Chapter Fifty-Two → Tell me would you kill to save a life? Tell me would you kill to prove you're right?

Just a typical Monday morning, heading down into her gated cellar, what, don't act like you don't.

Now Audra had all the knowledge and power to, hopefully, cure her children as well as get her revenge. Although there was one last thing she needed to do....

In fact there were quite a few last things needed to be done.

One last home cooked meal.

One last check of the stove afterward to make sure it was really off.

One last lecture.

One last plumbing upgrade.... hey, didn't the downstairs bathroom look way different a minute ago? Damn you invisible ninja decorator!

"Has your mom ever acted weird?" Tommy asked his boyfriend that afternoon, having picked up on his mother's odd behavior.

"Oh girl, you're gonna need to be more specific than that." Tyrone chuckled.

Tommy gave a shrug, not even caring that Tyrone had just called him a girl, again. It was something the other boy did often, it was one of his little flamboyant quirks. "I mean, i know my mom's all freaky and stuff because of well, stuff..." He didn't really know why his mother was as neurotic as she was. "But lately she's just been, i dunno, off."

"Maybe it's some 'woman' thing."

"That's it?" Tommy asked, eyebrows raised in question. "That's all the insight you can give me?"

"Well, do i look like a woman to you?" Tyrone asked before holding a hand up at Tommy's smart ass smirk. "Don't answer that, i don't even know why i talk to you." He joked.

Insight to Audra's tortured mind, or the lawn flamingo? You decide.

Tuesday morning dawns bright and early and Audra sees her nearly grown children off to their last few days of school, they both had plans after school. There was a graduation party being held at one of their friends houses, and Audra agrees to let them go, no questions asked, for once. Within five minutes of the children leaving, Andrew showed up, like she asked. Her brother, who had stabbed Darryl just for a simple DNA sample, had been let out of jail with a slap on the wrist since the vampire wasn't going to press charges and no one in town was coming forward to act as witness for the scumbag. In fact, hushed gossip, was that most were upset Andrew hadn't killed him out right.

"You look like hammered cat shit." Andrew said as he walked up to his sister, who was looking slightly aged and more than a little restless.

"Thanks." She deadpanned before ushering him into their childhood house, the two sitting in the living room. Andrew on the sofa, Audra across from him on the coffee table.

"I need to know the truth." Audra said, leaning her elbows on her knees. 

"The truth?" Andrew asked, playing dumb.

"About Darryl, about the party when we were kids, about you stabbing him. All of it, want the truth." She said, getting no immediate response, she pressed on. "I need the truth Andrew!"

"Why can't you just let it go!?" Andrew demanded as he stood and walked a few feet away from her.

"Let it go!?" Audra asked in disbelief. "I live it!"

"You think i don't!?" Andrew spun in his place, facing his sister. "You think i don't look back every single fucking day? You don't think it makes me sick!?"

"I make you sick!" She shouted at him.

"Looking at you makes me sick!" He motioned wildly with his hands. "The guilt!"

"The guilt?" Audra paused, the wind going out of her sails for the moment. "What guilt?"

"For what i did to you." Andrew said mournfully, shaking his head and looking down, almost as if he wanted to cry.

"What did you do?" She asked, trying to get him to meet her eyes. "Andrew, what did you do to me?"

"I gave you too him." He said gently. "You were my baby sister and i should have... but i didn't."

Audra couldn't stop the terrified tears from welling in her eyes. "Andrew, what did you do?" And so it came out, the truth, all of it. How Darryl was an ancient born and he and his coven of old world vampires moved from town to town breeding with magically inclined people in hopes to make a stronger, faster, vampire. One with all of their strengths, but none of their weaknesses. The young looking ones, like Darryl, posed as high school students, befriending the jocks and other boys who knew where the 'tail' was. When Darryl found out Andrew's family was half fay, still enough so that the skin color was being passed down, he wove a story about a dying breed and for the good of all people. A perfect sob story that any sixteen year old would believe because, well, they're sixteen and not exactly as worldly as they pretend they are. "I didn't know he would...." Andrew shook his head. "He said he would woo you, get a couple of drinks in you to loosen you up and then an oops would happen."

"Why me?" Was all Audra could ask, her want to cry completely gone, replaced with a cold nothingness.

"Because he didn't want Aurora and i begged him not to take Alaura." Andrew admitted with a choked sob, unable to meet his sisters eyes. "You have to forgive me, you have too.... i didn't know." He shook his head. "I didn't know."

So that was it, she was literally handed over to a serial vampire rapist for breeding purposes, by her own brother. "When is he coming to take the children?" She asked.

"When they're strong enough."

"When they graduate." Audra nodded.

"You have..." Andrew started up again only to be cut off but Audra. "You're forgiving." She said plainly, blankly. Did she really accept his apology? It felt so hollow, or was that just her? All she knew was that she couldn't bare to see his tears any longer. "Take this." She said, handing him a small red bottle.

"What's this?" He asked.

"A cure for vampirism."

"It's not a disease Audra."

"Oh yes it is." She nodded. "Give it to the doctors, the scientists." She shrugged. "Give it to one of the ancients that have been in town for centuries that don't run with wild off shoot covens, someone like Gloria or Mitch." She said, mentioned Tyrone's step mother and her great grandmother's old partner with the police. "For once, be smart. But whatever you do, you make sure Tommy and Trista get some, and anyone else who wants a way out."

"Why can't you do it?"

"I've got business to attend too."

Andrew just nodded before turning to leave, pausing one last time. "Goodbye." He said to her, feeling like if he didn't say it down, he'd forever regret it.

"It's getting dark." Audra pointed out. "Get a move on."

As the sun set, Audra stood and awaited the arrival of her second guest, luckily she didn't have to wait long. (omg build mode fail) 

"Of all the people i expected to get a call from, i didn't expect it to be you." Darryl said as he stood just inside the front door. "Especially since you're not suppose to remember anything, hmm, interesting."

"Not really, just means you're not as strong as you think you are." Audra said defiantly. 

"Doubtful."

"How many girls Darryl? How many girls in how many cities for how many years?"

A lecherous smile crept onto the vampire's face as he eyed the woman before him. "Too many." He ran his gaze along her body, from head to toe and back again before meeting her eyes, his own glowing with a soulless hunger. "I see you took my advice and loosened up a bit, how's that going for ya?"

"Why don't you come and find out?"

Okay, so of all of Audra's bright ideas, fighting a blood thirsty evil vampires at dusk was about the dumbest thing she could do. And as the creature went to lunge at her, she knew instantly that she was in over her head, way over her head. The scuffle lasted only seconds, or was it hours? She couldn't tell, there were the sounds of bones cracking and she was pretty sure her nose was broken, plus she could feel warm wet weeping down the back of her neck from where her head at been slammed into the titled ground repeatedly.  He bit into her face, not going for a drain or a turn, no, it was purely to harm. He dragged her by her hair across the room, blood from her face and head littering the floor before he slammed her against the downstairs bathroom door, pinning her in place with his own body.

"You know." Darryl said as he stared hard at his victim. "I wasn't going to kill you until the offspring became of age, when they could finally be welcomed into the fold. But plans change, maybe i'll turn you..." He said, the taste of her still on his lips, literally.

"I'd rather die." Audra forced out through clenched teeth.

"Very well." Darryl said as he ran a hand along her bloodied cheek. "Any last words?"

"Just one...." She said as she gave him a shove with every ounce of dizzying strength she had left, the man stumbling backward about four steps, chuckling like it was one big game.

"Catch." She said as she threw a small orb of magic to the ground before him.

Smoke quickly surrounded them, Darryl confused but not enough to stop his attack. Until there was a sudden pain in his middle that caused him to pause, grabbing his chest as a radiating heat spread through his body like someone set his very blood ablaze.

He made gagging choking noises as his body slowly began to ash, Audra managing to step out of the way of the dying vampire before her legs gave way to the dizziness she felt from the head wound that was still weeping blood. "Fuck face." She said as he disintegrated into a tiny pile of ash, leaving her alone with the room spinning on it's axis, making her feel like she was going to throw up. All she had to do now was get up and get to the phone, she just needed to get to a hospital, that's all she needed. As she lulled over onto her side, curling up against the pain and sick all she could think of was her children, they were finally free.

And in a way, so was she.

Chapter Notes:

Oh the drama, the blood, the build mode shots! Lemme just say how crazy it was to get all that done, the game kept quitting on me, at one point Audra went invisible cause she fell off of the OMSP and therefore off the world. It was hair pulling insanity. But it was worth it, because i liked how it ended up looking. I had to add Darryl to the household to kill him off, but i used MC, so he didn't bring any money or anything with him.