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The adrenaline was coursing through Isabella’s veins as she ran up the rickety old stairs of the abandoned orphanage. Every fibre of her being was telling her to run, to get as far away from the three furious vampires that were down below, which was honestly saying something given her lack of self preservation skills.
One of the stairs gave out from her weight and her knee slammed into the next step, a loud curse escaping her lips as pain jolted up her body, but she did her best to ignore it as she pulled her leg out of the step and continued to run up the stairs, her eyes trained on the steps.
She only had one thought on her mind, and that was the dagger that was still embedded in the door above them. The logical part of her brain knew she could never overpower any of the kindred, especially given the fact she was still getting used to having a human body again. Her limbs felt heavy with the weight of her very flesh, her lungs felt like they were on fire as she continued to run, everything about being alive right now was only proving to slow her down as she tried to reach her objective, but none of that mattered right now.
The only thing that mattered was Grace was in trouble, she was in a room that had not one, not two, but three vampires that appeared to be on the verge of ripping each other to ribbons, and possibly kill the girl in the process as well. Isabella knew that she couldn’t stop any of the kindred, but she knew at the very least she could be enough of an annoyance that maybe, MAYBE, it would give Grace enough time to escape, or maybe better yet, give Sammy or Ottilie enough time to take Robin down.
All she needed to do was get the dagger.
Isabella had been so focused on not stumbling however, that she didn’t have time to stop herself from running into what felt like a brick wall. She stumbled back a few feet, rubbing her nose as she looked at what was in her way, only to see the vampire from before. He looked at her through his crimson sunglasses, seeming surprised to see her.
“... What has made you look so flustered?” He asked her in what she thought might have been a Russian accent, she couldn’t be sure at the moment, her mind going faster than her body could process.
She stared at him with wide blue eyes, processing all the information she had right now. He was here, was he working with Robin? No, He hadn’t attacked her yet, he could have killed her in seconds if he wanted to before she had time to notice. He didn’t have a hostel stance, he hadn’t attacked yet, he had a dagger-
Her eyes snapped back towards the dagger he was holding in his hand. The very dagger that she had been rushing up the stairs to find.
She ignored his question, pointing at the dagger enough as she panted out “I need that!” she said urgently, going to grab it but he simply raised it out of her reach as he looked at her.
“Why?” he asked, looking at her as if he was trying to figure out a puzzle, trying to figure out her.
Isabella let out a groan in frustration, resisting the urge to pull out her hair “I don't have time to explain, I don't know if I can explain-” The only thing that had been drilled into her head by the other members of the coterie was the importance of the ‘Masquerade’ which couldn’t be broken-...
She then remembered that this was also a vampire from what Sammy told her when they ran into him earlier.
“Wait, you're a vamp, you can know this stuff. Okay! Short version.” She took a deep breath as she stared him straight in the eyes “Me and my friends came to find their daughter that that fucking clydesdale of a vampire kidnapped her and did some weird magic shit to her, and now all of them are starting to wig out and not in the good way, Ottilie told me to hightail it out of there before things got ugly, but I need that dagger your holding to try and help!” she then held out her hand before stating “Hand it over!”
The man continued to look at her, seemingly slowly processing what she had just said before he got a hard expression on her face “.... There are three kindred about to frenzy down there?!” he asked her.
She looked at him with an impatient expression, bouncing slightly on her feet as her eyes kept darting between the man's face and the dagger he was still holding. “Yes, sure, frenzy, whatever ya call it, they're getting pissed off, and I need that dagger to go and help before someone gets hurt!” she said urgently, seconds away from trying to just ripping the dagger out of his hands.
The man in turn let out a soft sigh, seeingly thinking something over before he flipped the dagger he was holding so he was holding onto the blade, pointing the handle towards her “I will give you this-” Isabella reached out to grab it only to have him pull it away from her reach again “However! You are to go back up stairs, close door, and not open it again until I come back up. Do I make myself clear?”
“But-” Isabella began to interrupt, however the hard stare the kindred gave her made her pause.
“Do as I say.” he said simply as Isabella grabbed a hold of the dagger, the man placed his hands on the railing before vaulting over them, descending down below.
Isabella continued to scowl, gripping the dagger tightly as she began to climb the stairs again, muttering darkly “I’m doing this because I want to, not because he told me too.”
~~~~~
It was a long ten minutes, and it was too eerily quiet. Isabella had been pacing so much that there was a cleared path in the dust on the floor from where she had been walking. It ws getting to be too much for it.
What if something happened?
Finally she let out a loud, frustrated growl, saying “Screw it!” and ran towards the door, reaching for the door knob only to see the door open, and the man exit out, looking at her with a raised brow as he saw her clearly about to do the thing he had told her not to do, but she didn’t care about that.
Ignoring him, she looked behind him, her eyes searching for her friends and when she spotted all three there, standing and in one piece, she let out a long sigh in relief, the tension leaving her shoulders as she slumped against a table that had been beside her.
The man with the red sunglasses looked at her with a calculating expression, before he said “... You clearly care about them.”
Isabella looked at him with a raised eyebrow, as if he was asking a question with an obvious answer, which in her mind, he was.
“... Of course. Someone has to look after these guys.” she muttered before she walked over and hugged Ottilie tightly.
She pretended not to notice the way the man was looking at her, appraising her, seeming to almost be approving in her answer.
Little did she know, that her actions spoke volumes to the kindred, and that he had felt a sort of kinship with the young woman who was willing to run into mortal danger if it meant doing the right thing.
Little did she know, her actions would change the course of her life.