The Lost Voices {Tag Lore}

[Crystal Deboir]

Crystal rubbed at her neck roughly, over and over, trying to find what simply was no longer there. Griffon, again. And again. And again. Her phone lit up, and she looked at the screen, still rubbing her neck, rubbing the skin 'til it was bright red and raw. Jack was calling. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and turned the phone off. He'd called seven times so far. She felt horrible, really - the sinking feeling in her stomach had begun to ache for what she was doing. He was wonderful, and she really liked him, but this? This could not happen. Griffon would --

He'd kill him. And then he wouldn't kill her. He'd just torture her. Like now, like this.

It was cruel to the victim of a vampire bite how easily they healed, the saliva holding natural coagulants in it. Crystal never had evidence of her marks, nothing to show police, parents, friends - friends? She didn't have any friends left. She'd even alienated herself from Alex, the one person who might've done some good. She couldn't face him now, though. But Jack, oh...  His touch was so different from Griffon's. Griffon grabbed her, suffocated her, clawed her, forced her. His touch was hungry and needy and indifferent, it was harsh and unfeeling. Jack's touch was warm, inviting, and comforting. He didn't deserve this - he didn't deserve her. She could get him into trouble, with Griffon, with his work... She wasn't worth that.

Crystal looked up as voices approached, and tossed her soda from Wendy's into the trash. It was still full. She couldn't even drink anymore. She'd lost so much weight, so much colour. She looked like she was on heroin, with those bright eyes suddenly so dark. She shrugged the feeling off as best she could, instinctively turning away from the group of girls as they passed. She'd gone to school with them. Winter break had meant gaggles of them at the mall, before and after. She just needed to get into a crowd, to be around people, around life.

Around anything.

[Isabelle Sweet]

It was so stupid, really, that Lore should even be at the mall like this.  She had training in the evening at Onyx, and homework to do, and she honestly didn't have time for shopping and shallow girls that called her 'friend'.  Half of this crowd, she didn't even know beyond their first names, their faces beside lockers.  Still, it was nice to play normal once in awhile.  It felt good to smile and laugh about average, meaningless teenager things with these... average, meaningless people.

And there was Crystal.  Lore almost didn't recognize her at first.  Where was that bubbly cheerleader she'd pretended to laugh with only a few months ago?  Something was very wrong, and it wasn't just the obvious stuff, like her posture and the way she kept rubbing at her neck, as if something itched or hurt there.  There was a dark, deadly scent around her.  It tainted everything about her presence, and Lore felt her hackles rising when she recognized that particular aroma.

Vampire.

Crystal wasn't one herself.  Lore could tell immediately.  However, she'd been close to one recently, and certainly bitten.  Suddenly, she could remember the rumors.  That girl, Crystal's best friend... Jessica, she recalled the name with sudden, cold clarity.  Jessica had gone missing.  Crystal had been the last to see her.  She hadn't really been the same since.

Lore had been too distracted to notice.  What with the werewolf thing, and helping with Thane, and Hunter training, it was all she could do to focus on her studies while she was at school.  Her social status suffered as she withdrew from the people she used to call 'friend', but perhaps that was for the best.  She was a monster now, too, and couldn't let anyone else get too close.  She was used to keeping people at arm's length, though.  Growing up with a Hunter for a big brother meant keeping a lot of secrets.  Friendships could only go skin deep.  So, she hovered at the fringe of popularity, too pretty to be shunned completely, but too antisocial now to really belong to her former group.  Honestly, it was a relief, shutting them out like that.  One less thing to distract her.

Some part of her must have been paying attention, however, because she remembered Jessica.  She remembered how Crystal had been before, and it did not connect with this nervous, tortured girl in front of her.  She drifted to the back of her group of friends, and they did not notice when she stopped following them.  Without a word, she sat on the bench next to Crystal.

A moment passed.  Finally, speech.  "Are you okay?"  The answer was obviously 'no', but Lore couldn't just jump right in with, "Hey, I'm a werewolf and noticed that you have some vampire funk lingering around you.  What's up with that?"

[Crystal Deboir]

Crystal just stared at Loreanna for an awkward moment, while her brain tried to process the words. Mushmushmush? Crystal blinked. Oh! She seemed to snap back to attention. Sort of. At least it would be obvious the lights were on inside, even if whether or not anyone was at home remained to be seen. Crystal blinked a few more times, trying to understand why Lore was talking to her. Lore didn't like her. They had totally different sets of friends - well, when Crystal had friends, anyways. There was always some sort of bitchy clique-y thing going on, although it had never really been in between them, anyways. Girls were so catty.

"I'm peachy," she replied, trying to sound convincing. She looked down at her phone, which had stopped ringing since she'd turned it off, and felt guilty about Jack all over again. The whole thirty-year old boyfriend didn't really sound like something to share at the Christmas dinner, either, so Crystal left it all hangin' in the breeze as she struggled to find something of a more appropriate topic to be glum about.

"So.. how was this semester?" she asked, awkwardly. It was a pretty well-known fact Crystal had withdrawn from school early. She just didn't want to be there anymore. She'd gotten her GED through some online classes, and told Jack she had some internet college classes she was taking, which was she was around so much. It was only a half-lie, that time. She was taking some online college stuff, but she wasn't getting any credits for it, yet.

Crystal frowned a little, unable to meet Lore's gaze. She was usually pretty good about looking people in the eye when she talked to them, but she'd learned that if you looked into Griffon's eyes, he could do some pretty nasty tricks in return. She rubbed her neck and looked away, at some passing kids as they jeered at eachother and were generally obnoxious.

[Isabelle Sweet]

Lore was no psychic, and she couldn't smell lies, but it didn't take a genius to realize that Crystal was anything but peachy.  Sitting this close made the young werewolf want to crawl right out of her skin.  That vampiric taint was even worse, when it was right in her face.

"Same old," she replied to the question, though she didn't really want to talk about school.  "The new history teacher is way boring."  She felt a slight pang of guilt, knowing that she'd had a part in losing Mister O'Riley his job. 

"Anyway, how've you been doing?  Haven't seen you around much, since you left school."  Well, that was pretty obvious.  "Also... I know we never talked much, but I was sorry to hear about Jessica going missing.  I know you two were friends."  There we go, play the sympathy card, segue into a discussion about vampires... easy-peasy.

[Crystal Deboir]

Crystal's expression visibly darkened when Lore brought up Jessica's disappearance. "Thanks," she said, her voice cracking a little. "It's still tough, but every day is one day further," she said. She thought of that Limp Bizkit song - she couldn't remember the name, but she knew it went like, Every day is better than the next day, at least that's what I think - it was sort of depressing, actually.

She looked like she wanted to say something else, but she swallowed whatever it was, and stood up. "Walk with me for a little?" she asked. "I've been sitting for an hour now, and my legs are falling asleep." Crystal didn't know what she wanted. She didn't want to tell Loreanna about all of the things that had happened, but she didn't want to be alone either.

[Isabelle Sweet]

Lore nodded and stood as well.  "Sure."  As they walked, she was struck once again how different Crystal was now.  A shining light, all burnt out, nothing but scorch marks left behind.  There was something haunted about her eyes.  Lore could understand that part; Vin's eyes had looked like that for years after he'd watched their parents being torn apart by vampires.  Lore had been fortunate enough not to witness it as well, but she knew exactly why Vin woke up screaming and sweating some nights, to this very day.

And with that thought came the answer.  She knew how to ease into this particular conversation.  "I know how hard it is to lose someone you're so close to," she remarked, keeping her voice low and sympathetic.  "I wasn't there when my parents died, but my brother was.  It was still hard on both of us.  It's a little different, losing a friend... but not really, you know?  This time in our lives, our friends become closer to us than family, sometimes."

[Crystal Deboir]

"Yeah," she said, her voice wavering. "It's really... different without her around. My mom and dad, well, I can't really talk to them about it. I can't really talk to anyone, honestly. I left school because I got sick of people talking about me. I'm not going to cry about people running their mouths, but it pisses me off because they don't have shit like this happening to them. It must be nice to be so goddamn perfect," she spit vehemently.

It seemed Crystal still had one emotion left - anger. She took a deep breath and ran her hands through her blonde hair, closing her eyes to try and push those thoughts back down.

"Sorry," she said. She had some anti-depressants in her purse her parents had given her, but she didn't want to take them. They claimed she was 'moody'. Crystal didn't feel very moody, though. She just felt tired.

[Isabelle Sweet]

"Not having anyone to talk to about it must be almost as bad as losing her in the first place," Lore observed.  "At least I always have Vin, but you don't seem to have anyone."  She thought about this for a moment, then offered, tentatively:

"I know we weren't super close in school, but... if you need someone to talk to, about anything, no matter how crazy it might sound, I'm willing to listen.  Here's my cell number."  Pulling out a mini-notebook and pen from her purse, she scribbled the number down and handed the torn piece of paper to Crystal. 

"It might not be much," she admitted, "but I know what it's like to be in a situation where you can't trust anyone or talk to anyone about it, even your family." 

[Crystal Deboir]

Crystal took the number, regarding Loreanna carefully. "Really?" she asked. She didn't seem skeptical, just.. unsure. She wanted to believe she had something in common with someone else, desperately. But lately Crystal had a problem invalidating everyone else around her because she was becoming more and more consumed by Griffon. It was starting to drive her mental.

"It's shitty. I can't even talk to my.. boyfriend, I guess you could call him that. I feel really bad. He's a really nice guy, but he's just... not equipped in the brain to deal with this. I mean, he isn't stupid. He's just.. he's nice. He's... innocent."

That was the word she was looking for. Jack was innocent. Jack was also 30 and thought Crystal was 21, wheras Crystal was definitely not even 18.

[Isabelle Sweet]

"Really," Lore said with all the sincerity she could cram into one word.  "And, oh man, can I ever relate to that!  I love my brother to bits, I can't even talk to him about everything.  He still treats me like I'm eight instead of eighteen."  She snorted eloquently. 

"He's so worried about the monsters in the world, that he forgets sometimes about the ones right under our noses."  It was vague enough that it could be taken innocently, but maybe the mention of monsters might shake something up in Crystal.  Lore was still handling this with kid gloves.  She had to ease into a conversation about vampires, not  just blurt out whatever was at the top of her mind.

[Crystal Deboir]

Lore was more than correct to assume that at the mention of the word monsters Crystal would react - visibly. She shuddered and rubbed her neck, faking a yawn and looking away at some point off in the distance of the mall, a kiosk or something, anything to try and wash her thoughts away. The sensation of physically pushing ideas out of her head was still something new in itself. She'd never had something so awful she couldn't think about before, because every time she did, she could feel it. Crystal's goal for the remainder of her life was not to feel, if she could help it.

"I guess I just don't want to weigh anyone down," she said finally. "Everyone's got their own shit, you know? Man, a year ago, none of this even mattered. I could just do my hair, go to school, cheer for the big game, and go home. I got the shaft," she said with a scowl. It was hard not to laugh, but at the same time, it seemed inappropriate. She managed a hoarse chuckle, anyways. "Yep. Here today, gone tomorrow."

The last statement didn't seem to make sense in suit with what she was saying. That may have been some of her insanity leaking out of her mouth, though. Crystal realized it after a second, and brushed it off with another laugh, this one with more effort behind it, though obviously still very forced. She looked back at Lore. "I wrote about all of it in my journals," she finally said, her voice low. "If anyone ever found them, I'm pretty sure I'd be committed. The psychologist my parents sent me to told me in a session, which is evidently under no circumstances disclosed with anyone - including my parents, much to their dismay after the thousands of dollars they threw at Dr. Woodbine - told me that I was a 'paranoid delusional whose overactive imagination made up a story in my head to cover up what I really saw'. Now, come on. I'm not even smart enough to walk and chew gum. How could I do that? Seriously."

She blew a strand of hair out of her face. "She told me to keep them anyways. She said they helped me 'release anger'. Yeah, what a release. Every week I get to start a new journal. I look like a serial killer. I have them stacked all over my room. If my boyfriend saw them," she broke off, a low whistle escaping her lips. "He'd... I don't think he'd really get it."

Well. Crystal was certainly Chatty Kathy now. Whatever switch Lore had flipped, she'd found the right one.

[Isabelle Sweet]

Loreanna propped her chin in her hands, elbows resting on knees.  "I don't mind," she insisted.  "You'll weigh yourself down, if you can't talk about it at all."

Crystal's reaction to Lore's last remark was interesting.  She was definitely dealing with the monsters, then, and was well aware of what they were.  Lore could smell her fear. 

The journals piqued Lore's interest.  If she could get a hold of them, she could find out exactly what was going on.  Still, that'd be a lot of work, and she'd probably have to do something illegal to obtain them.  She wasn't a full-fledged Hunter just yet.  Anyway, it'd be easier to just get Crystal to talk about her problems.  Lore did file away a note about the journals in her mind for later reference, though.  Just in case.

Crystal was starting to open up.  This was a good sign.  Loreanna nudged a little further.  "So, what did you tell the shrink, anyway?  She must not be very good if she just automatically assumes you're making it up."  The teen werewolf snorted delicately.  "Anyway, you don't sound crazy to me.  Just stressed.  That's understandable, all considering."

[Crystal Deboir]

She shrugged a little. "I told her that I got attacked by monsters." She looked up at Lore and smiled a strange sort of smile, one that was in between the sarcasm of her voice and something else. It was very wry, nonetheless, and quite the normal expression for her as of late.

She thrust her hands into her pockets, tossing some of her hair aside as she came to a rest by the stupidly ornate penny fountain in the middle of the mall. "I guess she didn't like that answer very much." She looked at the water for a while, wondering if she should have told Loreanna the truth like that or not.

Doesn't matter, really. Nobody's believed me so far, so it's sort of a relief being so honest and being taken for as a nutcase.

[Isabelle Sweet]

Lore didn't think she was a nut case at all.  Quite the opposite.  Now that Crystal had said it, admitted it out loud, Lore had an opening.  Still keeping her voice serious, low, and attentive, she asked with no trace of mockery in her words:  "What kind of monsters were they?"

Now, it would be time to see whether Crystal thought SHE was crazy, or if she could trust Lore to tell her the truth.  If it were the latter, Lore would do whatever she could to help. 

[Crystal Deboir]

Crystal's wry, sarcastic expression melted away as her eyes got watery again. She looked directly at Loreanna, and in a voice so soft that she sounded like a little child, whispered, "Vampires." She quickly turned her head, something in the crowd catching her eye. Was it him? Had he found her again? She struggled to look through blurred vision, trying desperately to locate him. She had seen him, she had.

She left the safety of Loreanna's space instantly. "I knew I shouldn't have come here. I have to go," she said  quickly, hushed, darting away. She didn't want to leave Loreanna there, but she was a liability if Griffon had already spotted her. Hopefully the girl would be clever enough to say she had no idea who Crystal was. Crystal raced through the mall, trying to get to her car without being noticed by anyone. She had garnered some stealthy ability from the recent events, but when she was scared, she shook like a leaf, and any amount of time spent standing still would attract attention to wild, frightened features.

She busted out into the parking garage finally. It was empty, and oddly silent. She felt like she was in some sort of zombie movie, and darted between parking spots, trying to get to her car on the back row.