My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 04

He knew what was happening. He knew what he was feeling. This wasn't the proper reaction. Wasn't he upset by their eyes a moment ago? The way everyone had been looking at him, reminding him of the face of everyone else, when he found out his father was dead, where was the wretched fear and agony now? It left him. Gone. Now all he felt, was numb.

"I... I uh... should... probably go check... on her. Samantha, my mom, I mean." He half turned, before he stopped, and looked to Avery. "Um, the sweep teams, I'll—"

"I'll handle it," Isabella said. She avoided his eyes. Everyone did.

"Thanks." Nodding, he turned to leave, but stopped. "Gloria, you should probably stay with Isabella, so she has a partner when she leaves."

"What about you?" Gloria said.

Clara stepped in. "I'll stick with Jack. I'm going back to my apartment, anyway."

Nodding again, he opened the door and made for the street. No one said anything, no one stopped him, no one interrupted his escape. Whatever had happened in that apartment, it was cold, heavy, and he had to get away from it, like stepping out of a walk-in freezer.

Clara followed behind him, and beside him once they were outside.

"I hope Isabella doesn't cause trouble," he said. "She can be pretty aggressive and cold when she wants to be."

"Jack..."

"And Gloria, she's quiet and passive. She'll likely let Isabella say whatever she wants. Isabella's ancilla, of course, so she has pretty huge seniority and rank."

"Jack."

"I'll call us a car." He looked at his phone, and—oh right, he'd been messaged. Something from Julias; looked like his sire wanted to talk to him about something. That's who the call was from, too. It could wait. He dialed up a driver from the Invictus. "Hey, need a pick up at Brent and Farrington Street."

"Come on, Jack, I'm trying to talk to you."

"Why?" He looked up at the woman, and managed maybe half a second of eye contact before he looked back to the street, and put his hands in his pockets. "This sort of stuff happens. All Kindred eventually leave their families behind, right? Or should have immediately, like I should have. Like I did, sort of." He tried to look up at her again. Those eyes. He could see the cemetery in her eyes. He could hear the eulogy. Empty words in the cold, metal shell of his skull.

He looked up for Mulder and Scully. Two crows sat upon a power line some distance away, and he squinted for a moment to make sure it was them. It was. Nodding, he stepped closer to the curb as he waited for the driver.

"Jack, you—"

"Don't look at me that way." He managed another glance to her, and found those same eyes. Like a smell that brings back a deeply embedded memory, or hearing a song for the first time in ten years, it brought up imagery he'd long forgotten. Ting ting. The images bounced around in his empty, metal, numb shell.

He was aware what was happening to him. He was well aware he was intellectualizing what should have been an emotional response. He was suppressing a need to mourn.

He could mourn later.

"I don't—"

"People die all the time," he said.

"Not family."

Shaking his head, he managed a weak smile at the werewolf beside him. "They're not my family anymore, they're—"

The world stopped, and spun around as he fell. Numb as he was, he felt that. She'd punched him.

He rolled over onto his back, and stared up at the woman. Uh oh. She glowered down at him, hands in fists at her sides, shaking.

"You don't get to say that shit."

"I don't—" Shit! She picked him up, held up him by the collar of his jacket, feet tangling above the sidewalk, and she stared at him eye to eye. She only had an inch or two of height on him, but that felt like plenty when someone was holding you in the air.

"I don't know what it's like to be a fucking vampire, to be undead. I don't know what it's like to not be allowed to see my family anymore. But I fucking know what it's like to lose family. Stephanie's death is just the tip of the iceberg. I've lost so many people. I've lost pack members, and I've lost blood. I lost my brother, and he was no werewolf." She brought him in close, until he could feel the heat of her breath. "And it hurt. It always fucking hurt. It really god damn fucking hurt, right to the fucking bone. I woke up in the morning and all I could feel in every inch of my body, was misery."

He gulped as he stared into her brown eyes. She was breathing, and he was not; a strange juxtaposition, and it made the fury in her gaze almost painful.

"I... I don't... I don't know what I... should do."

Sighing, she set him down, and looked over her shoulder to the oncoming driver. "Do whatever you want, just don't dismiss how fucking real this is. Get angry, get sad, do something."

"Easier said than done. I was a just a kid when my dad died. I... it... it's all the same, the fucking same. A giant, random upheaval of everything I knew, out of nowhere, and suddenly my life is... is..."

"Flipped-turned upside down?"

He choked on a small laugh, and shook his head. "You're lucky I watch old TV sometimes."

She smiled at him. Warm. Her eyes had changed. "We didn't handle it well. Avery shouldn't have just... dumped it on you like that, turning on the TV."

As the car pulled up, Jack took a moment to check his suit for tears or dirt. A bit of dirt. Sighing, he brushed it off his butt, but he knew he was just dodging the issue. Numb. Intellectualizing.

"I... I—"

"Let's talk about it when we get to the hospital."

"Aren't you going to your apartment?"

"I'm sticking with you."

No, don't. Leave me alone. I want to be alone.

His eyes found his reflection in the car window. Glass shattered in his mind, audible, ear-splitting, shredding through his thoughts. He grabbed the roof of the car, and glared at the reflection, at his dry eyes, at the empty, dead creature looking back at him. A stupid, lonely creature, that pulled away when it was sad, pulled away from others, and pulled away into its mind. Held people at bay, kept them at arm's length. Just like Jacob had said he did when Jack's dad died.

You're smarter, this time. Learn from your fucking mistakes.

"... thanks." He slid into the back seat, motioned for Clara to join him, and pat the driver's seat on the back. "To South Center Hospital."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He stood at the door to the hospital. People coming, people going, occasional people with tears in their eyes, or joy as they wheeled someone out in a wheelchair. The hospital had a rear entrance for their doctors and ambulances, so no one at the front had to deal with the far-too-real trauma of bodies on stretchers and the trail of blood that kine left when punctured.

His sister was in there, in a morgue. His mom was in there too, probably hooked up to a respirator, dying, a bunch of holes in her gut. Gulping again, he looked to Clara beside him. She was looking at him, but the pity was gone; thank god. He couldn't take that, couldn't deal with that, couldn't handle it as it drowned him in his memories. It made him want to go numb, do anything to not feel it cut through his fucking ribs with a chainsaw.

"... thank you," he said. "For... not... not looking at me like that anymore."

"It was my mistake. I... yeah. I've been in that boat, a lot of us have, and we should know better." She stepped around calling out what it was, the way a gaze could shred a person.

He was still a little numb. The car rider to the hospital wasn't long enough to snap him out of it. He could barely tell what he was doing. Walking? Autopilot. Breathing? Didn't need to. Going to see his mother in the hospital? His mother in critical condition. Words. Empty words. Couldn't appreciate them, couldn't feel them, couldn't picture them. Empty words in an empty skull of cold metal.

He stepped into the hospital.

"Jack," Julias said. He was standing by the desk, and as people and nurses walked around him, the man looked him in the eyes. No pity, no worry or sadness, nothing like that. Just a solid, hard gaze. Thank you.

"Sire."

"Your mother is in critical condition. Fifth floor. I'll take you to her."

He nodded and fell in beside him. The one person who'd been with him from the very start, and the most stable person in his life. Father figure much? He didn't really think of Julias in those terms, but it was hard to deny the comparison.

"You... you can go home if you want to, Clara," Jack said.

She smiled at him and came up behind him. With a slow step, she fell in line with the two vampires, and looked around as they walked. "Been a long time since I've been in a hospital."

The larger Ventrue growled as he glanced over his shoulder. "It's not a tour."

"Didn't think it was."

Julias looked upset with Clara's presence. But Jack needed a buddy if he was going to make the trip from the Carthian half of South Side; and he liked Clara. He liked her for the same reason he liked Julias right now, not giving him those death eyes anymore.

"Does Antoi... the Prince know about this yet?" he said.

"She doesn't monitor the news the way the Invictus does. But she'll probably find out on her own before the night is done, if the past is any indicator."

Nodding, he looked around at the various rooms they were passing on the way to the elevator. Perfectly normal on this floor for people to be walking around, and once they went to the higher floors where people weren't supposed to just be walking around, Julias would probably use Dominate to make kine leave them alone. Good.

Hospitals. He hated hospitals. He supposed anyone who had a family member die hated hospitals. Something about the cold lifelessness of them. A place that was supposed to save lives was so sterile — for good reason, of course — that it made everything seem like it was solid metal and plastic, the people inside included. The smells were distinct, and now all he could think of when he smelled them, was the same black and white images he'd tried so hard to forget. Walking through its taupe hallways, and following the lines taped on the floor, was a walk through memory lane, a walk he never thought he'd have to experience again.

The elevator. Getting closer. And after this, he was going to go see his sister's body. Mary's body. A dead body.

He clenched his teeth together, hard, and ground them against each other until he felt his fangs emerge. His fists tightened at his sides, and his shoulders started to shake. No one had said it, no one wanted to say it, or needed to say it, but it was on all their minds. Someone had stabbed his mother, stabbed his sister, and in all likelihood, it was the hunters. In all likelihood, it was Angela.

"Is the building secure?" Jack said.

"Jessy and Eric are outside. Vanna is on a rooftop, along with a few thrall snipers spread out on different rooftops." Julias checked his phone, and brought up an image of a city blueprint for a moment, likely checking unit positions.

Jack nodded. He could always trust Julias to figure things out before he did, and take the proper precautions.

"I guess everyone knows."

"In the Invictus, yes. If the hunters are responsible, it might be a trap, so I made sure to inform everyone. The implications are dangerous, especially if the hunters think they can use this situation to force you to lower your guard."

"Angela and Jeremiah would have to be psychopaths to think they can attack us here," he said.

His sire nodded, but looked down at him, frown etched into his face, the same frown Jack was building. "Aren't they?"

"... they are."

Clara sighed, and nodded, but said nothing. He was happy he accepted her request to join him on this journey, terrifying a prospect as it was. He was going to see his mom, terribly injured, potentially dying, potentially dead, and other people were going to be there with him. Every instinct, every reflex, every fucking inch of him wanted to do that alone. And he was sure he'd get the chance. But this time, maybe this time, maybe, just fucking maybe, he could not become a reserved asshole like Jacob knew he had become when his dad died.

Christ, Mary. Dead. How much she must have looked for someone to lean on when Dad died, and he'd been too preoccupied with closing himself off to everyone to be there for her. And now she was dead. The last time he saw her, he was wiping her memories of their encounter. All the memories he had to hold onto of her, were things he'd tainted.

Hopefully he didn't have to ruin this last connection.

Ding. With a sigh, he stepped out into the hall, and followed after Julias. The world went silent, and all Jack could hear was the clop clop of their expensive shoes on the hard floor. Some nurses walked by, and some others tried to stop them. Julias made a small hand wave, and said a few words Jack couldn't hear above the ringing inside the metal walls of his mind. The nurses nodded and moved around them, and the three of them kept going. There weren't too many doctors going around at this time of night, near midnight, but for each that inquired about the three intruders, Julias dismissed them all without issue. And knowing Julias's skill, it was likely the doctors and nurses wouldn't remember them when the night was over.

Vampires wiping memories. Was that how ghost stories started?

He stood before the door. Closed. Was that good? If nurses and doctors were pouring in and out of the room, yelling and screaming orders and whatnot, that'd be bad. But maybe she was dead, and had already been removed from the room, or soon to be. Maybe she was better, and conscious, and she'd see them come in? Maybe—

Julias snapped his fingers, and summoned the nearest person. "How's the patient in 534?"

"Still in critical condition, but stable, for now. Unconscious. We're not sure what level of brain damage she's suffered, and—" Her voice faded away, lost in the silence that soaked Jack's shell. She was alive, but stable. Could be dying. Might. Might not. Murdered. Maybe not. But, at least he could visit her.

Paralyzed. He tried to push the door open, but cement blocks were tied to his hands. He wanted to go in, check on her, see how she was doing, but it was all pointless. The fuck was he going to do? She might live, she might not, and all he'd be able to do is stare and mourn, lament, maybe cry if he dared let his walls down; fat chance of that ever happening, not now.

A glance over his shoulder at Clara, and a slow, quiet nod from her reminded him he was here for more than his mother, though. He was here for himself. Selfish as it was, he had to get through this.

He pushed open the door, and walked in.

There was something about the drama involved in someone's death that TV shows, that movies, that all media failed to ever truly convey. But, as he stood there, looking down at his mom lying in bed, a respirator working her lungs, an IV in her veins, and dozens of wires attached to her in various places, he could understand why. The sheer overwhelming sense of silent weight, of sinking, invisible dread, felt strangely similar to drowning, drowning in nothingness.

Some wires were on her fingers, and others were sneaked under her hospital gown, plugged into the beeping machine beside the bed, though most of her was covered in a blanket of that hospital green. He hated that green. And the sky blue of the hospital gown was offensive. The muted whites of the walls and plastic machines, the metal bed frame, all of it triggered disgust. And fear.

There might as well have been a giant, immovable blanket of black death draped over his mom. He wanted to run away from it, from his mother, and the memory dragging itself out of the grave like a fucking zombie.

He looked over his shoulder. Julias and Clara had followed in after him, but he could see they were both hesitant to actually close the door behind him.

"It's... ok," he said. "Come in."

"Jack," Julias said, "you can—"

"I'm serious. Come in." No harshness to his voice, but no life either. He could have a moment alone with his mom later. For now, Clara had called him on his bullshit, and while the sting of her voice and fist were fresh in his mind, he was going to let other people, people he trusted and liked, in a little closer, when every part of him wanted to lock itself inside the metal walls of his skull, away from everything else.

"She's lost weight," Julias said, "since I last saw her."

Samantha was average height for a woman, maybe a couple inches shorter, and normally she had long brown hair; it was shorter now.

"You... right." Nodding, he came up close, and stared down at his mom's closed eyes. He'd forgotten that Julias had seen her before, talked to her, on a couple of occasions when Jack was doing his internship with a different company. "Amanda noticed that, too. We think she... she was trying to get herself back on her feet, maybe start dating again."

He nodded as he came in closer, and stood beside him. "She looks good."

Clara came in a little closer as well, winced when she looked at Samantha's face, and glanced between Jack and her. Yeah, Jack could see himself in Mom's face. If she opened her eyes, he'd be looking into big, green eyes, like his own. His weren't so big right now; could barely open his eyes half way.

Mom had cut her hair. Nice and short, to the ear, with a bunch of curls put into it. Definitely something Mary had her do. Of course, the curls were ruined and the hair was a mess, wrecked by the hell and rescue she'd gone through. The tube coming out of her throat was large, and looked horrible. She was pale as hell. She looked like a vampire who wasn't Blushing Life.

A vampire.

He gulped on nothing, lifted his head, and stared down at his mom. Samantha Terry. With a heavy sigh, he leaned in close, and put his hand on her forehead. Alive. Warm. Unlike him.

He looked Julias's way, and his sire met his gaze with a small shrug. No need to say it, he was thinking the same thing. Siring her was a choice, if he wanted to save her. But, he wasn't old enough to sire her himself; it was a major drain on a Kindred's mind and body when they sired someone. Julias had sired him well over a year ago, but it'd be way too large a request to make him, to sire again so soon. And it'd be a deeply rude, offensive, inconsiderate thing to ask of another Kindred. He didn't need anyone to tell him that, he just knew it.

Turning her into a ghoul was another option. Would that be so bad? Kindred blood, infused with vitae, might be enough to pull her out of this. Maybe. Very much a maybe. Probably not, considering what the nurse said about brain damage. As much as ghouls were more durable than normal kine, they couldn't get up from injuries like this. One of the doctors said she'd been stabbed thirteen times, like a scene out of the fucking Red Wedding, and that alone meant death to a ghoul usually, let alone fucking brain damage.

And turning her into a ghoul would mean she'd be infatuated with whoever owned her. Antoinette asked her ghouls if they wanted to be ghouls before turning them. Far as he knew, Jessy did the same thing with hers. He also didn't know any ghouls who were connected to their masters, before the change. And in Dolareido, it was proper recourse to always ask them, bring them into the fold gently. He doubted Viktor or Lucas did, but, he wasn't them. He was not them. He was not Viktor.

He started pacing. Couldn't hold still, not for long, not next to this. Clara raised a brow and watched him, but Julias understood. Let the young guy think. He had to think. Feelings could come later.

"She... she... she might die." The words bounced around in his empty skull, echoing against the cold metal. "That may... may happen. I... will have to accept that. And I... I won't..." Clenching his fists until his fingers ached, he came up to the foot of his mom's bed, and set his grip on the metal bars. "When my dad died, I really... really fucked that up. I won't do that again."