the spark

There was still time for it to fall out of the sky and smack him on the head, but for the minute it didn’t look like the other shoe was gonna drop. Pierre and Lena had settled into their uneasy alliance with him, occasionally bestowing a little dig when they were forced to work side by side with him, but so far they hadn’t take the opportunity that proximity afforded to put a stake through his heart.

Mal rocked back in his office chair, eyeing the results that rolled across his screen idly. It wasn’t like he’d actually needed to see the woman’s hemoglobin and hematocrit counts to tell that she was anaemic. She’d walked in pale as you like, her heart fluttering like a trapped butterfly just above the collar of a man’s shirt that practically dwarfed her. ’Lindsay, please’ had smiled weakly at him as he’d sat her down in the chair out in the main room. Her skin had been cool beneath his touch, the chance of a little snack just a little too dicey for him to go drawing too much out of her veins.

Krista might have thought he was up here taking a nip out of everybody who came through the door, but really, he wasn’t a monster. He just, well, did what he needed to do to survive and for a long time, this had been it. Make the most of the folks who walked in here wanting him to draw a few vials off of them. All of them had walked out of here again, and alright, maybe a few had ended up walking into his other office before he was done with them, but every single one of had walked back out again here. What had happened before Mystic Falls, well, that barely mattered now.

He tapped orders for a transfusion into the system, knowing that the clinic doc who’d picked up on the woman’s condition in the first place – what a genius – would pick it up and get her back into the ER for a couple of bags to top her back up. She’d been his last appointment of the morning, although there was still a chance he’d get called up to tap someone else in the place. The docs were usually decent enough with a needle to handle the routine stuff themselves and sod it, anything else could wait.

Rocking back again, Mal slipped his phone out of his pocket, thumb hovering over the screen. Now he had two choices, slope off to Krista’s place and hope she was still all buoyant, like he was still after that little birthday surprise, or do the responsible thing and check in at the facility. A quick tap of the screen brought up the feed from the facility. Thankfully Krista hadn’t known the code to hack into that – the doc would’ve had his fucking head and hers if she found out about what they were up to. As far as she knew he was old coworkers work Pierre and Lena, no details offered up about just what they’d been up to when he’d supposedly stabbed them in the back, or what they’d been doing since they’d kissed and made up.

The boy on the screen couldn’t have been more than 20. Some big mouth he’d run into in town. A sports science major from Whitmore who’d tried scaling his way out of the cage they were kept in. He hadn’t got very far, especially after he’d unexpectedly shifted from the stress and his unfamiliar claws had slipped on the stone. They all got the hang of it in the end. A smirk slipped over his face, perfectly timed to freeze right there as the door to his office flew open.

It definitely wasn’t the mousy little Lindsay back again. Dark brows rose, a faint smirk emerging a second later to tug at his lips. ”Hello to you too,” he drawled lightly, glad she’d at least closed the door behind her before she’d started laying into him. The prisoners they’d taken when they’d found themselves a prize had never been too grateful for their hospitality, curses slipping out of them in a half dozen languages that none of them had bothered learning, but he’d picked up just enough over the years to recognise that little pet name. Piece of shit, she really did know him now.

”I’d be careful with that in here if I was you,” Mal warned, aiming a finger at Roxxi. The stable door was open, the horse standing there with electricity crackling over it, there was no point in acting surprised. ”This equipment’s expensive and the hospital ain’t gonna look too kindly on it being destroyed.” It wasn’t like this was where they were conducting their experiments.

It was risky, but the smile played over his lips again as he looked at her. He’d charmed her twice before, she knew better now, but still most women remained at least a little amenable to his charms. ”Twice? Once, I’ll accept, but you can’t blame me for everythin’ love. I was the one who picked you up, yeah, but you can skip ahead to the keeping schtum and lyin’ after that. I wasn’t the one who actually…” He wiggled both hands in the air, like he was wielding the electricity himself. Implicating the doc wasn’t the best idea, but it’d take a little of the heat off of him.

Mal puffed out a little laugh, shaking his head. That was a question he’d been hearing since he was knee high to a lady of the night. He raked his teeth over his lower lip, shrugging before he smiled at her again. ”You honestly wanna know? It’s a long list.” Letting out a long breath through his nose, he narrowed his eyes slightly at her. ”What pissed you off more, what happened right at the start, or that you actually had a good time with me before all the rest of it came out?” That was the way to diffuse a bomb, jab your thumb right into the sorest part of it.

Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 1020

Yeah, they’d have a culprit if the office was smashed to crap, alright, and it probably wouldn’t be the prof. Her dark eyes were boring into him, but his were already darting to the door just to make sure that karma hadn’t decided to entirely bitch slap him by putting the idea in Krista’s head to bring him a little lunch. He liked to think he’d mostly settled her mind about what had happened between him and Roxxi, but this would be like tossing a lit fuse into a gunpowder locker. She’d rush in here, all spitting fury and impatience and would probably meet one of those tendrils of energy face first. Mal dragged his gaze back, nah, no matter what sort of a bollocking he had to take instead, he wouldn’t let her take a punishment for him again.

Mal puffed out a breath as she dropped her hands, glad he hadn’t automatically opened his gob to retort about how it hadn’t been his fault last time (although maybe it’d been 0.01 percent on him). Those yellow tendrils of electricity would’ve shot at him, maybe finding some part of him far more tender than his chest this time. Who woulda thought it’d take him this long to learn when it keep his mouth shut?

His history with the professor might’ve seemed simple to most (he’d slept with her, his new girlfriend had found out and gone delulu about it and now the prof had come for a little payback), but there were layers to it and she’d remembered enough to start peeling them back. How exactly she’d done it left him frowning, his compulsion had never broken before. ”Oi, oi, oi, I’m not robbin’ any cradles. Everythin’ between me and her is lega and above board.” Nothing had happened until Krista was past her eighteenth birthday (least he hoped it hadn’t, he hadn’t really stopped to find out much about her that first time). Mal lifted a hand, pushing at the air like he could shove that idea back. ”Alright, we’ll call it twice, although I wasn’t to know the college would get their knickers in such a knot over a little unauthorised absence.” That sort of thing was part of the nebulous cloud of details he honestly didn’t have to worry about. It wasn’t like he gave too much of a shit about them outside of what was

When Krista had released the video, he’d apologised, the words slipping out of his mouth on Krista’s behalf along with a promise of his innocence. It hadn’t exactly done much to fix the situation, but maybe it’d helped take the boil off of Krista’s twitchy temper in the moment. There weren’t much of a pretence of it at the moment – absolutely no point in lying when someone had obviously told her what they’d known of the truth. As she launched herself over the desk at him, hands clawing at his neck as she took them both down to the tile, Mal realised the smile had probably been a step too far.

Hitting hard, he skidded slightly on the floor. Thick forearms came up between the two of them, but he only pressed them against hers as the electricity crackled around the spots where her claws had cut into his skin. He imagined if he tried prying them out she’d fry him without a second thought. Mal panted out a breath, looking up at her with no trace of his grin now. ”I’d rather ya didn’t, love,” he muttered. ”We’ve established I’m a piece of shit, but punishin’ me for that’s not gonna change anythin’ for ya.” That might not matter depending on just how pissed off she was with him. His eyes narrowed faintly, staring up into hers. ”Who told you ‘bout me? I know you didn’t figure it out on your own. You’re a smart one, but havin’ brains and beauty don’t do anythin’ to break through the compulsion.” For their victims being turned didn’t do anything either. The Doc’s process meant none of them had a clue what had really happened to them when he dumped them back in the woods.

Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 693