Archive of Our Own ^beta

 

• “What are you doing here?” She asks, confused. She had been kidnapped late the previous night (missing for like 24-36 hours), she’s been beaten up by the gang, her dress is torn, and she's bleeding slightly from some minor scrapes on her face. She’s scared, wondering where Jonathan is, trusting that her brother will rescue her.

 

• “I’m trying to get out, what does it look like I’m doing?” Geoffrey says. He’s less beat up than Mary, but not for a lack of trying. He’s concerned about how the gang managed to kidnap Mary, as she’s been wounding his guards in recent times and never straying far from her leech of a brother. He misses the friendship he had with the woman, but she has to realise that her brother will eventually snap and kill her and everyone around her. But if she’s here,,, where’s Reid?

 

• “It looks like you’re making a lot of noise, Hunter.” She answers, annoyed at him. Hopefully, she can convince Jonathan to leave him when he comes to get her. She remembers her friendship with Geoffrey fondly, but she can’t risk losing more of her family, and the hunter has repeatedly sent his guards after Jonathan.
• In that moment, the door opens up, and someone from the gang walks in. He goes up to Mary to threaten her, lifts her by her neck and gets really close, tells her that they’re going to kill her leech brother in front of her and then have their fun with her while he burns alive. The guy beat her unconscious. Meanwhile, Geoffrey is being beaten up by someone else, but has to hear every word said. He screams at them to leave her alone, but they just hit him in the jaw.

 

• He tries to check on Mary, but the chains won’t let him. They’re too short, and everything hurts. He can see she’s breathing, so that’s good. Suddenly, he heard a noise upstairs, then shouts, bullets flying, then screams. The screams last a long time, and Mary still doesn’t wake up. He knows what it is, an Ekon. He does his best to get out of his chains, to get Mary and look for a way out while the vampire feeds, but as he finally manages to get the point where the chain connects to the wall loose, the screams finally stop. There’s silence, and he can feel his blood rushing in his ears as he strains to hear where the Ekon is, if he’s noticed them. In that moment, the door to the basement opens.

 

• Broken light streams in, and he hears someone stepping down, deliberately making their steps heavy. He can feel the creature's anger heavy in the air, and he knows it’s over for them. Geoffrey has no weapons on him; everything he could use to defend himself has been taken by the gang. He slowly backs towards Mary, hoping that if he shields her with his body, she won’t die.

 

• As the creature slowly walks forward, he realises it’s Reid. Covered in his stolen blood, with his suit tattered by bullets and wounds that were already starting to heal.

 

• “Come to finish the job, Leech?” He asks, angry that he has been proven right once again. Mary had been so happy to have her brother back, even if that brother was a vampire, but now he had a taste for human blood and was going to kill them.

 

• “Stand aside, Hunter, if you know what’s good for you.” The Leech says lowly, his voice dark with anger. Geoffrey almost listens, almost moves, but he can’t. Despite Mary cutting ties with Priwen, he still cares for her, and he is not going to save his own skin when he can still protect someone else.

 

• “I won’t let you kill her.” He says and gets ready for a fight. The creature growls and turns around.
• “Why does everyone think I’d kill her? She’s my sister, for god’s sake.” He snarls, his claws are out, Geoffrey can see them digging into his skull. When Reid turns around with a snarl, he can see how long his teeth are.

 

• “I’m supposed to believe you? After what I just heard?” He asks incredulously, pointing up. The doctor has the decency to look ashamed.
• “They hurt her, I saw it, besides,,, they’re alive, every last one of them.” He says slowly. Geoffrey wonders for a moment if the Ekon had turned them.

 

• “Now, please move, or I’ll have to move you myself, and I don’t know how gentle I’ll be.” The Ekon says slowly, his blue eyes sparking with hunger and rage in the darkness. Shamefully, Geoffrey takes one step to the side, then another, holding eye contact with the vampire until he has hit the wall on the opposite side. 
• The Ekon nods and starts walking towards Mary. He takes her head in his hands, holding the claws away from her, and he looks at her, murmuring something before nodding.

 

• “She will live, the bruising is heavy on her ribs and stomach, but not lethal, her concussion is concerning, but that will also pass.” The vampire said as he picked her up in his arms. Mary’s head rested on his shoulder, and he supported her back with one arm while holding her legs in another, like some might hold a child.

 

• “You, however, have a broken arm; untreated it will heal wrong. Hopefully, your medic knows how to make a proper cast.” Reid says, his voice doubtful, and Geoffrey knows that once he leaves this place with Mary, he won’t see the Reid siblings for some time.
• “And those upstairs?” He had to ask, no matter how glad he was that Mary would be safe for the time being, he had to know what the Ekon did to the people who kidnapped them.

 

• “They could survive if your men get here fast enough.” The vampire said cryptically and smiled. It was a mean smile, void of any warmth or joy, not like the smiles Reid had sent him before, where they had looked at each other during one of Mary’s rage bursts, the smile that said “I’m glad you’re here even if we hate each other” though,, Reid never hated him, when he learned he had kept Mary safe, the leech had extended the same helping hand towards him and Priwen.

 

• “You called my men?” He wondered. Most of the guards had slowly begun to trust the leech. Sure, they were often getting into fights with Mary, but she gave as good as she got if not more. He hoped they weren’t walking into a trap. The Leech smiles.
• “Yes, I told them, if they don’t want their precious humans dead, they would come here as quickly as possible, they were across town, so,,,” The leech trailed off, his eyes shone with a cruelty Geoffrey had associated with every vampire but Reid. He wondered what the Ekon had done to the gang. After a moment of silence, Reid spoke again.

 

• Suddenly, the Ekon stood up and walked away from Mary and towards him. Geoffrey knew he should watch as the vampire slowly got closer, but he couldn't take his eyes off Mary's slow breathing. Suddenly, there was a cold hand on his cheek, pushing his face towards the Ekon so he could look at its face. Reid held eye contact with him and he spoke, his hand gently stroking his cheek.

 

• “Listen carefully Hunter, I respect you, I respect your mission and I will help you with it even if you don’t want my help, but know this, I am always actively choosing to not hurt other’s, to not drain them of blood and life, if something were to happen to Mary or anyone else I care about, be sure to know, that the consequences will be gruesome.” The creature said it with such intensity that Geoffrey could only nod.

 

• For a moment, the Ekon only stood and looked at him, before nodding back and walking out. Geoffrey sighed. He still had not gotten out of his cuffs. At least his men would get him out.
• He sat down and proceeded to run a mental checklist on what Reid could have done to the gang. After a while, he heard the sound of his men pulling up, opening the doors and then,,, silence. He didn’t dare break it, wanting to hear their reaction to the carnage. Someone threw up, someone began to cry, but it was silent otherwise.
• He heard their footsteps overhead, heard their whispers about Ekon’s in the vicinity and Skals getting attracted to the place.

 

• “Hey, down here!” Geoffrey finally yelled, getting tired of his men not finding him immediately. He hears his second in command order a squad of ten to go down to the basement, way more than Geoffrey would have ordered, but that was fine; better safe than sorry.

 

• “Boss, there you are!” He heard the voice of a guard say. Immediately, he was surrounded by people trying to get the cuffs off, asking how he had managed to survive, if he was alright.
• “Yes, I’m alright.” He said, angry that he had to state the obvious. His men nod, and two of them help carry him up the stairs. He thinks he will be greeted with bodies half drained, but what he sees is worse.

 

• Bodies are scattered all over. Some are lying down, others are thrown against walls or boxes. He can’t see if anyone is drained, but what he knows is that the floor is only dirtied by blood. The men here haven’t been drained of a single drop of blood. His men are terrified by the sight, unable to compare the violence to the Leech Doctor that kept helping them even when they shot at him. 
• Geoffrey looks over at his second in command, wondering if what the Leech said about them being able to survive was true.

 

• “Almost all of them are paralysed, some from the waist down, others from the neck. A few of them have legs so mangled we won’t be able to do anything but amputate. Some have bruising so bad it created internal bleeding.”

 

• “Can we help them?” He asks, but he already knows the answer. Reid said the men could survive, not that they would live. From what he remembers of their medical storage and the look of his commander, he knows that none of the men will survive.

 

• Reid had wanted to send a message that if anything were to happen to Mary, there would be hell to pay, and the guards had gotten the message loud and clear.