Starless Night (A Twilight/Stranger Things Fan Fiction)

Chapter 13: Eugene

(Trigger warning: relatively non-graphic depiction of sexual assault. Please take care of yourself and read responsibly.)

In my head, Edward roared in fury.

Fear surged in my bones, more potent than I'd ever felt before in my life. The vampire with the red hair and the red eyes had thrown me over his shoulder and was holding onto me with hands like vices, his grip like iron. He walked, rather than ran, back to the entrance we'd come through and then took a number of twists and turns down unfamiliar hallways. As we went, what I could see of the hallway—very little, since it was all hidden behind his broad shoulder—got gradually more grandiose. The floor changed from cracked concrete to tile to polished mahogany to gray marble.

All the way, I struggled.

Edward—or, at least, the Edward in my head—had gone silent, out of advice to give me. He knew there was no way for me to escape this vampire; whatever he wanted from me now, he was about to have it, no matter what I did or tried to do to escape him. Still, my conscious mind hadn't gotten the memo; the fear in me was too strong. So as we walked, I kicked and thrashed and raked my nails across the vampire's back. None of it made so much as a dent. I was utterly and stupidly helpless.

At some point, I heard the click of a door opening, and then I was being dumped on a hard, cold marble floor. Before I could even look up and scan my surroundings, the vampire had closed and locked the door and picked me up again. This time, he only carried me a short way before plopping me unceremoniously on something soft.

For a moment that seemed to last forever, there was nothing but silence. I opened my eyes carefully, slowly, and gazed around.

The room was like nothing I'd seen so far in this alternate world. Everything else in had been covered in sticky gray residue, or dust, or both—and most of the contents of this world looked like they came from the seventies, as well.

This, on another hand, was pristine.

It looked like we were in a castle-like space. The floors and walls and ceilings were all made of gray-white marble, lit by the soft glow of expensive-looking lamps. The bed I was on was huge and the sheets looked like actual silks.

The vampire with the red hair was standing near the room's only window, very still, as if he wasn't breathing.

It took a few moments for the fear to really sink in. The realization that I was stuck here and couldn't escape if I wanted to. The realization that he had put me on a bed that was almost certainly his bed.

The realization of why I was here and what he wanted from me.

Panic became a charge in every atom of my body, a flame eating every single cell. I glanced at the door—a mahogany door with a lion's head knocker on it—and tried to decide if I could be fast enough to escape, or if it was worth trying. I was just scooting off the bed when the vampire's voice broke the air.

"You would do well not to try that," he said.

I swallowed. The fear in my lungs was so thick I couldn't breathe.

"My name," he said, "is Eugene Fletcher." A small smile curved his lips. "You have met me before, though according to Demetri, you do not remember it."

Horror swept over me. The other Bella had known this vampire?

"No," I said finally. The word felt like a rock in my throat. "I don't remember that."

"Nor, I'm sure," he said with a widening grin, "do you have any wish to recollect it. Alas... soon you will know well enough what our repertoire was like before that little... accident."

He turned and took a step toward me. I felt myself flinch so hard the bed shook a little, but I was frozen. I couldn't move now; I was a fly, trapped in a spider's web, trapped by those red eyes.

Eugene walked toward me and knelt in front of me, and I knew now my chance was gone, if I'd ever had any chance in the first place. "I've told you before," he said, "but I would like to tell you again, if you don't mind." He smiled cruelly. "My history, that is.

"I was born in the 50s. As a human, I was a rich man—the grandson of a Rockefeller, and an heir to a great deal of money. But I... made poor choices with it, gambling and spending it in expensive brothels." I flinched. "And, eventually, I accrued a number of enemies. One of them happened to be a vampire.

"He attempted to kill me, but failed to do so—he was almost caught in the act, you see, and with my heart still beating and his venom in my system, I became a vampire myself. When the change was complete, I knew I was something new. Something superior to the race I'd so long been a part of. I was dismayed," he said, "by only one turn of events: I had difficulty having my way with human women without killing them. And, of course," he said, frowning, "vampire women are not so easy to... take such things from."

I was shaking now, shaking in earnest, and he was standing over me, looking down at me with wide, greedy red eyes. If I'd had any doubt what he wanted from me, this little speech erased it. Terror rolled over me in waves.

It would have been a great comfort, however silly it was, to hear Edward's voice in my head now. Even just believing someone wanted to protect me, cared what happened to me next, would have given me strength. But there was no Edward in my mind; his voice had left me alone, as if in recognition of the futility. He was just a projection of my subconscious, and now my subconscious seemed to recognize that nothing my mind or body could do would help me now.

I shook my head as the vampire stepped closer. I crawled back, then realized that was where he wanted me, so I scrambled off the bed.

But in less than a moment, the vampire threw me back onto the bed. Pain lanced through my head as it knocked against the wall; tiny stars popped in my eyes, and I cried out.

"You needn't bother trying to escape me," he sneered. "No human woman ever has. I promise only... not to kill you." He sneered. "The Volturi here have a rule: we are not allowed to kill any of the humans they've got stockpiled.

If only Alice had changed me when I asked her to. If only Edward had changed me instead of taking me to prom. These thoughts moved through my mind in a haze of frantic fear. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think in a straight line. I'd always been good at repressing unpleasant things, but where was I going to find the strength to repress this?

In a last fit of desperation, I said the only lie I could think of that seemed like it might have swayed him.

"The Cullens," I gasped, and Eugene paused. "The Cullens won't let you get away with this. When they find out about this—"

Eugene interrupted me. "The Cullens," he said, "are under the impression that you are dead."

Alice, I thought, Alice won't leave me here. And it was true, but I also knew that she could not rescue me single-handedly from the Volturi. Not without dying.

Eugene moved quickly. In less than a second, he had his knees on my wrists, pinning my hands to the bed. I beat my legs against him anyway, trying to kick him off. It did no good, and then he was pulling off my shirt, my bell-bottom jeans, and casting them on the floor.

Eventually, I just stopped struggling, and instead, I tried and tried to float away, to be numb, to escape my body. But I couldn't manage it.

When Edward had gone, it was like the moon was cast into shadow, and I couldn't see the stars. I knew they were there, but I couldn't see them.

But this... this was worse.

This was like all the stars in the universe had burned out and died, and there was no more light anywhere in existence.

This was total, utter, all-consuming night.