are going to have to fight. As leader of this cult I demand to take the first of human blood.”

Cooper gulped. She had a feeling she knew what that meant. She whispered to George behind her, “It was nice making your acquaintance, George.” She looked at Louis and gulped at his menacing gaze. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping it would be quick or at least painless.