▪︎ Chapter 4 ▪︎ “…Where did she go?”
───
Lavinia slowly opened her eyes.
For a brief moment, she simply lay there without moving.
It felt...
Familiar.
As though she'd just returned from somewhere far away.
Somewhere quiet.
Not silent.
Simply...
Muted.
Sight.
Sound.
Touch.
Smell.
Everything had been there, yet softened somehow, wrapped beneath a comforting blanket until she gradually drifted back into the waking world.
"...Mm..."
She stretched beneath the covers before blinking up at the ceiling.
The room was different.
Not dark.
Just...
Dimmer.
She turned her head toward the drawn curtains.
Golden sunlight still seeped through the fabric.
Yet it no longer flooded the room as it had earlier.
The rays seemed gentler now, the brightness fading into warmer tones.
"...Evening?"
She pushed herself upright.
Something fluttered inside her chest.
Not her heart.
Something else.
A quiet excitement.
It wasn't emotional.
Not entirely.
It felt...
Physical.
Like anticipation spreading naturally through every part of her body.
Lavinia frowned.
"...What's gotten into me?"
She sat quietly for another few moments.
The feeling only grew.
Slowly.
Steadily.
Without warning.
She glanced toward the curtains again.
The sunlight had become even softer.
"..."
Then it clicked.
"...Oh."
A smile spread across her face.
"My body's excited."
She laughed quietly.
"The lower the sun gets..."
She looked toward the window again.
"...The happier I become."
It wasn't overwhelming.
She wasn't losing control.
It simply felt...
Right.
Natural.
Like finally reaching the part of the day she'd been waiting for without realizing it.
Lavinia threw the blankets aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.
Her boots touched the wooden floor.
She blinked.
"..."
Looking down, she frowned.
"...I slept in my boots."
She grumbled softly while standing.
"...Come on, Lavinia."
She looked at them for another second before shrugging.
"...Actually..."
"I never went outside in them."
She smiled to herself.
"So they're basically indoor boots."
That sounded perfectly reasonable.
"...Still."
She looked down at the elegant black boots hugging her calves.
"They're way too comfortable."
She flexed one foot experimentally.
The leather moved with her as though it had been molded specifically for her.
"...Dangerously comfortable."
She wagged a finger at herself.
"You need to be careful."
"If shoes are this nice..."
Her eyes wandered toward the dress she was wearing.
"...I'm going to forget they're shoes."
The thought amused her enough to earn another quiet laugh.
She grabbed her phone from the bedside table before making her way toward the front door.
By the time she reached it...
The last rays of sunlight had almost disappeared.
Something inside her quietly settled.
Not because anything had changed.
Because everything finally felt...
Correct.
Lavinia wrapped her hand around the doorknob.
"...Moment of truth."
She opened the door.
Stepped into the hallway.
Then quietly closed it behind herself.
Silence greeted her.
The corridor stretched away in both directions beneath warm ceiling lights.
Nobody.
"...Huh."
She hadn't expected that.
Then...
She breathed in.
Immediately, countless scents unfolded around her.
Fresh laundry.
Cleaning chemicals.
Someone's floral perfume lingering faintly in the hallway.
Cooked food drifting beneath another apartment door.
Cigarette smoke.
Human scent.
Blood.
Not fresh.
Just...
Present.
Carried naturally within the people living around her.
Lavinia blinked.
"..."
Then she paused.
"...Wait."
She smelled something else.
Something...
Pleasant.
She breathed in again.
Berries.
Fresh pine.
Clean.
Subtle.
"..."
She looked down at herself.
"...That's me."
Another slow breath confirmed it.
Of course she'd never noticed before.
She'd been surrounded by her own scent since waking up.
It had simply faded into the background.
"...That's nice."
She smiled.
"I smell nice."
For some reason...
That felt oddly reassuring.
Lavinia began walking toward the elevator at the end of the corridor.
Her boots made almost no sound against the carpet.
Reaching the call button, she pressed it.
A quiet chime echoed somewhere above.
While waiting...
She listened.
Footsteps.
One set.
Above her.
Another.
Somewhere below.
Someone closed an apartment door on another floor.
Voices drifted faintly through the building.
Everything arranged itself effortlessly inside her mind.
Near.
Far.
Moving.
Still.
The elevator hummed softly as it approached.
A bell chimed.
The doors slid open.
Inside stood a young mother holding the hand of a little girl.
Both of them froze.
Lavinia blinked.
"...Oh."
She smiled politely.
"Good evening."
Despite trying to sound calm...
Her naturally playful tone slipped into the greeting anyway.
The little girl stared openly.
"...Mom..."
The woman looked between Lavinia's crimson eyes...
Her impossibly long golden hair...
The pointed ears peeking through it...
Then immediately tightened her grip on her daughter's hand.
"C-Come on."
She hurriedly stepped past Lavinia, half guiding, half pulling the little girl into the hallway.
"But why does the pretty girl have red eyes?"
The child twisted around to keep looking.
"And really long hair?"
"And pointy ears?"
"I'll explain later."
The mother answered quickly, her pace never slowing.
"Let's just go."
Within moments...
They'd disappeared around the corner.
Lavinia remained standing in front of the open elevator.
"..."
She let out a quiet sigh before stepping inside.
The doors slid closed behind her.
She leaned lightly against the wall.
"...It hasn't even been a day."
Her own reflection stared back at her from the polished metal doors.
Golden hair.
Red eyes.
Elegant black dress.
Pointed ears.
She smiled faintly.
"...Of course people are afraid of vampires."
The elevator descended steadily toward the ground floor.
Lavinia stood quietly inside, hands folded loosely in front of her dress as she watched the floor numbers tick downward one by one.
She wasn't alone.
Not exactly.
She could hear them.
Voices drifted up from the lobby before the elevator had even reached it.
Shoes scuffed across polished tile, someone laughed awkwardly, another voice carried through a phone speaker, while somewhere farther away a receptionist spoke calmly to someone asking what was probably the hundredth question of the day.
The lobby was busy.
Lavinia drew in a slow breath.
"...Okay."
She smiled faintly.
"First impressions."
The elevator slowed.
A gentle chime echoed through the cabin.
The doors began sliding apart.
Immediately, the sounds she'd been hearing became sharper.
Conversations.
Perfume.
Fresh coffee.
Cleaning chemicals.
The faint scent of blood carried naturally through the crowd.
She stepped forward.
At first...
Nobody noticed.
People continued talking amongst themselves.
Someone walked toward the mailboxes.
A man stared at his phone.
A receptionist typed something into a computer.
Lavinia took another step.
Then someone looked up.
The young man froze.
His eyes widened.
He stumbled backward so suddenly he nearly collided with the person behind him.
"...V-Vampire."
His voice wasn't especially loud.
It didn't need to be.
Several nearby heads turned instinctively.
Then more.
Conversation after conversation abruptly died.
One woman instinctively took two hurried steps backward.
Another quietly moved behind her husband.
Someone else simply stared.
The receptionist looked up from the desk and visibly stiffened.
Within moments...
Nearly every pair of eyes in the lobby had settled on Lavinia.
She sighed.
"...Really?"
Her crimson eyes swept across the room.
Nobody approached.
Nobody spoke.
A few whispered quietly amongst themselves.
"...Is that one?"
"...Look at her eyes..."
"...Don't stare..."
"...She's beautiful..."
"...Those ears..."
Someone shuffled sideways until their back touched the wall.
Another person subtly stepped behind a decorative pillar.
Lavinia couldn't help rolling her eyes.
"...I'm not going to bite anyone."
She muttered it mostly to herself.
Whether anyone else heard...
She wasn't entirely sure.
She resumed walking.
The crowd naturally parted.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that nobody had to stand too close to her.
The automatic entrance doors slid open.
Cool evening air greeted her immediately.
Lavinia stepped outside.
The doors closed behind her with a quiet hiss.
She stood still for a moment beneath the fading colors of dusk.
"..."
A thoughtful hum escaped her.
"I wonder..."
She glanced back through the glass.
Several people inside were still watching her.
"...Do they react like that to wolves too?"
She genuinely wasn't sure.
From everything she'd seen online...
Wolves still looked...
Alive.
Warm.
Familiar.
Different, certainly.
But still recognizably human.
Lavinia lowered her eyes to her own reflection in the glass doors.
Long golden hair.
Pointed ears.
Crimson eyes with no visible pupils.
Perfectly still posture.
She smiled.
The reflection smiled back.
"..."
A quiet chuckle escaped her.
"...Well."
"I'm a vampire."
She couldn't really blame them.
Even she had noticed it.
Not consciously at first.
Just...
Instinctively.
Wolves felt alive.
Vampires...
Didn't.
Not in the same way.
She listened.
People walking past.
Their footsteps.
Their breathing.
Their heartbeats.
Each one filled with tiny signs of life.
Then...
There was herself.
No heartbeat.
No pulse.
No warmth radiating through the air.
Only the faint rustle of luxurious black fabric as it shifted against her skin.
The soft sound of her breathing.
The subtle scent of berries and pine.
Lavinia looked at her reflection one last time.
"...I suppose..."
She smiled to herself.
"...I do look a little like something pretending to be alive."
The thought should have been unsettling.
Instead...
She simply found it oddly amusing.
Lavinia had barely taken ten steps before she realized people weren't merely looking at her.
They were stopping.
A young man walking past slowed to a halt, his phone already halfway out of his pocket.
A pair of teenagers openly whispered to one another before one hurriedly pointed in her direction.
Another person lifted their phone.
Then another.
Lavinia sighed.
"...Really?"
She resisted the urge to cover her face.
Instead, she simply kept walking.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the unmistakable reflection of herself on someone's phone screen.
"...Come on."
Another flash.
Not from a camera.
From the screen brightening as someone started recording.
She let out another long sigh.
"I know vampires are rare..."
She muttered quietly.
"...But this is a bit much."
It hadn't even been twelve hours.
Most people probably hadn't seen a vampire in person yet.
That much she understood.
Still...
She wasn't particularly interested in becoming tonight's viral video.
"...Nope."
She glanced farther down the street.
"If I just..."
She bent her knees ever so slightly.
"...Move over there."
The intention barely formed.
The world vanished.
Not faded.
Vanished.
The pavement beneath her feet became a gray blur.
Streetlights stretched into lines of warm gold.
The cool evening breeze pressed gently against her face before disappearing almost as quickly as it had arrived.
Then—
Everything stopped.
Lavinia blinked.
"..."
She slowly looked around.
The street.
The buildings.
The people.
They were...
Different.
Confused, she turned around.
The place she'd been standing only a heartbeat ago now sat nearly halfway down the street behind her.
"..."
She stared.
"...No."
People back there had frozen.
Several looked around frantically.
One spun in a slow circle.
Another pointed toward the spot she'd vanished from.
Someone lowered their phone and looked beneath it as though she'd somehow hidden behind another pedestrian.
"...Where did she go?"
"I swear she was just there!"
"...Did anyone see—"
Lavinia quietly raised one hand.
"...I..."
She looked at it.
Then behind herself again.
"...I did that?"
She hadn't even tried.
She hadn't pushed herself.
She'd simply...
Wanted to be somewhere else.
And now she was.
Her crimson eyes slowly widened.
"...That's..."
A delighted smile spread across her face.
"...Really cool."
She couldn't even begin guessing how fast she'd moved.
Fast enough that nobody had followed her.
Fast enough that, from their perspective...
She'd simply disappeared.
Lavinia laughed softly beneath her breath.
"I was wondering when the ridiculous abilities would start."
She resumed walking.
This time...
A little more carefully.
"...No sprinting."
She pointed a finger at herself.
"Not unless I actually mean to."
The streets were noticeably busier now that the sun had disappeared.
Cars rolled steadily along the road.
People wandered between restaurants and shops.
Conversations drifted through the evening air.
As she passed...
People still noticed.
Some stared openly.
Others quickly stepped aside, giving her more room than necessary.
A man instinctively moved his daughter behind him before relaxing when Lavinia simply continued walking without acknowledging them.
"..."
Lavinia scratched lightly at one cheek.
"...I can't really help looking like this."
She wasn't offended.
It simply...
Was.
If she looked half as unusual to everyone else as she did in photographs...
She understood.
Mostly.
"...Still."
"It'd be nice if people stopped acting like I'm about to pounce."
Another woman spotted her from across the street before hurriedly crossing in the opposite direction.
Lavinia sighed.
"...Right."
She reached into one of the pockets hidden neatly within her dress and pulled out her phone.
"If I look busy..."
She unlocked it.
"...Maybe people will stare a little less."
Whether that actually worked...
She wasn't sure.
It certainly gave her something else to look at.
Opening her messages, she found Valerie's conversation still sitting at the top.
A smile immediately returned to her face.
Her thumbs began moving across the screen.
I'm outside.
People keep trying to record me.
I accidentally teleported halfway down the street.
...
I don't think it was teleporting.
I'm just absurdly fast.
She stared at the messages for a moment.
Then added one more.
Also, I think I'm accidentally terrifying people.
She smiled to herself before pressing send.
Almost immediately, the phone vibrated in her hand.
Valerie was already typing.
"...Well."
Lavinia laughed quietly.
"At least one person's happy to hear from me."