Vampirical -- Lauren Jauregui x Reader

Intoxicated

Lauren's POV

They locked me in the damn cellar again. Of course they did, they always want to ruin my fun. You know, I don't know why Normani has had such a quick change of heart. She was right before. I didn't see it then but now I feel it. I feel the hunger coursing through me and the animalistic power overtaking each inch of my body. I'm not human, I'm far stronger than that; far smarter, faster, and more powerful than that; I've seen things none of them have and I know things they couldn't begin to understand.

An electric feeling was running through me and I felt as though I could do anything. I thought parties were great but how could I have forgotten this feeling? It's addicting.

"Let me out!" I called again to nobody in particular, maybe to the door itself, as I pummelled the heavy wood. Had it not been enchanted by my aunt, I would've been able to break through it; Curse her.

I was so close to finally tasting her, killing her as Normani and Dinah had wanted, until they'd stopped me. I'd felt alive and now I felt trapped, like an animal in a cage.

There is one good thing about this isolation, though, and that was the fact that I could spend as much time as I needed constructing a plan.

A plan to catch her.

...

Y/n POV

It'd been a week since I saw Lauren like that, and she hadn't been at school since. In fact, she hadn't been anywhere since. Granted, I didn't see her around the town before then but the fact that she seemed to have vanished from existence without a word was a little disturbing. Her friends seemed uneasy at school too. I figured maybe she was just sick, and when I overheard Ally ask Dinah (I'd managed to ask Camila who was who as she seemed to know them all anyway) when she'd get better, I figured I was right.

"Hey!" I grinned to the brunette as I sat at the lunch table, waving politely. Camila looked up with an equal grin and then the others joined the table. It was funny, it seemed since what had happened with Lauren the other girls seemed to be being much nicer to me. I thought it might be fake but decided to enjoy it while it lasted.

"Hey Y/n." Jade grinned, sitting opposite me.

"Hey." I nodded politely and turned my attention to my lunch.

"Did you do the Art homework?" Camila asked and I nodded slowly before remembering I didn't and then shook my head.

"Oops." I offered and she laughed softly.

She opened her mouth to say something else but there was a loud crash from somewhere behind me. Alexis and Lucy immediately got up from their seats on either side of me and stood between me and the source of the sound as I span around in shock only to see a boy had accidentally knocked the trash can over, spilling its contents across the floor.

The cafeteria fell silent bar the group of rowdy boys in the corner that started a chorus of "OOOH!"s  as a few people got up to help him out.

I made a move to turn back around and thank the girls jokingly for what felt like protection but was probably just them jumping at the sound, but my eyes caught sight of something else and my throat went dry again.

But in a moment, the space where I thought I saw her standing just on the perimeter of the cafeteria was bare and I was looking right at the wall.

"Hey, Y/n?" Camila tried to get my attention, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Sorry." I muttered, shaking my head and putting a smile on, "I thought I saw something."

...

"I'm sorry about before." A voice spoke beside me, a voice I felt like I knew all too well by now but made me jump because I hadn't been expecting it. Lauren hadn't been at school for the past month but now there she was, stood beside me as I put my books into my locker and took some out, addressing last month as though it were yesterday. I thought she'd moved schools or something.

"Hey, what happened anyway?" I asked, trying not to let on that my heart had picked up its pace.

"I..." She paused, and I closed the locker, "I was intoxicated."

"And at school?"

We began walking to the next class, history actually.

"I wasn't supposed to be."

I didn't know if she'd meant she wasn't supposed to be 'intoxicated' or at school but I left it at that anyway.

Then she stepped behind me and added, "I'm not supposed to be." Before I felt a cold hand covering my mouth and nose, eliminating any chance of a sound escaping, and my vision began swimming with a strange blue hue. I recognised what was going to happen all too late. I'd passed out before, and I was about to do it again.

...

I think the first thing I processed was just that I existed, my mind felt like it'd just switched back on. Then I heard my breaths and felt a hard, cold floor beneath me and a similar feeling wall behind my back. Then my eyes peeled open and I looked down at my hands that lay in my lap for a moment before building the strength to look up and around myself. My eyes traced the bare stone walls with a few candle-like lamps about the room. On the wall opposite me was an old mirror, and below that a desk and chair that looked just as old. There was a heavy-looking door at one end, and at the other an antique wardrobe beside a chest. Drops of something or other stained the wooden floor around the chest. Then, whether it was the sight of the girl sitting cross-legged on said chest and my memory flooding back, or just the fact that I'd fainted and just come to, or the stench of an metallic substance that finally hit my nose, I gagged strongly, my body convulsing as though trying to squeeze something out of my system. Nothing came, though, so I managed to take a few deep breaths.

"Good, you're awake." She said in a voice that sounded quiet but was loud all the same. It reminded me of how the tapping of her pencil had seemed to echo around the school even though it should've been barely audible from where I stood that first day.

"Wh- where are we?" I asked, my throat dry, my voice scratchy.