CHAPTER 5
DESSERT FOR LATER

"I can't believe you would do this!"

Hadley sat lazily against the plush white cushions, stretching one leg over the other. Her jeans and shirt were still stained with dried blood, masking the outfit of a serial killer, but her face held nothing of the sort. Tristan sat beside her on the couch as Elizabeth paced in front of them, releasing tsks from under her breath. Hadley took notice that Tristan was sitting a little too close for her liking, as if he wasn't satisfied with her creator's presence alone. Maybe he and Elizabeth were alike in that way.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" The Countess shrieked, pointing a clawed finger in Hadley's direction. She had made herself up for the evening – so had Tristan – and she hadn't expected Hadley to barge in as they waited for the elevator. But once Elizabeth saw the blood on her daughter's clothes, she knew this wouldn't be good. "You've threatened to expose our virus to the whole bloody city!"

Hadley tried to act nonchalant under Elizabeth's gaze, but it was hard when she was staring at her with such an immense fury that even made Tristan shudder. "I don't really see what the problem is, mama."

Elizabeth shot her a deadly glare, one full of malice and wrath, as she leaned down to her eye level. Her red lips formed into a tight frown and her dark irises narrowed into slits. "You found a meal of three boys," she whispered, holding up three fingers. "But you left one –" Only one finger snapped up. "– alive!"

Hadley opened her mouth to speak, but after realizing that she had nothing good to say, she shut it, sitting further back into the cushions. She felt like such a child, hiding away from her mother as she chastised her with a raised finger. Hadley wanted to roll her eyes, but instead, she simply kept herself quiet.

"Just answer one question for me," Elizabeth said, squaring her shoulders with a calmer tone, "why didn't you just kill them all? It's not hard. You've done it thousands of times."

The brunette glanced away from her creator for a moment, debating her options. She could tell her the truth: maybe – just maybe – she saw something special in Percy, whether it be a friend or a lover. She just saw something and she wanted him around. Or maybe she could tell Elizabeth a lie: she felt bad for killing his friends right in front of him. The lie was so unbelievable. Anyone who knew Hadley Monroe knew she'd never leave a body because she felt sympathy.

But as Hadley opened her mouth again, someone spoke for her: "Maybe she wanted some dick," Tristan shrugged.

Hadley whipped her head in his direction, eyes forming into thin slits. "Do you ever shut up?"

Tristan smirked, leaning a bit too close to her face while slinging an arm across the side of the couch. "Why don't you make me?"

She shoved him away forcefully, knocking him back into his original spot. Tristan almost thought her strength gave him whiplash. Hadley scoffed, expression twisting as she muttered, "Why don't you go stuff your mouth with a dick?"

"Speaking of that," Tristan said, hopping up from his seat. Hadley watched him with wide eyes, admiring the tight jeans Elizabeth had dressed him in, before then mentally slapping herself in the face for regarding his ass in the first place. Tristan placed a hard kiss on Elizabeth's lips, almost tucking his tongue inside her mouth, and tapped her nose with the tip of his finger. Hadley's lips curled in disgust. "I guess I'll make my leave and try to seduce Will Drake for you. I'm sure he'll scream when he sees me," he chuckled.

Hadley arched a brow at the unfamiliar name. "Will Drake?" She asked, tone lighting up. "Who's Will Drake?"

Tristan shrugged again and clicked his boots down the hall. "Some bastard that wants to buy the hotel. You should know, he's not into girls, before you think about keeping him too." He twisted his torso around, blowing the Countess a kiss before turning his eyes to Hadley. He waved a few fingers in her direction. "See 'ya, Hades."

Hadley launched herself then, trying to reach out from over the couch to claw at Tristan's skin. She almost pushed the couch with her to the back of the room, wanting to catch up with him when he ran away. But Elizabeth was quicker, latching onto Hadley's arm and yanking her back. "Stop that, Hadley!"

She complied – just a bit – tugging her arm back and huffing out an angry sigh. Lifting her chin, Hadley stared her creator down with bitterness dancing in her eyes. "He made me do that," she seethed, pointing to where Tristan once stood. "That's what Donovan used to call me, and you probably told him that. He did it to get a rise out of me. I don't want Tristan in this fucking hotel anymore."

Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest, maintaining the same stance as Hadley. She tapped her fingers on her arm and raising a bleached brow. Her dress was bejeweled, and it made pretty sounds every time her nails struck against it. "I want your new human gone as well," she argued, cocking her head to the side, "so who's going to go first?"

"This is different."

"No, it isn't!"

"Yes, it is!" Hadley exclaimed, laying a defiant hand out in front of her. "I don't plan on turning him, like you –"

The Countess turned away and grabbed a cigarette from the pack placed on the decorative table behind her. She burned the end of it with a lighter, allowing the smoke to invade her lungs. She refused to meet Hadley's eyes, and instead, went to raise a hand. "I've heard enough," she sighed, flicking the end of the cigarette. "You acted foolishly. Now, that boy might tell someone what we are." She chuckled then, but her tone was sarcastic, and she turned to stare at her irrational child face to face. "He's probably already left the building. We're toast."

Hadley scoffed under her breath, shaking her head. She tried coming up with a response that would hurt Elizabeth, even though that was something she didn't want to do. She'd regret it later. However, Hadley knew there was nothing that could truly hurt the Countess. Not anymore, at least. Her heart was hollow, except for the love she had for her children.

"Donovan would've understood my reasons," she hissed.

Elizabeth scowled, jabbing her clawed finger in the direction of the door. Her red lips curled; her jaw clenched. "Go find that boy and kill him, like how you should've done in the first place. We cannot risk anyone finding out about our virus, child. You know this."

When Hadley opened her mouth to protest, the Countess continued, "And I better not find him alive, or I'll drink him myself."

•••

Percy, actually, hadn't left the Cortez.

Even if Hadley hadn't locked him in her room from the outside, Percy believed he still would've stayed and debated a plan. A little while after she left, the woman with frizzy blonde hair barged into the room, hardly speaking a word to him. Her dark eyes bore into him for a small moment, before she eventually allowed her maroon lips to curl into a sadistic smirk. Percy had been laying on Hadley's bed when the woman entered, and found himself pushing his body further up on it the second she looked at him.

"Don't worry, boy. I'm not here to touch you." She chuckled darkly and hooked both arms around the corpses of his former friends. Percy watched their blood coat the floor as the woman dragged them away. "Chief's orders."

She was followed by another woman with curly red hair and a lipstick color to match. Her maid uniform told Percy of her place in the Cortez, as well as the name tag that said, Hazel Evers. She laughed at the blood staining the floor, telling to no one in particular, "Oh, this is just my favorite kind of mess!" Hazel had the blood cleaned up within twenty minutes.

When the two women finally left, Percy concluded that he had no plan, or his frazzled bran was too stupid to come up with one. He didn't know what to do with himself. He had just witnessed his friends being murdered, and he was still laying in the murderer's bed, for Christ's sake. The pillows and comforter were filled with her scent, and weirdly enough, it calmed him. The murderer's perfume made him stay.

She didn't look like a murderer though, and Percy wondered if he would consider her one at all. Technically, she did kill Christian and Bobby – more like, ate them, but he'd rather not dwell on it. She did it because they were going to assault Nadine and Natalia – at least, that's what she told him, and he didn't find it difficult to believe her. Percy began to question why he wasn't feeling guilty as he sat on her bed, engulfed by her scent, and maybe that was because he had never truly been friends with Christian and Bobby in the first place.

They were assholes. They were shitty people. They were going to have sex with two intoxicated girls.

Maybe ... they did deserve it.

She wasn't a murderer. Then what was she? A monster, perhaps? She did eat his friends, after all, and he weirdly didn't question her about that when she finally talked to him. He simply asked her why she killed them, even though he knew the answer. Monsters didn't exist. She couldn't be one, not with a face like hers.

But she ate Christian and Bobby. Their blood was on her mouth, staining her clothes. She sucked them dry, as if she used a fucking straw.

Another thing he didn't want to dwell on. Percy realized then that he wasn't as scared as he should be. If anything, he was scared of the repercussions. He should call his parents or the police, but he feared what they would think with him being the only living subject at the scene of a murder. He'd be the first suspect. But he needed to call his parents, to let them know he was okay. Did he really want to though? They were the ones that let him get in this mess in the first place.

Perhaps, what he needed to do was start a new life for himself: leave and change his name. That could be his plan, and what a great plan it was.

Shit, Percy then thought, what about my degree?

•••

Hadley took another hour to decide what she was going to do. She paced around the kitchen downstairs, biting the edge of her fingernail as she processed Elizabeth's words. And I better not find him alive, she hissed, or I'll drink him myself. God fucking dammit, she really got herself into this one, didn't she?

Before she could register what she was doing, Hadley pressed the up button on the elevator and headed to her suite. It probably wasn't a good idea to lock him in there – I mean, it would be the first place the Countess would look, if she assumed that Hadley was that stupid. She had nowhere else though. His stuff was in her room and he seemed pretty comfortable in that bath. She didn't want to move him.

She wondered if her sheets now smelled like him.

Hadley slapped a hand across her face as she headed down the sixth floor. Think like a killer, she told herself, but it was hard. She didn't like killing; she really didn't. Hadley wasn't like the Countess. But when the situation called for it – like with those disgusting boys – she liked it. She liked it a lot. Killing shitty people made her feel better about the curse she had.

But she couldn't kill this boy. He wasn't disgusting. He wasn't vile. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now they were both being punished for it. Percy deserved to be alive, and not just because he didn't back away from her when he saw her monstrous side. He deserved to live. He was good, like how Hadley wanted to be. He had an aura she wanted to get close to.

And this all led her to the front door of Room 66. Hadley bounced on her heels, biting her lip while debating her choice of words. Should she lunge at him and bite the bullet as soon as he opened the door? Or should she explain the predicament to him and give him the chance to run away without looking back? The selfish side of her had a third option, one she didn't want to say out loud, but it was so tempting, and she clung to the idea so hard that she thought she was losing air.

She raised her hand to the door. The gold emblem with her room number on it was hanging by one screw, slightly swaying in the air. Hadley gulped, allowing her mind to suddenly pull her back in time, when both Elizabeth and Donovan were happy and wanted to help her find connections as their new creation.

"You'd be amazed, the wondrous possibilities that could begin with a simple hello," the Countess mused, tapping the edge of Hadley's nose.

Donovan chuckled and nudged the younger woman in the hip. With a smirk on his face, he added, "But remember, kid: wonderous possibilities could also be horrible disasters."

Elizabeth scoffed, "Oh, hush up!"

Those were much better times. When they were all together, when they were a family. Maybe she could have a family again. She just needed to communicate better. After all, Elizabeth did say that a simple hello could do wonders.

Without another thought, Hadley unlocked the door from the outside, and then knocked her hand on it. She heard shuffling on the other side, and she furrowed her brow. Hadley was tempted to press her ear against the door, but then it was opening, revealing Percy on the other side. Except he just ... didn't have a shirt on.

Hadley instantly looked away, her cheeks flushing a bright red. "Um ..." She fumbled with her words, suddenly forgetting what her plan was in the first place. She hoped – more like, prayed – for her blush to go away.

"I was sleeping," Percy yawned. "It is midnight, you know. I haven't gotten any sleep since ..." His voice trailed off, but Hadley knew what he was going to say.

She tried not to pay attention to his plaid boxers when she looked to her watch, finally noticing the time. Once you stopped aging, silly things like time seemed like such a nuisance. Maybe that was why her sleeping schedule was fucked.

"I ..." She turned her head up, and her skin returned to its normal pale undertone. Hadley smiled softly. "I figured I should've introduced myself before. Sorry about that. My mind was just ..." She stopped herself, realizing that this human boy really didn't care. (Secretly, he wanted nothing more than to know.) She stuck her hand out. "I'm Hadley Monroe."

After a beat of hesitation, Percy clasped his hand around hers. He shivered at the temperature of her skin. It was severely lower than his. "Hadley," he repeated, trying to match the face to the name. She looked like a Hadley.

Hadley giggled, biting the edge of her lip. "Yeah, that's it." Looking down the hall on both sides, she noticed the coast was clear. Before anyone could see, Hadley shoved Percy back into her room and locked the door, realizing that his hand was still wrapped around hers. She swallowed hard, and he quickly let go. Percy wished he held on for a bit longer. Her coldness excited him and she enjoyed how warm he was from the sweet blood pumping in his veins.

"Listen," she sighed, "you need to stay inside my room."

They stood in pitch blackness. Hadley didn't bother with turning the lights on. She could see the inquisitive look on his face through the darkness just fine. However, he didn't know that, and Percy hesitantly took a step closer to her, only to crash into her chest. A dark blush appeared on his cheeks, and he was suddenly grateful for the lack of light.

She grabbed his hand, shoving them down on his sides. Her fingers lightly brushed his exposed skin. "Did you hear me? You have to stay in here. I ..." She huffed, watching his eyes continue to search for her in the darkness. Hadley licked at her lips. "I want us to be friends. You need friends now, right?"

"I mean," Percy shrugged, "I guess so."

"Okay, good." She almost released a sigh of relief, but held it on the tip of her tongue. A wave of guilt passed through her then. "I mean, if you want to leave the hotel, then you should do it now, before anyone sees. Maybe it'll be better for you to get out of here, get back to your normal life and family. It sure as hell isn't normal around here –"

He opened his mouth, trying to develop words that weren't in his head. Hadley arched a brow and waited patiently for a response. "I ..." He bit the inside of his cheek. "I don't think I want to do that."

His voice was so sincere, like he really wanted to stay there, and Hadley desperately wondered if it was because of her. She hoped it wasn't him fearing her. She wouldn't hurt him; she couldn't. Hadley tried her best to hide her smile. "This could benefit both of us, you know? You can, like, train me to be around humans and not kill them –"

Percy's expression twisted. "Wait, what? You can't just lock me in your room for several hours after killing my friends and tell me that. You have to explain more." He pursed his lips, sliding them into a smirk when he thought he felt the cold skin on her arm. She was wearing a tank top, one that showed off her pretty chest covered in freckles, and Percy tried his damnedest not to think about it. "Are you some kind of monster?"

She paused. It was the longest pause of his life.

"I think that was made pretty obvious."

He couldn't argue with that. Percy was still curious, though, and it was gnawing at the back of his throat. He had so many more questions, but he held his tongue, in fear that she'd leave again.

"You have to stay in my room if you want to live," Hadley whispered, temptation growing inside her gut the closer she got to his body heat. "Elizabeth can't know you're alive."

Percy arched a brow. "Who's that? Your mom?"

"Something like that," she replied. The temptation wasn't leaving; it swirled in her chest and made heat pool within her stomach. Hadley clamped down on her bottom lip. "You're not leaving this room, right?"

"Right."

"Right what?"

Percy grinned. "Right, Hadley."

Hadley was surprised when she found herself smiling right back. She liked the way he said her name. "Okay," she exhaled heavily. "I'm going to go. You should sleep."

Now that he knew her name, it was easier said than done. Percy wanted to reach out to her, make her stay. He wanted to know more and more. He wanted to feel her cold touch against his fingertips, but before he could lift his hand, the door clicked shut.

Hadley leaned her back against the door, trying to catch her breath. It felt like the first time she saw him: the way he looked at her, even in the darkness, made her whole body freeze in place. She almost wished she'd stayed, but she knew that was wrong. Friends need to adjust to each other's demons. He needed time away from her.

However, something inside of her questioned if they were meant to be friends at all.

"So why are you keeping him?"

Hadley turned her head to the left, eyes narrowing into slits upon noticing Sally's presence at the end of the hall. The frizzy-haired addict sent her a cheeky grin, lips licking the edge of her lit cigarette. Hadley released an annoyed sigh. She was the least of her worries. Sally knew that if she ever snitched on the little vampire, Hadley would have no problem finding one person she held dear and eating them for breakfast. She was just a nuisance, that's all. A parasite infecting the halls of the Cortez, but maybe that could be said about each of the inhabitants.

"What do you want, Sal?" Hadley huffed, pushing herself off the door and striding carefully towards the other woman.

Sally's grin hadn't ceased. Hadley was tempted to smack it off. "I heard about what you diiiiid," she replied in a sing-song tone. "You haven't eaten that last boy yet. Hazel and I had to dispose of the others that you sucked dry, and I saw him. Why are locking him in your room? A secret, perhaps? Or will he just be dessert for later?"

Hadley rolled her eyes, beginning to walk past the addict. "No," she hissed. "He's staying in there, and the Countess can't know either. So leave him alone." Hadley smiled to herself, clasping her hands together as she rounded the long corridor. Sally kept up with her pace, even in heels. "This will be good, you know? Maybe I can finally have someone who understands me, who will talk to me –"

"That's not possible," Sally chuckled, mocking her.

Hadley spun on her heel and sent the addict a death glare. "You know," she seethed, leaning close to Sally's face, inhaling her sickening breath, "just because everyone leaves you, doesn't mean you have to project onto others."

Sally's smile got wider, as if the vampire's insult hadn't affected her one bit. She simply nodded, turning away and venturing down the hall. Her giggles echoed on for hours, haunting the sixth floor. Percy heard the laughter in his dreams.

•••

A/N: I'M SO SORRY THIS CHAPTER WAS TOO LONG SAUHSUIHSIH I DIDN'T KNOW WHERE TO CUT IT OFF LOL

Also I fuckin bought Apocalypse to stream on Amazon because I finished watching every other season that I missed and it has been the BEST decision I've ever made