14. Amber Hart, anew once more
Cuddling under the blanket is another very human activity, and another way to conveniently share Carissa's warmth in order to hide her own lack of it. It's not a subterfuge that will stand up to any rigorous scrutiny, but that just provides another reason to keep Carissa squirming and a bit distracted. As if she needs another reason. They settle on a nature documentary, and while Amber keeps half an eye on the screen, the other half eye is devoted to Carissa. A finger down her pants, or a thigh shifting between her legs, or a cool breath on the back of her neck... the poor girl doesn't get any sort of peace, constantly reminded of her own need. That leaves a whole eye for the window. If there's something going to peek in on them, Amber intends to discover it. She has a sense for dangerous things, now that she's dead, a wolf in her head ready to growl at anything else with teeth that looks too intently at her meal.
Sure enough, Carissa wasn't imagining it. After half an hour of watching a movie together, Amber can feel the weight of some invisible attention. The girl herself is too distracted to notice, the unbearable heat between her legs not allowed to subside for a moment. But despite the clear feeling of warning, Amber feels a little ball of frustration starting to kindle in her chest. She can't seem to pin down what this watching presence is. Its attention is fixed on them, but...
"I'm going to grab some water," Amber strokes Carissa's hair, then extracts herself from the tangle of legs to go do just that. Or at least to pretend to do that, with a cup, running water, and a look out the window. Another vantage point, see if there's anything to see - and see if this... thing... cares more about her or about her mortal. If it cares more about Carissa, that's informative. And it would be a mistake. Amber's the dangerous one.
The feeling of being watched abates, ever so slightly, and as Amber turns the faucet, she looks out and sees... Nothing. It started drizzling gently while the two were in the shower, and the light from an external lamp illuminates the water falling- Something just outside the window is obstructing the rain. There are several- five spots against the glass where no water runs or patters. Something is there, looking into the living room invisibly. Fingertips pressed to the glass.
"She's mine," Amber growls at the window, quietly enough that the woman in the other room with the TV on shouldn't be able to hear. She puts her hand up against the window to match the invisible one and leans in close, challenge dripping from her voice. "If you have a claim to make to this place or to her, make it."
Suddenly, a dark shape is simply there. It doesn't appear or shimmer into existence - the sensation reminds Amber of one of those magic illusion pictures where once you understand the optical illusion you can't unsee the correct image. Now that Amber knows to look, she can't ignore the shape. A pale face, skin waxy in death, stares back at her. Teeth that look more like a shark's than her own delicate fangs are bared under eyes slitted like a snake's, framed by curtains of greasy dark hair hidden under the raised hood of an oversized coat. And this vampire seems to be clinging to the building's sheer face without any difficulty. A hiss, nearly drowned by the glass and rain, reaches Amber's preternatural hearing. "Get out."
"Outside the university library in an hour," she answers. "We'll work something out." The fact that it's in an hour, not right now, says clearly enough what she thinks of his demand.
The vampire's eyes flick to Carissa, on the couch, then back to Amber. And Amber can see the calculation die in those snake-like eyes. She can spot the exact moment his instincts take over and he simply doesn't care anymore. A hand yanks up Carissa's window from the outside, locks snapping like cheap toys, and the vampire hurls himself into the room. Rain-slick fabric and clammy dead flesh collides with her, sending Amber sprawling to the ground. Kitchen utensils and plates are sent flying by the sudden violence. From the other room Carissa screams in terror.
Carissa is the only one screaming. Despite the stark terror that seizes hold of Amber as the vampire pins her to the ground with ferocious strength, she has no air in her lungs at the moment, and niceties like trying to pretend she needs it fall by the wayside under the mix of fear and anger. How dare he lay hands on her. How dare he try and make her look weak in front of her human. She's not going to win a contest of muscles. She doesn't need to.
The real battle is, as always, between their wills. Eyes lock, and she brings her will to bear. In those snake eyes Amber feels a cold intelligence regarding her. Not some alien being, like the deluded (as Siveri calls them) claim their instincts to be. No, this is the vampire's mind, seized by uncontrollable rage and crystallized into a diamond of icy hate. As she seizes hold of the keys that bind mind and body, Amber distantly realizes that her head is being smashed against Carissa's floor. It would probably have given her a hell of a concussion, maybe even brain damage, if she still used her brain to think. She's too far into the vastly more important struggle to do more than absently note it.
"Stop," she orders coldly, a voice coming from chill and infinite distance, seizing control over the situation and holding his hate one step removed from the place it can take action. She raises an arm to push him off of her as he falls still, realizing that she'd really probably better do something before Carissa's roommate... uh... whatever her name is, bursts in with a baseball bat and gets herself killed.
Carissa's terrified screaming has, indeed, summoned Neela. The other woman bursts into the room with a tennis racket, sleepy and disheveled in just her shorts and a half-unzipped sports bra. The vampire makes a low whining noise, an ambush predator uncomfortable with being discovered, and hurls himself back out through the window.
"Library!" Amber shouts after him, still angry. That... will probably take some explaining, she realizes, as she sits up and cradles her head. Fuck. She puts a hand on the edge of the sink and stands, feeling a bit light headed not from the trauma, but from realizing exactly how far off the rails this whole situation has gone.
"Amber?! Are you okay?! What happened?!" Carissa rushes over, obviously wanting to hug Amber and comfort her, but not sure if that will make things worse. Neela looks around blearily, adrenaline burning the sleep from her body. "What the fuck was that?"
"I'm fine," Amber announces, standing up straight without support to demonstrate she can, turning to look out the window. "Fuck," she curses aloud. "Found your mysterious window-creep, seems like." How the hell is she going to explain this away? Nothing plausible is springing to mind at the moment.
"We're six stories up what the fuck?" Neela repeats, blinking. Carissa touches the back of Amber's head gently. "Oh my god you're bleeding!" She says, eyes widening. "Amber, we should go to the hospital!"
Amber winces, more from habit than from the distant and quite dull sense of pain, reflexively raising a hand to push Carissa's hand away. "I'm ok, really, I am." She touches the back of her head herself, scowling she feels after the wound. "Just a small scratch, I'll be fine after I clean it up. It looks worse than it is." She takes a deep breath, catching the two women by their wrists to make sure she has their full attention. It's a terrible lie, but... well, she can't think of anything better, and more time isn't helping. "You two." She catches their attention.
"It was an owl." Amber puts enough conviction into her voice to force her will against the truth of their own eyes. "I opened the window and an owl attacked me."
First Carissa and then Neela go glassy-eyed for just a moment, before their eyes clear. Neela swears. "Must be someone feeding it, damn." Carissa caresses Amber's cheek gently, obviously worried. "Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?"
"I, uh, yeah." Amber looks down, finally noticing the smear of blood on the floor where the other vampire smashed her head against the linoleum. "I'm fine, promise. If I feel dizzy or anything, I'll go in right away. I just got startled when it came at me. Oww," she says again, touching it, because that's what a proper human would do. "Sorry to ruin your evening here," she apologizes to... Neela. That's her name. Neela.
"No, it's not your fault, don't worry about it." She waves off the apology, shaking her head. "Goddamn... owl." She shakes her head again, heading back into her room. Carissa frowns at Amber. "At least let me check the cut, okay?"
"Let me wash off the blood a bit, then you can look?" Amber heads towards the bathroom to make good on the promise.
By the time she lets Carissa get a good look, there's barely any damage at all to Amber's head. "Well, I had imagined giving it to you under better circumstances," she enters Carissa's phone number in her phone while the other woman picks through her hair, "but I'll text you before I go to bed." The damage will be completely gone in a few more minutes, skull fracture mending and skin knitting back together.
"You're not staying?" Carissa asks, trying not to sound disappointed and failing.
"I'd love to, but I'm afraid I have work tomorrow," she tucks Carissa's hair behind her ear and kisses her forehead. "Sorry hun." What's one more lie between them now?
"Okay." Carissa bites her lip a little. "Can... can I call you... when I touch myself... like you said...?" She's bright red by the end of her request, and squirming and unable to meet Amber's eyes in her attempt to recapture the previous mood.
"Hah, of course." Amber ruffles her hair again. "I can't really take calls or anything during the day, but I'll try to pick up if I'm still awake this evening," she offers several more ready excuses in case she can't answer the phone for vampiric reasons. She'll try though, she really will.
"Okay." She hugs Amber, stroking her back gently.