R E C K L E S S . . . 

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE 

I sat in front of the mirror, cross-legged on my bed, examining myself from head to toe. My blue eyes were locked with the identical ones of my reflection in front of me. The reflection had the same long blonde hair, same wry smile, same thin features. She also had the same bruises and scars as me, a thing I wished would go away. It seemed unfair that the both of us should have suffered so much.  

My fingers probed the flesh on my neck and the small bruises that had bloomed there since Alexis's attack, an ugly purple colour that I couldn't hide no matter how much I tried. I remembered the expression on my mum's face as I climbed into the car, the questioning looks of the police as I told them of my latest attack, the wondering looks of the students who had seen me. 

Further along from the bruises, on the side of my neck, there was a small, thin cut. The blood that had flowed out of it had long since congealed, but the ugly red pucker mark was enough to remind me of what had happened just a few days ago. On the other side of my neck another injury served to remind me of Alexis's hatred, still covered by the piece of gauze that Blake had attached to it more than two weeks ago. I'd refused to take it off for anybody, not wanting to expose the ugly, torn skin underneath it. Other marks scarred my neck, fainter than the others but no less important. Each mark reminded me of a time a vampire had bit or attacked me, each one showing its own small array of bruises and puckered lines. 

Then there were the burn marks, showing all over my skin from where Jev had grabbed me. My arms were the worst, each one covered with red marks and the aftermath of blisters. 

Every time I looked in the mirror I saw not a girl with blonde hair and a pretty face but a girl who was forever marked with the scars and bruises of the past few months. I just couldn’t help my gaze from going straight to the marks; they seemed to be the most prominent things about me now. I wondered if the other girl hated me for ruining her skin like that, or if she would forgive me eventually. All I saw in my reflection's light blue eyes was regret and sorrow, the exact replica of mine. 

The sudden, piercing sound of the doorbell wrenched me out of my thoughts. My eyes were torn away from those of my reflection as my head snapped round to focus on my bedroom door.

My immediate thought, as it had been for the past two days at every knock on the door or unidentified sound, was that it was Chris. Just the thought of him set my heart beating faster and my palms sweating.  

Mort and the other hunters had seen neither hide nor hair of the supernaturals, but it was no use pretending that they weren't coming back – even Mort had admitted it when he’d phoned me. Chris wanted to change me, and he wanted to do it fast. What use would he have with a woman in her late twenties when he was so young himself? Wouldn't someone that old have trouble fitting in with the persona of a high school student that Chris and his friends filled so often? It was now or never if he wanted to change me. He had to appear sometime soon. 

With that in mind I leapt off my bed and sprinted down the stairs, taking them two at a time. I intercepted my mum half way down the hallway leading up to the door, skidding to a halt in front of her.  

"Don't worry," I said breathlessly. "I'll get the door." 

My mum raised an eyebrow. "You've been sprinting to the door every time someone's rang the doorbell these past few days. Are you expecting someone?" 

I shook my head vehemently.  

“Have you asked Sam and Claire to come over? You know you can tell me if you invite people over. You’re not grounded anymore, Anne,” she continued. “Or are you making sure it’s not that psychiatrist that Officer Colon wanted you to see? He told us that this Doctor Helyer isn’t coming until tomorrow.”

Oh great. For a fleeting second I thought that facing Chris just might maybe be preferable to seeing this doctor and being uselessly psychoanalysed for hours with no escape.  People doubted my mental state already, and the addition of a qualified professional to enforce those doubts really wasn’t going to help me much.

"No, uh, not at all. I just..." I racked my mind for some sort of feasible excuse. "Well, I did order something online the other day. You know, since Dad's birthday is coming up? I don't want him to answer the door and get the parcel – it’ll ruin the surprise." 

"If you'd just told me before I could've kept a look out for you as well, you know? And it's at least two months till his birthday - you don't need to rush to get him a present." 

"Yes, but... it was so perfect that I had to get it for him right now." 

We were thankfully interrupted by the bell ringing a second time. The relief that the sound had brought forward was quickly consumed by the immense fear that welled up inside me as I thought about who might be behind the door.

"Why don't you get that? I'll be in the kitchen if you need me. I need to make Evan his dinner early so he can go to sleep, poor thing. I can't believe he got ill so quickly." 

I waited until she bustled off back into the kitchen before I walked towards the door. The bell rung again, shrill and insistent.  

"Coming!" I called loudly, walking towards the front door. A strange mix of fear and anticipation was coursing through me.  

I wanted to be rid of the heavy feeling of anxious suspense that pressed down on me so badly that it hurt, and it took me a lot of willpower not to fling the door open immediately. Instead I balanced on my tiptoes and peered through the small window at the top of the door, looking down at the doorstep.  

I had been expecting Chris to be at the door for days, preparing myself for the moment, but the sight of him grinning through the pane of glass at me still made me gasp in surprise. I took a step back, knocking into the coat rack as I did so and making it rock back into the wall. A loud thunk echoed down the hallway.

"Anne? Is everything okay? Who is it?"  

"It's fine!" I called back, trying to disguise the nervousness in my voice. It was too high, too shaky. "Everything's fine." 

The doorbell rang again. Then he began to knock on the door, the sound reverberating off the glass.  

"For god's sake, Anne. Open that door!" my mum shouted. "It's going to wake Evan up, not to mention drive me insane." 

If we had been under different circumstances I would’ve retorted that all this shouting was bound to wake Evan up anyway, regardless of the doorbell. But my attention was fixed on the door and the vampire behind it, and I couldn’t have yelled back at her without my voice giving away the anxiety and fear that I was feeling. I couldn’t let my mum know that anything was going on.

I took a deep breath and looked through the window again, hoping vainly that seeing him there had just been a trick of the mind. Still there. Now that I had braced myself for the shock of Chris being there I could see the three other people behind him. It made no surprise that he would bring them with him - why travel alone when you had a willing entourage?

Alexis met my eyes and smirked. Darren was looking anywhere but the door, his hands knotted in front of him as he fidgeted anxiously. Brittany had fixed her gaze on the floor as if it was the most important thing in the whole universe. But it was Chris who drew my gaze – his arrogant smile, carefully styled brown hair and glinting dark eyes right in front of me as I stared out the window.

I ducked back down and leant against the door, breathing heavily. My mind was racing, trying to formulate a plan that would get rid of Chris without drawing attention.

Once again, the shrill sound of the doorbell shrieked.  

My mum was yelling, now, at a volume that rivalled the doorbell’s, her anger and annoyance made plain in her tone. "Are you going to open that door or not?" 

I knew that it was a matter of seconds till she came out of the kitchen, and then there would be no way to get rid of the supernaturals on the doorstep without exposing their secret. Any hint of me believing they were anything but human would earn me a one way ticket to the psychiatrist’s office. And who knew what would happen to my family if the supernaturals didn't deny it? What terrible things would they do if I let them in to my home? What would they do if I didn't? 

Bracing myself, I put my hand on the doorknob and twisted. The door swung open, creaking on its rusty hinges, to reveal the four people behind it.  

"Hello, Annie," Chris said lightly, the hint of a smile gracing his lips.  

"Go away," I snapped.  

I slammed the door in his face.  

It took another deep, long breath, slumped against the wall, before I could stand up again properly. All the same, when I finally began to walk down the hallway to the kitchen my head began to spin and I had to stop to steady myself several times. The fear of it all was overcoming me entirely, occupying every inch of me. Slamming the door on Chris and his friends wasn't going to keep him away any more than telling Officer Colon that vampires existed had helped his view on my already debatable mental state.  

"Who was it?" my mum asked as I stumbled into the kitchen, obviously contented to have heard the slam of the door. She was at the stove, stirring a large, steaming pot of tomato soup with a worn wooden spoon that had been in the family for as long as anyone could remember. 

"Oh, no one," I said flippantly. "Just a salesman or something. They were very insistent." 

The doorbell rang again. My hand moved up to grip the counter for support.  

My mum cocked her head to one side, examining me. "You don't look too well. Are you sure you haven't caught what Evan has?" 

"No," I said through a tight lipped grimace. "I'm fine. Perfectly fine." 

This time he knocked at the door. Sharp, hard raps against the surface. I knew that he could break the door in a matter of seconds - what was stopping him? He was playing another game, one that I didn't like much at all. Then again, had I ever liked any of his games?

Of all the vampires I could've attracted the attention of I just had to get the melodramatic, bloodthirsty jerk. At least with other vampires you knew where you stood. Without doubt, any normal vampire would simply knock the door down, sprint in, and kill every last person in the house. But not Chris. He wanted so much more than a quick murder.  

"Are you sure it's a salesman?" my mum called, her head craning round the kitchen door to look down the hallway to the door. "We don't normally get them round here." 

"Well, they were holding some pamphlets, at least, and as soon as I opened the door they started jabbering on… something about churches, I think."  

This was as far from the truth as I could get. Vampires and werewolves were possibly the least godly creatures anyone could come up with. I tried to imagine them going from door to door, supporting religion. Despite everything, it made me smile.

My mum, a firm atheist, shuddered. "They should hopefully go away soon. Maybe I should go-" 

"No!" I interrupted her. "I'll go do it. You're cooking." 

She raised an eyebrow. "It's soup. I would hardly call heating up a liquid from a can as cooking. It's only going to take a minute more." 

I had a minute to get rid of Chris. Great.  

On second thought, he would probably barge down the door before that minute was up. I had as long as it took him to lose his patience to get rid of Chris.  

With that in mind I left the kitchen without another word to my mum and hurried down the hallway. I imagined the door being smashed open by the supernaturals, wood flying everywhere and the sight of them striding through the doorway, and wondered why they hadn't done anything yet.  

The doorbell rang.  

I swung open the door for the second time. Chris had his hand poised to knock again, but it hadn't quite got to the door in time. Even though the door was open his hand kept on moving forward, carried by its momentum. I leant to the side to avoid the hand, anticipating its path, but the blow never came. His hand slammed to a halt as it reached the space where the door should’ve been, stopping at the threshold. Suddenly, before anyone could react, his hand flew away and he stumbled back as if he’d just received an electric shock.

Well, I'd forgotten about that.  

With renewed confidence, I grinned at them, happy with the knowledge that the vampires couldn't take another step forward. It felt as if all the worry and fear that I’d been feeling had floated away, leaving me light and relieved.

Brittany, standing at the rear of the group, was smiling faintly down at the ground as if she too was pleased with the turn of events.  

Alexis growled. She was still wearing the same pink hoodie as she had when she'd attacked me, one arm of it still hanging limp. It looked like she had stuffed it to try and hide the obviousness, but it hadn’t worked too well. There was a fierce hate in her light blue eyes, a promise that I wouldn't be smiling for much longer. With my new found buoyancy, I ignored the look completely.  

"What are you guys doing here?" I said lightly, my hand still poised on the door handle. I hadn't forgotten that Darren could still get in the house, and I was prepared to slam the door right in his face if I needed to. He looked much meeker than I had remembered, far more reserved than when I had first met him as Chris’s joking best friend.

"Visiting," Alexis replied with a feral smile. 

I smiled back. "Well, to be totally honest, I don't appreciate your visit at all. So if you could just fuck off..." 

I made to close the door, but Darren stuck his foot in its path and brought it to a halt. He grimaced at me in a kind of half-hearted apology.  

"I think that we'll be staying around for a while, actually," Chris said, an amused lilt to his tone. He nodded at Darren. 

Before I could realise what was happening or stop him, Darren walked straight into the house and turned to the three vampires. "Come in," he said in an emotionless voice.  

The vampires walked into the house.  

"Damn," I muttered, looking at them standing smugly in front of me. I cursed myself for not thinking the situation through and letting them in as a result. If I’d just sent them away as soon as I could instead of smugly continuing with the door open, reassured by the fact that the vampires couldn’t enter, then maybe things could’ve worked out differently.

Chris just smiled.  

"Are they gone yet?" my mum called.  

"They're just about to go," I yelled back, glaring pointedly at Chris.  

I heard her drop the wooden spoon back into the pan and a faint whoosh as she turned off the gas. "Oh let me sort this out."  

"No!" I said quickly, panicking. I looked between the door and the four people in front of me.  

Paying no attention to me, my mum walked out of the kitchen. She stopped dead as she saw the people in her hallway. "Anne... these aren't the preachers you were telling me were at the door." 

Chris laughed slightly, seeing the irony just as I had. "Far from it," he said, turning to my mum and fixing her with a large, friendly smile. "You must be Anne's mum - I can see where she gets her good looks from." 

I made a face. It was one thing to have a lethal vampire intent on killing you in your house, but it just poured salt on the wound to have a vampire that was inept in so many ways. He'd had years and years to find good compliments, but he'd gone with that?

My mum obviously thought the same thing. "Nice try,” she laughed at him. “Anne… who are these people?" 

I wondered why he hadn't just killed everyone and kidnapped me already. Was he seriously going to endure all these useless introductions before he did?

"We're her friends from school," Alexis said before I could answer. "Hasn't Anne mentioned us before?"  

"No," my mum said, raising an eyebrow. She was dubious, something which I loved her for at that moment. It was always nice to have someone who wasn’t under Chris’s charm near you.

"And for a good reason,” I said.

Chris laughed as if I had just said something delightful. "Oh, Anne. I hate you too," he said in a mocking tone, making it all seem like one big joke.  

"We were so worried about you after what happened on Thursday that we just had to see if you were okay," Alexis continued, her eyebrows creasing in what she must’ve thought was a concerned look. "And since we don't have any exams for the next few days we decided to go and see you." 

I found it hard to believe that Alexis was concerned for me after the attack, since she was the one who'd attacked me in the first place.  

"How did you manage to get here? There aren't any buses here from the school and you're surely not at driving age yet,” my mum asked.

"Actually, my brother drove us here," Chris said hesitantly, staring down at the ground and shuffling his feet. "He's coming to pick us up in a few hours... but if you don't want us here we can always go to town until he comes back to collect us – I don’t have my phone with me, you see." 

I knew perfectly well that Chris wouldn’t get driven to my house by a ‘brother’. He’d have a driving license to use, seeing as he was far from sixteen years old in reality and definitely wouldn’t want to rely on anyone else to drive him anywhere. Besides, even if he hadn’t driven, he would’ve run. I didn’t doubt his ability to get this far in such a short space of time on foot – I’d seen him run before and I’d only barely escaped capture.

My mum, however, had no idea of the thoughts spinning round my head or the actual situation. Looking incredibly guilty at her attempts to send them away, she hurriedly ushered them inside. "No, no. Of course I want you here, I'm not going to make you stay outside till your brother comes back," she said as she closed the door behind them. "Why don't you stay for dinner? Anne will be glad to have some company." 

I raised a single, inquiring eyebrow. "Will I?" 

Chris slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards him. "You can stop pretending to hate me now," he laughed.  

"I am not pretending anything," I replied with my teeth clenched, stepping away from him so that his arm fell away.  

"Oh yes you are," Chris and Alexis intoned, both grinning widely.  

I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that when I opened them everything would turn out to have been some terrible dream. When I opened them they were still there. I sighed.

“Come one, let your friends sit down, Anne. I’m sure that they’ve had a long day.”

I highly doubted that the twenty minute journey from school to my house would tire the supernaturals out, but I was in no place to argue. Instead I smiled at them grimly and ushered them towards the living room, all the while glaring at Chris.

As we went further into the house – two humans, three vampires and a werewolf – I wondered what I was letting myself in to. 

--

Okay so this was only half of a chapter... but it was getting so long that I had to split it up at some point. That and I really don't have time to edit more. I should be asleep because seriously I am so tired and I'm waking up early tomorrow to get the train to London and