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It was cold. God, it was so cold.

A shiver crawled up Lena’s spine and deposited itself at the back of her mind. The chill was relayed to the rest of her numbed nerves. Eyes narrowed, teeth were clamped shut as they gritted, in the hopes of stopping their chattering. It didn’t work.

The loud sound of tooth on tooth echoed around her, through her. When it finally stopped, she looked down and noticed that she was wiping her hands on her legs as a distraction. Her bony, numb, clammy hands.

And it was still cold.

She had heard, or maybe read, that when your body began to overheat, you perspired as a way to cool yourself down. It had been hours, if not days, that she’d been freezing. Cold sweat crawling down her face and collecting at her chin to make fat, salty drops that either fell hard on her too skinny thighs or continued down her sternum. Whoever had said sweat only came when you were overheated was full of it.

Because she wasn't hot.

She was cold.

She was fucking cold.

Thinking for a few more agonizing moments, she finally silenced whatever pride she had left. After a few long breaths to steady shaky legs, bare hands gripped the sides of the wooden thing she was sitting on and slid off effortlessly, slowly putting toes, then soles, on the cold, hard floor.

Cold.

Damn it all.

Not that it truly mattered.

Her feet were already half-numb anyway, and they were close to completely frozen by the time she turned around and contemplated whether she should freeze to death or do something which nearly gave as many goosebumps as the cold itself.

So many goosebumps.

Hands moved away from hips to encroach near opposite elbows, skin being rubbed to near friction-burning in a sliver of hope to stop the shakes that went through and through.

Stupid Harris. Making her used to taking practically everything off before going to bed, save for an undershirt and bikini-cut undies. Fucking boyfriend.

“I’d have worn my old coat to bed if I knew I’d wake up cold and dead”.

Ha ha.

Would make a great bumper sticker. It even rhymed. Old. Cold. Bed. Dead.

Lena coaxed a small smile at the humour in the thought.

She was seriously fucked in the mind if she was creating one-liners right about now.

Breathing hard against the wave of nausea that suddenly started in her gut, scrunching up black eyes shut, she outstretched her arms towards the wooden object in front of her and put her weight on it. Body shuddering as darkness whirled and twisted around.

Dead...

It couldn't be...real, right?

...Right?

Lena slowed down her breathing even more, easing the panic in her frazzled nerves, even as more sweat poured out of her palms, making her slippery wet on the top of the box. She forced herself to stand up, shifting her lithe body onto her legs.

Her chest heaved in exertion.

Staring blankly at the box for a few moments, as if the panic had drained all emotion, she closed her eyes, turning a greasy head of hair away. She closed her eyes shut once more, as if she was ashamed of it.

Should she?

No.

But why? Hope of getting out this mess was pretty much gone. He was coming back, for the last time. Though he could be lying.

Even if she was more than halfway there. Even if she had most of the symptoms...it still wasn’t all the way.

She shook her head. This wasn’t healthy. Nor did it make the decision any easier.

It would be better to sit in this would-be freezer than in there.

She reopened her eyes, looking down at the wooden box. So tired... But that was what was expected from her to do...And she didn’t want to do anything for him.

Then again.

Lena placed her hands on the bottom of the lid and lifted. Three quarters through the motion, she stopped.

It was so very cold...

She thrust weary hands upward and the hinges whined before coming to a stop.

A skeleton. With raggy remains.

"Fucker's taking up my space..." she muttered to no one in particular before bending over and dragging the remains out by what had once been its shoulders.

She tossed it unceremoniously to the floor, wiping hands off on each other as the old bones clattered eerily against the ground. Lena yawned as she turned towards the coffin and stretched her whole body. Finally... the cold was beginning to ease away, like a bleeding finger being placed under running water. You lost more blood that way, but at least you couldn't feel it.

She frowned as her eyes caught something lying on the plush interior of the coffin.
Blinking, she reached in and grabbed it in her hand before standing up and peering at it. It was the lower jaw of whoever had been put to rest, complete with half a set of teeth.

No fangs, though. She ran her tongue over her upper teeth, pausing as she felt the two canines that jutted out a bit farther than the rest.

A faint smile appeared on her lips again as she lifted a leg over the edge of the coffin and tossed the jaw carelessly over a malnourished shoulder.

And he said she had a chance. Not that she had a “life” to begin with....

Life.

Lena suddenly froze, her eyes widening as they shot down towards the casket under her.

Life.

Her stomach lurched, and the cold came back with a vengeance. Winding her and knocking her to the ground where she had thrown the desecrated remains of the body. She felt the brittle bones crack beneath her just before hitting the ground, and gave out a choked cry as she curled up from the frigid air that suddenly surrounded her anew. She lay there for a moment, the pain of the fall not registering.

"Christ..." she finally whispered, wincing as the word made her head pound and her tongue burn. She shook her head again, rolling over onto the flat of her back and biting her lower lip as eyes wandered towards the ceiling.

".....I.....damn it....I'm farther gone than I thought....."

She bit down so hard that one of the... sharper teeth punctured her lip, and her face contorted into a scowl. Until that was replaced with shock. Barely any blood had gone out. And she was such an easy bleeder.

Lying still in total silence, the gravity of her predicament suddenly dawned.

Finally, she rolled over and stared dully at the coffin she had been willing to jump into only a few minutes earlier.

Lena sighed.

"I'm fucked."

Then she laid like that, ominous thoughts swimming in her mind like sharks.

Her eyes narrowed themselves in exhaustion as each breath of cold air seemed more and more surreal, as if in a dream...

Maybe it was a dream. Maybe three days of terror, three days of shame and self-loathing had never truly happened. Maybe she could shut her eyes and open them again, and suddenly she’d be back in her warm, fluffy bed in her little dorm. Legs tangled in with Harris’, his stereotypical baby blue eyes looking at her with a soft look of care and love...

Lena closed her eyes shut, letting herself drift into a half-dead sleep. Harris must be worrying...Yeah, he'd always worried about her, especially when he went to work late at night. Leaving her alone in a not-too-safe part of the city. She had just been too blind to see it, blinded by dreams and wishes...by her own selfish needs.

And now she was blinded here as well by the darkness in some damn crypt at the bottom of some damn mansion in the middle of some damn town in the middle of nowhere, the only inhabitants  either a bunch of illusions or a fucking vampire.

Fucking...

Vampire...who was tantalizingly beautiful to her eyes. And her eyes alone.

Footsteps, faint and light, from the other side of the door.

A faint scent.... a scent of one, who was compelled by a need that couldn’t be satiated now, if ever...

And a distinctive aching... now a stinging sensation.... at two small points... at the side... of her.... neck....

Lena's eyes snapped open.

He was here.

A door suddenly flew open with the force of a battalion as faint light flooded the small room. Lena skittered backwards on the dirty floor, hiding her eyes from the small flow of white light that got in...

It was so bright.

Then, just as suddenly as the entrance had happened, it ended, and for a moment, she felt nothing but fear.

He was here.

Tall and silent, a black silhouette against the very recent memory of blinding light that still stung her eyes. A few slivers of silver jewellery amplifying it some more.

And those eyes... those horrible, reddish brown eyes...

She unconsciously bared her teeth, getting up on her feet with clenched fists pushing her up, a growl forming in her dry throat. She wouldn't let this go on... she wouldn't let that... that damn MONSTER strip away the only thing she had left to cherish...not without a fight.

Silence. The creature's eyes stayed fixed on Lena for a moment, as if estimating his victim's power, and then unlatched themselves from her face, scanning the room slowly and deliberately.

She made the first move.

She wished she could be brave, that this fight for her own being was on a course for victory. Instead, she swallowed down a bit of her fear, stuttering despite the clear ideas expressed in her words.

"A....Avery!" Lena hissed, attracting his attention. She paused a moment to catch her breath and continued. "J...Jesus...! ....Why.... why the hell are you doing this, trying to turn me into some... some kind of...thing!...I....fuck I.... you.... we... I thought we were....friends... or.... or some shit like that.....!!!!"

Avery stood as still as a statue, motionless and emotionless against the metal door.  Those eyes studied her face for a moment with an intent, almost curious gaze and then were raised towards the ceiling as he shook his head just slightly, creating a ripple that travelled from his dark bangs to the ends of his perfect head of jet black hair.

Lena never saw it coming.

There was a slight rustle of fabric, a short click of the tongue, and then a loud crack as she felt herself grabbed right under her chin and slammed against the wall. She didn’t know if the wall was cold anymore, of if the air around her had cooled even more from the brief opening of the door.

All she knew for sure was that nothing could be as cold as the firm hand holding her and crushing her windpipe.

Lena let out a strained gasp and took hold on Avery’s arm with both hands, attempting to pry the man's pale, dead fingers from her own pale, more-than-half-dead neck.

The bite marks were burning by then.

"So," he finally spoke, toneless words echoing on the walls as he narrowed his eyes at her attempt to break free; the young woman jerked convulsively, writhing and kicking bare feet alternatively against the wall and Avery’s abdomen as his vice-like grip kept her securely off the ground and out of air.

"You have already received your gift--" he quickly ran his eyes over the length of her body "--hm--for the most part, I see... and yet...." he looked at the tormented expression, "you don't... seem to appreciate it. Why?"

He loosened his grip slighty, enough to allow the captive woman a gasp of sweet air and a few words of desperation.

"God----god DAMN it Avery!!!" she yelled in her now hoarse voice, struggling to escape the tall man's grasp. "What kind of gift is.... is making a girl want to sleep in a damn coffin and drink.... drink.... bl...!!!!!!"

The bite marks seared the nape of her neck, the pain they inflicted upon her increasing with each word of defiance that came out of her mouth. It was an intense pain that wildly contradicted the numb, cold feeling in the rest of her body, and the combination of the two was enough to make Lena shut her eyes, gritting those damn fangs against teeth in an effort to stop tears from falling down her face. No way she'd look like a weakling in front of him.

No fucking way in hell.

"I am truly sorry that you must suffer such pain for such great power..." Lena could hear Avery's quiet, almost hypnotic voice through her pounding temples. "However, it is necessary part of the process, according to Elias..."

She would have probably called him one hell of a crazy bastard for following Elias' notes right about then, but between the vampire's inhuman grip, the pain of the bite marks, and the suppressed panic that racked her psyche, she couldn't quite find the opportunity...

After an immeasurable stretch of time, the burning slowly began to dull back to an ache.

Lena slowly opened the lids of her now watery eyes, blinking past the blurry spots that permeated her sight. She could feel the cold concrete wall against her back, her feet back on terra ferma. Avery was standing over her.

"Do you remember..." his voice was distant, muffled by some invisible covering that was separating this tall, impossibly beautiful creature from the heaving, dull-eyed girl. "How I once... asked you how you managed to be so..."

He paused. "....Carefree...?"

She was quiet, looking down towards the ground as she brought a hand to where she was held up from just moments ago, rubbing it gingerly.

"You said you weren't carefree," Avery continued, turning his head to the side thoughtfully. "You said you'd sometimes think about each step so obsessively that you almost lost yourself...You said there were many things that worried you on a daily basis."

Lena closed her eyes, sliding down the wall until she sat down on the floor, putting a hand on her forehead.

"...You do realize why this must be done?" he turned his gaze upon her, his eyes full of some distant pain and sadness.

She brought her hand down on her lap, opening her eyes halfway as she swallowed loudly before looking up at the empty ceiling, so tired from it all. She breathed from her nostrils before letting out a barely audible whisper:

"How the hell... how would I...?"

She closed her eyes, shaking her head for what felt like the hundredth time. "I.... I don't want this... f-fuck..."

Avery paused, an expression of distress marring his feature. He looked away. "Long ago... a very.... long time ago... I loved someone... dearly. However, she loved another, and I allowed the other to have her, for I cared about her happiness above all else." His eyes turned a darker, deeper shade.

"But then, before I could stop him, he hurt her... He hurt her and she was gone before I could take back my ignorance..."

"....Yeah.... I know that," Lena said quietly. Avery had pretty much muttered it out in detail after school, when they were correcting student papers.

"But...what the hell does that have to do with... with... turning me into a..." she trailed off as a sharp intake of air came in from her pursed lips. She turned her head away with obvious shame, the fangs painfully sharp in her mouth.

Avery turned his gaze back on her. He slowly lowered himself to her level.

"I let Ami leave my care and be smothered by the insatiable arms of Death... and when I tried to avenge her sweet soul, Death claimed me as well, forcing me to live with it as punishment for my sins..."

He kneeled down, bringing his reddish brown eyes level with Lena’s black ones. "However, what I did not realize was that living in death... can be a gift." He smiled softly, a strangely naive, eerily childish expression for someone as cold as him.

"What's your point, Gothman?" she whispered, a sharp tone punctuating her calm
voice as she returned his stare.

"I let Death take Ami before I could introduce her to it..." Vincent said simply.

"I am not going to let the same thing happen to you."

She couldn't help give a small parody of a smile. "Comparing me to your old girlfriend, huh? What, do you care about me? Do you love me?"

The side of Avery's mouth tugged upwards with that same childlike innocence.

"Actually, Elena...Yes, I do. Very much, in fact."

Her smile suddenly dropped as she blinked at him. His tone had changed drastically. It was still calm, but...

It was a tone filled with sweetness. Sweeter than Harris’, who rarely, if ever, called her by her actual name like Avery just did.

"You seem surprised." He continued, leaning forward uncomfortably close to Lena. "After all, you were the only one who looked at me and still accepted me...still gave me so much kindness."

He slowly brought his hand towards her cheek and rested it there. She winced as he saw the hand come towards her and then outright shivered as she felt the icy fingers upon her frozen face. She wanted more than anything to yell at Avery, to tell him to get his goddamn hands off of her, to lash out and kick the bastard where it hurt, then to dash out the door, leap up the stairs, just get OUT of that fucking hellhole of a house, then to run like hell all the way home where Harris would be worried beyond his normal state enough to give the biggest, longest hug of all existence and almost sob out: "A whole week without ANY sort of warning?!"

But even with all of her wishing to feel Harris’ too-hard hug rather than Avery’s more-than-devoted affection, she couldn't bring herself to move an inch.

Something about the vampire's touch...It made the bite marks burn once more, draining what little strength she had left and rendering all of her  best efforts useless.

Lena shut her eyes tightly, twitching at first as Avery began to stroke her sticky face with the back of his hand.

"I won't let you pass through death," he said softly, soothingly, as if speaking to his favourite pet. "I'll save you Elena..."

The victim of Avery's skewed logic gathered just enough energy to quickly turn her head to the side, shaking off his unwelcome touch. However, the seemingly young man calmly brought his hand to Lena’s chin, gripping it firmly and jerking it back in his direction, causing her eyes to snap open.

Avery studied her face intently, his intense eyes boring into her own. She glared back with the same amount of intensity, and soon, she found himself growling through her clenched teeth. It took her nearly a minute of watching his slowly growing smile to realize what she was doing and stop.

"Elena..." he arched an eyebrow. "You are terrified."

She looked away. "...You're insane," was all that managed to come out.

God, she could use that hug right about now...

Avery's smile widened. "Not insane, Elena. Just..." he glanced thoughtfully about the room that would have been pitch-black to a normal man's eyes and then back towards his victim, his love.

"...carefree." He narrowed his eyes. "I no longer fear Death...and I believe it to be a gift, and most definitely worth having this unnatural need for."

His hand slowly crawled down from Lena's neck, running fingers along the pale contours of skin until they reached the bite marks, whose pain seemed soothed, even diminished by their chilling touch.

She knew what was coming next.

Oh, God, she knew what was coming...

She began to breathe heavily, shaking as Avery brought his face closer towards the half-dead young woman's being, stroking the marks gently with his index and middle finger.

He deposited a kiss on her lips. It shocked her, to say the least.

A moment of pure calm before the storm.

"Living in death... The ironic key to immortality, Elena." He whispered affectionately as the kiss ended.

"Don’t you want it? Even just a little...?"

She could only move a stray lock of hair out of her face in front of such a man with no future.

He just shook his head softly.

"Don't worry..." he leaned towards her neck, opening his mouth to reveal a pair of impeccable white fangs upturned in that childish grin.

“It’ll be over soon.”

His eyes lit up as he sank his fangs into Lena's pale flesh.

It burned. It burned like hell.

Description
It was cold. God, it was so cold.

A shiver crawled up Lena’s spine and deposited itself at the back of her mind. The chill was relayed to the rest of her numbed nerves. Eyes narrowed, teeth were clamped shut as they gritted, in the hopes of stopping their chattering. It didn’t work.

The loud sound of tooth on tooth echoed around her, through her. When it finally stopped, she looked down and noticed that she was wiping her hands on her legs as a distraction. Her bony, numb, clammy hands.

And it was still cold.

She had heard, or maybe read, that when your body began to overheat, you perspired as a way to cool yourself down. It had been hours, if not days, that she’d been freezing. Cold sweat crawling down her face and collecting at her chin to make fat, salty drops that either fell hard on her too skinny thighs or continued down her sternum. Whoever had said sweat only came when you were overheated was full of it.

Because she wasn't hot.

She was cold.

She was fucking cold.

Thinking for a few more agonizing moments, she finally silenced whatever pride she had left. After a few long breaths to steady shaky legs, bare hands gripped the sides of the wooden thing she was sitting on and slid off effortlessly, slowly putting toes, then soles, on the cold, hard floor.

Cold.

Damn it all.

Not that it truly mattered.

Her feet were already half-numb anyway, and they were close to completely frozen by the time she turned around and contemplated whether she should freeze to death or do something which nearly gave as many goosebumps as the cold itself.

So many goosebumps.

Hands moved away from hips to encroach near opposite elbows, skin being rubbed to near friction-burning in a sliver of hope to stop the shakes that went through and through.

Stupid Harris. Making her used to taking practically everything off before going to bed, save for an undershirt and bikini-cut undies. Fucking boyfriend.

“I’d have worn my old coat to bed if I knew I’d wake up cold and dead”.

Ha ha.

Would make a great bumper sticker. It even rhymed. Old. Cold. Bed. Dead.

Lena coaxed a small smile at the humour in the thought.

She was seriously fucked in the mind if she was creating one-liners right about now.

Breathing hard against the wave of nausea that suddenly started in her gut, scrunching up black eyes shut, she outstretched her arms towards the wooden object in front of her and put her weight on it. Body shuddering as darkness whirled and twisted around.

Dead...

It couldn't be...real, right?

...Right?

Lena slowed down her breathing even more, easing the panic in her frazzled nerves, even as more sweat poured out of her palms, making her slippery wet on the top of the box. She forced herself to stand up, shifting her lithe body onto her legs.

Her chest heaved in exertion.

Staring blankly at the box for a few moments, as if the panic had drained all emotion, she closed her eyes, turning a greasy head of hair away. She closed her eyes shut once more, as if she was ashamed of it.

Should she?

No.

But why? Hope of getting out this mess was pretty much gone. He was coming back, for the last time. Though he could be lying.

Even if she was more than halfway there. Even if she had most of the symptoms...it still wasn’t all the way.

She shook her head. This wasn’t healthy. Nor did it make the decision any easier.

It would be better to sit in this would-be freezer than in there.

She reopened her eyes, looking down at the wooden box. So tired... But that was what was expected from her to do...And she didn’t want to do anything for him.

Then again.

Lena placed her hands on the bottom of the lid and lifted. Three quarters through the motion, she stopped.

It was so very cold...

She thrust weary hands upward and the hinges whined before coming to a stop.

A skeleton. With raggy remains.

"Fucker's taking up my space..." she muttered to no one in particular before bending over and dragging the remains out by what had once been its shoulders.

She tossed it unceremoniously to the floor, wiping hands off on each other as the old bones clattered eerily against the ground. Lena yawned as she turned towards the coffin and stretched her whole body. Finally... the cold was beginning to ease away, like a bleeding finger being placed under running water. You lost more blood that way, but at least you couldn't feel it.

She frowned as her eyes caught something lying on the plush interior of the coffin.
Blinking, she reached in and grabbed it in her hand before standing up and peering at it. It was the lower jaw of whoever had been put to rest, complete with half a set of teeth.

No fangs, though. She ran her tongue over her upper teeth, pausing as she felt the two canines that jutted out a bit farther than the rest.

A faint smile appeared on her lips again as she lifted a leg over the edge of the coffin and tossed the jaw carelessly over a malnourished shoulder.

And he said she had a chance. Not that she had a “life” to begin with....

Life.

Lena suddenly froze, her eyes widening as they shot down towards the casket under her.

Life.

Her stomach lurched, and the cold came back with a vengeance. Winding her and knocking her to the ground where she had thrown the desecrated remains of the body. She felt the brittle bones crack beneath her just before hitting the ground, and gave out a choked cry as she curled up from the frigid air that suddenly surrounded her anew. She lay there for a moment, the pain of the fall not registering.

"Christ..." she finally whispered, wincing as the word made her head pound and her tongue burn. She shook her head again, rolling over onto the flat of her back and biting her lower lip as eyes wandered towards the ceiling.

".....I.....damn it....I'm farther gone than I thought....."

She bit down so hard that one of the... sharper teeth punctured her lip, and her face contorted into a scowl. Until that was replaced with shock. Barely any blood had gone out. And she was such an easy bleeder.

Lying still in total silence, the gravity of her predicament suddenly dawned.

Finally, she rolled over and stared dully at the coffin she had been willing to jump into only a few minutes earlier.

Lena sighed.

"I'm fucked."

Then she laid like that, ominous thoughts swimming in her mind like sharks.

Her eyes narrowed themselves in exhaustion as each breath of cold air seemed more and more surreal, as if in a dream...

Maybe it was a dream. Maybe three days of terror, three days of shame and self-loathing had never truly happened. Maybe she could shut her eyes and open them again, and suddenly she’d be back in her warm, fluffy bed in her little dorm. Legs tangled in with Harris’, his stereotypical baby blue eyes looking at her with a soft look of care and love...

Lena closed her eyes shut, letting herself drift into a half-dead sleep. Harris must be worrying...Yeah, he'd always worried about her, especially when he went to work late at night. Leaving her alone in a not-too-safe part of the city. She had just been too blind to see it, blinded by dreams and wishes...by her own selfish needs.

And now she was blinded here as well by the darkness in some damn crypt at the bottom of some damn mansion in the middle of some damn town in the middle of nowhere, the only inhabitants  either a bunch of illusions or a fucking vampire.

Fucking...

Vampire...who was tantalizingly beautiful to her eyes. And her eyes alone.

Footsteps, faint and light, from the other side of the door.

A faint scent.... a scent of one, who was compelled by a need that couldn’t be satiated now, if ever...

And a distinctive aching... now a stinging sensation.... at two small points... at the side... of her.... neck....

Lena's eyes snapped open.

He was here.

A door suddenly flew open with the force of a battalion as faint light flooded the small room. Lena skittered backwards on the dirty floor, hiding her eyes from the small flow of white light that got in...

It was so bright.

Then, just as suddenly as the entrance had happened, it ended, and for a moment, she felt nothing but fear.

He was here.

Tall and silent, a black silhouette against the very recent memory of blinding light that still stung her eyes. A few slivers of silver jewellery amplifying it some more.

And those eyes... those horrible, reddish brown eyes...

She unconsciously bared her teeth, getting up on her feet with clenched fists pushing her up, a growl forming in her dry throat. She wouldn't let this go on... she wouldn't let that... that damn MONSTER strip away the only thing she had left to cherish...not without a fight.

Silence. The creature's eyes stayed fixed on Lena for a moment, as if estimating his victim's power, and then unlatched themselves from her face, scanning the room slowly and deliberately.

She made the first move.

She wished she could be brave, that this fight for her own being was on a course for victory. Instead, she swallowed down a bit of her fear, stuttering despite the clear ideas expressed in her words.

"A....Avery!" Lena hissed, attracting his attention. She paused a moment to catch her breath and continued. "J...Jesus...! ....Why.... why the hell are you doing this, trying to turn me into some... some kind of...thing!...I....fuck I.... you.... we... I thought we were....friends... or.... or some shit like that.....!!!!"

Avery stood as still as a statue, motionless and emotionless against the metal door.  Those eyes studied her face for a moment with an intent, almost curious gaze and then were raised towards the ceiling as he shook his head just slightly, creating a ripple that travelled from his dark bangs to the ends of his perfect head of jet black hair.

Lena never saw it coming.

There was a slight rustle of fabric, a short click of the tongue, and then a loud crack as she felt herself grabbed right under her chin and slammed against the wall. She didn’t know if the wall was cold anymore, of if the air around her had cooled even more from the brief opening of the door.

All she knew for sure was that nothing could be as cold as the firm hand holding her and crushing her windpipe.

Lena let out a strained gasp and took hold on Avery’s arm with both hands, attempting to pry the man's pale, dead fingers from her own pale, more-than-half-dead neck.

The bite marks were burning by then.

"So," he finally spoke, toneless words echoing on the walls as he narrowed his eyes at her attempt to break free; the young woman jerked convulsively, writhing and kicking bare feet alternatively against the wall and Avery’s abdomen as his vice-like grip kept her securely off the ground and out of air.

"You have already received your gift--" he quickly ran his eyes over the length of her body "--hm--for the most part, I see... and yet...." he looked at the tormented expression, "you don't... seem to appreciate it. Why?"

He loosened his grip slighty, enough to allow the captive woman a gasp of sweet air and a few words of desperation.

"God----god DAMN it Avery!!!" she yelled in her now hoarse voice, struggling to escape the tall man's grasp. "What kind of gift is.... is making a girl want to sleep in a damn coffin and drink.... drink.... bl...!!!!!!"

The bite marks seared the nape of her neck, the pain they inflicted upon her increasing with each word of defiance that came out of her mouth. It was an intense pain that wildly contradicted the numb, cold feeling in the rest of her body, and the combination of the two was enough to make Lena shut her eyes, gritting those damn fangs against teeth in an effort to stop tears from falling down her face. No way she'd look like a weakling in front of him.

No fucking way in hell.

"I am truly sorry that you must suffer such pain for such great power..." Lena could hear Avery's quiet, almost hypnotic voice through her pounding temples. "However, it is necessary part of the process, according to Elias..."

She would have probably called him one hell of a crazy bastard for following Elias' notes right about then, but between the vampire's inhuman grip, the pain of the bite marks, and the suppressed panic that racked her psyche, she couldn't quite find the opportunity...

After an immeasurable stretch of time, the burning slowly began to dull back to an ache.

Lena slowly opened the lids of her now watery eyes, blinking past the blurry spots that permeated her sight. She could feel the cold concrete wall against her back, her feet back on terra ferma. Avery was standing over her.

"Do you remember..." his voice was distant, muffled by some invisible covering that was separating this tall, impossibly beautiful creature from the heaving, dull-eyed girl. "How I once... asked you how you managed to be so..."

He paused. "....Carefree...?"

She was quiet, looking down towards the ground as she brought a hand to where she was held up from just moments ago, rubbing it gingerly.

"You said you weren't carefree," Avery continued, turning his head to the side thoughtfully. "You said you'd sometimes think about each step so obsessively that you almost lost yourself...You said there were many things that worried you on a daily basis."

Lena closed her eyes, sliding down the wall until she sat down on the floor, putting a hand on her forehead.

"...You do realize why this must be done?" he turned his gaze upon her, his eyes full of some distant pain and sadness.

She brought her hand down on her lap, opening her eyes halfway as she swallowed loudly before looking up at the empty ceiling, so tired from it all. She breathed from her nostrils before letting out a barely audible whisper:

"How the hell... how would I...?"

She closed her eyes, shaking her head for what felt like the hundredth time. "I.... I don't want this... f-fuck..."

Avery paused, an expression of distress marring his feature. He looked away. "Long ago... a very.... long time ago... I loved someone... dearly. However, she loved another, and I allowed the other to have her, for I cared about her happiness above all else." His eyes turned a darker, deeper shade.

"But then, before I could stop him, he hurt her... He hurt her and she was gone before I could take back my ignorance..."

"....Yeah.... I know that," Lena said quietly. Avery had pretty much muttered it out in detail after school, when they were correcting student papers.

"But...what the hell does that have to do with... with... turning me into a..." she trailed off as a sharp intake of air came in from her pursed lips. She turned her head away with obvious shame, the fangs painfully sharp in her mouth.

Avery turned his gaze back on her. He slowly lowered himself to her level.

"I let Ami leave my care and be smothered by the insatiable arms of Death... and when I tried to avenge her sweet soul, Death claimed me as well, forcing me to live with it as punishment for my sins..."

He kneeled down, bringing his reddish brown eyes level with Lena’s black ones. "However, what I did not realize was that living in death... can be a gift." He smiled softly, a strangely naive, eerily childish expression for someone as cold as him.

"What's your point, Gothman?" she whispered, a sharp tone punctuating her calm
voice as she returned his stare.

"I let Death take Ami before I could introduce her to it..." Vincent said simply.

"I am not going to let the same thing happen to you."

She couldn't help give a small parody of a smile. "Comparing me to your old girlfriend, huh? What, do you care about me? Do you love me?"

The side of Avery's mouth tugged upwards with that same childlike innocence.

"Actually, Elena...Yes, I do. Very much, in fact."

Her smile suddenly dropped as she blinked at him. His tone had changed drastically. It was still calm, but...

It was a tone filled with sweetness. Sweeter than Harris’, who rarely, if ever, called her by her actual name like Avery just did.

"You seem surprised." He continued, leaning forward uncomfortably close to Lena. "After all, you were the only one who looked at me and still accepted me...still gave me so much kindness."

He slowly brought his hand towards her cheek and rested it there. She winced as he saw the hand come towards her and then outright shivered as she felt the icy fingers upon her frozen face. She wanted more than anything to yell at Avery, to tell him to get his goddamn hands off of her, to lash out and kick the bastard where it hurt, then to dash out the door, leap up the stairs, just get OUT of that fucking hellhole of a house, then to run like hell all the way home where Harris would be worried beyond his normal state enough to give the biggest, longest hug of all existence and almost sob out: "A whole week without ANY sort of warning?!"

But even with all of her wishing to feel Harris’ too-hard hug rather than Avery’s more-than-devoted affection, she couldn't bring herself to move an inch.

Something about the vampire's touch...It made the bite marks burn once more, draining what little strength she had left and rendering all of her  best efforts useless.

Lena shut her eyes tightly, twitching at first as Avery began to stroke her sticky face with the back of his hand.

"I won't let you pass through death," he said softly, soothingly, as if speaking to his favourite pet. "I'll save you Elena..."

The victim of Avery's skewed logic gathered just enough energy to quickly turn her head to the side, shaking off his unwelcome touch. However, the seemingly young man calmly brought his hand to Lena’s chin, gripping it firmly and jerking it back in his direction, causing her eyes to snap open.

Avery studied her face intently, his intense eyes boring into her own. She glared back with the same amount of intensity, and soon, she found himself growling through her clenched teeth. It took her nearly a minute of watching his slowly growing smile to realize what she was doing and stop.

"Elena..." he arched an eyebrow. "You are terrified."

She looked away. "...You're insane," was all that managed to come out.

God, she could use that hug right about now...

Avery's smile widened. "Not insane, Elena. Just..." he glanced thoughtfully about the room that would have been pitch-black to a normal man's eyes and then back towards his victim, his love.

"...carefree." He narrowed his eyes. "I no longer fear Death...and I believe it to be a gift, and most definitely worth having this unnatural need for."

His hand slowly crawled down from Lena's neck, running fingers along the pale contours of skin until they reached the bite marks, whose pain seemed soothed, even diminished by their chilling touch.

She knew what was coming next.

Oh, God, she knew what was coming...

She began to breathe heavily, shaking as Avery brought his face closer towards the half-dead young woman's being, stroking the marks gently with his index and middle finger.

He deposited a kiss on her lips. It shocked her, to say the least.

A moment of pure calm before the storm.

"Living in death... The ironic key to immortality, Elena." He whispered affectionately as the kiss ended.

"Don’t you want it? Even just a little...?"

She could only move a stray lock of hair out of her face in front of such a man with no future.

He just shook his head softly.

"Don't worry..." he leaned towards her neck, opening his mouth to reveal a pair of impeccable white fangs upturned in that childish grin.

“It’ll be over soon.”

His eyes lit up as he sank his fangs into Lena's pale flesh.

It burned. It burned like hell.