Chapter Text
At first, there’s nothing.
Other people might describe the void Ava finds herself in as inky, or thick, or all-encompassing. A sort of overwhelming darkness that makes them feel small and alone, panicked and afraid.
Ava, however, would not describe it that way. In fact, she finds that she can’t describe it at all . Because it’s nothing. There is no texture, there is no color, and there is no terrifying emotion attached to this void.
It is empty. It is devoid of substance and purpose. It is death.
That’s why it’s all the more noticeable when there’s something , again.
It happens all at once. There she is, just lying in this void, still without any control over her limbs, mind you, when she feels a very sharp, very sudden pain on her neck, just above her collarbones.
A second later, she’s awake, eyes snapping open. Her vision is blurry, yet somehow enhanced at the same time, and she shrieks, throat raw, though whether it’s from the stinging pain and blood running down her neck or the incomprehensible, endless specter of death she just witnessed is anyone’s guess.
Her body’s convulsing of its own volition, shaking and slamming up and down against the table. This agitatedly cold table that she can… feel ? The icy metal gives her arms goosebumps. She can… feel this table against her skin.
Chest heaving, she strains her neck up, eyes wide and tears brimming with the sudden realization that she can move her body. She wiggles her toes, then her fingers, and then all of the sudden she’s lifting her whole body up with her arms, shaking from the effort of limbs that haven’t moved in twelve years.
It’s terrifying and incredible all at once.
She starts laughing, vision blurring again as the tears escape her eyelids, and pulls her hands up to her face, shaking and bending her fingers. She runs them along her arm, relishing in the feeling of her skin, her skin, and how it feels to feel it again.
Then she lifts her other hand to brush along her arm as well, and loses her balance.
The fall to the floor is short, and surprisingly doesn’t hurt as much as she thought it would— or rather, it hurts, especially when her head is the first thing to hit the ground , but not for as long as she thought it would.
Instead, the fall to the floor is little more than a shock back to reality. Because this is reality, she thinks, even if she doesn’t know how she got back to it.
She realizes that her ears had been ringing, as now that they begin to stop, the sounds that she hears instead are… concerning. The whole room, which she now realizes looks gloomy and old as hell, has an echoing hum to it, a yawning groan that she can tell stretches out into the other rooms in whatever this place is.
How she can hear this much is beyond her. She certainly doesn’t recall having such an… accelerated sense of hearing before. But then again, her room in the orphanage was usually quiet when she wasn’t running her mouth, so maybe she’s just never heard a place with ambiance before.
The more concerning sounds, though, is the near-constant array of crashes, grunts and hissing, gunshots and cries. Ava’s not stupid— there’s a fight, going on, somewhere down the hall, and if the gaping hole on her neck, blood flowing down her shoulder, is any indication, she’s already been caught up in it unwillingly.
Ava pushes herself to her feet, though not without struggle. It's exhilarating to stand, to throw her arms out for balance, but her excitement is short-lived as she scans the room. Two bodies greet her, one of a man dressed in black gear and covered in weapons, and the other… a nun.
How… out of place. But it makes sense for Sister Frances to dump her dead body in a place of worship, of all places. If this is a Church, maybe that explains why it looks so old.
Another round of gunshots startles Ava back to reality, and she narrows her eyes as her vision gets hazy around the edges. Maybe she’s still coming off of a post-mortem high, or whatever, but she needs to get out of here, and maybe figure out what’s going on, too.
The man on the floor has a wooden stake in his side and blood messily splattered all over his mouth, and the woman’s head is split open with some sort of nasty wound. It’d make Ava sick, if she was mentally put together enough to realize what she was seeing in the first place.
It’s surprisingly easy to open the door, and even easier to sneak out of the building entirely. Almost too easy, if Ava listens to her suspicions.
But then she tells her suspicions to go fuck themselves. She just got a second chance at life, and she’s not about to waste it listening to some goddamn paranoia.
She feels great for about six hours. Strong, limbs full of youth and energy she’d never imagined getting back. She wanders the streets of Andalusia with a skip in her step that she’s never had before, fervently ignoring the concerns that refuse to go away, pounding in the back of her skull.
Her neck has stopped bleeding, and at one point she’d gone into a public restroom to clean it up and take a look at it— after clearing away the blood, all that remained were two clean puncture wounds. It kind of looked badass, if Ava’s being honest.
Then the sun starts to rise. Diego had told her to make the most of her reborn life, and first on her bucket is to watch it rise. At first, she’s overjoyed to see a sunrise in real time, standing on the beach , ready to let it overtake her with its warmth. And it’s great, as the darkness makes way for dawn, and she enjoys it for a couple of minutes.
Then the sun actually appears over the horizon, and all at once she feels… sluggish. Her skin starts burning up, and she presses a hand to her forehead, feeling feverish. Her body is heavy, and the higher the sun crawls, the worse she feels.
She doesn’t feel like watching any further.
It’s almost painful to lift her legs over and over again, walking on the sand that had seemed much lighter and more fun to play with ten minutes ago. Eventually, she makes it off the beach and back onto cement (lovely, lovely cement) and sighs in relief, until she realizes a bigger issue.
When the sun rises, so do the people. And, well… Ava’s not exactly dressed in her Sunday best.
Even worse, she’s hungry.
Ava looks around, acutely aware of the people passing by and giving her weird looks. One person even asks her if she’s okay, eyes scanning the dried blood running down the front of her shirt— the shirt she fucking died in.
Jesus Christ. Okay. She needs to change. But a previously quadriplegic orphan like her doesn’t exactly have any money.
Is she ready to steal? Like, mentally, can she handle doing that to some random street store?
Or, even more importantly, can she steal? Her limbs still feel heavy, and the growing hunger seems to be not only gnawing at her stomach, but coursing through her veins. It hits her with such ferocity that it forces her into action.
She thinks she can handle a little theft.
As it turns out, she can easily swipe some clothes from various vendors out in the street. In thirty minutes' time, she’s gotten a long-sleeved shirt with some generic pun about Andalusia, a flowing, floral-patterned pair of pants, and a red and yellow Spain-themed jacket. None of them fit her that well, with the shirt being too big and the pants being too tight, but she hadn’t exactly had time to check the sizes as she sped past the store, doing what she can only equate to a hit-and-run.
What, it turns out, she cannot do so easily, is pickpocket people.
She has a reason for trying, though, okay? It may be easy to swipe some clothes, but it’s not the same with food. Food has to be prepared , and anything sold on the street is always under some sort of protective cover or watch of the merchant running the stand. It’s harder for her to just… take something, at least without starting a chase scene through downtown.
So she figured she’d… steal some money. To buy food. Among other things.
So what if her morality is wavering a little? Ava blames it on the fact that she died, and gives herself a pass.
It doesn’t matter, anyway, because apparently she sucks at pickpocketing. She’d thought she watched enough TV to figure it out from example, but she should probably learn sooner rather than later that most things she sees on TV aren’t accurate.
She chickens out on her first attempt when the dude who passes her by is big and burly and all too terrifying. On her second attempt, she can’t find a wallet quickly enough, and the afflicted woman gives her a stare as she passes— whoops, she noticed.
Third time’s the charm, right?
Wrong.
She’s walked about two blocks at this point, when another person of reasonable stature walks by, AirPods in his ears and hands tucked in his front jacket pockets, which leaves his back pockets open.
Here goes nothing.
It’s a feeble, messy attempt. Her hands graze his back pockets for less than a second before he notices, and grabs her wrist tightly. “What are you doing?”
Shit. Fuck.
She’s been caught. Maybe she will end up starting some high-speed chase scene downtown. That is, if she could fucking get away from this guy in the first place— his vice-like grip on her wrist hasn’t lessened, and she starts tugging against him, feeling panic build up in her chest.
“Hey, just— let go, okay, let me go—”
He doesn’t budge, eyebrows furrowed, though Ava notices he doesn’t look angry, but rather just confused. “Were you… trying to pickpocket me?”
The almost amused tone of voice he uses makes Ava less worried, though she still angles herself away from him, ready to dodge a punch or something in case he tries to hurt her. Granted, she was the one just trying to steal from him, but still.
She catches his gaze, and can’t help but relax, his brown eyes full of general light and warmth. His messy, curly black hair falls over them slightly, and Ava feels her heartbeat pick up.
Fuck. He’s kinda cute.
Probably not the most reasonable response to getting caught in a poor attempt at pickpocketing someone, but, well, this whole night’s been full of surprises, so Ava decides to roll with it.
When Cute Mystery Boy sees her relax, he does as well, hand not letting go but loosening in its death grip on her.
“Maybe?” She shrugs sheepishly, hoping she’s reading the tone of this conversation right.
Tone? What tone? You just tried to rob him, Ava, there is no tone.
Mystery Boy nods, raising his eyebrows with a small smirk. “Uh huh… Um, why?”
Ava gulps. Feels herself get hotter, again, and it’s not because of the bright sun. Don’t do that thing where you forget how to speak, Ava.
“I’m… I’m hungry.”
Nice.
Mystery Boy nods, appearing way too at ease for someone who just nearly got robbed. He’s squinting at her, clearly confused, but eventually decides she must be harmless (she’s not really offended, because, yeah ) and lets go of her wrist. They stare at each other, and Ava doesn’t let herself say anything else, because she’s almost certain she’ll say something else that sounds stupid.
“Well, ‘Hungry,’ I’m J.C. I was just heading down to a restaurant to get some breakfast— Would you maybe want to join me?”
That sounds an awful lot like a date. It’s not, Ava knows it’s not, but Pretty-Boy J.C here is much too tempting to say no to either way. Also, she… is still hungry, so a free meal sounds good to her.
Ava realizes halfway through ordering her food that obviously this isn’t a date— It isn’t anything special, in fact, it’s just J.C taking pity on some clearly homeless person by giving them a meal and not calling the cops for trying to rob him.
Ava would be grateful if her cheeks weren’t burning from shame. Now that she’s here she can’t possibly leave, not when he’s offering her such an act of kindness she can’t afford to say no to. Even if it’s embarrassing as hell.
They don’t say anything as they wait at the bar. J.C keeps checking his phone, clearly texting someone, though Ava doesn’t let herself snoop. She stares firmly at the wall of alcohol in front of her, almost tempted to ask for a drink. But it’s like seven-thirty in the morning, and Ava isn’t ready to be a day drinker yet.
Finally, after twenty long, awkward minutes, their food arrives, and this is when Ava loses the rest of her shame. Everything just smells so good , from the eggs to the bacon, and Ava realizes she hasn’t had a real meal that wasn’t fucking orphanage porridge in years, and then she starts scarfing down everything in sight. She doesn’t even use a fork— doesn’t remember how, anyways.
She eats so quickly she doesn’t even taste any of it. She just keeps furiously chomping down on as much as she can physically fit in her mouth. This turns out to be a good thing, though, since as she cleans her plate of the crumbs (it’s been only five minutes) she finds that it leaves a sour taste in her mouth. It had smelled amazing, but… well, it lessens her appetite. And make no mistake, she’s still hungry.
It’s at this point that she remembers J.C, and turns to look at him, pulling her hood over her face to hide the blush rushing to her face. He’s trying to mind his own business and eat his sandwich wrap, but Ava can see the side-eyed glance he’s giving her.
Great. Now he thinks you’re pathetic and a pig.
Ava coughs, and turns to look away. She’s done eating, technically, so she could leave, since J.C said he’d cover the bill, and she’d rather not stay around to be humiliated further, anyway—
“So, what’s your name?”
Right. She hadn’t told him her actual name. Ava turns back, hands drumming on the table shyly, and finds herself more drawn to the actual food than the pretty boy’s cheerful gaze. Why the hell is she still so hungry?
J.C notices both her hesitation in giving out her name and her apparent endless hunger. He chuckles nonthreateningly, and picks up his sandwich, pushing the rest of the plate toward her. It’s scattered with pieces of lettuce and chips, and the pickles he’d taken off of the sandwich.
Ava’s eyes scan between the plate and J.C before she reaches out and snatches it towards her. As her fingers grasp the chips, she eyes him warily, hoping she’s not still blushing. “‘M Ava,” she says, and then stuffs her face again.
“Nice to meet you, Ava,” J.C says, and she can’t detect any malice in the way he says it. Ava nods, transfixed in his gaze for a moment until she swallows and can fit more food in her mouth. She notices that even the chips taste bad— which, seriously, how does a place mess up potato chips— but still doesn’t care, hardly stopping to breathe until she’s cleared the second plate.
J.C’s looking at her with wide eyes again, only halfway through his own sandwich. Ava notices that he doesn’t seem to think it tastes bad— or maybe that’s why he’s eating so slow?
“Wow, you… weren’t kidding. Hungry, huh?”
Ava nods, still unable to bring herself to talk. The food’s left a bad taste in her mouth.
J.C chuckles, clearly realizing that Ava’s leaving it to him to start any and all conversation. He looks off towards the bar, and Ava thinks maybe he has a similar desire to drink away the awkwardness, but then glances back towards her.
“Why were you… pickpocketing people in the street when you don’t know how?”
Was it that obvious? Ava contemplates how to answer, and then simply shrugs, burrowing further in her hood. She leans forward to pick off the pieces of food that’ve fallen out of J.C’s sandwich, but he grabs her wrist again, eyebrows furrowed. Ava flinches back, yanking her wrist away.
J.C softens, but he doesn’t give her the food. “Are you not gonna talk? I know you can.”
Ava doesn’t even know why she’s refusing to talk— after all, J.C’s been nothing but kind to her. But she’s in too deep to stop now. She shakes her head, avoiding his gaze.
“I’m not mad, if that’s what you’re worried about.” J.C sighs, and gives her the crumb. Ava feels pathetic as she lunges toward it. “I’ve been in your shoes before.”
That gets Ava’s attention.
She stares at him with wide eyes, but still doesn’t say anything. He gives a comforting smile, but when it’s clear Ava still isn’t going to talk, he resigns to the silence, and Ava notices he works quicker at finishing his food. She doesn’t try and go for the crumbs again.
It takes J.C ten minutes to finish, and in that time Ava tries her best to work out something to say in her head. She’s made frustratingly little progress, and as J.C gathers up their dishes and lays down a tip on the table, she stutters.
It gets his attention, and then he’s looking at her, hopeful. Hands bunched up in the oversized jacket, she avoids his gaze and chokes out a thank you.
He smiles, clearly content to have at least gotten something out of her.
“Well, Hungry Ava,” he teases, and Ava finds that it doesn’t embarrass her as much as it should. “It was a pleasure, really. Here,” he says, and hands her a bill, twenty Euros. Ava stares at him as she gingerly takes it, shoves it into her pocket. “I know it’s… not a lot, but maybe it can help out at least a little bit—”
Ava realizes slowly that something is wrong. J.C is still talking, though Ava notices she isn’t paying attention to what he’s saying anymore. When she doesn’t answer whatever it is he asked, he gives a tight grin and pats her once on the shoulder. The contact is a shock, and while she wants to find it comforting, it just makes her even more nauseous.
Nauseous. That’s what she is. Fuck, why —
“So, uh,” J.C starts, and Ava snaps her head up to look at him, concern overtaking her expression. J.C doesn't notice, or if he does, he doesn’t comment on it. “Goodbye then, Ava.”
That’s when it hits her.
She can only faintly hear J.C’s confused shout as she barrels towards the restroom.
By the time he’s realized what’s wrong and rushed inside to hold her hair, Ava’s done puking. She flushes the toilet and leans back, gasping for air, all at once feeling the overpowering, desperate hunger flood her body again.
As J.C parts her hair behind her ears, asking her soft questions, Ava closes her eyes and briefly wonders whether this is a unisex, family bathroom, or a plain woman’s bathroom that he ran into anyway.
Because that’s totally relevant to the situation.
Eventually, the ringing in her ears fades and she rolls her head against the wall, looking at J.C with bleary, tired eyes. She must look even worse than she feels, because J.C undergoes a complicated sequence of facial expressions before pulling her to her feet.
“Please, let me take you back to my place. I think you need help.”
She does need help, doesn’t she? Her body just vomited up everything she tried to give it in some sort of shock reaction to being dead, probably. And even if J.C doesn’t know that, maybe he can help.
She eyes him as he wraps one of her arms around his shoulder. Finds that she doesn’t mind the warmth he gives off.
Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to get nursed back to health from a guy like this.
She doesn’t keep up the quiet shtick forever. She can’t, not when the debts she owes J.C keep piling up.
He turns out to be fun to talk to, and though he steers clear of any questions relating to her situation, they carry a decent conversation as he brings her back to his place. Which is a huge fucking mansion, by the way. No wonder he wasn’t worried about her stealing money— clearly he has cash to spare.
J.C’s friends, though… They’re not, like, bitches or whatever, but Ava can tell they’re all a little more introverted than she is. Ava doesn’t actually know whether or not she’s introverted, because she’s been out in society for all of a day and already thrown up once.
Also, Ava can’t tell what J.C’s relationship is with all of them, beyond the fact that they’re ‘partners in crime.’
Emphasis on ‘partners.’
The other three— Chanel, Zori, and Randall, at least, all act as thick as thieves together, and Ava doesn’t miss the constant presence of lingering hands and suspicious cheek kisses they all give each other. J.C doesn’t seem thrown off by it, so either he’s a near-constant fourth wheel to this surprisingly compatible polyamorous group, or he’s part of it.
Which, cool. Ava’s cool with that. It makes things a little confusing based on the vibe they had this morning ( not a vibe, she has to remind herself) but it’s cool. Ava can be chill about it. She can’t blame them, anyway. All of them are insanely attractive people, though she does start feeling more and more like a fifth wheel as the day goes on.
She doesn’t try to eat again. J.C makes her some warm bread when they get back, and it looks and smells amazing , but one little nibble tastes just as vile as the otherwise delicious-looking food she’d had earlier this morning, and she can tell where that road will go before she even takes the first step.
J.C’s kind of a miracle, when she thinks about it. Cute, young, not upset about her trying to rob him, and he can cook?
What a man.
Ava feels slightly better once she’s been inside for a few hours, and even though she still feels hungry, it’s almost something she can get used to. By the time night falls, she feels stronger again, her body humming with energy.
She’s pacing around in one of the bedrooms when Chanel appears in the doorway, knocking slightly. Ava startles, surprised to see her— She’s really only spoken to J.C the whole day, so she doesn’t really know why Chanel is here.
“Um— hi?”
“We’re going to a party soon. J.C asked if you wanted to come.”
When Chanel speaks, it’s straight and to the point. Not mean-spirited, but concise. Ava wonders why J.C didn’t come to ask her this himself, but she nods anyway. Sure, she doesn’t know what’s going on right now and still can’t keep down a meal, but why would she turn down her first ever party?
Chanel lights up at Ava’s confirmation. “Fantastic— I’m going to find you something to wear,” she says, and suddenly Ava understands why J.C didn’t come himself.
“Oh, uh— Are you sure? I don’t really think I need—”
“Yes you do, honey,” Chanel tuts, and grabs Ava’s arms, pulling her towards the fully-stocked wardrobe this room contains. Her hands are soft and warm against Ava’s skin, and she immediately understands why the four of them have something going on. “I mean, no offense, but these clothes look like something you ripped off the street.”
Ava keeps her mouth closed as Chanel starts piling clothes into her arms.
Ava wakes up the next morning in bed. That’s all she recognizes at first.
Then she remembers that she’s a paralyzed nineteen-year-old, living in an orphanage.
Then she realizes that this bed is way too spacious and comfortable to be the one back in her old room.
She shoots up, suddenly overjoyed with the way her limbs react to her instantaneously. She squeals, scrambling to her feet and jumping up and down on the bed like she never got to do as a kid.
When her legs buckle from imbalance and she tumbles back onto her pillow, she puts her hands to her face and giggles.
I’m alive, she thinks. It’s not a dream. It’s still real.
The doorknob jiggles furiously, and then J.C bursts into the room, looking concerned. He pauses when he sees Ava sprawled out on her bed, kicking her feet and laughing to herself. She rolls to face him upside-down, waving in what she hopes is a cute way.
“Hi.” She smiles, and her mouth runs again before she can stop it. “Why’d you just barge in here? What if I was naked?”
J.C, to his credit, doesn’t falter, only awkwardly shoving his hands in his pockets. “I heard you yelling, I thought something was wrong.”
Ava rolls to lay on her stomach and pushes herself up, and J.C looks away, very interested in the shoreline all of the sudden. Ava’s confused, until she looks down at herself and realizes she’s wearing a very low-cut tank top, and no bra.
Whoops. At least she has a jacket on.
“Oh. Thanks,” she says, and means it. She still doesn’t know how to feel about J.C or any of his friends. They’re all attractive, and the life they seem to lead (apparently illegal, she found out eventually) excites her and confuses her at the same time.
But they obviously pity her. Everything J.C does just feels like pity, she can tell Zori doesn’t like her, and the other two view her as a child. Remembering these facts fills her with a sudden, powerful feeling of bitterness that she can’t quite stamp down.
The party last night had been fun, though.
The party.
Memories of the night before rush through her head; Constant, pulsing lights flashing bright colors. Loud dance music thumping into her skull. A mass of writhing, dancing bodies, all in tune with the music and each other. The heated, powerful auras that she could literally see engulfing some of the people—
Wait, what?
Ava runs that last memory through her mind again, lingering on it and straining to remember the finer details. It was so crowded, so maybe she’d… imagined it, imagined the flaming auras that looked like they were swallowing several of the partygoers.
It’d be hard to imagine the feeling that had overtaken her, though.
That’s what had gotten her attention in the first place. Suddenly she’s back in the prison again, reliving last night— She’d gotten overwhelmed and stepped away from the cluster of the party, needing some fresh air. Her entire body was thrumming with hunger and the effect of whatever drug she’d taken, but the light of the moon shining outside was enough to keep her going, somehow.
Leaning against the back wall, she ran a hand through the hair, enamored by how curly it felt thanks to Chanel. She sighed, closing her eyes to collect her breath, when a rush of power hit her, a wave of energy that caught her so off guard she nearly fell over.
Eyes wide, Ava noticed that her vision seemed blurry, again, though only around the edges. It’s probably the drugs, she thought, but when she looked at where the wave of energy had come from, she saw them.
They weren’t everywhere. Just scattered over three or four people in the crowd. But they felt so powerful…
“Ava?”
Ava snaps out of her memories, looking at J.C with furrowed eyebrows. She has a headache, all of the sudden. It’s probably a hangover from the drugs, and she still can't keep anything down, and it’s starting to become grating.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ava snaps before she can control herself. Just thinking about how hungry she is makes it even worse, and the sun has risen enough in the sky that it’s started shining through the window at a weird angle, and it feels uncomfortably warm as it touches her skin. Ava feels soured from her earlier excitement, body tensing on the bed. “I don’t need you to keep coddling me, okay?”
J.C throws his hands up in surrender, eyebrows reaching up his forehead. “Okay,” he says simply, and then tucks his hands away, hunching over. Ava can see the defeat in his eyes, and then she feels guilty and frustrated.
“There’ll be some breakfast on the table if you can stomach it,” is all he says before he walks out. Ava can’t help but roll her eyes as he leaves. Not at him, but at the notion of attempting to eat again. She’s learned what the pattern has become at this point. If her body is so hungry, it should learn to keep what it’s being given.
She gets dressed, frustration still radiating off of her in nearly visible waves ( don’t think about what you saw ), cursing out the clothes as she struggles to get them on ( don’t think about what you saw ), and then slamming the porch door shut behind her ( don’t think about what you saw. )
She scoffs at her internal narrative, and how desperate it feels.
She stares at the sun, fingers clenching when it nearly blinds her.
She needs to go for a walk.
She couldn’t recall having ever been so fatigued by the sun in the past, but she did just spend the past twelve years inside an orphanage without a lick of the sun’s rays allowed to touch her fragile skin. Maybe that’s the issue.
She takes her time as she makes her way down to the beach, only tripping over one plant on the way there. After thoroughly cursing both herself and the plant out, she arrives on the shoreline, already exhausted.
She all but collapses on the sand, aware of the way it instantly invades every crevice of her outfit and sticks to her everywhere. She kinda likes it, though, same as when she’d played around in the sand on her first night back. There’s so many feelings she’s never gotten to experience, and she wants to know all of them, the good and the bad.
She glares up at the sun with a hand shielding her eyes, feeling its heat weigh her down like Atlas.
Okay. Maybe not all the bad feelings.
She sits there, letting the occasional stray wave splash her and cool her off, hands digging in and out of the sand, watching as it falls. She hears some of the others come and go at one point— Chanel yells hello at her from the house, calls her a party animal, and then she and Zori and Randall are off to go do whatever it is they do in town, clearly over their respective hangovers.
It’s been at least an hour of smelling the salty air and appreciating the physics of falling sand when J.C sits down next to her. She smiles, the frustration from earlier washed away with the waves, and looks at him softly.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” he mirrors back. “Feeling better?”
Ava leans back. “Oh, yeah, for sure. I had a… pretty nasty hangover this morning, I think. Must’ve made me a little irritable.” A lie. She’d thrown up the drugs almost as soon as they’d gotten back to the house.
J.C nods, an act of forgiveness, and they both turn to watch the waves. A moment later, he nudges her, though neither of them turn their heads.
“You didn’t eat anything this morning, did you?”
Ava pales, fingers tightening in the sand. “No.”
“Have you eaten… anything? Since we met yesterday?”
“No.”
J.C sighs, shakes his head. He turns to look at her. “No wonder you’re so….”
Ava doesn’t say anything, jaw tight.
“Are you gonna go to a doctor or something?”
“Maybe,” Ava lies. A doctor would probably be able to tell that she’d been recently deceased. Even worse, they might figure out who she is and send her back to the orphanage.
J.C isn’t satisfied with her answer, she can tell. But she doesn’t want him to try and convince her— something is going on with her, she can tell, what with the scary-looking auras she saw and the fact that the sun is making her feel weak and she can’t eat any food.
But it’s her problem to figure out, not J.C’s, and she doesn’t want to tell him the truth. She doesn’t want to tell him she died.
She changes the subject. “So… you pickpocketed people, right?”
J.C’s eye twitches, noticing what she’s attempting to do, but he lets her run with it anyway, and leans back, concerned expression morphing into a more casual one. “What?”
“Yesterday,” Ava explains. “You said you’d understood how it felt to try and pickpocket someone. And you guys are already criminals, so—”
J.C winces, raising a finger up. “Hey, no, we— We’re just borrowing these houses, okay—”
“And I was going to borrow your wallet, J.C.” Ava nudges him, and though the statement is accusatory, she smiles. “Is that why you weren’t mad at me when I did it?”
“No, I—” J.C tilts his head, and then looks at her with eyes that blatantly reveal he’s lying. He’s a bad liar. “I just… well, you were so bad at it that it was almost funny, and you looked like you needed help, so…”
There he goes about helping her again. She’s grateful for what he’s done, sure, but it’s starting to make her feel pathetic. The sentiment must show on her face, because J.C backtracks almost immediately.
“And— I’m sorry for acting like a white knight over and over again. It just… feels good to help someone again, instead of…”
“Instead of robbing houses?”
“We’re not robbing them!” He pounds his fists on the sand, and Ava laughs. “We get their houses professionally cleaned and everything, we literally do them a favor— ”
“Relax, pretty boy, I believe you. S’ not like those rich assholes would notice either way.”
J.C’s looking at her weird, and it takes Ava an embarrassingly long time to figure out why, and when she does, she blushes, though she doubts it’s even noticeable since she’s been sweltering in the heat this whole time.
“You think I’m pretty?” J.C asks, voice uncharacteristically soft.
Ava’s heart stutters. It’s true, but she tries to save herself anyway. Is it even a good idea to flirt with a guy in a polyamorous relationship with three other people? Maybe they don’t care as much since there’s already so many of them. “Y-yeah, uh… You and Chanel and the others, you’re all… good looking…”
Maybe try saying that without looking so guilty, genius.
J.C smiles, and Ava can swear he’s blushing, and she looks away from him, focusing on the sand again. The waves sound almost as loud as the blood pumping in her ears.
“You’re pretty too,” she hears J.C say eventually, and just as she thought she’d been getting ahold of herself, her heartbeat quickens again, fingers stuttering over the sand.
“Thanks,” she chokes out. Compliments are new to her. She thinks she likes them.
The sun starts to climb higher and higher toward the apex of the sky, and as it does, it starts to melt away more and more of Ava’s strength. Eventually, she’s soaking wet, sweating half to death, limbs so heavy she feels like if she doesn’t move soon she’ll pass out here. And the hunger pains have come back again, stronger than before, and it’s giving her a headache.
“Okay,” she says, doing her best to sound normal and not let her low blood sugar get to her. “I’m gonna head back inside and lie down. ‘Think I need a nap.”
She stands, and J.C follows, almost scrambling to his feet like some sort of lost dog. It’s cute, and Ava would be more enamored by it if she didn’t feel like she was about to have a heat stroke.
“Okay, yeah, sounds good, I’m getting pretty hungry—” He says, and then cuts himself off. Ava doesn’t glare at him, but her frown must speak volumes, because J.C chuckles nervously.
They start walking back towards the house, and if Ava keeps half-leaning against J.C and brushing against his side over and over, it’s for support, and not because she wants to be closer to him, or anything (it totally is.)
When they get inside, Ava basks in the wonders of modern air conditioning. The orphanage only had regulated air conditioning during the fall and spring, whereas during the winter she would freeze to death and during the summer she would melt. It’s nice to be staying in a rich house where the AC never fails.
“Me and the others are gonna go to another gig tonight. Some sort of tech showcase, with lots of free food and booze. Wanna come?”
Ava wants to. She really does. Not only because the tech sounds cool, but because the mention of food nearly has her drooling. But, it wouldn’t really help her with the state she’s in, and she’s kind of… scared to go out again, after last night. What if she sees what she saw last night again? She’s sober this time, and she’d have no excuse to hide behind.
She doesn’t want to think about it.
Also, her body is throbbing in pain from the fact that she hasn’t eaten. She kind of just wants to sleep the rest of the day away and hope that tomorrow, she can eat something.
She says no.
When they leave at sundown, J.C seems to struggle, pulling her close and whispering in her ear to call him with the house phone if she needs help with anything. She hears Randall snicker behind them, but she revels in the warmth of his touch, and when both of them linger next to each other for way after J.C’s finished talking, they don’t say anything. Ava nods, fingers curling around his.
She watches them leave, and then lies down.
She can’t fall asleep. Her head hurts too much, and her whole body keeps growling in pain.
She heads out to one of the many main rooms, turning on the TV. Whoever owns this house has a Netflix subscription, but as she scrolls through the shows, she realizes… she’s already seen them all.
That’s right. She spent twelve years lying in a bed, alone, watching TV to pass the time.
…Maybe staying behind was a bad idea.
With that idea out the window, Ava nervously peers into the kitchen. Some of whatever the gang had made for lunch is still laid out, and Ava makes herself the smallest of possible sandwiches. Like, a super thin slice of everything. She eats it slowly, ignoring the way it tastes like shit, doing her best to take her time in the hopes that her stomach can accept it.
It doesn’t.
Thirty minutes later, just as her body had stopped throbbing in hunger and she’d let her guard down, she feels the sandwich shoot back up her esophagus, and she races to the nearest bathroom.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Sitting on the bathroom floor, Ava feels pathetic. But more than that, she feels weak, tired, and hopeless. She’s going to die again, starve to death because her body can’t handle eating because she died . And it’s going to be a long, painful death, unlike the first time.
Eventually, she drags herself out of the room and turns on the shower. After messing with the controls, she steps inside, reveling in the experience. The water is nice, the heat helping to soothe her headache somewhat, but as soon as the steam is gone, the feeling dissipates along with it.
It’s when she brushes her teeth that she notices them.
She’s looked at herself in the mirror quite a few times the past few days, but never with her mouth open enough. Before that, she hadn’t seen much of herself at all, so maybe she doesn’t have a great frame of reference.
But she could’ve sworn that her canine teeth had not always been that sharp.
They’re so pointy, so long that they almost poke out against her lips with her mouth closed. She pokes them with her finger, and winces when it hurts.
How she didn’t feel this difference inside her mouth is beyond her, until the thought crosses her mind that maybe they’d been like that since she came back to life.
A towel still wrapped around her torso, her eyes fall to the punctured holes on her neck.
A million different vampire telenovelas and dramas flash through her mind at once.
She couldn’t possibly—
That’s not— They’re not— Real, right?
But it would make a lot of sense, wouldn't it?
Too bad vampires aren’t real. Go to sleep, Ava!
She makes it all of thirty minutes lying in bed, staring at the clock, before she lets herself be tempted with thinking about it again.
Most vampires in fiction tend to throw up when they eat normal food, and instead only get nutrients from… blood.
Specifically, drinking the blood of people.
Ava should feel horrified. She should scold herself for thinking such a thing, because this crosses a line.
Instead, her mouth waters.
She feels restless and itchy. She looks at the clock again, body shivering with what little energy it has left, and makes a decision.
It’s nearing midnight. J.C said the event ended at around one AM. She has one hour to go out and… test this hypothesis… before they get back.
Feeling empowered, Ava throws the covers off her body, not even bothering to change out of her pajamas as she sneaks out of the house. (Why she sneaks is beyond her; no one is here but herself. It’s not illegal to walk down the street.)
She doesn’t want to kill anyone, no matter how desperate she is. With any hope, she can, like, grab an animal, or something, and figure out how to suck its blood with her weird, fucked up teeth. That, or she bites into a living, breathing, probably diseased and dirty animal, and then dies of rabies instead of starvation.
There are no animals on the beach, and Ava’s certainly not about to stab her teeth into the shell of a crustacean, not that she can find any. There are no animals in town, either, and she realizes it’s because they’re all asleep, like she should be. Some birds pass by overhead, but she can’t fly.
There’s some people walking around, but it’s late, so the streets are mostly barren. Maybe this isn’t safe, maybe this is a waste of her time, and she’s making a fool of herself. J.C will be back soon, and if Ava’s not there, he’ll freak out.
Ava groans as another pang of hunger rings through her body, and leans her forehead against a lamppost, shoulders hunching in pain.
Maybe she’ll just… stay here, for a while.
She waits for the hurt to pass as it has been for the past day and a half, but it doesn’t.
Great, now the starvation sets in, while she’s out in the middle of fucking town. Awesome. Ava starts laughing to herself, chest burning as she does.
“¿Perdóname?”
She feels a presence hovering around her, hears a mocking, gruff voice, and suddenly every nerve is alight in her body.
Someone taps her on her shoulder.
“What? What?” Ava turns around, her mind still nearly delirious with pain and laughter, but her body is not. It is alive, and aware, and soon her mind gets with the program.
“Ooh, nice outfit.” The man comments, clearly making fun of the fact that she’s in pajamas in the middle of the street. He’s alone, or rather… she’s alone, and Ava realizes the danger this situation holds. He leers at her. “Are you drunk?”
Still, she can’t take this seriously. “No, but I think I’m dying.” She laughs, giving him way too earnest of an expression. He squints, face contorted in some sort of twisted amusement, and looks around.
“Is that so? Maybe I can help you out, señora—” He leans forward, puts his hand on her arm.
This man is not J.C. He is not a good samaritan trying to help her, he’s mocking her, touching her without her permission and it sends a shudder through her body as she yanks her hand away in disgust. She wants him gone.
“Fuck off,” She bites, and Ava gives credit to the man for being able to take a hint. Maybe he sees the feral look in her eyes, or something, but he reconsiders whatever it was he’d been planning, and backs away. Ava watches as with one last weird look, he leaves.
She’s content to be left alone with her sad, lonely death, but she hears him mutter something in Spanish, and she only picks up the word ‘psycho’, but it sets her off.
Something snaps in her, something primal and uncannily natural. She turns around, vision nearly imperceptible from how blurry it is, but she can see him, ten feet away and about to turn a corner. There’s no one on the street but them.
She lunges for him, moving faster than she thought possible.
He shouts as she grabs him, twisting an arm around his neck. She grips him tighter when he struggles, whirling her head back and forth until she drags him into an alley. He’s still yelling, and she needs to shut him up fast, before he alerts someone.
She loses focus, her last moment of sanity, and he wrangles himself out of her grasp, elbowing her as he does. She hisses, full-on hisses, and before he can get away or call for her, she tackles him, sinking her teeth into his neck, the only weapon she has.
It’s instinctual, what she does next.
She doesn’t listen to his screams. Alll she can think about is how hungry she is.
And how fucking good this tastes.
Eventually, he stops screaming.
Ava drops his dead, pale body from her mouth, and backs away. She brings her fingers up to her lips and they come away a bloody mess. Her pajamas are splotched with the thick red liquid as well, and she turns away before she lets herself look at what she’s just done.
The pain is gone. The hunger is gone.
Well, she thinks. Congratulations, Ava. You’re a vampire. A vampire who just fucking killed someone.
God. Damn it.
When she starts crying, it’s all over. She collapses, hunched behind a dumpster in the alleyway with the body of a dead man she just sucked dry lying five feet away from her, and waits for the police to show up.
When the lights of a car finally glare into the alley, five minutes later, she’s accepted her fate. She deserves it.
But she realizes the lights aren’t flashing nauseatingly blue and red as they should. It’s just a single color, bright yellow. It’s not the cops.
She stops crying, wiping her nose and peering around the corner of the dumpster when she hears voices.
“This is such a mess.” A thick British accent.
“No need to point out the obvious, Lilith.” An… American accent?
“This is why we shouldn’t have waited so long to track her down, you know. We could have found her before she went and did something like this. Now we have to clean this up.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“ Language, ” the British voice sneers. “Just because you’re more attached to Shannon than the mission—”
“No, shut up. You’ve got a shadow.”
Both women turn to look at Ava, who’d gotten so bold as to lean her whole head out from behind the garbage can.
The taller one, a woman with light brown skin and a piercing glare, takes one look at the state of Ava and scoffs. “This is ridiculous,” she says, and walks away. “Just— get her, Mary, and let’s go.”
Fuck. What?
Ava honest-to-god hisses again as the other woman, dark skin and even darker clothes, steps towards her, not even flinching when she steps in the blood of the dead man.
“Chill out, kid,” the woman named Mary says. “We’re gonna help you get out of this.”
Ava’s still huddled against the wall of this dumpster, and more than a little hesitant to believe her. She opens her mouth to curse her out, to beg her for help, to say something, when sirens sound off instead.
All heads turn towards the street. The taller woman, now backlit by the lamppost which makes Ava realize she’s dressed like a nun, looks back towards them, desperate. “Time's up, Mary!”
“Fine, fine!” Mary shouts, and looks at Ava with more force. She glares dangerously into Ava’s eyes, and Ava squirms.
“Listen to me. You’re either comin’ with us, or you’re goin’ with them. And believe me when I say the cops’ll be a lot less sympathetic to your position than we are.”
Ava doesn’t understand what Mary’s implying, but she doesn’t have to, because Mary flashes her teeth, and Ava sees the exact same fangs inside her mouth. Her eyebrows raise, and it’s enough to convince Ava to take the hand Mary’s offered.
“Good choice. C'mon.”
They usher her inside their car, and Lilith speeds off to God knows where.
Ava can only think of J.C as they leave the city.