Hematoma Ch. 25

AN: Dear readers,

Thank you for your patience again. I have had a very rough year, hard drive crashed again a couple times, and I really struggled with this chapter. This one's a bit slow, but we are fast approaching the end of Hematoma. I am desperate to finish this book and get justice for Shay and everyone like him.

*****

I didn't sleep that night.

I welcomed sleep, begged for it, if only to forget where I was for a time. To mute the pain in my body. To be numb to the arm that slung itself around my chest, once a comforting embrace, now more like an iron vice. But as the rented heat in Yorick's body ebbed away to be replaced with the iciness I had come to know of his natural state, so too did the hours. In the pitch darkness and through the sheer canopy, I struggled to make out the bright blue numbers of Yorick's bedside clock. Four... no, three. Or was it five? I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, feeling my eyes burn under much-needed moisture. Please let me sleep... Please let me disappear, if only for a minute...

But sleep did not come. My body ached, the sharpness of my pain yet dulled to a persistent throb that echoed in my arms, my legs, my insides. The hole in my side, hastily bandaged, felt like a dagger in my gut. Yorick hadn't even bothered to offer me bloodshare. I didn't dare ask for it. I felt I'd been silent since my unwarranted orgasm. My pangs of hunger had faded ages ago, if at all I'd felt them in the first place. So I laid, silent, my skin crawling, letting the nonsense numbers burn into the back of my skull. Three... Two-thirty... Four-fifty...

Sometime between the switching of fuzzy numbers I couldn't read, Yorick shifted behind me. I froze, my body rigid, as he let out an animalistic groan and rolled over in his sleep. As the once-broken silenced washed over me again, I slowly came to realize that Yorick's arm was gone. I was free.

I haphazardly debated my actions in my mind. Did I dare get up? Was Yorick really still asleep? Would I wake him? Where would I even go? As I laid there, I began to feel the crawling of my own skin again, as if under a film of something disgusting.

Yes... I wanted a shower. That's all I could think about.

Gingerly I slid myself out of bed, legs first, with all the ease of an invalid pushing a stone. My muscles screamed with this minimal effort. The bedroom rug, so soft and inviting, felt like needles under the soles of my feet. My joints creaked under my weight. I wanted to cry out, to weep through the pain of moving, but somehow, I ended up standing without a sound, with my body shaking in the empty void beside the bed.

Yorick remained asleep.

Was it luck that got me this far? I still felt that he would suddenly spring up from the bed and seize me if I took another step... but as the seconds passed, it didn't come. The crawling of my unclean skin itched all the more as I stood. Shakily I wrapped my arms around my naked body, took one last glance at the bed, at the cascade of black hair draped over Yorick's pillow, and urged myself for the door.

My legs felt like iron weights. I dragged my feet, my toes skimming the floor with each unsteady step. The door was ajar. Beyond it, I found more darkness, and I groped for the wall. The bathroom... I just needed to get to the bathroom. To get this slimy feeling off my skin... To get this horrid feeling out of my stomach.

I found the bathroom door ajar and braced myself on the cold stone of the counter, feeling along the wall for the light switch. My fingers slipped on the slider and I flicked it upwards with a shaking hand. The sudden illumination dazzled me and I stood blinking furiously for several moments, trying to force my eyes to stay open. The reflection in the mirror came slowly into focus beneath the blinding light, and I was suddenly overcome with confusion.

The person in the mirror wasn't me. It couldn't be...

The reflection I saw was definitely a silhouette of me, the same stocky body, the same brilliant white hair. This stranger wore my piercings and my tattoos, but he seemed to have gained several of his own that I had never seen before. His neck was ringed with a dark, violent circle of bruises, with uneven stripes across the left, my right, side. The cheek on the same side was blotchy with blue and scarlet stains that spread across the bridge of the nose and encircled a grotesque, puffy bruise around the eye, black and purple pooling into a pocket below it. The parallel lines of piercing scars lining the stomach like minute fang marks were turning redder than I recognized, and there was a gauze pad taped against the man's right side - my left. It was only when I lifted my hand to feel for my own gauze bandage, and saw the figure in the mirror do the same, that I realized what had become of me.

I was a ruin.

I raised my shaking fingers to the black eye I was sporting, and the pain of barely touching it jolted through me like a static shock. My eye was swollen to the point that it had begun to obscure my vision, and the sclera was bloodshot and blotted with crimson. Had Yorick really struck me so hard? The previous night seemed a blur now, and yet so fresh in my memory I was sure I could remember every moment if only I tried. I shuddered and pressed my hands over my face, wincing at the tenderness of my injuries. I didn't want to see this anymore. I didn't want to see what had happened to me. The crawling sensation of my skin was increasing, a thousand tiny insect legs pricking their way across my skin and prying into my body... I retched hollowly and turned away from the mirror before I could look again.

My fingers shook as I twisted the shower to life, and got a blast of cold water to the back of the head when I leaned in too far. I only stepped in when the water was boiling, and I stood with my hands against the freezing wall, head bowed, breathing hard and scalding my skin until I couldn't bear it anymore. The water poured over me and streamed from my open, panting lips, from the end of my nose and my furrowed brow as if I was bleeding from the pores in my face. Only when I could no longer endure the blistering heat across my back and shoulders did I acquiesce to turn the temperature down, and with it went my composure. I felt the muscles in my body loosen for the first time in hours, my shoulders slackening, and a dry sob worked its way up from within me.

I had all this sensation inside me, and yet I was completely unable to find words to call it by. I felt as if my thoughts were not working in terms of language, only feeling nameless feelings that racked my body and my tired brain with their agony. Every time I was close to finding something to call what I felt, it seemed wrong. Was it anger? Pity? Just plain misery? Nothing seemed to fit. All I knew was that my body seemed to have been hollowed out and refilled with something very much like broken glass or brambles, piercing my insides with each movement I took, each sound I dared to make. What word was there for that?

No longer interested in trying to name my emotions, I shut the water off, stood in the shower for another moment while I shook water out of my hair, and clambered out to dry off. I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror and looked away. They were superficial wounds, I told myself. I realized the gauze pad on my side had become waterlogged and was peeling away, so I carefully pulled it off. The crescent-shaped hole where Yorick's teeth had been looked far worse than it now felt. Still, the flesh was gaping ever so slightly, and it looked ready to bleed again with too much movement. I cast around for the first-aid kit, for whatever Yorick had used to patch me up, but it wasn't there - not under the sink, not in the medicine cabinet to the right of the mirror wall. As I looked, something occurred to me. Yorick had had no need for bandages or a first-aid kit at all. He could not be hurt. Had he purchased these materials in anticipation of injuring me? To cause an injury that he would not mend with bloodshare... but why...?

Something soft and cold on my shoulder made my spine stiffen and tremble, and I twisted around so fast I ended up slamming my back against the sink cabinet I was bent over. My fear was not assuaged at the sight of who it was.

"Ricky," I said in a hoarse voice. "What are you doing up...?"

Yorick smiled at me and straightened up, his long fingers hooking in the waistband of his flannel pants. "You weren't in bed," he said simply. "I thought I'd come check on you. What happened to your bandage?"

I had trouble reclaiming my voice. The sight of Ricky's exquisite body towering over me as I sat curled on the floor at his feet, the shadow of hair that fell over his shoulders, struck me momentarily dumb... But I shook my head and tried to press him from my mind, my hand fluttering to the gaping hole in my side, which had, as I'd feared, begun to bleed anew. "It... It came off when I washed up..."

Ricky clicked his tongue and knelt beside me, and again, I felt my body stiffen defensively. The pouchiness of my black eye stung as I squeezed both shut. Ricky slipped his fingers under my chin and lifted my head, but I could not meet his eyes.

"Such a delicate thing you are," he said admiringly. "I hardly touch you and you bloom with color in every shade. Am I too rough with you, Shay?"

My chest tightened, and something in my throat blocked me from drawing breath. Was he expecting honesty from me? Was I supposed to say what I felt?

"Shay?" Ricky prompted me softly, and he stroked a finger along my cheek. "Look up. Answer me, my love."

Reluctantly I opened my eyes, and no sooner had I found the cloudy apex of Ricky's that I felt my stomach falling inside me, and with it, my inhibition. I was awash in a warm, enveloping comfort. His words rebound in my head. My love. Answer me, my love. I found the words spilling out of my mouth before I could process them.

"I just got a little banged up," I told him breathlessly. "If you... If you give me bloodshare, I should be fine."

Instead of answering me, Ricky took my hand away from the gash in my waist and gently brought my bloody fingers to his lips. My fingertips disappeared inside his mouth, and I felt his tongue caressing them as he locked his eyes upon mine again. A tremble worked up from very deep inside my belly and sounded itself in a gasp.

"Do you need bloodshare?" he asked innocently, letting my fingers linger on his bottom lip as he rubbed a thumb along my palm. "Your injuries aren't life-threatening. I haven't taken enough blood to make you anemic yet. Or would you like me to?"

I tore my eyes from the sucking whirlpool of Ricky's gaze and gave a shuddering breath, moving my free hand to cover my wound back up. "Ricky... I can't take any more of this. I hurt all over. Please, just heal me. I don't know why you won't."

Ricky sighed and and let go of my hand, examining his own nails for a moment. "Pity," he said. "I was wondering how much you'd be able to take. It's a shame your human body is so quick to give in. How can I push your limits if I can't even use my full strength and ability with you?"

"I thought you were pretty strong last night," I replied quietly.

Ricky laughed, his deep tones echoing off the walls all around us and stinging my ears in the strangest way. "I restrain myself so much with you," he said lowly, catching my chin in his fingers again and forcing me to look him in the face. "If I used all of my strength with you, Shay, I could crack your hips when we fuck. I've considered it. But you can barely handle a little bruising. Does your pleasure really stop at such a low pain threshold?"

"It isn't - it doesn't - "

"Suck," he interrupted me, for he had pricked his finger on his own teeth and was offering the freshly bleeding tip of it.

I watched the little bead of dark blood swell on Ricky's fingertip and felt a strange sort of sickness rise up inside me. I was suddenly reluctant to taste him, though I could not name why. Hesitantly I leaned forward with a wince and licked his finger clean, and the coppery tang of his blood almost made me retch. Within a few moments of swallowing I felt the sting ebb slowly from several parts of me... But the pain did not dissipate completely. I reached instinctively for the hole in my side and did not find it... but in its place was a deep, white welt, a rumpled scar.

"Why didn't it heal?" I heard myself whimper.

Ricky clicked his tongue again and stood up, hands on hips. "Looks like it's been too long," he said casually. "Bloodshare won't heal old wounds and scars, that's why none of your tattoos and piercings have mended totally. Well, that's not a total loss then, is it? I think that little crescent in your skin is lovely."

I only half heard him. Trembling, I scrambled up from the bathroom floor and searched my reflection in the mirror. The black eye I sustained had faded, but there remained a greenish-yellow tint in the dark circle below it, and in my cheeks where I'd been struck. The ring of bruises around my throat had turned a blotchy shadow of itself. My corset scars were no longer red, but there was no doubt they were still there. Behind me, Ricky's reflection smiled at the back of my head. I turned and looked at him with some trepidation.

"Should I... should I do it again?" I asked weakly. "T-to heal this..."

"Oh, it won't work like that," replied Ricky. "No, seems that's all it's going to do. Bloodshare needs to be administered fairly quickly. If you notice..." He moved to my back and slid his hand down the length of my arm, turning my hand over to expose my wrist. "... Those little scars you made when you injured yourself, before you knew me... They're still here. Not even a little bit gone. The longer these things go on, the less I'm able to give impact to fixing them. Of course, there is a way..."

"How?"

"Well, that's what I was trying to get to," he went on softly. "You see, you'd mend in an instant no matter what I did to you if you only..." He laughed somewhere deep in the back of his throat and brushed his lips against my cheek, and I shivered, somewhere between desire and fear. "Shay, you'd never be hurt beyond your capabilities if you were like me."

"Like... you?" The words didn't seem to properly register in my head, their meaning somewhat lost as if in another language. To be like Ricky... to be... And then, as if a machine had sprung to life in my head, I understood him. "You think I should... be a vampire?" I asked him slowly.

"Why not?" Ricky smiled, now idly tracing his fingers along the marks on my throat. "I could tear you to pieces and you'd still be able to heal. I could bring you the most delicious pain without fear of permanently harming you. I could fuck you as hard as I can without breaking you. ... Oh, that's gotten you interested, hasn't it?"

I could not understand what was arousing me so much. In the back of my mind, everything that Ricky said and the salacious way he said it was plucking at every nerve in me and setting them off in the right ways, and my body responded obediently, taking orders from someone who was not me, not just hard but drooling at Ricky's words. He let his hand fall and caressed my insubordinate sex, which twinged needily in his grasp.

"It's really perfect," he continued, taking his pauses to kiss and nuzzle my cheekbone. "You're young and beautiful now, Shay, but... You'll grow old one day. You'll pass on. And I'll be all alone again. Wouldn't you much rather live forever, never growing ugly, never suffering sickness?"

"No."

Ricky pulled back from me, somewhat surprised. I had to share his sentiment. I myself couldn't truly believe what had just come out of my mouth.

"No?" he repeated. "You don't want to be immortal? You want to die?"

I was silent for what seemed like an age. I had so quickly said 'no' without even thinking, but now that I really considered it... No, that was really how I felt... "It's not so much that I want to die," I said quietly, my eyes falling to my hands, bracing against Ricky's arms as if to keep him at bay and hold him close at once, "But that... I don't want my life to go on forever. I... I want to live a normal life, I want to live the life I was given."

"The life you were given will end," Ricky prompted coldly. "And you will have no say in when it does."

"But that's just it," I said, shaking my head and pulling my hands away. "What's bad about that? I might live another ten years, I might live to be a hundred... But I don't know what my life's gonna hold for me. And... I gotta be honest, I kinda like it that way. I don't know what I'd do with myself if I lived a thousand years like you," I laughed halfheartedly.

Ricky's eyelids lowered, his face expressionless. "Yet you'd make me live another thousand years without you," he said tonelessly. "You'd force me to watch you wither and die. That's what you would prefer?"

"No," I said quickly. "But I -"

"Humans have spent all of history seeking ways to prolong their lives. This isn't of interest to you?"

I closed my eyes and breathed out, gripping the bathroom counter behind me. My death was not something that I often considered... but given the choice, I could not legitimately say that I feared growing old and disappearing one day. "If I have to be honest... I haven't really thought too much about it."

Ricky went quiet, watching me unblinkingly as if waiting for me to do or say something further. When he seemed to decide I had finished, he leaned forward, dipped his face against mine, and kissed me, his tongue prying into my mouth. His chest leaned against mine, his arms on either side of me, pinning me to the counter, the stony rigidity of his body entrapping me. Our kiss seemed to go on forever, Ricky becoming more forceful and daring with his lips until he was all but biting mine, but after a time, he pulled away, leaving me gasping in his absence. My head spun as if I'd been unable to draw breath in our embrace.

"It is an offer," he said lightly. "Think about it, Shay. Come. There's something I need you to do today."

Ricky turned from me and sauntered back down the hallway toward the bedroom. I gave my hair a last quick ruffle with my towel before hanging it back up and following his suit.

Feeling rather exposed for the situation, I immediately went to grab something passing for clothing. As I sat on the bed and slipped on a tee and boxer briefs, Ricky sidled over to my side of the bed and presented me with a phone. My phone.

"Tell me who this number belongs to," he said calmly.

I looked curiously from him to the phone and took it gingerly from his outstretched hand. When I flicked it on, the address book was open to the last number I'd called, without a name.

Leah's number.

I felt my heart stop and my face go cold. Did Ricky know? I looked up at him in slight trepidation, expecting him to be furious, but his expression was intelligible. He only waited patiently for my answer.

"It... It's a friend of mine," I said honestly.

"A friend," Ricky repeated. "Is this friend a human?"

"A hu - yes," I answered quickly.

"Are they from the Society?"

[i]He knows.[/i] I lowered my face and swallowed. Should I lie? Could I? "... Yes."

"Tell me their name."

"It's... h-her name is Leah."

"The girl from the club," he cued.

For a fleeting moment, I remembered briefly introducing them that night. Of course Ricky would have recalled her name... "That was the first time I met her," I told him truthfully. "I-I didn't know she was involved with them then..."

Ricky observed my face, his eyes betraying nothing, but at last he smiled. "I believe you," he assured me quietly. "And that's why I'm going to give you a chance to put this right."