Prisoner of War

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Ramona Von Trapp stared at her younger sister as their father spoke, almost wishing she could read her thoughts. Victor Von Trapp had been going on for over an hour about the importance of keeping up their studies and remaining studious above all else. At least he was no longer mentioning her part about keeping the house clean or turning away gentlemen callers. And of course the part about staying far away from their enormous home's basement. She was so lost in her thoughts she didn't even hear the servants coming in with the food or notice that she'd began to drift off. Her long red curls were beginning to slide over her shoulders and into her soup but her mind was on the strange roars she and her sister could hear late at night when they ignored their aging father and sneaked down to the dungeon stairs anyway.

Ramona shook her head. "No, I will stay with her. I don't trust your people." She said softly, sitting down in a chair close to the last door her sister had gone through.

The lab was bathed in sunlight. Victor had gone to bed. There was nothing but silence in the rooms. Not even the other creatures that usually stirred during the day were moving around. The horrible sounds they'd heard were too much for them. Fear was heavy in the Von Trapp mansion that day.

Justin had sighed heavily, knowing Ramona was going to be just as difficult as her mother. He ultimately left her there, instructed the only one of his kind he trusted to keep her safe from the other women before he left. His brother was finally within reach and he couldn't wait any longer.

Upon arrival at the Von Trapp house, Justin had been glad to make it indoors. The sunlight was far too draining on him and hated to have to step out in it at all. He had ordered the men with him to spread out and ensure they wouldn't find any unexpected surprises.

Luckily for Justin, Victor had medicated himself heavily from his grief and gone to sleep. He didn't suspect for even a moment that his pet would be stolen from him. 
The daylight flooded labs made it easy to see the pitiful frame of what was once a man lying on a surgical table in the center of the room. He was more bone than anything else. In some places, he was even exposed bone. His face especially around his mouth and teeth was skull and his eyes were no longer able to close. His gold and crimson eyes simply stared at the sun, though he could no longer see it.

Justin could barely move when he saw his little brother's pitiful looking body on that table. His golden eyes were blazing, already thinking of the ways he was going to hurt Ophelia now, simply to get back at Victor. He was near blinded by rage as he surged forward and started grabbing up anything that was blood coloured in the lab to give to Shane.

"My brother...will...kill you..." Shane's voice was barely a whisper, he turned his head toward the sounds. "Terrible...old man..." His long fingers were dug into the metal of the table and he could no longer move them to try and reach for where he thought his captor might be. 
"Master...we don't have time. We need to move him before Von Trapp wakes." One of the soldiers reminded him. "We must go now."

"Don't worry Shane... I know how to fix you..." Justin swore as he lifted his brother's almost weightless form into his arms. "You will feast on Von Trapp blood by sundown." He promised.

"Justin..." Shane remembered little else. His shattered mind believed it to be part of the dream he suffered from so very often. He wanted to believe it was true, that after so many hellish years his brother had found him but it couldn't be true. Things were not so blessed for him. He deserved nothing and he would get nothing.

Justin held his younger brother with the same care that Ramona had shown Ophelia when she had been in pain. He wanted to march upstairs and rip Victor's throat out, but the tiny piece of rational thought he clung to right then reminded him that that would not cause nearly enough suffering. He would lock Shane in a room alone with Ophelia and let thirst do the rest.

When Justin returned he would find that his trusted servant had placed Ramona into his ornate bed once she'd fallen asleep at her post. The red headed woman was sound asleep beneath his covers, oblivious to his plans.

Shane knew only that the room he was now in was blessedly dark. For the first time in years his body wasn't aching for the light to stop eating him alive from the inside out.

Justin had slumped wearily onto his bed in the dark, not quite realising there was a slumbered human beneath the sheets. It had been a hellish day, and he was almost afraid to go to sleep, only to wake and find his brother was still a captive.

The room Shane had been left in was the same one where Ophelia had been treated, though she still had a few self inflicted scratches that had bled, and Justin had known this. In fact, he was counting on her blood to restore his brother, unaware the two had met many years ago.

Deep in sleep, Ramona curled into her captor's side. Though she found no warmth there she found comfort in the strong arms that encircled her. She pressed her face to the chest she thought belonged to her father, believing herself in a dream in which she was a child. She done this often after her mother had left with the man called Justin. She'd cried herself to sleep in her father's arms. 

Though Shane could not see the girl, he could certainly sense her. He knew her blood and knew that a part of his still lingured there. It was for this reason he would not feed on her. He'd never made another vampire. Not until that night. He'd sworn he never would and he'd broken that promise. 
This hell was worse than what the old man had put him through. He could sense the powerful blood so close to him and yet...he would not take it. Not when he had done so much to corrupt it already. 
He lay where he was, gasping in pure agony. He wanted to scream but he no longer had the energy even for that. "Scream for....Justin....child...beg him...to let you...out..." he gasped out, his voice sounding little more than a raspy hiss.

This move startled Justin for a moment, but he soon eased up and simply held Ramona. She was still just as lovely as he remembered from all those years ago. Far more lovely than even her mother, the last human he had ever trusted with the 'gift'. "If only she could see you..."

Ophelia's green eyes shot open in the dark, knowing that voice in an instant. It was the voice that she heard in her dreams, calling to her and telling her she was never completely alone. "You're real..." Was her surprising response, the heels of her buttoned up boots clicking on the floor to signal she was off the table.

"Forgive me, father..." Ramona's voice was filled with sorrow and deep in sleep. "I never meant to kill her..." Her hair slipped into her face and her slender fingers curled into the front of his shirt, almost as if she were pleading with him to grant forgiveness.

"Get out." Justin's voice was firm, his skeletal head turned toward the sound of her boots. "You heard...me...girl..." He gasped out, every word more painful than the last.

"Child, you could no more kill someone than a pig may fly." Justin assured her gently, stroking a gentle hand over her deep crimson hair.

"Will you make me?" Ophelia challenged, walking directly to Shane as though she could see him, even in the dark.

Ramona relaxed at this and fell into a deep sleep, her slender arms sliding around his waist and holding on tight. She wouldn't awake again until the sun was setting in the sky. Unfortunately it was when Lilith decided to join her Master in his bed and began to raise a stink at finding the young woman there in her place. 

"You haven't...grown at...all...have you...?" He groaned. "Go now...before you...regret it...as you did...before...call for them..."

It had been this very moment when Justin had finally fallen asleep, both weary from the past evenings events, and drained by being awake throughout the day. "What in the devil..." He was quickly on his feet, prepared to take on whatever danger Lilith was shrieking about.

"I knew you had to be real." Ophelia breathed, now knelt before Shane. "Mona told me I would shout in my sleep... That sometimes I begged for someone to stop..." She reached warm, blood filled fingers out now, daring to try and touch this pathetic looking creature. "Was it you?"

"How dare you!" Lilith was furious. She grabbed a handful of Ramona's hair and jerked her out of the bed, becoming even more enraged when she saw that the human was wearing nothing but one of Justin's shirts. "You little slut! You're not even one of us!" Before she thought better of it she tossed Ramona aside, barely reacting when her body hit the wall on the other side of the room. "I told you yesterday he belongs to us!" 

"Yes." Golden and crimson eyes were fixed on her though he could no longer see her. "I never...meant to hurt...you...I...so hungry..." Shane confessed. "You should have listened to...the old man..."

Justin was quick to grab Lilith by her slender throat and lift her off the ground. "Need I remind you of your place, creature?" He warned, his voice dangerously calm. "Ramona is lucky not to be a soulless wretch like you!"

Ophelia smiled sadly and sat down to scoot a little closer to the poor creature she realised had been a constant companion in her subconscious. "My sister would tell you... I rarely listen to anyone." She mused. "Tell me what to do... I want to help, call it me repaying the favour for the mistake you tried to correct all those years ago."

"I am what you made me. We all are." Lilith hissed. "How dare you replace me, with her! She is pathetic! Like her mother!"

"Leave me be." Shane turned his head. "You should have done....this...years...ago...." His stomach was aching. His teeth were sliding out of their places. She didn't have long and he couldn't control it.

This time it was Lilith who found herself tossed against the wall, though this was hard enough to cause some of the plaster to crumble. "Still bitter because you were denied access to her inner circle of worthless whores?" Justin sneered. Clearly something had happened between himself and Ramona's mother in the years since he helped her flee her old life.

It almost seemed like Ophelia knew exactly what she was doing. "You enjoyed it... I know you did, I felt it."

It took Lilith a long moment to pick herself up. "You sound more jealous than I am." She hissed, flipping her perfect hair over her shoulder as if nothing had happened. 

The reminder brought a fresh wave of shame washing over Shane and he fought hard to swallow it down. "You were a...child...I had...no right..."

"You keep claiming yourself to be Queen Bee, when we both know that's not true." Justin replied, a mocking purr to his voice.

"I don't hate you for it, if that's what you think." Ophelia assured him, finding this entire exchange rather surreal. It was like talking with an imaginary childhood friend come to life.

Lilith turned on heel and stomped out, showing her teeth as she went. But not before making note of the fact that Ramona was underneath the ornate bed. "You are where you belong, girl. On your belly like the other slaves." She hissed before slamming the door. 

"Then you are..." Again the skeletal head turned toward her. "Leave...girl...I don't care....what you think...I careally only for....death..." Shane hissed at her, his canines more pronounced than ever.

Justin sighed heavily, then crawled under the bed with Ramona. "Did she hurt you?" He asked, knowing he needed to either feed or sleep if he was to maintain his usual calm self.

"But it seems Death doesn't care for you." Ophelia pointed out rather bluntly. "Or he would have taken you into his flock long ago."

"No..." Ramona said softly, glancing over at him. "I don't know why she was so angry with me. I'm not trying to take her place. I just want to make sure my sister is okay and go home..." She confessed, rubbing at her bleeding elbow.

"No one cares...for me...my sweet..." Shane gave a dark hoarse laugh. "If they...did...your father...would be here....not...me..."

"Her place it worthless." Justin replied, closing his eyes and trying to focus on anything but the smell of Ramona's blood. "She believes she and I should rule the coven together."

"My father..." Ophelia shook her head and snorted rather bitterly. "Ramona was his crown jewel, I was no more than the mistake that kept on happening. He cursed my 'illness', for it meant he couldn't marry me off."

"A coven?" Ramona asked, turning her head toward him, her forehead knitted into lines of confusion. She'd cut herself deeply, the blood was seeping through her fingers and dripping onto the floor. "What's that? Like a president? Or a king? A tribe maybe?" 

"What...a...laugh...." Shane snorted. "Your father...killed men...for...even asking...He fed them...to the...others...the experiments..."

Justin smiled slightly before he opened his eyes again. "Something like that. Come on... I should do something about your elbow before the smell wakes the entire building."

Ophelia shook her head, her raven curls bobbing about as she did so. "I appreciate the thought, but that never happened." She replied. "For Ramona, I could definitely believe it. Men like beautiful, not... strange."

"It's just a scrape." Ramona said, shaking her head. she really didn't want to get out from under the bed. it seemed much safer down there.

"You need...to leave..." Shane hissed again. "I am done...talking..." He was too tired to talk and tried to simply wave her off with his long thin fingers.

"Scrape or not, everyone in this building can smell your blood... That isn't something you want, believe me." Justin insisted. "Please, let me clean it up." His voice was very much pleading with Ramona now.

Ophelia had been connected to Shane in some way for many years, when she was sleeping the things she sometimes saw in her dreams were infact events unfolding through his eyes. It meant the younger girl wasn't as clueless about what these creatures were as he elder sibling was. "Don't make me force you..." She breathed.