23: Guilt

**Jasmine**

I caught the first whiff of it the moment I passed Mrs Keane's door.
*Blood*.
But not just anyone's blood-*his*. It poured through every crevice of the door and stung my nostrils causing me to go into a wild state of panic. Immediately I banged on the door furiously.
"Mrs Keane? Mrs Keane, are you in there? Timmy?"
But there was no answer, and the smell of blood grew thicker in the air. In a wild frenzy I broke the door down, cracking through the wood and sending it tumbling down to the ground. The sight that met me was utterly horrific. Timmy lay on the floor, clothes covered in a thick coating of blood which was spilling from his side. But that was not the worst part. Andrew Walker towered over the unconscious boy, a smile glittering on his face and a bloodied knife in hand. I paled at the sight of it all and those familiar chills came rippling up and down my spine.
"What the fuck have you done!” I managed to seethe out, now running to the boy and clutching him in my arms.
"A present for you." He chuckled and walked away. I growled in anger and let go of Timmy, ready to rip this man apart. But he turned around, smiled, and swayed a finger side-to-side in the air.
"Uh uh uh, the boy wasn't stabbed any place important, but if you waste too much time, he'll die of blood loss. Tick-tock, tick-tock..."
With that he chuckled, before saying, "Let this be a warning to you and your friends, Vixen... from The Slaughterer right down to The Mercy Killer. I will slowly take everything from everyone who dares come near me." I almost stopped breathing. Not only did he know who I was, but he knew who *we* were.
I wanted to stop him from walking any further towards the door−no, I wanted to rip him apart, but he was right. If I did not tend to Timmy now, he would not be able to survive the blood loss. Immediately I ran to the bleeding boy's side and applied pressure onto his wound with one hand, and dialling 9-1-1, and then his mother with the other. His skin was so pale and cold that it had me frightened out of my mind, wondering if he could even survive this.
The ambulance arrived right before his mother did. She was hysterical, and despite me being in more or less the same position as her, I needed to be strong, and held her tightly before she left with her son to the hospital. And it was only after the red and blue lights of the ambulance and the crowd which had accumulated over the span of ten minutes, dissipated, that I began sobbing, allowing my body to sink onto the sidewalk. *It was all my fault*. If Timmy had not known me, he would have never even gotten hurt in the first place. Slowly the severe sadness in me turned into burning, hot, rage as I got up from the sidewalk I decided right then and there, that I would *kill* him. And so, I walked back inside, upstairs and to my apartment. However, before I could even unlock the door, Damon came running towards me, shock all over his face.
"Jasmine, is it true? Is Timmy alright?" I had never seen him so concerned for someone other than himself before. But I chose to ignore him and continued fiddling with my keys to open the door.
"Did you not hear me? I'm trying to talk to you Jasmine." And that was when the concern he once showed turned to anger at my lack of ability to actually care about his questions. He gripped my hand tightly, forcing the keys to drop to the ground. Finally, I snapped. My eyes were now raging red, my fangs were out, and I growled lowly. Of all the times Damon chose to be an asshole, this was definitely the worst. And so, in a quick, well executed motion, I stepped on his toes, breaking the bones through his shoes, and then kicked him hard in the crotch. He leaned over and howled in pain as he gripped his pants.
"You bi−” he wheezed this out, but I cut him off quickly, with a little smile.
"Bitch? No, I think you have it wrong, Mr Michaels." With that I grabbed the keys and unlocked my door. I grabbed some rope, my mask, a baseball cap for extra protection and finally, my gun, placing each item hastily into a black handbag."I'm a Vixen, Damon," I said exiting my door and beginning to walk towards the stairs.
"Where the fuck are you going?" he yelled, still holding at his crotch.
I stopped, turned and said with a sadistic smile, "I am going to do what I do best. I am going to punish the person responsible."

***

As soon as I arrived at the lavish apartment building wearing the baseball cap and the mask, I prepared to execute my plan.
"Hi ma'am I'm going to need your−"
But he was cut off when I shot both him, and the other security guard in the shoulder. They both fell to the ground, splattering blood all over the glass door to the entrance. It wouldn't be fatal, but it would definitely allow me to do my job. I broke through the glass door−a theatrical little touch on my part−causing major panic within the building. As soon as I entered, I pointed my gun up into the air, fired two warning shots and said, "I'm here for Mr Walker"−I then paused, looked at the frightened concierge, pointed my gun at her and said seething−"what's his room number?"
The poor woman gulped and said in a soft, shaky voice, "I'm a-afraid he has just moved out a few hours ago."
Clever little bastard.
I smirked and asked her for his keys and made her hold them up as I tried to pick up his scent from them. I needed the scent fresh in my nostrils if I was going to have any hope of tracking him now without wasting any time. Once I had memorised his particular stench, I turned around and shot two more shots up into the air, yelling out, "If anyone follows me out, or says anything to the cops, consider yourself dead and buried in a nameless grave." With that, I left abruptly, making sure no one was following me. As soon as I caught hold of the strongest remnants of his scent I smirked and ran to the nearest secluded area. The only place which seemed decent enough for me to quickly shift was an abandoned alley.
I dumped my bag behind a dumpster, making sure to carefully conceal it behind a few bags of garbage, and then stripped my clothes which I also tucked behind some garbage bags. I transformed quickly and painfully, still keeping his scent fresh in my nose. I chased it running through the streets, ignoring the scared humans who watched me roam around in terror. Luckily for them my focus was specifically on the pestering scent of a soon-to-be dead man in the air, and not on them. They were safe from my anger which was solely burning for Andrew. That bastard hurt Timmy, and now, he was going to pay severely for his actions.

By the time it had reached about midnight I was still no closer to finding Andrew Walker. He must have been in a car, and travelling extremely fast, because it was clear that not even my immense speed could keep up with him. But still, I fought and fought and fought to keep on going, trudging on through the dust in the dirt roads his scent had led me to. I had to; it was the only way to focus on something other than the guilt I was feeling. The burning pain scorching through my limbs, the aching at the back of my throat, the exhaustion plaguing my mind−it was all helping me forget that this was all my fault−no, our fault. That was, at least, what I kept telling myself. The pain and exhaustion, however, eventually became so extreme that my feet began to stagger, and stumble and my body burned in agony. In a matter of moments, I came tumbling to the ground, sending a large cloud of red dust into the air. I begged and begged with my body just to let me keep going for a few more steps, but it rejected all of my requests, shutting me up with dark, black dots tainting my vision. I couldn't fight them off, and slowly I felt myself go limp. Jared was right, in this line of work, you could not afford to love someone. I'd let my blinding compassion consume me, and now, poor, helpless Timmy was paying the consequence for it.
*Timmy*...
I wondered if he was okay, and slowly as I felt myself falling into the clutches of unconsciousness and felt myself slowly reverting back to my human form, I pictured his smiling face once more. I would avenge him. That was a promise.


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