1912
The door suddenly burst open, and Electra stood in the doorway. She looked very angry. "This madness has gone far enough!"
Annabelle instantly sat bolt upright, clutching the bed sheet over her unclothed chest. The man in bed next to her, Paul, frantically shrunk back against the headboard. When Electra's rage was such that even Annabelle was frightened by it, it was only natural for someone else to go into outright panic. "First of all, we still have a right to privacy in this country," Annabelle snapped. "Second of all, would you mind explaining to me exactly what you're referring to as madness?"
"Trust me, we will be discussing much, and we will be discussing it right now," Electra fumed, "but first I would greatly appreciate it if the moron in bed with you were not privy to our discussion."
"There are many things you have in abundance, Electra," Annabelle said, "but clearly, despite what your age would suggest, patience is not one of them. You could have had the decency to wait until—"
"Get. Rid. Of the moron," Electra barked, "And. Let's. Talk."
Annabelle gave Paul a glance, and he hurriedly began scrambling to get his pants on and then button up his shirt. "Can you at least tell me when I can see you again?" he asked. "I had a wonderful time tonight, and I—"
"Stop with your chitchat and get out!" ordered Electra.
Paul looked at her coldly as he began pulling his boots on. "If I may ask, do you ever let people finish their sentences, or—"
"NOW!"
Paul was literally blown off of his feet by her ferocity. Now utterly terrified of her, he frantically pulled on his other boot and bolted out the door without stopping to look back.
"Honestly," Annabelle sighed, "was that really necessary?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I believe it was."
Annabelle scowled. There was a time when she practically worshiped the ground that this woman walked on. After the first twenty-five years, though, she started getting tired of having Electra trying to control her. She knew Electra didn't like the fact that Annabelle was trying to be her own woman.
"Annabelle, it's been thirty-seven years since I took you under my wing. I've taught you everything I have to teach you. And I've watched you pervert my teachings to your own pitiful liking. I've been patient, hoping you'll come around and accept the true reason I taught you the ways of Blood Rose, but even my patience has its limits."
"So I noticed," Annabelle said snidely.
Electra's lip curled into a snarl. "I'm fed up with your naïve obsession with physical pleasure. That's all you've ever used my teachings for. I've become quite concerned that the years I spent teaching Blood Rose to you were all utterly wasted."
Annabelle smiled, and arose from her bed, holding the sheet wrapped around her body. "Well you can lay your concerns aside, then. They weren't wasted at all. These have been the best years of my life."
Electra turned her eyes away and growled in her throat. "You are absolutely incorrigible."
"What I am," Annabelle declared, "is a free woman. That's what I was when you found me, and that's what I am still. You made the mistake of thinking you could change me into somebody I'm not. I am not your pawn, and I am not a soldier in your petty quest for power. I am Annabelle. And nothing you've done with me over the past thirty-seven years, not your Blood Rose techniques, nor your hours of intolerable combat lessons, can change that."
Electra frowned, and turned her back to Annabelle. "It's as I feared. You haven't a drop of warrior's blood in you."
"Fascinating deduction," Annabelle quipped. "You should have thought of that before you wiped out my family and made me a vampire." Electra froze for a moment, then slowly turned a pair of angry and surprised eyes to Annabelle. Annabelle found herself grinning widely at Electra's reaction. "You honestly thought I didn't know!" Annabelle realized out loud. "Yes, word does travel in our circles. I know all about how you deliberately infected my brother with the plague, and then killed the doctor before he could get the medicine to my family, thereby leaving me with nothing in my human life to hold onto. Very clever. Albeit sick."
For a long time, not a word was spoken. The two women merely stared eye-to-eye at each other. Finally Electra broke the silence by saying, "So what do you intend to do now?"
"What do I
intend to do? I intend to do absolutely nothing. You're the one who should accept the fact that I didn't live up to your expectations, and find some other fool to become your damn lieutenant. Just get out of my house and don't come back."
Electra's scowl deepened, and she took five menacing steps forward, stopping just inches in front of Annabelle, staring her right in the face. "I ought to rip your bloody head off for that!"
Annabelle met her gaze squarely, not intimidated at all. "Too late for that, beloved teacher. You've already taught me how to defend myself against an attack like that. I don't pose any kind of threat to you, so you might as well just leave and forget about me."
Electra trembled in her rage, and finally turned and stormed off to the door.
But Annabelle couldn't resist twisting the knife. "You know what I'm going to do now with the things you taught me?" Electra stopped in her tracks and slowly turned her head around, a look of intrigue peaking its way through the thick sheet of anger. "I'm going to teach it to others. I'll find other vampire girls who have the capacity to learn the ways of Blood Rose, and teach them to use it too. Then they can pursue their own 'naïve obsessions with physical pleasure.'"
Electra cocked an eyebrow. "All right, you may do that." The change in her expression was such that Annabelle was surprised by it. She was expecting a worse reaction from her. "In fact, I'd even be willing to pay you for it. On one condition, of course."
Now it was Annabelle's turn to be perplexed. "All right..."
"Each new pupil you recruit, I want a chance to meet her, so that I might see if I might succeed with her where I failed with you."
Annabelle's mouth dropped open. "You can't expect me to—"
"You will still be free to live your own life, as you choose. Free from my influence. That is what you want, isn't it?"
She had her there. "Yes... yes it is."
"Then we have an accord. Goodbye, Annabelle." With that she began to walk off. After her first two steps, she paused, and said, "You know, I had such high hopes for you. I hope you understand how deeply you've disappointed me."
"I understand, Electra. And I could care less. Now please leave."
"Gladly."
And with that, she was gone. Electra was finally gone. Annabelle closed her eyes and dropped the sheet from her naked body, letting herself bask in a feeling she suddenly felt more than ever in her life.
Freedom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was Saturday night, just after eight. Tyler Partrey was fairly confident he could move safely, as long as he did so quickly. Drago and the others probably wouldn't be prowling the streets for at least another hour. He just had to get out of the house; he couldn't just keep hanging around home in fear.
Pulling his beanie and his jacket on, Tyler hesitantly took a step out the door. Stepping out of his door had become dangerous since he had the misfortune of getting on Drago's bad side. Especially at night. Especially on a Saturday night. That was Drago's favorite time to be out. Unfortunately it was also Tyler's favorite time to be out.
Last week he'd gone over to the basketball court after nine, and it had been ten minutes before Drago and his little gang happened to come along. He still had a few of the bruises to remind him. This time he was going out earlier, and he just had to make sure he didn't stay there long enough to run into those jerks.
Peacefully as he could, he strolled down the street carrying his ball in his sports bag. He wondered who else he might find when he got to the court; there were usually a few other people from his school shooting hoops on Saturday night. It was always more enjoyable when he had someone to play against. Recently, however, the court had been unoccupied more often for some reason. Possibly because Drago had too many kids intimidated.
Of course, few people were as strongly on Drago's radar as Tyler.
Tyler felt uplifted when the court was in sight. There was a decent number of people there tonight, and several he knew well enough to know they'd eagerly let him shoot some hoops with them. He began moving faster to join the games being played—
"Hey, Partrey!"
