Runaway Fledgling

Ketti: Oh, look! I exist! -coughs- Well, kinda... My muse is pretty elusive these days. I know I say it a lot, but I swear I haven't actually given up on writing. Even if it seems that way. Jubaliii inspires me via Skype to open word docs, and helps with a few sentences here and there. She actually pointed out this one looked done, so I tweaked a few lines, and here it is. I want to write more, but a lot of times, ym deas are for new stories, or not enough to finish a chapter, sorry about that.

Something's got to be done.

Seras turned the lock in the door of the bathroom, looking around at the walls as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. The tiny window near the ceiling didn't let any fresh air in, and with her enhanced senses she could smell all the drugs, sweat, and sex that had gone on between the four cramped walls. That, and all the highway junk food that had went into the toilet and apparently never left it.

She cringed at the thought of sitting on the toilet seat, which was stained with something unidentifiable. She didn't really want to know. She finally compromised with leaning against the door, eyeing a graffiti cinder block two inches from her nose that proclaimed the Prime Minister to be—putting it politely—a "backyard gardener". She pulled out her cellphone, sighing in relief when she saw it had two bars, and hit the buttons quickly. She heard it ringing and put it to her ear, standing on her tiptoes to avoid a cockroach scuttling near her shoe.

"Hello?" Seras felt her heart clench at the familiar voice, but tried to ignore it. After all, she was running away. She had to cut ties… for the moment, anyway.

"Walter." She tried to make her voice sound commanding and no-nonsense, but it echoed in the small bathroom and sounded quiet and tired instead. "My credit card isn't working." There was a long pause, and she had to glance quickly at her phone to make sure she hadn't been disconnected.

"Well, Miss Victoria, that's what happens when you decide to desert the army."

"I didn't desert!" She was about to raise her voice, but a shadow passed beside the bathroom, cutting the small amount of sunlight shining between her shoes. She felt the hair on her neck rise and gulped, knowing exactly who it was. "Listen… I'm being stalked," she said in a whisper.

"By who?" Walter laughed disbelievingly. "Trust me, Miss Victoria, we'd know if you were—"

"By… you-know-who."

"You know who?" He seemed confused for a moment before making a soft sound of realization. "Well," he said again, this time both amused and thoughtful, "you can't have expected him to just stay put while you went gallivanting off around the countryside."

"Why not!? He's the reason I'm leaving like this! I'm so sick—" The shadow moved even closer beneath the door and her voice dropped to a nearly nothing. "I'm so sick of him being this way. I never asked for this!"

"Did you not?" Walter replied in the same tone, and she could hear the smile that she knew was playing across his lips. "According to him, you chose the night and what-all. I think it's safe to say that he comes with the full package."

"I was half dead!" She shouted, then winced, clapping a hand to her mouth. There was no light coming through at all now, and she felt a distinct chill creeping into the wood. Leaping back towards the center of the tiny and smelly room, she glared first at her phone, then the offending door.

"Most vampires start that way, yes," Walter agreed in a mild tone. "Would you rather be a corpse?"

Seras practically flung the phone from her ear as she stared at it incredulously, fingers twitching with the urge to clench into a fist and crush the offending piece of technology. "That sounds like something he would say." She hissed bitterly. "Whose side are you on anyways, Walter?"

"Sir Hellsing's, of course."

Biting back a snarl of frustration, she took in a deep breath, instantly regretted it, and went into a brief coughing fit as she fought to spit the vile taste out of her mouth. Ugh! That was disgusting.

"Miss Victoria?" To the butler's credit, he did sound concerned. She sighed and brought the phone back to her ear, "Are you going to do something about … him?" She didn't care that he could hear her, and was just about to kick the damn thing open right into his face if Walter said no.

"I'll see what I can do, Miss Victoria."

Well, that was very helpful. Growling, she flipped the top sut without bothering to say 'thanks' or even 'goodbye', and stormed up the the door, unlocking it and throwing it open in one swift motion to find… nothing.

Feeling oddly cheated, she sulked her way back to the van, giving a weak smile to her driving companions before curling up in back with a blanket thrown over her head.

"Bad call?"

"You could say that."

"Bummer."

A few hours later found Seras spending her last quid on another bottle of fruit juice. She'd explained to her friends that she was trying an experimental liquid diet, and they'd hummed in agreement that it sounded interesting.

Since she was only buying juice – the blood of fruit was a pretty close substitute but didn't really last long in her system – she headed back to the van first to wait on her companions, two of whom needed to use the microwave.

…He was there again. Skirting around him, as though she hadn't noticed, she claimed her spot in the back and stubbornly opened her bottle for a swig, steadfastly refusing to look his way.

The other girls returned to the van, passing by Alucard as they did so. Even though the driver passed close enough that the edge of her shoe nearly caught his coat, none of them seemed to notice the creepy, crimson-clad man watching their van intently. Seras wondered if he was just making himself visible to her, or—hopefully he really was there, and not just a figment of her imagination.

"Are we all ready?" The one in the passenger seat asked, turning to smile at Seras. She nodded and the girls pulled out a map, looking intently at it. The driver ran her finger along a highlighted path, chewing her lip. "Looks like the next stop is Cheddar, innit?" the passenger said redundantly as the driver's fingernail tapped a town on the route.

"Ch-Cheddar?!" Seras squeaked, inwardly slapping herself for sounding so frightened. The girls turned as one to look at her with puzzled expressions.

"You alright?" the driver asked uneasily. Seras forced a cheerful grin on her face as her hand reached for the door handle.

"I-um-" She thought up a quick excuse. "I've got bad memories of that town. Ex-boyfriend," she said in a low tone. The girl in the passenger seat nodded knowingly. "I'll just get out here and head down the other road, no big."

"You sure?" the driver asked, a small frown on her face. "We can drop you outside the city limits if you don't want to go in."

"No, no, it's fine," she assured them, trying to sound 'normal'. "I'll just get out here. Thanks for carrying me this far; I really owe you one." The girls nodded again and waved as she left the van, calling out their goodbyes from the windows as they sped away on the road that led north to the highway, a trail of dust climbing behind them. She waved back until they were a speck on the horizon, and then turned on her heel and stalked back across the (nearly) deserted parking lot, adjusting her pack.

She stopped next to Alucard, peering intently up at him. He hadn't moved so much as an inch…. Her hand reached out for him as though it had a mind of its own, hesitating once and then boldly pressing over the spot where his heart would be. Flesh and blood… it's not a figment of my imagination. She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not.

"Why don't you just go home?!" she snapped at him, withdrawing her hand and heading for the smaller road that led east. Only his head followed her as she hopped off the curb and walked steadily onward, her stride confident and head held high. She could still do this. She could make it on her own, even if she had to walk for the rest of eternity.

Why don't you? The words caught her off guard and her head jerked quickly to look back over her shoulder, but the parking lot was truly deserted now. The only movement was the flash of the 'open' sign and the wild fluttering of a plastic bag caught on a branch.