+ 1.28: Missed You Quite Terribly

The hospital’s hallways were drenched with disinfectant and a rising restlessness. She sat in the empty waiting room fingering the hem of her shirt; eyes fixed deliberately on the floor. He stood only a few feet away, his slender frame breaking away from the support of the wall as he began pacing.

She watched his feet as he glided back and forth, sure he was going to walk a hole into the spotless floors.

Only a few hours before Azaria was stumbling through the marshes trying to find her way back to her car. Only a few hours ago she had almost tripped over something, unaware that it was the unconscious body of her son until he had motioned to the body – beaten and bruised. At that moment her heart had sunk all the way down to the pit of her stomach. She had stood there paralysed with world-shattering fear that the worst had happened. It was only when his voice broke her trance and issued the instruction for her to get Troye to the hospital that she showed she was capable of movement.

Now she was sitting with bated breath waiting for the doctor to emerge from the ward. She lifted her eyes in time to catch a flash of vulnerability in Davrin’s eyes. But as quickly as that moment of weakness had manifested, it disappeared. His face resumed its signature stone-cold visage and her eyes reverted to the very uninteresting floor. Only one unasked question played on her mind. And before it slipped off the tip of her tongue he answered it.

“I escaped.” He said matter-of-factly as he stopped pacing and faced the unending hallway. “All I had to do was bide my time, assure them I was reformed so to speak. It was so easy!” Davrin’s voice rose with empty self-satisfaction. Azaria strained to hear his mutterings about them being pathetically gullible.

 “The difficult part was sticking it out in that shit hole of a prison. Twelve miserable years!” He punched the wall in with an intensity to match his frustration. “Do you know what that’s like? Without Jeeves, without Troye, and without you.” He stopped abruptly and finally turned to face her.

Although she had anticipated the mention of her name, she couldn’t help being taken aback by the hard honesty with which it reached her. Azaria suddenly felt like a giddy teenager who had just been told the school’s heartthrob fancied her. However, nodding foolishly like a bobble-head was all she could bring herself to do. The satisfied, relieved, smile that tugged at Davrin’s perfect lips only confirmed that he had invaded her thoughts and sought out the affirmation that she too had missed him quite terribly – in whatever bizarre way that may have been.

Davrin’s voice faded in and out of the background amidst the hum of bright fluorescent lights as he recounted his, in his opinion, feeble but successful plan to attack Beau and lock him up instead; about how the years had felt like eons; how he thought of their son everyday; wondered if Troye was anything like himself; how his blood boiled at the very thought of her and Jared having once shared a bed; and yet how he longed to taste her blood again.

 “It wasn’t difficult finding Troye. It comes with being blood relatives.” He made a start to seat himself on the chair beside Azaria’s, hesitated, and then resumed his pacing. “Imagine my surprise when I realised he was here in Twinbrook. Within a hair’s breadth from you.”

 As he droned on, Az questioned how she could love this intrusive, unhinged, smug and often callous vampire. She sighed inwardly as she leaned back in her chair. To complicate things further she had two other kids to think about no thanks to her overly fertile eggs. How did she ever get herself into such a mess? She wasn’t lost in her thoughts for too long before his voice pulled her back into reality.

“It doesn’t have to be.” He edged forward. “Complicated that is.”

The sound of frantic footsteps cut him off. The insults and threats of a dangerously livid woman travelled down the hallway.

“How could you be so damn careless, Howard? Wait until the school board hears about this. And the council too!” She waved a menacing finger in the man’s face.

“I didn’t know... Someone answered yes when I called his name off the register.” The man stammered; the fear in his voice undisguised. This woman would rip off his head right here and she wouldn’t bat an eyelash while doing it.

“And it didn’t occur to you to do a head count? Oh I know. What does it matter if one of my kind goes missing? One less of them in the city!” Her voice rose to an eardrum-splitting shriek as she popped her head into yet another doorway only to meet disappointment once more.

Davrin whipped around to see the head of Morrigan Hemlock disappear into a ward room. The sweeping black and red tresses were unmistakeable. He stood rooted to his spot for a moment. If she was here alone he could loiter around somewhere. But knowing the Hemlocks, and given the current situation, no doubt Wogan wasn’t far off. It wouldn’t be long either before council members and school officials flooded the hospital ready to break out into a full-on verbal war.

His gaze shifted to Azaria, now standing beside him. He felt the warmth of her body radiate through his as she gripped his arm instinctively; she didn’t have to be told why that woman was ready to lacerate the quivering man’s face. Nor did she have to be told how Morrigan had come to find out that Troye was laying in a hospital bed in Twinbrook. Vampires always had a way of knowing.

She felt Davrin’s arm slip out of her grasp, the cold brush of his fingertips was the last thing she felt before he fled and left her there: alone. 

Again.