100% Freshie Chapter 11 --PG-13

[librarian_7]

Disclaimer: The characters from Moonlight are copyrighted by CBS, and no infringement is intended.

Special note: This work takes place in the world of Moonlight, but your favorite vamps are not the main focus. Sorry about that; try to enjoy the story anyway. You might be surprised.

100% Freshie

Chapter 11


The noise had been going on for some time before Danni struggled close enough to the surface of consciousness to realize that someone was knocking on a door. Her door. She rolled over and looked fuzzily at her clock radio. 1:30.

No one except delivery people knocked at their door these days, and she was pretty sure she hadn’t phoned for a pizza. She burrowed her head into the pillow and tried to ignore it. Pretty soon the knocking stopped, for which Danni was grateful, but about 30 seconds later her phone started ringing. Not “Iris,” not the ringtone she had been praying for, but the generic “not Will” ringtone. She moaned and grabbed for it. The sudden movement sent pain lancing through her neck and wrist, and brought back vague memories of what had happened. She didn’t remember much about getting home.

Finally, finally she clawed the phone out of the purse she had dropped heedlessly by the bed. It was Lucky.

“Danger, are you okay?” Lucky said without ceremony.

“What? I—I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you come to the door?”

“I’m so tired. Can’t I just sleep?”

“Open your door,” Lucky said. When there was no response, she sighed. “Open your door, Danger” Lucky repeated. “Are you unable to get to it?”

“No, I—I’m sorry. I was asleep.” Danni paused, unsure why this was important. She really wanted to lie back down, go back to sleep.

“Danger,” Lucky said patiently, “get up, come to the door, open it.”

“Oh. Right.”

It took her two tries to sit up, and three to make it all the way to her feet. Even then the dizziness was fairly intense and she thought briefly of throwing up. But the feeling passed, thankfully, and Danni shuffled to the front door, steadying herself with hands against the wall, the furniture, whatever would support her.

When the door finally swung open, Lucky took one look and rushing forward to put a supporting arm around Danni, helping her to the nearest sofa. “Good Lord, Danger, what happened to you?” she asked. “Or perhaps that should be who happened to you?”

“I was hoping maybe you could tell me,” Danni said, speaking slowly and carefully. The world seemed far away and faint to her. “Why are you here?”

Lucky shrugged. “Josef told me this morning before he went to bed that I should look in on you this afternoon.” Actually, he’d been politely insistent. “Go see her,” he’d said with one of his trademark smirks and staccato delivery. “Take lunch. OJ. Girl talk, that sort of thing. And Lucky? Take a first aid kit, too.” With that he’d turned and vanished. Lucky had thought about calling after him, but she’d learned that teasing the vampire for information was a losing game, unless he was in a mood to play. And even then, he never told her anything except what he wanted her to hear.

She turned away from Danni and retrieved the large tote bag she’d dropped outside the door. “I brought lunch,” she said brightly. “You hungry?”

“I—I don’t think I could eat right now,” Danni said, laying a hand across her stomach. Those butterflies were threatening to escape again, and she swallowed hard.

Lucky had noticed, of course, Danni’s injuries. She’d been expecting something of the sort. You didn’t spend much time as a freshie, even as the pampered and sheltered favorite of a vamp like Josef, without learning to deal with certain types of health issues. Severe anemia was an occupational hazard, after all, and while it was very rare for a bite to become infected, it could happen, with devastating results. In this case, the neck wounds Lucky could see were bad enough. Then she caught sight of the mangled skin at the other woman’s wrist. It was beginning to look like it wasn’t just the wounds, though, but the blood loss.

“That’s okay,” Lucky said gently, sitting down next to Danni. “But, Danger, would you let me see to your wounds?”

“What?” Danni asked.

“Your wrist. Your throat.” She reached out and lightly touched Danni’s wrist.

Danni stared down at it, her brain still functioning slowly. She was aware that it hurt, but not so sure why. Lucky smiled at her, sympathetically, thinking she realized now why Josef had suggested the orange juice. The girl needed it. There was one other thing Lucky was curious about.

“Danger, honey,” she said carefully, “why didn’t Hunter help take care of you? Where is she?”

Danni gestured vaguely toward Hunter’s room. Lucky decided that would wait, but after she had dressed Danni’s wounds and put her to bed, she knocked on Hunter’s door and called out. There was no answer.

Lucky hesitated. Danger had indicated that Hunter was home, hadn’t she? She knocked and called again, then turned the doorknob.

The stench hit her like a slap in the face, driving her back a step or two, gagging. She tried to take a few deep centering breaths, then pulled a fold of her shirt up over her mouth and nose, and tried again. She had to find out—

Hunter was alive.

She was a mess, but she was alive. She stared off unseeing into space, lying curled on her side in her filthy bed. Her once shining dark brown hair was matted and dull, her slender frame verging on emaciation. How long had Danger been trying to cope with this, and why hadn’t she called someone? Looking around, she could see more details of the state of the room. This time, Lucky knew she was going to lose it, and concentrated on making it into the kitchen so she could throw up into the sink.

Once the spasms stopped, she rinsed her mouth and braced against the kitchen counter, scrubbing at her lips with the back of one manicured hand. Focus. She had to focus. There were calls to make.

Josef’s private secretary informed her that Mr. Kostan was expected any minute. While Lucky had Josef’s private number, of course, she knew from the height of the sun in the sky that it was not a good time to call him. As bad as Hunter looked, and as awful the state of her surroundings, Lucky didn’t think it was an immediate life or death situation, and Josef had told her long ago that it was best to let sleeping vampires lie.

“Helene,” Lucky said, “I don’t mean to bother him unnecessarily, but can you please, please ask him to call me as soon as he can. It’s an emergency.”

“A life and death emergency, Miss Lucky?” Helene had been dealing with hysterical calls from Mr. Kostan’s lady friends for years, and she was hard to fluster, although she had to admit she couldn’t recall any frivolous calls from this particular one before. She did wonder sometimes how Mr. Kostan managed to keep his social calendar straight, given that she currently had orders to accept any calls from three young ladies, and the list of names whose messages were to be passed on was considerably longer.

Lucky hesitated. “No—no. Not at the present moment. But it is very important.”

“Do you need medical attention, or, perhaps, a lawyer? Are you in imminent danger?”

“No, Helene—it’s—it’s hard to explain. Just please ask him to call me. Please.”

Apparently Helene believed her and passed the message on to Josef, as Lucky had only had time to look in on Danger before her phone sounded. She noted the caller id with some relief.

“Josef, thank you. I know it’s awfully early for you…”

Despite the hour, Josef’s voice was relaxed, amused sounding. “So what’s the big emergency, sweetheart? You max out the platinum card again?”

Lucky took a deep breath and told him what she’d found at Danger’s apartment. When she finished, Josef swore, eloquently and at some length, drawing on his 400 years of experience. Then he sighed.

“Okay, Lucky. It's handled. When Texas wakes up, you tell her not to worry her pretty little bleached head. The cavalry's on its way." He paused. “Now, where did I leave my bugle?”

For Lucky, at least, the relief was overwhelming, and she suspected Danger would feel the same way. “Thank you, Josef,” she said again. “Have I told you lately how much I adore you?”

She heard Josef’s low, pleased chuckle, even if his tone was dry. “You know how it goes, Luck. Will screwed up here, but--vampire solidarity and all that.”

By the time Danni was aware of her surroundings again, Hunter was gone, her possessions boxed up and taken to storage, her room antiseptically cleaned. Lucky assured her that Hunter was being well taken care of, although her eyes were evasive when she spoke of the matter. She did show Danni the envelope with the storage locker key. They both took that as a hopeful sign.

For the next few days, Lucky and a string of other freshies kept Danni company. Since she’d been under the impression that some of them—Allara and Faction in particular—didn’t care much for her, she was surprised at their concern. When she commented on it, Allara frowned at her.

“Look, Danger, there’s not one of us who hasn’t been where you are now—or wondered when they would be.” She laughed bitterly. “Get Lucky to show you her scar sometime,” she said, adding cryptically, “and then ask her about the fang.”

Faction was even blunter. “I don’t know why, but Josef likes you. And I—I like him. So when he asked me to come, I came.” Then she shrugged. “Freshies ought to stick together, anyway.”

It was a day or two after that when Danni ran across the business card in her evening bag, and started to remember the stranger who had seen her home. He’d told her, she recalled, to be sure and put his number in her phone. As she did so, she impulsively hit call, but hung up before he answered. She had figured out that he must’ve been the one who was ultimately responsible for Lucky’s timely appearance on her doorstep, and she was grateful, but she had no idea what to say to him. Somehow, “thank you” wasn’t enough, and “you can bite me any time” seemed a bit forward.

Slowly, she healed. At first, she wondered if her experiences with Javier and that other vampire—whoever he was—had cured her of wanting the sensations the vampire bite could bring, but as time went on, and the blood flowed more strongly in her veins, she thought less about Javier and more about the others she had known. The overpowering feel of Will feeding sensuously at her throat, the stolen caresses on the dance floors of the freshie clubs, the haunting memory of the taste in Josef’s mouth of blood and scotch.

[francis]

Lucky and Josef to the rescue. He is effective, considerate and knows what is important and what isn’t. There is no emotional baggage involved, but he cares for the girls. Danni is learning a lot here, but she is still addicted.