Chapter 726: Side Chapter: Thicker Than Water
When they had scowled at her, those ugly frowns and gritted teeth, Amelia found it extremely difficult to restrain a chuckle.
Very rarely does something ever come along that was worthy of her amusement. Indeed, though there exists a potential countless to scorn and ridicule especially in a world such as this... but when it came to humor, laughter, it was of no surprise to her that very little could even muster the faintest smile out of her.
But this? Those ghastly, distorted faces, the swell in their strut of misplaced confidence, and the air of terror they genuinely believed they exuded. Fragile, feeble beings attempting foolishly to appear more than what they were, really... she couldn’t even bring herself to be upset, the hilarity of it all.
The largest of the three drew closer to her, ran his mouth with noises she didn’t to heed and then she saw him raise his arm, spotted the glint of hard metal entwined between his bare knuckles, her narrowed pupils trailing it acutely as it flew through the air, shooting out toward her in a whipping gust of momentum.
Fleetingly, in fractions of seconds, she could make out the faded scars of past skirmishes etched across the skin of his fingers, entertaining the thought, relishing it even... of perhaps engraving onto him even more.
Then it happened, a spur of motions that not even she could have foreseen. His recklessness, his foolishness, always interfering, always meddling, and alas, he paid the price for it.
There was a stifling audible squelch of metal to flesh, the chaotic unison of confused yells ringing through the barren night, and in a sharp streak of snow and wind, Amelia saw Tyler’s body violently barreling across the snow-ridden ground, laying limp a few feet away in a mound of his own momentum.
.....
At once, she felt her amusement dwindle to none.
Amelia remained in place for what seemed like an eternity. Her senses seemed to be hindered, stunted... as a strange, foreign emotion began to flood her every thought.
Evidently incensed by his interference, the three thugs turned their wrath towards Tyler. They rounded him, taunted him, sneering and snarling, taking glee in their own maliciousness.
Then they began to kick him, one after another, each harder than the other. Tyler groaned, and shuddered with every blow that hit its mark, yet despite their jeers, the agony overwhelming him, it would not be a plea of mercy that would leave his lips.
In words barely formed in a whisper, Amelia heard him speak.
“Leave... leave her alone...” He said in the midst of pelting blows, more derisive tauntings. “Don’t... don’t touch...”
The largest of the three, a single gold tooth glinting in his demented smile, swiftly brought his foot down in a deafening thud, and in an instant, all was silent.
Then, inexplicable even to herself, that foreign, mysterious emotion surging within her began to boil.
“Oh, come on, chickenshit. You seriously out cold, already?” The biggest one spoke. “Should have been smarter. Should have known when a girl ain’t worth it.”
“Oh yes, keep relishing in a hard-fought triumph. Undoubtedly, you deserve every bit of your revelry.”
Amelia stood unassuming in the middle of the open snow, clenching a bottle in one grip, a hand on her hip, unblinking eyes in close scrutiny as all three men whirled around towards her again.
“Well, look at you!” One of them exclaimed. “Your goody gentleman got his ass busted for you, and you can’t even give two shits about it! Guess even you know just how fucking pathetic he is, huh?”
Amelia let out a growl. “Do not call him that.”
“Ooo, scary,” Another one mocked. “Look at you, looking like a freak. Your nails’ supposed to scare us or something?”
“Still think you’re so hotshit...” The largest shook his head, slowly walking forward at her. “What, you think this is an action movie? Gonna take all of us, three against one? Send us packing? Well, if you really think-!”
Multiple things exploded in a single second. The snow that had piled onto the earth had dispersed in the air in a rushing miasma of wind, and scattering with the falling flakes of snow were glimmering bits of fractured glass. In a crimson streak of blood and wine, the largest was sent flying meters away, his body in a loose flail of limbs before landing with a splatter, unstirring.
“Two now,” Amelia muttered, appearing where the man had once stood, dropping the head of a now shattered bottle onto the ground. “I won’t wait for you.”
Once more, with a passing breeze, she disappeared.
Before any of the other two could react, the one on the right was suddenly whisked away into the darkness, his terrified screams fading into silence that begged and pleaded for an enterinity that spanned a second before reappearing closely by in a trembling, convulsing state, claw marks reducing his clothes to tatters.
The remaining thug, wide-eyed, drew a knife from his waistband in alarm, trembling hands pointing it frantically towards the veiling darkness everywhere.
“Ah, yes,” Amelia’s voice resounded from all around. “The limitless ingenuity of you humans. Always attempting to mimic another’s strength in favor of your feeble own.”
A scurrying on his left, a rushing at his right. A noise, behind him. The man quickly veered his eyes, whirled his knife, and his breathing faltered.
An inch apart, Amelia held the tip of her claws before the man’s unblinking gaze, the smallest adjustment away from skewering through.
“Dare to test it?” She asked, descending slightly and effortlessly drawing blood, gashing his cheek. “My strength against yours?”
With a muffled splat, the knife fell from his fingers. And in a larger thud, the life leaving his eyes, the man promptly sunk along into the snow with a cowardly whimper.
Amelia was still feeling the surge of this unknown emotion coursing throughout her body. So unfocused, disconcerted, perhaps that’s why didn’t sense it, hear it, not until she felt the searing sensation of something sharp burrowing itself deep in the back of her skull.
“B-Bitch...” a feeble voice heaved. “Fucking drop dead.”
Amelia stumbled forward slightly, and feeling just the tiniest bit more inflamed, turned around.
The largest man had recovered to his feet again, hunching, trickles of crimson painting one side of his disfigured face, wearing a bloody smile that now lacked any glint of gold.
Then slowly, gradually, like clockwork acting seamless, realization dawning close, the smile faded away from the man’s face, replaced by a look of pure and utter horror, as the woman before him effortlessly extracted the jagged edges of the broken bottle from the back of her skull and toss it away with the slightest sign of weakness to be seen.
“Murder? Really?” Amelia said, unimpressed. “Even I had thought better than utilizing the prospect against you.”
“Wh-What the fuck?!” He exclaimed, the panic welling in his eyes, plunging forth for the knife embedded in the snow and pointing it squarely at her. “The hell? You shouldn’t be... what the hell are you?!”
“But do you know what?” She said, hissing at him, and baring her pointed fangs. “I might just change my mind now.”
In desperation, the man lunged forward, swinging the knife in a mindless flair that Amelia easily eluded, twirling behind him and seizing his wrist before tugging it lightly back toward her to the effortless resounding snap of bone.
The loudest howl of pain rippled across the vicinity, and the man fell to his knees clutching his broken arm, but she was not done with just yet. Spurring close, Amelia placed the tips of her claws to his throat, feeling the shallow layers of skin peeling as she curled her fingers.
“N-No, wait, wait!” The man stammered, his palpating gasps pressing his throat further into her nails. “Alright, I get it! Stop! Please, don’t! Please!”
“You beg? You plead to me?” Amelia said, a feralness to her tone expressing unbridled disdain. “Tell me, did you hear him beg? Has he once ever pleaded with you to stop? No, you didn’t. So I ask, between you two men of different stature... who’s truly the ‘chickenshit’ one here?”
‘I-I get it, I get it! We were wrong, okay?! I get it!” He shouted in a muffled mix of blood and drool.
“Answer the question.”
“I am! I am!” The man declared finally. “Please, just don’t kill me. Don’t-!”
Amelia heard the brittle crack in her knuckles knocking him down to the snow, out cold. As far as she could recall, she had never swung her fist like that before, so crudely, wildly, but something in her couldn’t help but succumb to the urge. This irrational anger, this incomprehensible swell of emotion.
Even now, with all three assailants properly dealt with, that feeling within refused to subside, and... glancing back at the unconscious Tyler obscured more and more by the mounting fall of snow... it only magnified the feeling.
Flaring a breath, Amelia hurried to his side, kneeling in the snow to better assess his condition. His nose was crooked, bleeding, his left eye in the early stages of ballooning. He was bleeding on one side of his head, the same place where the large man had first struck him with that hard, metal object.
She knew he required aid, needed a shelter, a bed, all that in a haste, she would do well to provide, but first...
Amelia gently lifted him to her lap, and with the sound of ripping fabric reverberating the silence, she tore the hem of her dress, and carefully as to not pierce him with her claws, bandaged the wound around his head.
That indescribable feeling reached a peak, breaking past a boundary she never knew even existed, and glancing down at his ravaged state, she felt, heard, as the feeling manifested in the shape of her voice, speaking sincere and low.
“I’m... I’m sorry...”
He did not hear her. He did not stir. Closed Eyes that refused to meet her, dried lips that no longer smiled at her.
Amelia sighed, not really knowing why.
Some of his blood had gotten on her hands, oozing fresh, gleaming in the shine of moonlight. The pungent metallic smell reached her nostrils, and instinctively, she took a whiff, and instantly felt the urge, the impulse, the hunger of her kind...
Failing to restrain herself, and in spite of herself, Amelia lifted her hand to her gaping lips... and tasted.
Swallowed.
A moment later, Amelia scrambled to her feet, carrying Tyler in her arms, and promptly began her search for the nearest medical center she could find. So quickly, so immediately she sprung into action, she didn’t realize herself what she was doing until a few seconds after the fact.
And she knew why.
It was because she could not bear it, could not believe it, and more than anything, would not stand for it... just how shamelessly she had licked his blood clean from her palms.
Indeed she’d rather die than admit to herself... that perhaps, after all, a small part of her, an almost intrinsic, instinctive side to her had found something to this infuriating, vexing manchild of an individual... that she just couldn’t help but yearn for more.
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