It was numbing. Like the phantasms of bullets, the rain struck the metallic hide of the vain in a constant, rhythmic hush of heavy pings. It lulled me into a trance like patience that even the would be pounding of my own nervous heart seemed calm.

My mouth was a blur of dryness, uttering eldritch spells and whispering veils, as Bethany and Simon poised themselves with a static stillness. Watching out the tinted windows of the vehicle.

I couldn't see, I was too focused on what I was doing, which was to say; I was hiding us. Making us as inconspicuous as possible. It harked back to the time of the picnic with Aramis, and for the briefest of moments I dropped focus. Which was apparently enough to garner some attention as Bethany immediately snapped her head around to glare in my direction. I rolled my eyes as I picked up the threads of the spell once again.

Confidence spiked somewhat within my core, noting how much more competent I had become at this, but even that confidence seemed to be spitefully tinged with the same sour taste of melancholy.

"She's in." Simon said, causing me to drop the spell. Immediately grasping at the hip flask in my bag and taking a swig of the throat burning liquid inside, while also lighting up a cigarette.

"That's bad for you, ya know" Bethany cooed, causing me to huff a cloud of smoke in her direction in disdain.

This had been the sixth time this week that we had watched Victoria enter the building. So far it had been almost exactly the same each time. Arrive at nine in the morning, usually in a sleek black vehicle although red, or white, doesn't go amiss. She is often flanked by two, undoubtedly steroid-swollen, men, but is occasionally accompanied by a spindly thin man walking beside her like a puppy at her heels. She leaves at around ten at night, in the same manner as she arrived.

Each time, it sparked a tiredly retributive spark of dwindling anger within me. To say I was exhausted would be an understatement, but I had yet to find an explanation as to why, so I ignored it.

It was at Simon's insistence that we do nothing, and just observe. He was smart. Prepared, and uneager to allow Victoria's escape, citing that if she managed to do so without any form of notice before, we couldn't afford to underestimate a maybe more paranoid Victoria.

Bethany, was bored. She was growing impatient. Lording her vampirism as the key to any lock. I'd no doubt she would get far, but Bethany is smarter than that. Which is the only reason she hasn't just charged in there yet. Her restraint is waning though, and every day her blood-lust grows louder in it's cries for satiation.

I found myself somewhat deterred from this course. I was dragging myself behind Simon, and Bethany. Of course, trying with what I could to help where I was needed. But some defeatist side of me willed that I just give up, and go home. Live on the rest of my life with the swirling voids of "what ifs" and regret. I would most probably do this alone.

"When are we going to do something?" Bethany whined, in a somewhat exasperated tone, and dramatically throwing her hands upwards while slumping down the interior of the van. A valid question.

"We have to be sure, Bethany. For all we know, she could be very much aware that we're watching her and is prepared. We have to make sure that we are more prepared." Simon responded for, what could've been the twentieth time as he unfolded his laptop.

"This is absolutely dreadful. If I have to spend another moment stagnating with the pair of you, because we're not ready yet, I will go insane."

"Not. Yet." Simon ordered

"I'm older than you, Simon. You do not get to order me like that." Bethany snapped, her eyes met with his in a silent challenge, and I found myself smiling in stuttered amusement as the air became glaringly charged.

My eyes darted between the two, mentally taking bets with myself as to who would move first. Before finally Bethany grumbled with ground teeth.

"I'm going out." She huffed, opening the back doors to the van, in a sweeping manouver and sprouting an umbrella all in one motion. She stepped outwards, her heels barely rippling against the puddles surface. As I leaned forward to close the doors once again, I couldn't help but watch her for a moment longer. Whether it was out of some sliver of concern for her, I do not know, but it was for a breath longer when the traffic of pedestrians swallowed her form and she was gone with nary a gust of wind to signal her presence.

The doors squeaked and clunked heavily as I closed them, shaking the van somewhat, before I was alone with Simon.

"She'll be back." His calm voice hummed through the errant chatter of his fingers against the keyboard.

"I know." I replied, leaning back with a sigh as equally heavy as the slamming of the doors, as I closed my eyes in contemplation. There was the shifting of weight and luggage, before I felt the presence of Simon come closer.

I could feel the heat of his body, sifting it's way through the exposed skin of my arms. The vibrational trepidation of his lips, suddenly too hesitant to speak whatever poetry their fullness would spill. An older part of me would be just as scared as he would be nervous. He would be borderline panicking, wishing for flight but thankfully often too frightened to run.

But now I was unresponsive, aside from the acknowledgement of his closeness. The nonchalance granting a certain level of sensitivity to everything removed from myself, like I could feel the clamminess of his palms as if they were my own.

"Avery?" His voice, barely above a whisper, called me to open my eyes and look at him barely a foots length from me.

"Hmm?"

"I want you to know, that it's okay, ya know? If you need to talk, I am here for you. I don't mind pissing Bethany off enough that she'll leave for an hour or two so you can talk. I actually quite enjoy annoying her." He laughed, rubbing the back of his head with a warm chuckle.

"Thanks." Was the only response I could muster, unwilling to confront the topic of his words just yet.

"I mean it, Avery. Don't close up." He said, my eyes linking with the soft blues of his for what seemed like an eternity. They were quivering, glistening in their colours like the ocean in tropical summer.

In an instant, I found myself upon him, my lips crashing against his as I pushed him up against the cool metal of the van, my hands hungrily clawing at the shirt as they hungered for the supple flesh beneath.

"Avery..." His voice cracked, while I traced my mouth along the line of his jaw and sucked at the smooth skin of his neck, my nose took in the sweetened smell of his after shave. It called me further, my tongue furtively jabbing for the taste of Simon.

"Avery..." His throat vibrated against my lips urging me forward. I palmed at the hardening meat through his shorts, admiring the surprising length with a solitary smirk. The other hand pawed at the chiselled chest beneath the shirt soft red of his shirt, teasing my imagination with the textures that awaited there.

"Avery!" He shouted, my eyes opening at the dull thud of my back against the side of the van. Simons heavy breathing tickling my nose as his hands held my arms to the side. "This isn't you. The day drinking, the smoking, Bethany? This. Is not. You." He reaffirmed, shaking me strongly as my brain refused to register the steadily spiking ball of shame that clambered up my throat.

"Get off me." I whispered as I began to wriggle from his grasp, for some form of escape: but I found he held sure. I protested and kicked as he pulled me closer to his chest, enveloping me in in the muscle of his arms. "Get off me!" I yell, throwing pathetic hands at his chest as he held me close and refused to let go.

And in his arms I found myself undone. The breaths heaved their way angrily from my chest, wrenching the tears from my cheeks with every exhale and soaking into the shirt of Simon who had still yet to let go despite my unerring fight against his grip. I kicked and swatted, angry and broken, shards I would once use as knives, now too small and brittle to find any purchase. It felt like the inside of my chest was being pulled up my throat and out my mouth, spilling over us both and beginning to flood the interior of the van. It threatened to drown us both in it's buried despair, calling our very souls through our teeth and to the ground, for it was no longer safe inside the vandalised cadaver that was the heart.

I didn't want this. I fought every tear that was treacherously birthed from my eyes. Growled and bore my teeth like a pathetic cage at every sob that broke from my chest. I felt sick, and weak. Horrible and exposed. All the things I didn't want, didn't need, at this moment. Yet every bundled hand I threw at Simon grew weaker than the last, that they could hardly be called fists any longer. They lacked intent. My body knew something it wasn't telling me, and I could bare this ignorance no longer. My anger refused to simmer down as I struggled against what had hold of me. I don't want this. I didn't want this.