When Darkness Falls, page 3
Because I'm sure if you ask any other vampire, they'll tell you the same thing: this was not and is not the life they would have chosen for themselves. Who wants to walk around all times of night and morning awake and not able to fully sleep. Who wants to not die and feed off human blood? Not only human blood, but any blood my hands would grasp, I used. Whatever means of feeding, I used.
I had never once sacrificed my own kind, my own bloodline as means of satisfying my cravings, though. So, I wasn't that much of a savage. That much.
The stench of fresh blood met my nostrils, and I almost threw up, heaving up not only her blood but the blood of what I had consumed prior to feeding from her. I closed my eyes as the room spun around me. I clutched the back of my neck, as signs of tension began to set in. I needed to get this under control, needed to get myself under control. Before I started down a descent that I wasn't so sure I would enjoy.
The whirls, wispy red locks that were her hair was in patches all over the carpeted floor. The blood is still soaking in. Her eyes were wide open, and the bite mark on the left side of her neck was still fresh. Blood dotted her skin, then spilled out in a slow stream downward, mingling with the rest of her blood. The stench hit me again, and this time, the bile rose within my chest, up past my throat and outward, even through my nose. It burned like hell, like no glass of whiskey or shot of vodka had ever done to me while I was human.
I kept heaving, releasing chunk after chunk.
Stream after stream of blood fell onto the floor; over her still twitching body.
Once my body cooled off, I stared at her again. I closed my eyes. I opened mine once more, her blue irises staring into mine. Even though her eyes were lifeless, they still spoke to me.
Why? They said.
Why me? How could you do this to me? I didn't deserve this.
Even still, as I turned to leave her home and flee, they said something else in a soft whisper that almost caused me to fall flat on my face.
Your next kill will be the end of you, because of what you've just done to me.
In the stillness of night, I cried. I cried for the longest while, as my hands shook. The air was cold against my face, biting, nipping my flesh. Tiny shards pin-pricks that caused me to slap myself, pull my scarf tighter around me. I was done for the night. Done killing. Done trying.
That redhead I had just killed.... Her warning within her eyes had shaken me to the point where I almost believed her. Believed her soul so much. She couldn't have been serious, but anything was possible where I was from. Spirits lingered, and did damage all of the time. That wasn't anything new. So, in my depths of me, I would remain on high alert...
In case what she warned did come true one day.
I pushed the large oak doors of the mansion open, running my hands over the back of my neck, squeezing. I knew no one would be home, and wasn't expecting my brothers or my parents to be home. They probably were off hunting and killing, like they always did around this time of morning. I stared at the large, Grandfather clock to the left of the entryway of our home.
Seven in the morning, Friday.
I didn't care for time, as it passed me by more often than not. I only cared about feeding and living.
That was the motto of my family: feed to live, don't live to feed.
I almost had lost myself, broken that rule, and shamed my family name.
We Belmonte's were not a family to be messed with.
I'm simply happy many brothers had a tighter rein on their hunger than I did. Especially since the winter was setting in now, and the air was much cleaner. Snow fell from my boots, along the hardwood floor, and I kicked them off, placing them beside the coat rack. I stripped out of my clothes at once, not caring who would come in, if anyone.
I made my way up the winding, rothiron stairwell to the third floor of our mansion, finding my room. I made my way into the bathroom, turning on the shower.
I waited for the steam to rise and the room to become fogged, before I stepped in. Once the first stream of water hit my face, I knew I would be in there for a while.
I needed to watch all the blood from not only my hands and body- but my soul, too. I needed to forget her... and her... and everyone I had ever killed in my short one thousand years of being like this. Being a vampire. I needed to forget her eyes.
The smell of coffee and fresh cloves caused my eyes to open the next morning. I knew my sister Lily was home, at least. She always brewed fresh coffee with cinnamon and cloves before running off to Heaven-knows-where for the day. My father would be there as well, sitting at the table with a blueberry scone in his hand, and a bag of blood in front of him. The phone would be ringing any second now, and I pulled myself out of bed, stepping into my gray sweatpants, sliding a black T-shirt over my torso.
If anything, I was a bit curious about what my Uncle Jackson, my father's younger brother living in Maine, had to tell him now. What news he had to share. What new sightings of strange killings he noticed in the quiet town where he and my Aunt Patricia lived.
The word was changing around me, quicker than I could blink. My body felt it. My soul felt it, too. That was the worst part.
Ask any human that you encountered how old I was, and the answer was always the same.
Dean's eighteen.
Sure, in human years, I was eighteen, but try and tell that to my soul. In the deepest depths of my soul, I didn't feel anywhere near eighteen; near the lie I told almost every time someone asked me how old I was.
".... There's been heat here. Smothering heat. Heat that we've never experienced before."
I caught my uncle's voice long before I made it downstairs good. As expected, once I entered the kitchen, Lily was running out of the door so fast that I didn't even have time to hug her like I usually do. I will contact her later. She knew that the lines of communication would always be open no matter where we were. My father was pacing the kitchen, his brown knitted.
I watched him for a moment as he clutched the phone tighter against his right cheek, whispering into the small microphone, not even acknowledging my presence. He did that when he was heavily engrossed in communication with Uncle Jackon, probably because they spoke so exceedingly rare. It was so inconsistent, that we all had started to worry when they hadn't spoken at least twice a week.
He ended the call shortly, turning around, patting me on the back.
"Mornin' sport," he spoke; his voice was gruff and worried all at the same time.
There was that look of longing in his eyes I knew so well.
He needed to feed.
Right. Now.
"Drink, Dad," I commanded, walking over to the table, snatching the bag of blood, thrusting it into his hands.
"I..." he started, but I placed my hands on his shoulders, leveling my gaze with his.
His bright hazel eyes were so dim. That scared me. If he was falling to pieces about the state of our coven, as well as our race in general, that wasn't good. I needed him to be strong, not only for me, Mom, and Camille. I need him to be strong for himself.
I watched him drink, so fast it scared me.
He coughed, spilling some on his yellow shirt. I put my hands on his shoulders again, my browns knitting together.
"Dad?"
My voice was sharp, higher than usual.
He didn't say anything for a long while. He finished drinking, and from the way his skin color turned from creamy to alabaster, I could tell he was feeling better.
"Better?"
He smiled at me, nodding over to the table where he had been sitting moments ago.
Picking up a fresh, blueberry scone from the basket in front of us, I grabbed the butter, too, and a knife. Looking him in the eyes, I watched him, trying to see if he would let me inside his mind for just a few moments.
When he didn't, I bit down on the scone and chewed, savoring the flaky, buttery goodness. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and drank from the glass of milk that sat next to me. He must have known I had been on my way down.
Dad and his super-bionic hearing.
"Ready to tell me what's really going on?"
He sighed, raking a hand through his short, brown hair.
MONA
To say I hated Sinclair would be an understatement. I didn't hate her for the sake of hating her. I hated her because she had this quality, this thing, this... state of being that made it so easy for everyone to love her, even when she was being the crappiest person at the moment. They still loved her. And the fact that Brandon had eyes for her best friend worried me. Because he was supposed to be with me. He was supposed to be mine. We were supposed to be the 'it' couple Itand run that damn place; not Brandon and Katherine.
That bugged me, too.
Even the guy I wanted didn't want me. He wanted someone else, and that got under my skin, too. It didn't just make me angry; it made every cell of my being boil with hot lava, so intense that once I saw Sinclair, it was all I could do. All I knew to do was attack her.
Even that ended up miserably for me. Because I was the one who ended up in the hospital and on suspension for two weeks, while she ended up with a few scrapes, bruises, and had to get stitches.
That girl broke my nose in two places. I guess it happened when I yanked a chunk of her pretty, brown hair from her head. I think she might have bitten me at one point. Or maybe I bit her.
Who knows.
Because I was sitting in my room, my fingers dancing along two large bite marks along both of my wrists, and not knowing who put it there was annoying.
Everything was a blur. After the morning I woke up and that bite wouldn’t go away… I hid away. Not out of fear but because I didn’t want to deal with her. Or the drama that followed her. Or anyone, for that matter.
“Mona?”
I blinked, wanting to shrink away inside myself because I clearly had to be dreaming. There was no reason for a redhead… gigantic… thing to be standing near the foot of my bed.
“Wha-….” I started to speak, but my throat closed.
“My name is Alexander, and I’ve been sent by The Most High to kill you.”
After I heard the word kill, I knew I was done for. I just prayed that my death would be quick. Everything seemed to flash before my eyes the second this Alexander angel… or whatever he was… took out a flaming sword from behind him.
How mean I had been to Sinclair. Maybe that was the reason he was in my room… seconds away from killing me. He knew all the evil I had done and was commanded to take my life. Fitting, considering all the other people I had hurt along the way.
My parents.
My Non and Papu.
My closest girlfriends.
Everyone I deemed close to me… I was ruined.
And now this red head, giant warrior angel is here to ruin me.
Raising the sword high above me, he swung. My eyes closed. My body twitched. Then, I felt nothing but warmth against my body.
Fire.
Warmth.
Heat.
Cracking one eyelid open, I cautiously looked around. Alexander was staring at me; the sword was not moving.
My throat loosened up, began tingling, then all I felt was ice. So much ice.
“I wanted to kill you with my sword, but decided you deserved another way. A colder way.” His voice was heavy, final.
The sword vanished, as the coldness spread to my fingers…then my hands.
So, I was minutes away from freezing to death?
Classy.
I blinked, wriggling in the bed. Somehow, I didn’t have control over my own limbs, either. If I could scream, I doubt anyone would have come to my rescue.
“Die beautifully, Mona. I wish I could look at my handiwork, but I must go,” Alexander spoke, before casting my room into more freezing temperatures. I could only watch him step out of my window and fly high into the sky, as everything in my room became encased in ice.
I knew I was next to become frozen.
ALEXANDER
The moment I landed on a cloud outside of Heaven’s gates, I knew It would be waiting. He would be waiting for me and my report on Mona.
“Well? Is it done?” The Almighty’s voice ripped straight through me, making my body convulse.
I would never get used to that; how we responded to It.
My head bowed, and my body collapsed to the ground. A chuckle filled the atmosphere surrounding us; as quickly as I collapsed, my body was lifted into the air.
“Sorry about that, Alexander…”
“Yes, Father. I finished the task requested. Now, what next?”
“You need to speak to Ephraim.”
The inner workings of my mind could not comprehend why I needed to speak with him. It was easy for him to get back to her.
“You have feelings for her, Alexander. I see it. Everyone sees it. If Ephraim feels the same, one must be her choice.”
“And since she can’t choose….” I started.
“She can choose, Alexander. You and Ephraim must decide for yourselves. Who loves her more- you or him?”
I shook my head, running my hand over the front of my neck, exhaling.
“How would we solve this?”
It chuckled again. “I’ve given you free will, have I not? That’s for you both to decide.”
I felt her presence somewhere near, and I met her gaze. Without even speaking, I could tell she was happy to see me. So, I went to Sinclair; gathered her in my arms, and melted into her warm embrace.
I didn’t want to think about confronting Ephraim for her affections- her heart.
But I knew the time would come. I knew I would have to.
SINCLAIR
Even though the cold was biting my skin, I could not stop thinking about Ephraim.
I wish I wasn't though. That was a lie. I wished I had kissed him sooner, wished I have mustered up the courage to approach him sooner than that. But that didn't matter now, What matter was that it happened. I had kissed him; he hadn't kissed me. The girl in me felt a little bad about that, but the girl had grown tired of waiting around for him to say something or do something; for him to make the first move was tiring. I didn't want to wait anymore. The anticipation of that first kiss was something I couldn't stop thinking about until after it happened, and hours after it had, my lips still tingled at the memory.
Even as I walked to school in the snow, opting to use the band room as practice for clarinet, when I didn't want to be at home, I still remembered his lips on mine. The warmth. The slight wetness. The melding together. The fierceness of how our tongues danced along with each other's.
How in sync it was. How in sync we were. That terrified me more than anything. I wondered what he was thinking, but not as much as I wondered what I was going to do next. Usually, I withdrew, I shut down after something took me out of my comfort zone. Mainly because I didn't know what to say or how to respond. The other part of me wanted to meet up with him.
But chasing guys wasn't my thing, and I wasn't about to start with Ephraim. Even if, in my opinion, he was the finest boy at my jacked up high school. I didn't want him thinking I was like Mona or the rest of her crew. Fast and easy. I had kissed him, and nothing had come from it. Yet. I should have just let it go.
I closed my eyes, as I watched into the band room. I felt the slick floor underneath my tennis shoes, and I almost slipped. Gripping the door, I steadied myself, as I sat down in the nearest chair, mentally preparing myself but closing my eyes.
I need to block him out, ready myself for what I was about to do.
But every time I closed my eyes, I saw him.
Felt him.
Heard him.
He was everywhere, and as I picked up my clarinet, wetting my mouth ever so slightly, my tongue gliding across the edge of my bottom lip, I knew that was a lost cause.
I played my heart out, until the breath I exhaled hurt. I played until my fingers were so numb I had to will myself to stop. The strains of the music filled me, and not just my ears, but my entire being. They filled me, relaxing me to the point where all I wanted to do, all I needed to do to escape whatever was about to come my way, was close my eyes and drift off into a deep sleep.
I managed to pack up my clarinet, before sleep claimed me in a way that I couldn’t resist.
Some running water from somewhere guided me from my bedroom, out of the comfort from underneath the sheets, into the hallway of the second floor of the home I shared with my parents. The home I had lived in for ages and had come to know better than that back of my own hand. I loved the house, with its history written on the walls in such beautiful, inked calligraphy. I had come to find comfort in the large library on the third floor; it was my home away from home.
Beyond the dark shadows that now danced along the hallway walls, I followed them. The sound of someone laughing- a little boy, I gathered- caused me to keep my feet moving. As I wandered along, my eyes opened.
Lord, was I really sleep walking?
I hadn't done that in... I'd never done that. I'd heard horror stories all the time about sleep walkers who literally walked to their deaths. That kind of talk, that kind of lore made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up quick; so quick that I didn't know what to do.
"Home..."
A whisper filled the space where I was going. A candle illuminated the room where my feet stopped. The library. Why was I here? What was I doing here?
"Magic..." another whisper, which made me glance around the room.
"Is here..." the whisper finished, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.
I wandered over to the nearest table, picking up the book that sat there.
It was almost like I was having an out of body experience deep, like I had no control over my actions. The force of the pull that called my hands to wrap around the book, open it, and flip to an empty page was so strong, I wanted to scream.
So why didn't I? Why didn't I yell and try to wake myself up?
I glanced around once more, before glancing down at the book.
Written in blood were three words: Save me, Sinclair.
