Symptoms Of Blood Loss
"The symptoms of blood loss are:
Blood coming from an open wound
Bruising
Shock
Paleness
Clammy skin
Dizziness
Rapid pulse
Low blood pressure
Shortness of breath
Confusion
Weakness"
She's underneath a pile of corpses. She can't remember how she ended up there. She can hear her pulse -- the only pulse she hears -- loud and violent in her ears, throbbing fast and dizzy and chilled. She's cold. She's freezing, actually, and the bodies that surround her are slick with her cold sweat and their own blood.
It stinks of things that are not meant to be outside of the body -- or, at least, not released in the middle of a wine cellar while people are dying all around.
Although, she supposes, there couldn't be a more appropriate time.
Where is she, again? She's trapped, and her thighs are sore. She's stuck under something cold and wet and she's freezing and what happened and oh.
She remembers.
There were scarves. Silk and cashmere and thin fine gauze. Drusilla must have ventured upstairs before Angel -- no, she's definitely not going there right now -- because she had handfuls and was throwing them up into the air and catching them, laughing as they drifted over the still-groaning bodies on the floor.
One of them -- this thin pale white silk one with barely any weight to it at all -- is nearly entirely drenched in blood. She notices this because...
Because...
Another memory. Both of them leering above her, faces mangled, teeth sharp, grinning glances towards each other as Lindsey sobs in the background and they move closer and closer to her body, eyes glinting in the half-light. Drusilla laughs and holds her down, pressing on her neck, purring and stroking the skin and mumbling sweet nothings into her ear as her fingers press into her windpipe. And Darla --
Darla's blonde hair is spiralling out from her in waves. It's the only thing she can focus on because it's getting harder and harder to breathe and how did they know it was what she liked and Darla's hair is spread out all over her legs.
There's a tearing sound. She jumps, slightly, as she realizes it's her pantyhose.
Something wet is touching her thighs and oh god it's Darla's tongue and then there's pain and she hasn't felt anything so painful since she lost it when she was 13 and the pain rises and falls and she thinks Darla is doing something to her leg --
No, something else.
Because there's the pain -- oh God, the pain -- and there's the softness of Darla's shirt and she's rubbing against her and she can feel nipples poking out from the softness against her leg and oh Christ, Darla's enjoying this and the pain throbs into a rhythm and Drusilla's nails are poking into her neck and - - oh God -- God --
Gasp.
Breathe.
Focus.
Drusilla's hand -- her other hand, the one not clenched around her neck -- strokes her cheek, drawing little patterns with the tears. She croons and whispers and talks of what can only be prophecies, but she can't focus enough to record them to memory because it still fucking hurts.
"Black and fire at afternoon tea time and pretty girls in pretty bloody dresses and he's naked in your bed and laughing laughing laughing thrust and pull and moan and scream and he doesn't wear his glasses anymore, the silly boy, and you're just a blur..." Her tongue is on her cheek and Darla's tongue is on her panties and there was a white scarf
Darla wanted a souvenir.
She should have taken Lindsey.
Instead, she takes a scarf and drags it between her legs and pulls it just so. Drusilla's hand is still on her neck and the blood loss is starting to haze everything and she shouldn't have blood left to go down there, but there must be some left because -- God -- this shouldn't be happening.
None of this should be happening.
She hears Drusilla's giggles and she hears Darla's soft moans and -- no, those are her own moans and she can't stop making them -- and this is not happening this is not happening this is not happening...
But it is.
And Darla's scarf has more than blood as a souvenir.
White. Silk. Thin. Definitely over a grand.
Covered in her blood and covered in her come.
Darla holds it with a satisfied grin -- no, Darla's going over to Lindsey and making him lick it -- no, Darla's just holding it and Drusilla is kissing her and biting her lip -- no, both of them are killing the other survivors -- no, both of them are mixing wine with blood and drinking it from the neck and from the bottle -- no, focus, remember, focus.
Darla is kissing Lindsey's forehead and Drusilla is building a fortress of bodies around her and both of them stretch and smile like satisfied kittens, cats with cream, Darla still clutching the scarf and still smiling that smile. She can barely see from all the bodies around her -- cold, clammy, stinking bodies -- where she belongs, in the ground, with the dead, death would be a pleasure after this, but she does see this.
They are cats on the prowl. They slip across the room softly and beautifully.
And they open the doors.
She had sworn Angel had locked them when he -- no, no, No -- Angel had locked them, but he hadn't, and they had been unlocked the entire time.
She could've escaped.
She could've been free.
A dead hand lies between her thighs -- a woman's hand, with a ring, one of the admin girls, surely -- and it takes the last remaining shreds of willpower and strength and humanity...
She doesn't know when she'll be rescued. She doesn't know if she ever will.
It takes the last remaining shreds of her sanity to not rub up against it.