Kindred

by J. A. Redmerski

  “Isaac! She’s in the room,” I say, pointing, “The Praverian. She’s behind you!”

  His face remains calm and poignant and when he doesn’t bother to turn and look, I know he’s aware of her presence already.

  My head snaps back to look only at Isaac for answers, but I keep Genna in my peripheral sight.

  “She’s here to help us,” Isaac says and my face squeezes into an unbelieving knot.

  “What?”

  Genna steps closer, the shimmering blackness of her hair draping over her shoulders like silk, her sparkling emerald-colored eyes brilliant as she pushes her way through the shadow. “He’s right,” she says but I don’t believe her. “I’ve been trying to help you all along.”

  I realize I’ve been shaking my head no, over and over, the closer she draws.

  “Helping me?” I demand, my face twisted into outraging distrust. “Every time I’ve blacked-out, you’ve been there! You’ve been feeding from me!”

  I pull my hand completely from Isaac and back myself against the head of the bed. The heart rate machine has reached ninety-six. Annoying little tubes dangle from both arms, preventing me from running out the door, but I’ll rip them out if I have to. I’ll rip them out.

  “Isaac, what’s going on?”

  “You said you trust me,” he says carefully, putting his hand up to stop Genna from coming any closer.

  “I do, but…,” I can hardly take my eyes off Genna for two seconds. “Why is she here and how can you see her?”

  “She’s allowing me to see her,” he says. “Please, Adria, just calm down and let us tell you.”

  Genna keeps her distance. She moves to the end of the bed near the mounted television. This room is identical to the one my mom was in. Everything from the placement of the television and the restroom to my right, to the off-white color of the walls and the color of the bedding.

  “Wait…how long have I….”

  I can’t do this anymore, sit here in a place I’m unsure of, unsure of what happened to put me here, unsure of how long I’ve been out and unsure if Genna had anything to do with it. I just can’t do this.

  Isaac reaches out for my hand again, waiting first perhaps to see if I’m going to push him away. But I can’t. I need him right now. He’s the only one in this room that I trust.

  He pulls my hand up and kisses my fingers, softly shutting his eyes for a moment.

  “You know I wouldn’t be here with her if even a fraction of me thought she might hurt you.”

  I look across the room at Genna, cautiously studying her, the way she stands near the wall with her dainty hands resting at her sides, the way the corners of her eyes are soft and thoughtful. I remember the day with her in the library, the way everything seemed so surreal as if Genna and I didn’t belong, but I’m not getting those strange feelings now.

  My heart rate begins to slow and I turn my attention back to Isaac who sits so close to me that I can smell the natural scent of his skin and feel the warmth coming off of his body.

  “I’m listening,” I say.

  Isaac breathes deeply and lets go of my hand, rising into a stand and pushing his hands down into his pockets.

  “Ten hours ago,” he begins, “I had been trying to call you; found out from Beverlee where you went after I couldn’t get you on the phone. I was on my way to the airport when I got a call from Nathan.” He glances briefly back at Genna. “He found Genna, and come to find out, talking her into not feeding from you wasn’t even an issue—.” Isaac stops abruptly, looking away from me and off toward the wall. I get the worst feeling from his sudden silence and the way his face reads, like he can’t bear to finish the sentence.

  Genna steps up then, nodding at Isaac with a look of understanding that I wish I could share and then she begins to speak.

  “While I was with Nathan and Isaac, explaining everything to them, Isaac’s phone rang and we all thought it was you. It was the hospital here in Georgia. Apparently, they called the last number you had dialed, trying to locate any of your family members. I hopped a plane with Isaac and here we are, your brother and sister, Genna and Isaac Lancaster.”

  I shake my head, confused.

  “That was my doing,” Genna says. “Right now you don’t need your real family knowing what’s happened to you. I manipulated the nurses taking care of you, to make them think you’re someone else and Isaac and I are the only family members they needed to contact.”

  “But why?” I’m desperate for swifter answers, but as usual I seem to be learning more and more and nothing makes sense to me.

  “Because what’s wrong with you isn’t something that any doctor can fix,” Genna says carefully. I’m looking right at her, but I don’t see her face as my mind is lost deeply in thought trying to piece these unfinished bits of information together to create something whole.

  I feel the bed move as Genna sits on the edge next to me. I look up quickly, letting my mind clear and I start to recoil, but she puts her hands up in a surrendering fashion. “I’m not going to touch you. I promise. At least not unless you start freaking out and I have to calm you down.”

  I don’t say anything. I just look at her, waiting for her to go on. Isaac is watching me, the pain and uncertainty in his eyes is unbearable to me, but I can’t go into that yet. I need these answers.

  “Wait…,” I say as I grasp a sudden realization, “if you haven’t been feeding from me then why have I been sick and blacking-out?”

  The silence in the room is making my heart beat faster.

  Genna takes a deep breath. “Because something else is causing it, Adria.”

  I swallow hard and look first into Isaac’s eyes, but I look away when I feel the guilt start to stab me in the heart over and over again. I wipe the first tear away and hold back the rest for now, but I know that any minute a storm of tears are going to barrel from my eyes. Isaac knows about the Blood Bond now. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.

  I wipe another tear away.

  And another.

  “I fed from you once,” Genna says. “It was months ago when you were so distraught over your sister’s betrayal. Your depression made you vulnerable to me, but when I took your essence that night, I felt something that I’ve never felt from a feeding before. I still don’t know what it was, but I knew I had to watch you. I sensed that you’re connected to us in some way.” Genna never takes her eyes off me and as her words both comfort and scare me at the same time, I can’t speak. I just listen. “Then one night, days after your time in Viktor’s prison, I tried to feed from you again when you were vulnerable again, to see if I could understand your connection to us, maybe get a glimpse into your purpose, but I saw nothing. It was what I tasted that opened my eyes to grief, that made me need to help you more than I needed to use you for my own curiosities.”

  I feel my lips beginning to tremble. I can’t look at Isaac now at all, but I sense that he’s unable to look at me, either.

  I stare down at my hands, which have been crushed into fists this whole time, as though Genna’s words are the highest and scariest rollercoaster ride and I’m not strapped in properly.

  “You already know….” Genna says softly, probably reading my mind.

  I look back at her and I start to say something until I realize I don’t know what it was that I was going to say. And then I finally look at Isaac and the tears start to stream. “Isaac…I am so sorry. I’m sorry I never told you.”

  His hands come out of his pockets and he moves over to me, a look of concern and of pain rests in his face.

  Genna moves from the bed to let him take her place and he leans toward me, his hands cupping my cheeks and he kisses my forehead first before pulling back and holding both of my hands, his thumbs pressed softly against my palms. “God…Adria, you have absolutely nothing to apologize to me for.” He’s choking back his own tears and while I’ve never seen him this grief-stricken before, I can’t get past my own grief and guilt and shame to tend to his.
“Why would you think this is your fault? Baby, it’s my fault. Only mine.”

  I shake my head no, tears burning the back of my throat. “Don’t do that,” I say, squeezing his hands now, “don’t try to take the blame and turn it around on you where it doesn’t belong, for my sake. Don’t do that!”

  He starts to speak, likely to defend his decision, but I stop him.

  “I should’ve told you about Viktor,” I say. “I never should’ve kept any of it from you. That he’s still alive because Aramei’s still alive…that I’m still alive.” I rupture with sobs, my whole body shuddering uncontrollably. “I should’ve told you what he did to me, Isaac!”

  He can’t speak at all. His face has become frozen, unable to blink as he stares at me with shock and confusion. I wait for it, for him to let go of my hands and rise from the bed so that he can leave me sitting here in a pool of guilt. But he doesn’t. He grips my hands tighter. I can’t read his face, but I’m crying too hard to be able. I can’t see through my own tears and I can’t wipe them away because he’s holding my hands so securely that I can’t lift them. “I’m so sorry…,” I say one last time, feeling my breath drain out of my lungs with heavy abandon.

  “No…no,” Isaac says, looking deeply into my eyes, “…Adria, Viktor didn’t do this to you…I did.”

  23

  I DON’T EVEN FEEL when my hands slip away from Isaac’s. I can’t hear my heartbeat, or hear my breath. The beeping machines next to my bed are muted. I see two pairs of eyes looking at me, but for what feels like an eternity, I can’t actually see either of their faces. It seems that the world has stopped spinning on its axis. Time has stopped altogether and the only thing left moving anywhere is my subconscious, churning inside this vulnerable shell that is my body.

  My gaze strays toward the bed and all that I can see are the patterns in the blanket, crisscrossing in and out of my vision.

  “I bonded you to me the night we were attacked by Sibyl in the car,” Isaac says, his voice straining and shuddering, but I still can’t look at him. “It was my fault…I…it was because of me that the car flipped with you inside. Because I couldn’t control my anger and my need to protect you. I couldn’t wait a few seconds to get out of the car first, before I transformed.” He’s struggling to speak; the further he goes the deeper he sinks into the long-awaited truth.

  And every word, every syllable, kills me that much more.

  I have forgotten how to speak at all.

  “A piece of metal,” he goes on, “from some part of the wreckage, it went into your side. After I wounded Sibyl and the other one who was with her, I shifted back into my human form and went over to you. There was blood everywhere…I thought you were already dead.” I sense him try to reach out to hold me, but absently, I refuse him. All I still see are the patterns in the blanket.

  “I fed you my blood,” he says, his voice trembling, “I couldn’t let you die…and I knew Viktor was coming. I was too weak to protect you from him. I couldn’t let—” He chokes down the emotions and I can tell he’s not looking at me now. “I knew he would be the one to do it. If I didn’t bond you to me…Viktor would have. It would’ve been the perfect opportunity for him. He wanted you all along, Adria…he would have done it if I hadn’t.”

  All that I can see right now is that night. Me flipping inside the car. The bloody snow. My vision going in and out in some horrific sequence of events that never made sense to me until now. The strange dreamlike state I was in. Alex and me running through the field. Her telling me to drink the water from the creek. I know now what it all meant, what my subconscious mind was trying to decipher in the form of a dream. It was really Isaac and me running through that field together. It wasn’t Alex who told me to drink from the creek. It was Isaac telling me to drink from him.

  And the bloody death of that horse…that was me. That was my humanity dying as Isaac’s blood coursed through my veins.

  I pull slowly out of my deep thoughts, letting the images fade from my mind.

  My eyes lock on his.

  “I want you to leave,” I say.

  His tortured face locks up with my words. I want to hold him, to let him hold me, but I can’t. Not this time.

  “I mean it,” I say softly, looking toward the window. “I want you to go.”

  I was wrong when I said it would hurt a thousand times worse whenever Isaac would disappoint or leave me.

  There is no measure to this pain.

  I can’t look Isaac in his eyes, but I feel them all over me, desperately trying to force my gaze up to see him. But I don’t look because it hurts too much. How could he have let me live like this for so long? How could he let me go through the transition and never let me drink from him?

  I refuse to look at him even though his face is the only thing I want to see.

  No one speaks. The room has become a permanent dwelling for silence and sorrow. Genna wants to speak, to say or do something to stop this from happening, but she doesn’t.

  Isaac looks at me one more time and finally I let his eyes capture mine, let them bore into me with one last plea even though his face is solid and holds no emotion itself. All of the emotion is in his eyes and it’s devastating to me to witness it.

  His gaze falls away and he walks out of the room.

  Many long and quiet seconds pass and I don’t look away from the place he last stood. Genna stays as quiet as before, letting me find myself from being lost in this moment.

  I wipe all of the tears from my face and look at her.

  “Help me get out of here,” I say and I don’t even wait for her to do anything as I reach up and pull the IV from my arm and then the one from the top of my hand. Blood pours from the perforations, soaking the hospital sheet beneath me in a thin, steady stream of crimson.

  Genna is at my side now, pressing a wash cloth over my skin to stop the bleeding.

  I climb out of the bed, feeling perfectly healthy and see my clothes sitting next to my purse and duffle bag in a chair, tied up in a plastic drawstring linen bag with the hospital’s logo printed on it.

  “Here,” Genna says, taking my arm into her hand, “to stop the bleeding.” She unwraps two Band-Aids and presses them firmly over the tiny bleeding holes.

  After slipping on my clothes, I hoist my bags over my shoulder and swing open the door and leave the room, too.

  ~~~

  I ride to my old house alone in the cab. I had left Genna standing at the front of the hospital. But I know she’ll find her way to me, whether I want her anywhere near me, or not. She isn’t human, after all. I doubt I could ever actually hide from someone like her.

  I get out of the cab in front of my old house. It’s early morning and the sun has yet to fully wake up, leaving the grassy landscape of the field and of the dirt road leading to the house in a haze of gray and orange and pink. The gravel and dirt grind under my shoes as I pass the mailboxes and walk along the weather-worn rusted fence. I see Mrs. Willis standing outside on her front porch, sweeping. She stops to watch me as my figure comes up the drive and when she notices who I am she raises her skeletal hand to wave at me.

  I just keep walking, pushing my way through the yard and up the drive until I make it to the front of the house. It hasn’t changed a bit. If anything, the dirty white paint has peeled away more and the rickety front steps look unsafe to walk on.

  I gaze out at the field that surrounds the house and see how much taller the yellow grass has gotten. And then I see the lone tree in the distance, still full of leaves on its strong crawling branches that twist around the top to create a dome of protection. It’s the king of the field, that tree. Somehow, I envy it. I stand here in front of the house looking out at how alive and free it is, at how no matter what goes on in the world around it, no one cares enough about that tree to disrupt its peaceful life. No one is going to march out there and cut it down, or force it into some sort of submission.

  I used to be like that. In a sense.

  I was once a girl
with a giant field around me, so vast and protective, yet insignificant to the rest of the world. No one could hurt me way out there. No one would bother to waste their time walking such a distance just to tear me down.

  I was untouchable.

  I couldn’t be hurt.

  But not anymore.

  I walk up the porch steps and drop my bags at the front door. Reaching out, I turn the knob and the door creaks open.

  The house smells the same: that familiar scent of baby powder air freshener that my mom liked so much, the cigarette smoke lingering in Jeff’s ashtrays, the gassy smell that always seeped from the old oven. The air is thick with heat as I make my way inside. The summertime temperature smothers any breezes that try to slip their way through any of the half-opened windows.

  I go through the living room and down the hall, feeling the old floors creak and sink in spots under my steps. I don’t go into Alex’s room. I decide to leave that alone entirely. I push open my bedroom door, having to shoulder it as something is on the other side blocking it. When I get the door to open enough, I twist around it at the waist to look inside. It’s no longer my room. I can’t even see my bed. There are boxes piled high against the walls with Trent written in Sharpie across the sides. Trent’s Shit. Trent’s Magazines. Trent’s Stuff – Keep Out.

  My step-brother is as much of a bastard as Jeff.

  I can’t tell if Trent actually lives here now, or if he’s just using my old room as a storage unit.

  I leave the door half-open and go back into the living room where Jeff’s empty beer cans are more obvious than my mom’s knick-knacks. The DVD cabinet has been left open; DVD’s lie scattered around on the stained rust-colored carpet. The old couch looks very much lived on; the outline of Jeff’s head against the arm is still there from years and years of falling asleep on it and spending more hours out of the day on it than doing anything else.