Before The Dawn
Gregory/OC
Three months before the Thompson family move to Scotland sixteen year old Alice Ellington is the new kid in town and no one has ever seen her out with her parents, or knows where she lives; except for Gregory. He knows her parents are dead and she’s a street kid, living like a squatter in an old house on a hill. What he doesn’t know is that she isn’t as fragile as she looks, or that she’s not human. But that’s a secret Alice intends on keeping for as long as she can.
A/N: Will contain graphic depictions of blood, gore, violence, and death. Will notify readers of any changes within the ratings of nudity, sexual themes, and strong coarse language.
Restless and Relentless
Song for the chapter: Shortest Day by The Gathering
—
Gregory’s POV
Something didn’t feel right about this night, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He scratched his head in deep thought and still came up blank; what was it about tonight that had him on edge?
Other than the fact they, his family, were getting even closer to the night of the first comet in three hundred years. Three hundred years spent, seemingly wasted, hunted down relentlessly by vampire hunters and searching endlessly for the stone of Attamon; a piece of rock that was said to break curses.
That they, his family, believed would break their curse. The curse of vampirism. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad.
Gregory scowled at the thought of being reduced to feeding on animals, remembering the times his family used to descend upon unsuspecting families in the dark. Those times had been simpler.
Until the vampire hunters became a bigger issue and his father, Frederick, began growing soft.
Retreat, his father had said.
We must find some place to hide, his father had said.
We must no longer draw attention to ourselves, his father had said.
When Frederick grew weak, Gregory had thought it was outrageous. Their family used to be ruthless until a change began stirring inside of Frederick and it was decided then they would no longer feast like king’s upon mortals.
The want to become human again became an obsession for his father and Frederick soon learned about a mysterious stone through Von, which was believed by conspiracy theorists to have broken off of the comet Attamon and was said to possess serious magic.
Ever since then they’ve been wandering around Scotland, in a desperate search.
Gregory was starting to lose hope, he often thought it was a goose chase.
Also, did he really want to be human again anyway? He was only a month away from turning sixteen when he was bitten in his sleep. His hormones had been all over the place, all the noblest females seemed to flock at his beck and call; only one woman had he wanted the attention of.
And that woman betrayed him, so in a time of great rage Gregory later ripped out her throat with his shiny new teeth. She didn’t deserve to be immortal, in his eyes anyway. Though she had begged for him to change her until she no longer spoke a breath.
Not to mention Gregory had a long standing feud with Malachi; another boy who, in the village, became like the other noble families with a thirst for blood.
But now Gregory was reminiscing. He needed to get out of his head before the anger started to grow like a fire in the pit of his belly, blinking his eyes against a heavy rainfall that overtook Scotland with random surges of wind. Though his clothes and hair were sopping wet he felt no cold.
He stood atop a store building with a bright neon sign hanging in it’s window, looking down at the empty streets below. He’d found himself hopping from one store rooftop to the next in a new shopping center that was recently built. Not like he would ever enter these buildings during the day and only one inside the shopping center was still open.
Except only one mortal was inside, behind a wall of glass for protection and leaning lazily on the countertop thumbing through one of the magazines behind the odd booth. Other than that one person Gregory sensed no other humans around.
Although they were on the opposite side of the shopping center than him Gregory inhaled the sweet, tantalizing scent of lavender and vanilla from where he stood. He growled and dropped to sit on the ledge of the building he was on, leaning in to get a closer look at the unsuspecting human.
His vision was perfect, no mortal eyes could see as well as he could in this downpour. To his delight he could see her so clearly he noticed the shiny metal in the young woman’s face; it was everywhere. In her nose, on her succulent bottom lip, even her eyebrows glinted with silver.
She was intriguing, for a mortal. What was that metal on her face? And her hair was colorful, or at least had streaks of color in it. Red, blue, purple, and green mixing with black. The young woman popped gum in her mouth and Gregory noticed shiny, silver metal there too.
His fingers gripped the edge of the building tighter, nostrils flaring as he picked up a stronger scent coming off of the young woman. Gregory grinned toothily as the scent registered in his mind; it was her blood. A sweet musk that came only from a woman’s monthly cycle, at least to vampires it was intoxicating.
She was dangerous to him.
The unsuspecting young woman had no idea she was being watched, or rather hunted. But something had stirred her from her lounge position, even as Gregory jumped from the ledge of his perch and landed silently on the wet ground below. Her eyes flickered over to stare out her glass booth and through the building door, although Gregory was sure she still could not see him through the unrelenting weather.
He could see her well. He saw her eyes, big and full of just as many colors as her hair. Blues, greens, golds, and browns.
Alice’s POV
The rain outside was relentless tonight, beating heavily on the windows of the cleverly named smoke shop; Blaze It Up, her boss clearly a stoner in his mid–thirties. There was a time she would’ve laughed at the absurdity, but something felt off about the sudden change in weather.
Some big bad thing brewing in the late night storm as she languidly leaned against the counter, chewing on a stick of Juicy Fruit while she delicately flipped through the latest Rolling Stones magazine like it was the holy Bible.
To onlookers, if there had been any in the last hour, Alice would’ve appeared calm and peaceful; content, some would say. On the inside she was on edge, there was an itch in her bones that had her combat–booted foot tapping behind the glass box.
She couldn’t stay still and had a harder time focusing on the magazine she’d plucked from the file–holder style shelf behind her. Other titles jumped out from the magazines, but none interested her as much. Vanity Fair, Better Homes and Gardens, Cosmopolitan, etc.
The newspapers held more intrigue as it’s headline practically shouted: Another Teen Slain by Rogue Beast!
Alice thought to herself, who reads the newspaper anymore?
The article continued on with a warning for residents of Scotland to be aware of your surroundings, travel in groups. Even saying the police are in a feud with state officials concerning the possibility of needing to issue a curfew.
She had no idea she was currently being watched, other than an eerie feeling of her hair standing on end; on the back of her neck, gooseflesh appearing on the skin of her arms as the AC blew down on her from an overhead vent.
It wasn’t the cold that had her hair raising, nor the pimples rising on her skin. The black turtleneck sweater and her leather jacket kept her covered almost completely.
Her senses were on high alert and her eyes narrowed in on the rain outside, searching. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, but her eyesight was impeccable.
Even through the downpour Alice could see the street lamps lining the cobblestone sidewalks, the store front buildings in the new shopping center; going past the glass windows of those buildings and looking into the stores themselves. She saw everything and nothing at the same time.
That’s when she heard it, from miles away; the faint sound of an approaching engine. A normal human wouldn’t have picked up on the sound it was so quiet, but roaring to her. Her nostrils flared in annoyance, reaching under the counter for the sawed–off shotgun her boss kept.
It was real, the gun, but the bullets weren’t; salt rock shells made to hurt. Not to wound. The sawed–off was kept purposefully for protection, not murder. She hoped like Hell they would do more than just bruise, if she had to squeeze the trigger.
Unlocking the only door into the “protective” box she stepped out and loaded the gun with a couple shells, appreciating it’s double barrel with her fingers before snapping it shut. As delicately as she had touched The Rolling Stones magazine, prepared to fire.
Walking into the rain outside with her long, single–slit on the side skirt billowing around her stocking–covered legs Alice held her weapon in one hand and waved her other in an arc over her head. The torrent of water coming down from the sky followed her movements, creating an umbrella effect over her.
She glared into the darkness down the road as a single headlight began forming in the distance, the distance that separated her and the rogue beast for only a minute.
