Trust Me (1)

When the day gave way to morning and it seemed Zadkiel had found more pressing matters to attend to other than finding ways she might entertain him, Ari made her plan. She'd arrived with nothing to her name, even her dog had been left at Alaric's, and that was the way she would leave.

Regardless of the necklace she didn't dare think about what she wanted to do or speak too loudly of her discontent. The decision to join him had been made hastily out of fear and hurt. Already she regretted her choice although the outcome would have ended the same. As he said before, he staked his claim knowing she had nowhere else to turn.

Slowly she cracked her door open, peaking left and right. No one was around. Things always seemed eerily quiet when terrors happened behind closed doors. She wouldn't have been surprised if the walls had been filled with the bones of all their victims. 

Ari tried not to think such gruesome things while tiptoeing out. If anyone asked then she'd say she was just exploring, trying to gather her bearings in such a spacious place. Instead of running down the marble staircase, she sat on the top of the curved banister.

It was smooth and surely had to be quicker and safer than her clumsily trying to go down that many stairs. With a hand braced on either side of her, the weight of her body was enough to send her speeding down the rail until she came to a sudden halt at the bottom.

There were no shoes on her bare feet to add to the illusion that she was just being silly and enjoying freedom in opulence she'd never known. With another quick look around she sprinted for the door. 

A resounding thud from the open and shut behind her. The woman ran as fast as her legs would carry her. There was no direction clear in her mind, only that she needed to get away. It hadn't taken long for her to realize that it wasn't the right place for her, agreement or not. Normally she would keep her word but not to a psychopathic vampire whose easily provoked anger could leave her bloodied and worse for wear.

The cool evening air was a reassurance. Her lungs filled with the sweet taste of true freedom that she fully intended to relish in every second. She didn't need men in her life who would use her and toss her away when they grew bored. With her identity dead now she could be anyone and go anywhere.

A voice rang in her head. It was faint but discernible as Benjamin's voice. "Ari? Where are you?" It was static sounding like something you'd hear on a radio. 

"Benji? Benji, I'm here!" She called into the night, looking around unsure of exactly how she could hear him. "Some big pink gaudy awful mansion. Zadkiel came after you went inside."

"Don't talk out loud, just in your head because they'll hear. Are you wearing your necklace?" Benjamin said in a haste. "Keep it on and hide, I'll be able to locate you. And keep quiet too."

Instantly she closed her mouth. Sending him her thoughts instead. "I've got it on. I'll duck into one of these alleys behind a dumpster." Ari said, doing just that. The streets were mostly empty with the exception of an occasional car driving by. She stayed away from the headlights and walked down a darkened alley a few blocks away from the mansion, closer to the city. Steam hissed from a vent. Hot and smelling of laundry. She crouched beneath a fire escape between a dumpster and a barbed wire fence meant to keep homeless squatters away.

"Keep talking to me," Benjamin said in his usual calm and collective butler tone, though he went on to say. "Why would you go to the man that worked alongside someone that abducted you. I do understand the hurt because of Alaric's poor choice of protection, but that was also a poor move on your behalf as well." He sounded like a nagging parent, possibly because he did hint he had a daughter before. So maybe it had never left him, those parent instincts. 

Her arms wound around her knees, hugging them close. Ducking her head down. "I was scared and I know it was stupid but I panicked." He hadn't been there in her nightmares to tear her away from him or the past she refused to think about. Everyone in her life left or died leaving her to fend for herself. "I'm sorry, Benji."

The evening sun sank down upon the horizon, and all the golden colors churned in the sky, giving way to the deep blues, Grey's, and blacks of the night. The temperature dropped and a thick fog hung in the air, rolling off the currents of the ocean, cold enough to leave someone's breath as mist in the air. 

Footfall neared her, and around the corner was Alaric, not Benjamin, and his mouth was twisted into a scowl. He placed a hand on her shoulder and yanked her from her sitting position. "Can you get any stupider? And stupider isn't even a word. Christ, you really grate my nerves woman. I say a few words and you go running to your death. Did you, or did you not see how he treats people. Objects." He went on and on. "He's dangerous for reasons you wouldn't understand, and I can't explain that to you either."

"You mean because you're all vampires-"

Alaric whirled around to face her. There was a dark flicker in his grey stormy eyes similar to the first time they met in his office. Jaw tight, he said, "So you bump your head and think you saw something in the bathroom and now you're talking child spun tales. I don't know what he told you, but that isn't true."

Her brows were drawn together angrily, gaze dark in the dimness. She shook her head at him in disappointment, daring a step closer. He may have been taller but somehow she still managed to meet him at eye level. "Stop trying to convince me none of this is real! I know what I saw. You've been so busy trying to hide everything from me that you've blinded yourself. You drink blood,"

Her arm flung back in the direction of the mansion. "THEY drink blood! It's a whole goddamn human farm in there, Alaric! And I was trapped there. I'm sorry that after you threw me out, rubbing it in my face that my mother abandoned me, that when the one person I'm most afraid of grabs me and tells me they've destroyed everything I love that I'm just hopeless enough not to resist HOPING they might take pity on my sorry ass and not treat me like a slave this time." 

"What are you trying to say Ari? Just because someone drinks blood doesn't make them a vampire, they could be a psycho-" She kept going with her accusations. They drink blood. You drink blood.

Alaric swallowed and kept his gaze on her for a long, long, moment before slicking his hair back from his face. For once, the shadow remained in those lovely eyes the color of a stormy sky. However, a great pain rose to the surface like unshed tears that would never bless his lash lines or cheekbones. "Do you want me to say it's my fault?! Huh?!"

He tapped on his chest with an index finger before jabbing it at her own. "Fine. It's my fault because I should've left you to rot. I shouldn't have offered you anything. I shouldn't have ever met you. Does that make you feel better?" 

Alaric kept stepping forward until she had no choice to step back, until she was pressed against the dumpster she hid beside. "Or did you want me to tell you I'm a monster? That I drink blood and I'll treat you all the same? Hm?" His voice cracked toward the end of his sentence. 

Fat teardrops budded her lashes before streaking down her face leaving streaks in their wake. She raised her hands to ball up in his shirt, trying to push him back though he hadn't moved an inch. "I never asked for you to say it's your fault or any of that other bullshit you're letting spew from that shithole you call a mouth."

Her lower lip wobbled and she turned her head refusing to look at him. Furious with Alaric and herself and everything!

"Whose name do I call in the dark when everything caves in? Who do I know will always come to my rescue? Who has been the only person to ever come back repeatedly to make sure I'm okay? You might drink blood but you are not a monster." She punched him leaving her hand aching much like the first time she ever stormed into his office and slapped him.

"Don't you ever compare yourself to them. You have never and will never be anything less than Alaric." 

His head hadn't budged when she punched him, but his wince had shown he still felt it, though her hand probably ached more than his jaw. "Stop it," Alaric said as she went on to tell him not to compare himself to the people he'd tried so hard not to be. "Stop acting like you know me. You don't know not an inkling, only what I choose to let you see. I mean what I said, so why did you still wait for me to come? Well shocker. I am, I am just like them." 

He grabbed her by the shirt in return, moving so fast the world was a blur like she was on a fast spinning Roller coaster before her back slammed against a brick wall across from where they were standing moments before.

Alaric's hand was on her neck, applying slight pressure. "I've killed children, mothers, fathers, pregnant women, what makes you think you're any different? I too have had slaves locked in their cages, curled up in a ball marking their days on the wall with rocks. When I close my eyes," He had his mouth next to her ear. "I still hear them begging me to end them, to take their life, one bite ends it all. You don't know me at all." He moved back.

"Look at me," He growled at her. His face was slightly different. Red veins ran through his eyes, and they seemed an oddish red-blue, much more vivid than his usual Grey's. Veins even ran beneath his eyes, his incisors in a honed point. "Take a good look at me and tell me again I'm not one of them, that I'm not a monster." His hand tightened once more at her throat. 

She didn't fight the grip at her heist because she trusted him. Never once had he hurt her like the others had, even when he was starved and in pain. Her hands wiped at her eyes furiously to clear her vision, blurred from the hot angry tears that still ran down her face. Slowly she reached upwards towards his wrist, wrapping her fingers around it. "I can see the pain in your eyes from the things you've done. The others have no remorse and they probably never will."

Her voice was hoarse but she kept going, breath fogging between them. "You have had every chance to kill me, torture me, drain me dry until I was nothing but a cold husky lying on the ground with no one to come looking, but you didn't. You might be an asshole but you aren't the monster you want me to see."

The corners of her mouth quirked up into a sad smile. Heartbroken by the hurt she could hear in his voice. "If that's all you are and I'm nothing more than food to you then prove it. To me and yourself." Her head tilted in his grasp leaving her neck fully exposed.

When her fingers had wrapped around his wrist, his entire body tensed by just that simple touch alone. He didn't understand why her words not only angered him but saddened him all at once—something he couldn't clearly show properly no matter how hard he tried. But she managed to see everything he feared anyone else could see, stark clear inside those predatory eyes. Alaric's nose flared. To him it was easier if she'd see him that way. A monster. Then she could run for the hills, leave the state, and never look back.

He'd made a mistake wanting to keep her around.

Only once she mentioned him proving himself did his grip loosen to the point it was only as if he had his hand gently pressed to her neck, her throat bared bringing forth a flicker of confusion stirring in his eyes. Slowly he glimpsed down at her neck where the veins throbbed beneath her skin. He felt his mouth water, felt his incisors throb in anticipation of sinking into her flesh. But he remembered the raw hunger that arose before. Where he'd nearly torn her apart.

Alaric inhaled sharply, leaning against her, he pressed his mouth to her neck for a fraction of a second before letting her go completely and stepping away. "Don't do that again. Last time could've been your last time. This time could've been all the same. You're better alive than dead."

Why she did this to him, he didn't know. Getting close, her scent, everything left him on a frenzy. Like a drug addict that wanted a hit. His hands trembled and his breathing was sharp.

"But it wasn't and it won't be. I trust you." Again, she took his hands in her own to still their trembling. "Someone has to give you a reign check clearly." A mixture between laughter and a sob bubbled past her lips, her smile growing. "Stop being such an edge lord. It's not all doom and gloom."

Rain started to drizzle slightly and Alaric looked down at her hands in his own. "Edge lord? You're the one sobbing and laughing at the same time. Being dramatic as-" He slunk face forward against her chest, knees hitting the ground. "Always." He muttered in barely a whisper.

"Alaric?" Ari asked worriedly.

"What?" He said in the same soft but deep voice as before.

The back of her hand pressed against his neck and face to check for fever. "Have you had your medicine? What's wrong?"

He braced a hand against the wall, grunting as he forced himself to stand back up. "I had trouble getting here, it's only a small wound. I'll be fine." Alaric steadied himself, his gaze seeming hazed over. Now in the moonlight that came down, one could see the large gash across his stomach. The pink flesh and a bit of his intestines showing. He spit up blood and some got on her face.

Ari wasn't sure whether to vomit or scream. There was nothing small about his abdomen being nearly split in half and his literal guts hanging out. "We need to get you some help. Why didn't you say something?! We could have had this talk later!" Even though she was much shorter than him, Ari slid beneath his arm to help carry some of his weight. "Please tell me you brought Benjamin or someone?"

"He stayed behind to finish the people Zadkiel sent for you to return, off. He'll catch up later, y-your necklace is a tracker for only him. Only he can go past that barrier block." Alaric wiped the blood off his mouth. "Because it wasn't important. I can heal, I just heal slower because I don't eat an appropriate diet."

Gesturing to the old run down mattress and furniture abandoned warehouse, he spit more blood up. "We can stay there until he comes with the car. I'll be fine."

"Now is not the time to be funny. Appropriate diet my ass." She knew exactly what he meant but that didn't help the situation any. His reassurance meant nothing when it felt like she was watching him bleed to death. The color literally began to leech from his skin. Ari grunted while helping him out of the alley, kicking open the old wooden door so that they could enter.

Inside was cavernous with most of the old equipment probably stolen or vandalized beyond odd bits of furniture covered in white sheets here and there. The rain had only worsened and there was no time to think of better option. Very carefully she helped Alaric down onto an old dusty mattress. "This definitely isn't sanitary. What if you get an infection while we wait? You're bleeding a lot.." A dark stain was already forming beneath him.

"I've had ebola before. For four minutes. An infection can't last in my body." Alaric jokingly rolled his eyes at her as he grunted once he settled into the position on his back. Rain dripped through the ceiling but somehow didn't fall directly on them. "It'll be a while, make yourself comfortable, miss Ari." His eyes were closed while he spoke, lips a bluish purple. "Zadkiel really wants you, you must've dicked him down pretty good." Another joke, which he seemed to do a lot when he was injured.

"Since when are we on serious joking terms, Mr. Draconis?"

"Since I'm losing blood and seeing doubles." He retorted back.

Ari knelt down onto the dusty concrete floor beside him. Her thumbs gently wiping away the blood lingering at the corners of his mouth. Even when he had been sick he'd never looked this bad. She was glad his eyes were closed so he couldn't see the worry on her face. "More like I'm the only girl who has ever rejected him. Something you two might have in common soon if you don't shush and focus on healing."

A wet deep laughter sputtered through him. "Now, that, Miss Ari, is hilarious. The great Zadkiel being rejected. Wish I could've seen his face." He felt her wipe the corner of his mouth but he could barely move at the moment without pain radiating through him. "Are you saying you find me attractive and someone you're interested in dating when I hadn't asked that? Perhaps I should get injured more to know all your dirty little secrets." His British accent lingered on the word dirty and little.

"I'm saying you're about to meet an early grave if you don't shut up already. Should I keep getting kidnapped if it means you'll finally be honest with me?" Ari asked. Anything to keep him awake and hopefully alive despite her idle threats.

"Honesty? What is that?" He whispered, the corners of his mouth faintly quirking upwards. Then his breathing stopped all together.

"Alaric?" She called frantically before giving him a shake. "Alaric!"

His chest rattled, breathing starting back up again. "Ouch, that hurts. Could you be any louder." He muttered.

"Jesus Christ," She breathed a big sigh of relief. Her heart picking up its normal beat instead of a panicked stutter. "Maybe don't give me a heart attack then."

"Your heart sounded perfectly fine to me, miss Ari." He opened his eyes slightly. "Bring me a rat or mouse. Or the yapping stray dog you hear outside. My body is trying to shut down. Rather eat," his nose scrunched in distaste. "A cute puppy or a rodent than you." Every breath was painful, his throat burned like water had repeatedly gone down the wrong pipe.

If he hadn't been hurt to that extent, she had half a mind to give him another punch. Though his next request gave her pause. "There's no way any of those options are good for you. A rat?" Her stomach turned at the thought.

"Then," He breathed a sigh of annoyance at her dramaticness. But he found it suitable for who she was as a person. "Get those chains over there, tie me up, don't get your pride up from that, then give me only a drop of your blood."

"Because I would take pleasure in restraining you while you're like this?" Maybe he was a psychopath.

"If it were the other way around, I'd enjoy it." He quipped.

Ari didn't pause to dwell on what exactly he might have meant by that. Her knees popped when she stood, padding across the room for the heavy chain links. They were rusted in every visible place from exposure and even though he claimed infection wouldn't hurt him, she was still concerned.

Dragging them across the room to where he lay barely breathing, she paused. Staring down at him painfully vulnerable and impossibly pale. "I don't care how much you need, just don't die on me."