Obsession

Chapter V

Having no idea how long he'd been out for, a sudden slamming of a door snapped Finley awake, forgetting just for a moment where he was. "Fae? Are you up yet?" Rubbing his blurry eyes clear of sleep, he realized he wasn't in his shared room back home and was in fact in a stranger's bedroom, which is when the memories of last night came flooding back into his foggy mind.

Vampires were real. One had kidnapped him. He had been stalking him for God knows how long. He had to get out of here before he came back. He'd gone to get out of bed quickly, but he nearly tripped and landed face-first when something strong pulled him back by the ankle. He felt like he almost had a heart attack, thinking it was the vampire, but after a cut-off cry of surprise left his lips, he turned to see what'd held him back and remembered Kaiser had chained him to the bed frame before he'd passed out last night. Sighing in frustration and a rising panic at seeing the metal cuff secured around his ankle trapping him there, he sat back on the bed and stared at the wall in thought. The silence of the room was deafening until Finley could hear angry, muffled voices just outside the door. Letting curiosity get the better of him, per usual, he stood from the bed, taking the chain in his hands so it didn't drag loudly across the floor. He inched his way as close as he could to the wall with the exit door, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation consisting of whispers and shouts on the other side.

"You think... care about... let me... him, glor... lead... won't... be... happy about..." He could barely make out what they were whispering, but he knew the voice didn't belong to the monster who had kidnapped him. This one spoke like Finley would imagine a snake to speak; where Kaiser was gruff and deep but also sometimes calculated and calm, this voice was smooth and melodic but still held a very sharp edge that spoke of their lethality. It also sounded much younger compared to Kaiser, closer to his age in human years. Kaiser, whose body was suspended in time, was probably in his late 20s or early 30s.

While Finley was distracted by the voice he heard through the wall, a loud thud like something heavy was thrown against it, making him jump and stumble back closer to the bed, his chains rattling in his haste. "Touch him and you lose another part of your tail; now get the fuck away from my door, Jamie." This was clearly Kaiser's distinct and angry voice, and the thing thrown against the wall must be this Jamie guy he's speaking with. Before Finley registered what the conversation was about, the door flung open to reveal the hardened features of the tall, tattooed vampire as he stepped past the threshold into the room. Finley quickly scurried back and behind the bed footboard, where his chain was attached. He'd caught a glimpse of bright red hair on a muscular frame nearly as tall as Kaiser before the door was slammed shut behind the vampire.

Finley stayed very still and quiet as his heart felt like a drum solo and sounded nearly as loud in his ears, attempting to hide from the massive creature in the room with him. Kaiser could see his white hair peek out from over the footboard as well as hear his heartbeat and breathing. Hiding from a vampire was impossible, but Kaiser hoped Finley never learned this since it would take the fun out of it if he stopped.

"Fox..." One word caused a reflexive reaction in the boy, who jolted and subconsciously made a barely audible sound but just audible enough to be heard by the apex predator in the room as his body began to shake and his muscles stiffened up in terror.

Finley carefully listened as footsteps neared where he was, covering his mouth to try to muffle his erratic, panicked breathing. Right as the footsteps sounded as close as they could get to him, they stopped. The silence that followed was scarier than the footsteps, but it caused his body to relax just enough to dare a peek around the edge of the footboard. Seeing nothing in front of him, he slowly uncovered his mouth and tilted his head. Was he imagining it? Dreaming? Right when his heart started to slow, Kaiser appeared behind him and lifted him up with both his arms tightly wrapped around Finley's waist, suspending him off the floor as he kicked frantically and begged to be let down.

"Shh, you're going to wake everyone up with your screaming, and you wouldn't want to meet them if you think I'm scary." He'd whispered close to his ear, his hot breath fanning across his cold skin and moving his hair to tickle the back of his neck. This caused Finley to go still and stiffen up again, grabbing at the muscular tattooed arms around his body, not really knowing if he wanted to be let down or trying to prevent being dropped harshly to land on his face. Whimpering, Finely tried to speak as quietly as he could: "p-please let me down." At his timid request, the arms around his body seemed to tighten and lock into place, immovable and hard as stone. He tried leaning forward at least to get away from Kaiser's face, but his arms shifted just enough so that one of his hands pressed against Finley's chest preventing him from moving away at all.

In a sweeter tone and with a smile in the vampire's voice, he'd whisper again, "No." Clearly enjoying tormenting the boy in everything he does. Finley just grew more anxious as quiet, drawn-out minutes passed of being held off the ground by someone who could tear a hole in his neck at any moment, the fear building up until he began to silently cry, small helpless whimpers escaping him every few seconds.

He'd flinch when a heavy sigh blew against his clammy skin, causing goosebumps to rise and a slight shiver to remind him of every place he and the vampire were touching. "Do you ever stop crying? I can give you something to really cry about..." His voice deepened and caused the hair to rise on Finley's arms; just that specific tone of voice triggered his fight or flight if it hadn't already, but rational thought broke through and reminded him that even if he got free of his hold, he was still attached to the bed with a chain around his ankle. So instead of fighting back, he tried to relax and stop crying, accepting his fate to some degree because he knew anything else was futile.

With his muscles slowly relaxing, he felt himself slip in Kaiser's hold, but the second he felt it, so did the vampire holding him, and his arms tightened to accommodate the extra space, keeping him firmly in place. "Are you giving up already? You know it's a good thing you don't struggle; it gets harder to resist tearing your pretty head off when you do." He felt suffocated; the tightened grip was cuffing off the shallow breaths he was struggling to pull into his lungs as his resolve shattered at the imagery of what Kaiser had described. He was shaking worse and now nearly hyperventilating as he cried harder. "P-p-please s-sir... Don't h-hurt me," he couldn't think of being ashamed of begging, not that he even had a speck of pride that would cause him to feel that way; all he was focused on was possibly preventing something similar to last night from happening again or something worse.

Kaiser scoffed a gentle laugh, adjusting the hand he had on Finley's chest to keep him still and dragging it up to rest right underneath the boy's throat, feeling pronounced collar bones under his blood-stained shirt as his heart hammered inside his chest that barely rose with each shallow breath. "But then I'd have no use for you, and your life would end; do you really want that?" Finley frantically shook his head. Living in general was much more important than living painlessly; if that was the cost, he'd be willing to pay it. That realization didn't help how badly he was still panicking, however.

"Then do your best to stay conscious." The request was almost taken as a threat due to how close he was to passing out from his own panic attack. It got worse when his breath caught in his throat as he felt Kaiser's fingers slip under the collar of his shirt and tug it to one side, revealing more of his shoulder that still had some traces of dried blood from the night before. Screwing his eyes closed tight, he tried focusing on other things-things that didn't cause searing pain, that weren't the bright red color of blood that was suddenly spilling from the wound in his shoulder and running down his arm, that didn't feel like two serrated blades the size of pencils piercing his flesh. No matter how hard he tried, it was all unavoidable; he couldn't focus on anything else, and he couldn't breathe.

The rapid beating of his heart only pumped blood into the monster's mouth and out of his body quicker, causing his vision to blacken as he felt extremely light-headed and lethargic in seconds. His body relaxed against his will as he tried not to succumb to the peaceful sleep that would be his end. Thinking these would be his last moments, he regretted not saying he loved his family before leaving the house. He knew they probably thought he'd run away because of the news he'd received right before and that no one would be looking for him; he'd die alone in the arms of a monster sucking the life out of his body, and he could do nothing about it.

His heart slowed scarily fast, a quiet whimper escaping his parted lips as he drew in a ragged breath for what he thought would be one of the last times, but right as he started to drift, he felt it all stop. The pain was gone, but he couldn't hear and barely felt anything aside from the frigid cold in his body. His eyes were too heavy to pry open, and he felt floaty, a tired smile gracing his pale face at the peaceful daydream of laying on clouds way up in the sky.
Jostling and then liquid flowing down his throat quickly broke the peace. Before he knew what was happening, he tried biting the source of whatever was flooding into his mouth and choking him. He heard a deep hiss, and suddenly he was falling out of the clouds to the floor with a hard thud. He'd quickly spit out the rest of the awful metallic lava in his mouth, gasping and blinking up at the ceiling as his brain struggled to recall what just happened.