As a rule, Sky didn't take well to winged demons kidnapping her best friend. Nor did she handle the supernatural well. Sure, throw her in front of a bunch of chauvinistic, sexist punks who had missed their daily dose of knuckle sandwich and she'd do great. Guns? No prob. Knives? Great for cutting tomatoes and faces. Supernatural freaks from 'Silent Hill'? Good night.
Thus, she turned on the groaning pile of injured man flesh that the freaky winged guy had slammed against a wall with nothing less than draconic fury, and perhaps a touch of insanity. Fully aware of the fact that his arm was bending in more places than one and not caring, she balled her fist into his black shirt and drug him upright. No small feat, seeing the man was bigger than her, but then she was ridiculously proud of her arm strength.
"Where'd he go?" she spat.
"Back off," came the growled reply.
"Like hell. Super Goth just flew off with my friend, so spill it!"
"Back. Off."
"No one just happens to carry around firepower like that around a city, so don't think I'll believe you just so happened to—"
His hand clasped around her throat. A big hand.
Then she saw red peering up at her where non-glowy, totally normal human eyes were supposed to be. The light they emitted painted dark red onto the curtains made by his black bangs.
"Too late," he hissed, even as his mouth parted to reveal long, glistening teeth.
Fury turned to sheer terror. She felt wetness growing in her crotch.
Just as he pulled her neck down to sink his teeth in, she passed out.
The next thing she knew, she was staring up at fabric. The fancy wavy kind you usually see on high-end couches or comforters. A few blinks later were enough for her poor brain to process that it was actually a bed canopy, not just fabric. She had never actually seen one in person. Not full-blown aristocratic kind like this, at least. Just the cheap bug netting that hung from the ceiling on a hoop that you could find at the dollar store.
"Thirsty?"
As she dropped her head to the side towards the voice, black popped across her vision, along with the vague sense that her skull had turned into a balloon. She blinked it away and squinted into the semi-darkness. A familiar man sat beside the huge bed that held her, holding a glass filled with tomato juice in his hand.
She got stuck between scowling and fainting again. But his eyes didn't glow anymore, so her face muscles spasmed towards something like a scowl. She moved to sit up, just to be overcome with the black fuzzies and her inflated head again.
"I'm floating off…" she mumbled.
Luckily, there were pillows to catch her when she fell back. Squishy pillows, big enough to be beds themselves.
"Are you not thirsty?" he asked.
She threw an arm over her spinning head, hoping to keep it in place. "What the hell, go away."
"Any cravings? Burning sensations?"
She shot the guy a glare and managed to sit up the second time around. "I've got a pretty sore neck and a craving for vengeance." Now that she looked at him, actually looked at him, he was pretty handsome. Not that it meant anything good. The dangerous ones were always pretty. And since this weird nightmare wasn't ending any time soon, "Did you just bite my neck and drag me back to your lair?" Suddenly, her lightheadedness made sense. "Did you suck my blood? Oh my god, are you a vampire? Because that is totally gross. I'll have you know I hated 'Twilight' with every fiber of my being and I don't give a damn whether my blood tastes extra good or not, I'm dragging your sorry hide into the first speck of sunlight I can reach!"
The tall man blinked, his jaw relaxing in the barest trace of surprise. Then he sighed and set the glass of tomato juice on the nightstand—wait—
"Is that blood?" She hated how her voice had pitched up an entire octave.
"Yes."
"Why the hell do you—shit, is that my blood? Oh god oh god oh god—"
"Calm down. It's from a blood bank." He ran a hand through his hair. "This is what I get for acting altruistically."
"Damn right!" Wait. She knew she was badass and all, but even she wasn't stupid enough to think her blood-deprived self was all that intimidating. "What?"
In answer, he just stood and walked to the door.
"Where do you think you're going?"
He closed the door behind him.
"What the hell!"
If he thought she'd just sit and wait for him to come back to cackle his Lord Dracula plans at her, he had another thing coming. Swimming through the mass of fluff that was the rich, California-Grand-Daddy-sized king bed, she no sooner had her feet beneath her then she was waking up on the floor, covered in a cold sweat. She clenched her teeth, rolled onto her hands and knees, and waited for the light-headedness to pass.
"Maybe I should drink that blood." She almost laughed. And yack up curdled coffee beans of blood? No thank you.
It was laborious, but with some patience and determination, she managed to get upright and get a better look at the room. The place was big enough to swallow her apartment and then some, which meant by the time she had reached the lone desk, she was out of breath and on the way to passing out again. She settled for the chair.
"At this rate, I'll be bat food in no time."
She set her sweaty forehead onto the cool, dark wood.
A mistake. It allowed just enough calm for the adrenaline to drop and the hysteria to break through.
The tremors started at her feet, knocking her knees together and cramping up her abdominal muscles like a bad period. Her fingers knotted into her hair. Her throat clogged up.
"Oh man. Oh man ohman ohgodohgodohgod—Leaaaaaaaa." She screwed up her face against the terrified howl bunched up in her throat.
This was the part where Lea was supposed to bust in and save the day. Destroy the monsters, solve the puzzle, and wake her up from the bad dream with French toast and hot chocolate. Sky had done her part. She'd been brave, she'd been kickass, now it was breaking and crumbling all about her and she couldn't breathe and Lea was supposed to be here, Lea had to be here, why wasn't Lea here?
Even as she thought that she remembered dark red, dragon-like wings tearing from a man's white back. She remembered Lea's long, wavy hair dangling out from the monster's arms.
When a small hand shook her back to the present, Sky's throat had turned raw from hyperventilation. She'd sunk beneath the desk at some point and had curled into a tight ball. She flinched back from the cold touch, her first instinct to think the handsome bloodsucker had returned for more.
But it was a boy, a teenager maybe her age, not Dracula. He had yet to hit his major growth spurt, leaving him with a soft jaw-line and still child-like eyes that reminded her of Lea's, and that in and of itself was almost enough to calm her. He wore adorably mismatched, but obviously high-end clothes and had short-cut strawberry blond hair. Frankly, he was pretty enough to be a girl.
"Shh, shh, everything's going to be okay," he whispered.
She curled deeper into her hiding space and looked away, as much to hide the tears as to show her displeasure. "I don't need some kid telling me that."
Lea hadn't come. Thus, she now knew she wasn't playing a game or dreaming.