Eternal [HS]

Chapter Forty-Three

LIKE THE INSTANT REACTION OF LUNGS forcing a gasp of air while drowning, Jo wakes with one last gasp before the full death of her humanity snaps into place in this world—the real one—and surrenders to the immortal body that took control in the depths of hell only seconds ago.

In the span of a second, the need for air, food, sleep, and all of the frivolous mortal things she once needed disappear into thin air. There is no gentle rise and fall of her chest, nor is there a layer of sweat from the chills she felt before dying, there is nothing but a cold, alert awakeness so strange to her. And before acknowledging the welcoming faces of her friends hovering over her, the first thing she does is lift her left hand up in front of her.

The palm faces her eyes so her wrist is exposed, and, much to her relief, the bite mark was not destroyed by burns on her trip through the afterlife. His bite mark remains undisturbed in the exact place she remembers it being since making the blood bond that she can now sense connecting them much more palpably than she ever could as a human. In fact, she can pick up on his scent through the mark as if he were laying right here beside her.

The skin is soft against the tip of her nose as she brushes it to the inside of her wrist and allows her eyes to flutter shut, breathing in deeply enough to catch the familiar scent of him. Warm, musky notes of vanilla with the faintest hint of citrus lurking in the undertones to sneak up on her in the most delightful way. It smells like a familiar deep voice, cold palms ghosting over her skin, and paint accidentally streaked through messy curls of brunette hair. It smells like home.

Said so softly, she can hardly hear it herself, she murmurs, "Harry..."

Then, as if the name reminded her of the person waiting for rescue in a burnt-down warehouse through the gateway to the human world, her eyes shoot open.

"Harry!" she shouts and tries to jolt up from where she was laying.

But two pairs of hands pin her back down onto the bed of pillows and a crimson red, plushy blanket that she can now feel every single fiber of brushing up against her shifting body with her new senses in high sensitivity. If such beloved faces weren't attached to the hands pinning her, she'd probably use that newfound strength to break free, but the sight of Niall's face is enough to halt her for long enough to accomplish what they want.

That scared reaction to being restrained settles down and, as she looks back and forth between them, a smile blooms on her face. She did it, they did it, and she didn't die in the process. They warned her of how difficult it would be, which it was, but...the fact that she's still here feels like a miracle. And now that she's well enough, the only thing she can think about doing is going to rescue Harry.

Her mouth opens to ask them about the plans to save him, but Niall presses a glass of deep red liquid she can only recognize as blood up to her lips before anything can be said.

The taste of it on her lips, spreading down to her tongue and throat with the first sip she has ever taken of it, is different than any of the times she fleetingly tasted it in her old existence. Whether it was a nosebleed dripping into her mouth or a paper cut she sucked the blood clean from, it tasted metallic and bitter before. With her newfound craving for it, it no longer tastes bad. It tastes sweet, and she takes sip after sip until the surface of the blood lowers closer to the bottom of the glass.

There's an addictive quality to it that differs ever so slightly from that of normal food, and she can see that in how quickly she sucks down the blood. In a matter of seconds, it's gone, a drop of blood drips down her chin, and he's already handing her another glass.

"Your thirst for blood should lessen in a few weeks," Mitch explains, "but you'll need more than us to keep it under control for now."

Even the sound of his voice is sharper than it was before. The differences she finds in how she perceives the world around her are so subtle, yet so jarring enough to startle her.

Every word he says is crisp and louder than before, and even the feeling of his hand brushing hers when he handed her the cup was intensified. Over the rim of the glass she now takes slower sips from, she can see past him to the candles lining the floor far away from where she sits. A drop of wax drips down the side of one placed across the room from her—a sight she never would've been able to see this far away had she not been turned.

Her throat bobs with the last mouthful of blood that she is careful to keep from dribbling from her mouth like it had earlier, and they watch her intently as she hands the glass back.

She says, "We can't afford to waste any time now, we have to get him back—"

Niall cuts her off, "Already one step ahead of you. We have people stationed at every street corner near the building they're keeping him in, all they're waiting for is our signal to go ahead."

With that said, Jo immediately moves to stand up and rush to the door, and her body moves far faster than she expected it to. It spins the world around her.

What was supposed to be a hurried little speed-walk in pursuit of the front door ends up being a dizzy split-second rush from the bed of pillows directly into where she crashes against the door with a thump. Everything turned blurry and swift in the same way it had when Harry and Mitch both ran with her in their arms, but it's different now that she's the one running. In a strange way, despite the fact that it surprises her, it doesn't make her feel sick.

Though she ran straight into the front door due to her inexperience in being a vampire and the lack of time to adjust to the sudden outpouring of supernatural strength and speed she has, this fluid method of movement feels right. What once made her throw up in the grass outside of Harry's house now feels like the way she was meant to move and act her entire life, as if her entire human existence was leading up to this.

The door swings open and hits the wall behind it with a lazy pull of her arm, and she hears the sound of Niall laughing at her from a room away as if he were standing beside her. Before she can blink, they're both standing on either side of her with slight amusement lining their features through the seriousness of what's to come tonight at her fumbling movements.

"You might want to try moving a little slower at first until you get the hang of things. When we visit the human world, you have to tone it down and remember to act like them again. Just follow our lead and stick to the plan."

The plan.

Part of her is still unsure of any of it will go smoothly since every mission, save for the one to kill Elias, has gone awry despite a meticulously detailed plan being made. And with those ones, it ended up being okay. At the dinner party, she befriended Adeline. At Adeline's house, they escaped. When they tortured Devin, she stopped Harry from losing control. But this is different. If they both died at Adeline's house, it would've been better because they would've died together, but to live without him is something she doesn't want to experience. If this plan goes wrong, his life hangs in the balance, as do the lives of all the potential human victims of Sacrosanct that will die if they aren't taken down now.

In one moment of overwhelming clarity, it dawns on her that this is it. This is the day they have to kill "Benjamin" and stop the cult-like members of his group of scumbags from doing any more harm. Without a leader, it won't be as organized and it'll be easier to pick off the remaining few high-ranking members without Elias, Issac, and Adeline pulling the strings behind closed doors. Without their leaders who harbored connections to politicians and judges who can maneuver them out of the death sentences they're supposed to face after murdering humans, those lower-ranking members will either have to start from the ground up again or die off.

The only thing is, she hadn't expected it to happen this way with Harry kidnapped, Niall temporarily promoted from second in command, and her turned into a vampire to aid in the plan to rescue him. Whenever she imagined it, she pictured a scene much like that of the two different nights Harry kidnapped Devin and killed Elias: her sitting on the living room couch in a puddle of anxiety while Mitch or Niall made sure she was safe. It made sense at the time she imagined it. She was a human then and it wouldn't have made sense for her to put herself in danger or distract Harry by being there.

Yet, as she looks over at Niall and no longer sees the pity he once had in his eyes, things have changed. She's no longer a human to pity or protect, she's fresh out of hell with a vendetta to fulfill. If she weren't understanding how they've felt all along with all of their strength and power, she might have been angrier, but she understands why they couldn't help but want to protect her before, even if she felt like she didn't need it.

For once, it's her turn to protect Harry.