I had several ideas for what would happen after Glenn fights the bar full of vampires and before we go back to Jane, so I did what I usually do when unable to decide: I wrote each of the options and went with what I felt worked best afterward. I even labeled it like a Choose Your Own Adventure book in the draft. The following are the options I didn’t end up going with:
This first option assumes that Aster (in Jane’s body, of course) shows up to save Glenn from the vampires in the bar.
**If Aster saves Glenn instead, read on**
“Oh hey, you found my puppy!”
The world lurched sideways and suddenly Glenn was dropped. He clutched at his throat and coughed, sucking in air. Behind him, the bartender smashed against the wall, his head leaving a streak of blood.
“Sorry about all this mess; he’s not housetrained yet, I’m afraid.” The last word came out as a grunt as Aster, possessing Jane again, slammed a bootheel into the bartender’s jaw, crushing it against the wall. He let out a gurgling howl. She stomped him again, and again, blood splattering, until his head was pulp. Then, letting out a little, “Hm!” of satisfaction, she turned to the rest of the room with a broad, dangerous grin that was very un-Jane but very Aster. It looked obscene to Glenn.
Aster bent and grabbed the knife off the floor where Glenn had dropped it. “Anyone else want to dance?” she asked.
One of the vampires put his hands up. “I just came here for a drink, this is too much excitement for me,” he said, edging toward the stairwell. Aster cocked her head to the side, dismissing him. The rest just stared.
Aster shrugged. “Drinks are on me,” she said. She strolled up to the bar, retrieved an abandoned glass of blood, and downed it. She smacked her lips, brow furrowing. “It’s just not the same anymore,” she complained. She walked back over to where Glenn was struggling to his feet and shoved him down with a hand on his shoulder. “Sit. Good boy.”
“I’m not your dog,” Glenn rasped out, his throat still sore from his near-strangulation.
“No, you’re Janie’s, and she’s the only reason I’m here. She was so worried about you. You ran off and she knows you so well, she knew you’d be out here trying to get yourself killed. I was running down my list of blood oases and when I saw the door bashed in, well… didn’t take a genius.” Aster scratched her fingers through Glenn’s hair and he jerked away from her touch. “Yeah, not as satisfying without the nails,” she said, examining Jane’s clipped-short fingernails. “Pretty polish, though.”
Glenn hurled himself at Aster, and she knocked him aside easily. “Oh please, sweetie, you’re in no condition. Tell you what: we’ll tussle when you’re healed up, okay? Promise. It’s a date.” She winked and blew him a kiss. “Now come on, get lost before these people decide to find out what dog meat tastes like. Oh, and you might want this.” She flipped him the knife. He dodged and it clattered to the floor. “You’ll want to get the silver out before it poisons you too much.”
Glenn bent to retrieve the knife. “You fucking bitch,” he muttered. “You’re holed up in the one place I can’t touch you.”
Aster pouted. “Oh, don’t think of it that way. There’s no need for us to be enemies at all, darling. We can be one big happy threesome.”
Glenn spat. He looked her in the eyes. “Jane, are you in there? Are you letting her do this to you?”
Aster’s expression melted back into a more familiar one: Jane, in anguish. “I had to, Glenn. I didn’t know how to find you.”
“Aster isn’t your friend, Jane. She’s a monster, remember?”
Aster again, he could tell by the way the eyebrow quirked, how the corner of her mouth lifted. “Janie’s not the only one with a monster inside her, Puppy,” she said, glancing around the room at the carnage. “But hey, it isn’t all bad. Being a monster is kind of fun sometimes. Isn’t it?” She turned on her boot heel and strolled off, letting her hips sway like she was on a fashion show runway. She tossed off a casual wave without looking behind her and sauntered up the stairs.
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