Anything For Rachel – Episode 42
#Episode_42
✒Calvin P•O•V
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It’s so dark here. Why isn’t there any light? I feel the warmth. Somewhere close, there’s a sweet seductive warmth that I want to be beside…how far is it…my mouth waters, my throat burns. Actually, all of me burns. I need that warmth I feel. I need that warmth within me. That’s the only way to make the darkness go away. Make the pain go away. Where is it?
“Calvin.” An angel whispered my name, pulling me from the darkness like my savior. My eyes finally opened and I could see the warmth I was following. My Rachel. She looks scared, not of me like before, but for me now. “Are you ok?” She whispered.
I forced a nod even though the movement makes spikes of white hot pain stab all over my body. I can’t let her see how bad the pain has gotten. She’ll only push harder if she knows, and I don’t know how much longer I can resist. The pull is almost too much even now, just her body so close to mine, not even touching me, but the warmth rolling off of her calls to the monster within me, begging me to come and take what could be mine.
The pain would be gone.
The little voice won’t stop tempting me.
It’s ok, just do it. She wants you to.
No. I won’t.
Stop fighting, take what you want. You’ve wondered for years what it would be like.
I brought my hands up to my ears, pressing on them as if that could drown out the insistent temptations to taste her blood.
Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.
I groaned, and the sound coming up my throat made the sandpaper in my lungs and esophagus scream out in more fissures of pain.
I flinched away from her touch, my eyes focusing back on hers instead of the rushing of her blood right beneath the surface of that perfectly thin and beautiful skin that covers her neck. It would be easy. Quick, just a few sips, then I’d be ok.
“Calvin?” She whispered my name again, pain in her voice, but a different pain than the one that’s slowly taking control of me, inching me out of my own body until nothing is left here but the bloodthirst and the darkness. No more Calvin. No more Rachel. Just…. “Please?” She begged, tears on the
tops of her cheeks that a part of me so badly wanted to reach up and wipe away, keeping something so sad away from the beauty of her, but the other part of me, the part becoming stronger and stronger as the days slip by in this cabin…that part of me wants to rip into her.
“Let me help you.”
I want to, my dear, my sweet, my queen, but I can’t. I won’t do it.
“I could make you.” She said suddenly, and my eyes refocused on her face again, that look of determination creeping in. It is usually one of my favorite sights, the power within Rachel bubbling to the surface to be admired, but right now, it was a frightening thing.
I used all the strength I had left to lurch away from her, rolling myself to the far side of the bed. “Octavia, someone, stop her.” I snapped, my voice coming out as a raspy whisper.
Rachel looked angry, but Octavia was at her side, watching her closely, ready to stop anything crazy that Rachel might try to do.
“Calvin, why?” Rachel cried. “I just want to help you! Why can’t you just let me be there for you?”
I turned away from her, the smaller side of me unable to take the heat of her stare. I tried to swallow, but the pain was too strong, so my words came out as a choking crackling whisper.
“I’ve already told you twenty times, Rachel.” I snapped. “I won’t do it! End of story!”
“No!” She yelled. “Not end of story!”
“I don’t want to, Rachel.” I told her again. “I need to keep that part of me separate from us. I don’t want that to be any part of our relationship. You aren’t a meal to me, you’re my soulmate, and I know you want to do this, but I can’t.” I wasn’t even sure if everything I was saying was understandable with how I was having to force the sound out of me, but I kept on. “Rachel, I have explained to you before, if we were to be blood bonded, then every time I’m near you, I’d want your blood. It could never be a one-time thing. Your blood already calls to me without the bond, and I would be powerless to resist it if were bonded.” I told her. “Another thing, you’d feel things for me, so much stronger than what you do now.”
“Why is that a bad thing?” She yelled. “I already love you more than anything, why does it matter?”
“Rachel!” I screamed, my eyes changing momentarily, and I felt Cromley’s large hands pinning my shoulders down to the bed to be sure I wouldn’t go after her in my anger. “The point is that I don’t want to have a
manufactured pull over you. I want my connection with you to be real, based on the love we have for each other and nothing else! Why can’t you understand that?” I yelled hoarsely. “I need to know that you love me for the right reasons, and I want you to have the power to leave me, should that ever be something you wanted to do one day. I won’t feed from you! That is the end of this conversation!”
Rachel burst into tears, and Octavia hugged her to her side, but I could see in the tenseness of Octavia’s expression that the hunger was beginning to get to her as well. I hated to see Rachel unhappy, especially knowing that I’m the one who made her that way, but this wasn’t something I was willing to budge on. I’d never in my life dreamt that I’d find a true love like the one I share with this perfect woman, and I refuse to let it be tarnished by my hunger for her blood. What we have is real, and I will never do anything that will put our feelings for one another into question. Whether it makes her angry with me or not.
“Just starve then!” She yelled. “I can’t believe you’re being like this! I just want to help you, Calvin. I just wanted to be the one to save you for once instead of you always doing it for me. I wanted to help you.” She cried. “I need you to be ok. You have no idea how painful it is for me to watch you lying there and wasting away. I hear you cry out in your sleep and you won’t let me do the one thing that would make you better.” She shook her head and pulled away from Octavia, staring daggers at me, which I preferred over the crying. She can hate me for it all day long, but I can’t stand when I’m hurting her. “If it were the other way around, and I was the one who was laying there suffering, you’d do what it took to take away my pain.” She called me out.
I closed my eyes for the shortest of moments, picturing it, but then I shook my head, trying not to notice the bone breaking pain, and I opened my eyes again, even though the desire to just leave them closed was intensely
strong. I looked across the bed to where she was standing angrily with her red cheeks, and her arms folded across her fast heaving chest. “No, I wouldn’t.” I told her truthfully. “I would want to, just like I know that you do, and it would hurt me so much not to be able to.” I whispered, the last of my breath coming up. “But I wouldn’t do it, not if you asked me not to.” I told her weakly. “You begged me to never take away another one of your choices, and I learned from my mistakes. I will never make decisions for you again, and now I’m asking you to do me the same kindness.” I said lowly, low enough I wasn’t sure her human ears could hear me. “Don’t take away my choice here, Rachel. I love you, but please…”
I knew that turning her own words back against her was a low blow, but I needed to make sure that she understood.
The last thing I saw before the darkness crept back up and yanked me under, into the hell of the fiery pain and despair, was Rachel rushing away from the bed, her face in her hands and the bathroom door slamming behind her.
Darkness, so much of it. Everywhere. Is this hell? Am I dead?
No…death wouldn’t hurt this badly.
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RACHEL P•O•V.✔
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I rushed into the bathroom, ignoring when Octavia called to me, and I slammed the door behind me. I was so angry and hurt at the same time that I couldn’t process anything else. I hadn’t even been able to really listen
to what Calvin had been saying because my heart was aching so badly from watching him lying there suffering.
I leaned back against the door and sunk down onto the floor in front of it, crying with my face in my hands. I was trying to be quiet about it because even though I was pissed at Calvin, I didn’t want him to hear me crying in another room. Not in the shape he’s in. I haven’t even seen Calvin smile in a week now, and that should be written as an unbreakable law. Calvin’s smile should be plastered everywhere, not hidden away as he slowly starves. I’ve tried my best to not be too close to him because I know that Cromley and Octavia have both warned me multiple times that even though he seems to be immobile, the smell of my blood just being in the same room with him at this point is probably driving him insane.
I wish I could just make everything better for Calvin, and it only makes it worse that I know that I could be making it better, but Calvin still refuses to do that with me.
I jumped when the door shook with a knock. “Who is it?” I asked through a sniffle and I quickly wiped off my face as I pushed myself to my feet and fanned my eyes to try to make the tears stop.
“Me.” Logan’s raspy voice said softly and I turned the knob to let him come in with me. I sat down on the edge of the tub and looked up at him with wet eyes. “He’s right.” He finally said after a minute.
I shook my head and dropped my face back down into my hands.
“Logan,” I groaned. “I don’t need to hear it from you too.” I huffed.
Logan leaned back on the counter behind him and shrugged his shoulders. “You ought to know I wouldn’t be agreeing with that guy if it weren’t true.”
He told me seriously, looking at the wall behind me. “Why do you want him to do it so bad?”
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I pursed my lips, trying to figure how to put it so that he’d be on my side, but the reasons all sounded slightly shallow. “I don’t know.” I lied. I’ve wanted to share a blood bond with Calvin since the moment I found out that he had done it before. I was jealous, sure, but shouldn’t this be something I’m allowed too? I know that Calvin loves me and that only makes it harder to wrap my head around why he won’t give me the thing that he’s given to someone else. “I want to make him better.” I added because it was true too.
Logan looked uncomfortable having the conversation, the way he wouldn’t make eye contact and he kept running his hand over the scruff that had grown onto his chin. “Look, Rach, from what he’s saying, he sounds like he’s really worried that doing it could be an issue between the two of you.” He said awkwardly. “I know it sucks, but think about it.” He told me. “He’s choosing to starve and be in pain over feeding with you. Don’t you think that means that he feels pretty damn strongly about it?”
“I feel strongly about it too, Logan!” I snapped.
“But yet you can’t even tell me why.” He reminded me. “Don’t do something stupid, Rach.” He said finally looking at me evenly.
“Octavia says if he were to feed directly right now from you he’d probably kill you, so that’s not even an option.” He shrugged. “We all have another person to think of.”
I glared up at him. “Don’t use my child as an excuse to try to talk me out of this.” I warned him.
He straightened his back and held up a hand. “I would never, but come on.” He said. “Rose needs us all to be ok through this, and you doing something dumb to try to force the man who is begging you to leave it alone isn’t going to help anyone.” He pointed out. “Did you even listen to what he said?” He asked me, his voice lowering. “God,” He shook his head and smacked his hands on the counter. “It still burns a little to see it, but that guy would do anything for you, Rach. It’s like you’re his only reason to be.”
“I know that he does, Logan!” I cried again, and he came to sit beside me on the tub and put his arms over my shoulder, letting me cry into his chest. “I love him too, that’s why I want to help him.”
The door pushed open slowly and Octavia peeked around it, looking down at me sadly as she knelt to the floor in front of me, holding my hand in my lap. “Rachel, he’s scared.” She whispered lowly. “To him, the bond the both of you share is stronger and more real than anything he’s ever felt in his entire life. Try to see if from his side, I know how badly you want to help him, and how much you still resent him from having a blood bond before, but he is literally terrified to mess up what you have together.”
“But it wouldn’t mess anything up!” I said. “He can’t feed directly from me in his state now anyway, so it isn’t even like we could actually blood bond. I just want to give him my blood so that he can have his strength back.”
Logan rubbed my back with his hand while Octavia shushed my cries. “I understand it from your view, Rachel, but really think about what he was saying to you.” She told me. “When Calvin looks at you, what do you think he sees?”
Her question caught me off guard and I leaned back away from Logan and furrowed my brows. “I-I-I don’t know.” I stuttered.
“I can tell you, because he’s said it a million times.” She sighed.
“He sees his true love, his reason to breathe. He sees your strength and your heart and beauty.” She smiled at me. “Do you know what he’s afraid of seeing?”
I shook my head as I wiped my face. “Just stop.” I told her, but she help my hand tighter.
“He’d be blinded by your blood.” She said quickly. “You would become blood to him, because as I know he’s told you, he has a particularly strong inclination to your blood already, which is why he has never tasted your blood before. It was why he was going to send you away before he met you on the first night of the competition.” She reminded me. “He has a legitimate fear that once he’s experienced your blood, that easy control he’s crafted for being around you and being intimate with you will be gone.” She reached up and wiped the tear from the tip of my nose. “It would always torment him, the desire to feed on you, and he doesn’t want to crave that from you. He wants to be able to love you the right way, no other things baring on this perfect thing that he sees in his mind.” She leaned over to look into my eyes. “Please give him some time. The new blood should be here in three days. Just three more days of this, then he’ll be back to normal and nothing will have changed between the two of you.”
I closed my eyes and pictured the way that Calvin looks at me, his eyes full of wonder, and that slight tilt to his lips like he’s always just on the verge of cracking one of his eye blinding smiles any moment. That look that makes me feel weak when I see it. He loves me, thinks of me, and wants me when he looks at me. Do I really want that to change? How would he look at me if he’s only thinking of the blood I could offer him?
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To_be_Continued
ANYTHING FOR RACHEL