There wasn't much she knew about vampirism prior to her affliction. Like most people, she hadn't bothered to learn about it, to read up on it. And why should she have? Before the night she turned she'd never met a vampire, or known of anyone who had. Those were not the circles she ran in. But she learned quickly; unfortunately, through experience.
First, the hunger. That she learned the hard way. The hardest way, after being thrust into her new world, left to fend for herself without a list of instructions. Some called it The Hunger, others called it The Thirst. Neither seemed truly sufficient to describe the crippling, all-consuming feeling. She still remembered it to this day, years later, as though she was reliving it. That was the other thing she wished she'd known beforehand: the affliction never allowed you to forget. Every memory you ever had resurfaced, repaired by the affliction, just like a bodily wound. That was what fueled the nightmares, they said.
The nightmares were indeed the worst of it. No one had been around to tell her about those, not that it would have made a spot of difference. That was one of the curses of the illness; you never got to dream again, you only ever had nightmares. The most horrific kind. Every possible fear realized, almost nightly. If she didn't have to sleep, she wouldn't have. Anything was better than being alone with her worst fears, a compilation of her worst memories.
She woke up with a start, in the dark, immediately feeling the warm, bloody tears running down her cheeks. She felt around for the switch, and there was a click before her bed – her true resting place – slid out of a hole in the wall. It was similar to one you would find in a morgue, though a little less uninviting, and not as claustrophobic.
She climbed out into a well-lit room. Her lair. Her real bedroom. A huge basement paradise, decorated to a high standard, with paintings covering every wall. It locked from the inside.
“Oh God,” she sniffed, looking down at her white gown and noticing that the droplets of blood from her tears had stained it. Why did she always wake up in tears when she wore white?
She sat in her black leather armchair for a moment, trying to regain her composure. She needed time to get over the nightmare – she always did. This one in particular always left her heart thudding an expeditious tune. She'd been having it a lot lately. Not so much a nightmare as a flashback, warped only by the altered scenery. Everything else was the same. And every time she dreamed about the first time – her first and only kill – she woke up crying. The first time she'd taken a life and the night she'd had hers taken were forever connected. A night of murder, of savagery; one night that changed her life and so many others forever.
She had been so hungry, so thirsty for the thing that would sustain her, the pain was so severe. All she knew was that she needed blood. She'd never needed or craved it prior to the change, but when she woke up soaked in her own blood, the wound in her neck still fresh, disoriented and famished, her body cried out for it. And then she took. And took. And didn't stop taking until she was satiated, until the pain was gone, until all her wounds were completely healed. But the pain was replaced by another kind of pain upon seeing what she had done, and to whom.
Remembering was her punishment. One of many. Loving Lissa was the worst punishment of all. Cruel in its irony. She'd loved her for a long time, but now the love was changing form. And there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.
The stench of human waste had started to filter out of the cellar and into the cabin. So strong. The two boys who had been the cause of it, and who had been living, eating and breathing in it, were accustomed now, having spent four weeks down there.
“We're never getting out of here, are we?” Tommy said into the darkness. If it wasn't for the constant mumbling and cursing coming from the opposite end of the cellar, he wouldn't have known if Zack was still alive. They didn't talk much, sometimes argued, but never talked. Not about the good old days they'd shared together, or about their futures. The former because, now that he had time to reflect, Tommy realized that there had never been good times with Zack Lindley. Not really. Their four-year friendship had been spent with Zack mocking him because of his slight lisp, and Zack generally being the biggest dick alive. Peer pressure, cruel pranks, the lot. Zack had never been a good friend.
And they never spoke about the future mainly because they didn't believe they had one now.
“I'm getting out of here, if only so I can get the pleasure of staking that bitch in the heart. Her and that little tramp she's protecting.”
Tommy laughed and sounded like a madman. “You still don't get it, do you? Four weeks trapped in a cellar because of what we tried to do, and all you're thinking about is vengeance.”
“Of course I'm thinking of vengeance, you dick! Do you think that dead bitch is going to get away with this? Putting me in chains, locking me up down here like I'm an animal. Me, Zack Lindley, Mayor Lindley's son. She'll get hers, and I'll be the one to give it to her.”
His voice trailed off when the cellar door clicked.
Jean looked at them both as she handed them their food and water. Their filthy, tattered clothes were practically hanging off them. Gaunt in the faces, lost in the eyes. She could see the cheekbones through their skin, which she hadn't been able to see in the beginning. One kill since turning was about to become three if she wasn't careful. She didn't want them to die, not by her hand, and not in that cellar. But she didn't know what else to do. If she let them go free they would squeal, and the whole town would come for her. She wasn't prepared to die just now, not while she still had responsibilities. One responsibility in particular.
“Why don't you just kill us?” Tommy said. He wasn't trying to be smart, he genuinely wanted to die. Death was better than this.
“Because you don't deserve to die,” Jean replied. She meant it. What they'd tried to do to Lissa, that was unforgivable, but she'd intervened before it happened. They didn't deserve death. Had they succeeded, well, that would have been a different story.
“We'll die soon anyway,” he added, somewhat comforted by this fact. All pain ends, he thought. Sooner or later.
“Hopefully I'll have a plan before that happens.”
She sat on the steps and listened to them gobble down their food. Being down there with them reminded her that she was a monster, that she could never escape her true nature. So what if she didn't kill, didn't feed without permission? If she ever tried to forget, even for a minute, and aim for happiness, however temporary, there were plenty of reminders. She didn't want to be happy, because she didn't think she deserved it.
After five minutes, as she got up to leave, Tommy spoke again. “H–how is the girl?” His voice was shaky, uncertain, as though afraid that he didn't have a right to inquire.
Jean stared at him for a moment and knew that his concern was genuine.
“She's fine. Just fine,” she said.