A Shade of Blood

by Bella Forrest

At the very center of the room was a round stage which served as “the stand” for whomever was addressing the council or being placed under trial.

  On either side of the stand and facing the balcony were twenty seats that included one representative for each of the Elite’s vampire clans. Above and surrounding the council seats were seventy-five seats arranged in an amphitheater-styled setting reserved for the Elite. Rarely was anyone who wasn’t a member of the Elite brought to the Great Dome – unless to stand trial.

  When I first paid the dome a visit, it was easy to see that it had rarely been used over the years, which left a lot to be said about how the kingdom was being run in my absence.

  I tasked Vivienne with the responsibility of modernizing the dome, since with all the changes I planned to execute in the kingdom, we were going to use the place a lot more. Given her keen eye for design and knack for getting things done, it took her five and a half days to accomplish the task.

  It was the same basic structure, but brought right into the twenty-first century, with flat screen monitors, and updated sound equipment. She completely refurnished the room – the ancient-looking thrones were replaced with comfortable recliners that still looked elegant and regal. Arguably the best alteration to the hall, however, was replacing the staccato roof with clear glass, so that the moon and stars always shone down on the hall.

  After almost “murdering” the majority of the Elite Council, as Cameron so aptly put it, I found myself comfortably perched on my recliner on the balcony, staring up at the dark sky. I was waiting for the council to show up, so we could discuss the results of the census.

  Eli was placed in charge of the census and since he was still trying to recover from the physical ordeal I put him through, he requested that we postpone the meeting for an hour. The request initially irritated me, but I figured he deserved the break. Not knowing what to do with my time, however, and not really up to spending it at my penthouse, dodging questions from the girls, I decided to go to the dome ahead of everyone else.

  I’d only been there for a couple of minutes when Vivienne showed up.

  “Derek.” She said my name flatly.

  That almost always translated into trouble. “You did a great job with this place, Vivienne.”

  “Yes. You’ve told me several times.” She climbed her way up to the balcony, right up to my level.

  One look into her eyes was enough to tell me that we were in trouble. I could have sworn I saw a dark gray haze stirring right at the center of her pupils. Deeply bothered, I stood up and brushed a hand over her shoulder.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  She looked up at the night sky. The last time I saw that same fear in her eyes was centuries ago after the victory of First Blood. I followed her gaze, hoping to see what it was that she was so afraid of. All I saw was hundreds of stars illuminating the beautiful night sky.

  Vivienne uttered four words that immediately triggered a flood of haunting images the moment they escaped her lips. The hundred years that led to the establishment of The Shade revisited me in wave after wave of deeply buried memories – the shipwreck, the lighthouse, the caves, First Blood, the slaves, the wall, the beasts, the uprising, the massacre, the spell and finally, sanctuary. I could hear the screams of the dead crying out from the very foundations upon which The Shade was built. The deafening sound was followed by the guilt I would never in a thousand lifetimes be able to escape.

  I shifted my gaze from the vast heavens back to the storms raging behind my sister’s whirling eyes. It was only then I realized that when she said those four words, summoning the ghosts of my past to come back and haunt me, she was no longer looking at the sky.

  She was looking straight at me.

  Her words?

  “The darkness is coming.”

  Chapter 15: Sofia

  The darkness is coming.

  The words from my recurring nightmares kept echoing in my ears. Eerie and ghost-like, haunting me wherever I went. I had no idea whose voice the words belonged to, but I knew that it had something to do with The Shade, something to do with Derek.

  I was sitting cross-legged on one of the cushioned seats inside our school library. My elbows were leaning over the dark mahogany table. My fingers drummed over the book I was trying – and failing – to comprehend. Apart from the librarian shuffling her feet over the carpeted floor and the rustling of a page being turned by one of the students a couple of tables away from me, the library was quiet.

  I used to love the silence. It was once my refuge. That small corner of our school library was perhaps the only thing I missed about our school. It was my retreat. That afternoon, however, the silence only gave way to the voices that belonged to the dreams haunting me on a nightly basis.

  The curve that formed on my lips was bitter and spiteful. What a joke. Darkness can’t possibly come to The Shade. The Shade is darkness. The idea shook me. I had no idea what the nightmares meant or whom or what the darkness was headed for. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to forget.

  Of course, that was impossible, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend.

  “I knew I’d find you here.” Ben pulled a up a seat next to me. He flipped it so that its backrest was leaning on the edge of the table before he straddled it and flashed me a smile.

  I tried to smile back, but it seemed I failed miserably at it, because I heard concern in his voice when he asked, “What’s wrong? You alright?”

  “Yeah. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at football practice?”

  “I’ll catch up. I just wanted to tell you that Patrick confirmed that we can resume our martial arts lessons on Friday afternoons next week, so we’re headed for the gym then. Don’t make any plans.”

  “Okay … Tanya coming?”

  Rumors were that Ben was back together with Tanya, the gorgeous blonde cheerleader.

  “No. I just broke it off with her.”

  I searched myself for a reaction. Glee perhaps? Nothing. “How did she take that?”

  “She’ll survive.”

  I stared at the book in front of me. Orwell’s 1984. I felt a lot like the characters in the book… following a routine set out by someone else. It’d been several weeks since Ben and I returned to high school. We were beginning to fall back into old patterns of normalcy. He was once again the school quarterback, the amazing golden boy, popular and beloved. I was once again his best friend for reasons no one but Ben understood.

  However, I could tell that something shifted in the dynamic of our relationship. I used to be so dependent on Ben, it was borderline pathetic. I was practically his shadow. I loved being around him and I resented seeing him with other girls – Tanya Wilson included. Now, hearing about his forays into high school flings and relationships, it just made me feel disconnected.

  If there was one thing that I was certain The Shade changed about me; it made me independent of Ben. I loved him. He was still my best friend after all, but I no longer needed him, no longer pined for him. I could actually imagine a life without him. I found the realization both fearful and empowering.

  “What are those?” Ben pointed at several pieces of paper I had scattered over the library table. He didn’t wait for a response and grabbed one of the papers. “College application forms? Harvard?”

  I shrugged. “I was thinking of becoming a lawyer. You know that.”

  “So you’re actually considering going to college?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Why wouldn’t I? What else would I do? That’s what we’re doing here, aren’t we? Trying to return to normal? That’s where all this leads, Ben. We graduate. We go to college.”

  My statements were received with silence.

  “You won’t get that football scholarship if you don’t go to practice.” I grabbed my bag, which I left on the floor beside me and took out a pen. I pulled one of the college application forms and began filling it out. Take a hint, Ben. Go away.

  Ben grabbed the form I was wri
ting on, crumpled it and tossed it on the table. “Eliza gave me a name and a number… She was the girl…”

  “I know who she is,” I interrupted. Just the mention of the name made me feel guilty. I knew it escaped reason, but I felt like an accessory to a crime that Derek committed. “What name? What number?”

  “The hunters. It’s a contact person… His name’s Reuben. I think he’s my… our… ticket in.”

  I sat up straight, threw the pen I was holding over the table and slammed my book shut. “You can’t be serious, Ben. You’re saying you’re going to join them?”

  “No. I’m saying we’re going to join them. How else will I exact revenge on The Shade, Sofia? It’s not like I can crawl back to the police and change our story.”

  “Where is this coming from, Ben? We’d barely spoken about the island…”

  “Not speaking about it doesn’t mean neither of us is thinking about it. We get nightmares every single night, Sofia… Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about that place.”

  “Of course I have, but I thought…”

  “…but you thought what? We’d just move on? Come on, Sofia… High school? College? I think we’ve been so good at pretending to be normal that you got yourself convinced that we’re actually normal. The Shade stole that from us and they’ve stolen it from countless others. They have to pay.”

  I shut my eyes, hoping that if I did, everything else would shut down right along with it. “Ben, believe me when I say that I’d thought about exposing the island so many times while I was there, but…”

  “But what?”

  The last time we talked about exacting revenge on The Shade was that first night we got back from Mexico. I thought about it from time to time, but I couldn’t swallow the idea of being a hunter, of living a life devoted to vengeance.

  “I don’t think I can live that way, Ben.”

  “So what? We’re just going to keep this up? Pretend that nothing happened? Go on with life as usual? What about the people you left at The Shade? Ashley, Paige, Rosa… What about Gwen, Sofia?”

  At that, I stood up. My knuckles were white from the way I was clutching the edges of the table. “Don’t go there, Ben. Not a day has gone by since we left that they haven’t crossed my mind.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time to stop thinking about them and actually start doing something about it. How can you not see that this is the only way?”

  “I can’t bring myself to accept that it’s the only way. I do not want to spend my life killing vampires. There’s got to be a better way… one that doesn’t involve as much bloodshed…”

  His shoulders straightened as he held his head high. His blue eyes showed his disappointment in me, his disapproval. “How can you be so naïve?”

  At his question, a slew of memories began to flood my mind. Derek and Vivienne embracing after centuries of being apart… Derek playing fascinating harmonies on his grand piano... His decision to allow us to escape… His laughter, his embrace, his patience trying to train us girls in combat… the delight in his eyes when I showed him the Sun Room… how much he seemed to crave light…

  Perhaps it was just me clinging to this hope that I wasn’t wrong about him. I wanted to believe that I saw goodness in Derek Novak, and if the prince and savior of The Shade could still be capable of goodness, then perhaps there was still hope yet… for him and the other vampires…

  Or perhaps Ben was right. How could I be so naïve?

  Chapter 16: Ben

  I couldn’t understand the way her mind worked. I sat across her, waiting for her to explain her own naïveté, but she remained silent as she sat back in her chair, a pensive expression on her green eyes as she brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face.

  I caught my breath at how beautiful she looked. My best friend’s appearance was something that I was never oblivious to. She was Rose Red come to life. The auburn hair, the pale white, pinkish complexion, the hourglass figure, those legs that went on for days… I’d have to be blind not to see how lovely she was. I knew she’d grow up to become a stunner from the moment I first laid eyes on her. That was the day her father left her at our house and never again returned.

  What a damn fool he was.

  He was just as unaware of her as she seemed to be of herself. Sofia grew up without giving much thought to the effect she had on people. She didn’t notice the way men looked at her whenever we were out. It was part of her appeal.

  That and the fact that she was mine.

  It helped that I was the only person she ever truly let in. She liked keeping to herself, her fear of becoming like her mother and her insecurity after being abandoned by her father always looming over her. It made it easy for me to keep her to myself. The guys in school knew that she was off limits. I think even the girls I dated knew that they were flings and that Sofia was the one. It was never spoken out loud, but we belonged together.

  My security in that idea was my undoing, because during the time we spent at The Shade, it seemed she let someone else in – Derek Novak. I never could’ve seen that coming. No one was ever able to penetrate her walls, but it seemed like he did. He managed to get through to her and I couldn’t understand how.

  All I knew as I sat across that table from her in the library, was that I was losing her by the minute. You never know what you got until it’s gone, Ben. You treated her like crap and now, you’re scrambling to fix things with her.

  “I’m not trying to pressure you, Sofia…” I began to say.

  “Really? That’s exactly what it feels like.”

  I wasn’t used to her being so assertive around me. She normally always heard me out – yet another thing that changed about her since we left The Shade.

  “I can’t take this.” I got up from my seat. “I’ll see you after practice.” Like I always did when forced into situations I had no idea how to handle, I ran.

  Had it been any other guy, I would’ve been happy for her, but this was Derek Novak. I watched him kill Eliza, drain her of every drop of blood in her body. No hesitation. No hint of shame. He preyed on her remorselessly. I didn’t care what he did or whether or not there was still any hope of good in him. He didn’t deserve my best friend. Sofia deserved far better than him.

  And yet, it felt as if I were losing her to him.

  As I sped through the corridors of our school, weaving past people waving at me and calling my name on my way to the football team’s locker room, anger began to consume me as I thought of what I lost at The Shade. The island took everything away from me. I had to break it off with Tanya, because I couldn’t even make out with her without thinking about Claudia. Even if I could, I doubt I would’ve even felt much of it. I barely had a sense of touch after what that vampire wench put me through.

  By the time I reached the locker room, I was raging mad. Sofia and I were pretending that we could gain back what we lost. That was a lie. There was no going back to the life we had. Why can’t you see that, Sofia?

  “Hey, man. Coach has been looking for you,” Connor, one of the guys in the team, approached. “You okay?”

  I brushed past him and went straight to my locker.

  “Ben!” another one of the guys hollered as I dialed my combination. “Heard you broke it off with Tanya. You don’t mind if I start hitting on her, do you?”

  I grunted in response as I pulled my locker open.

  “Whatever. We all know he doesn’t give a hoot about Tanya, dude. I think he’s finally ready to move on to Rose Red. So Hudson…” Jed, one of the biggest guys on the team, leaned against the locker next to mine. “Are you finally going to man up and tap Sofia like you always planned on doing?”

  The hollers and crude jokes that began to fill the room rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t know why it all got to me. Jokes about me not going after Sofia were standard fare inside the boys’ locker room. This time, however, it just grated on my nerves.

  As if I was not irritated enough already, Jed prattled on. “I hope Ros
e Red’s worth your wait, Ben, but just one look at her… and you got to believe she’ll make a good lay.”

  I began seeing red. I ground my teeth in a failed attempt to maintain self-control, but it was a lost cause. I slammed my locker door shut and faced Jed. “Don’t talk about her that way.” He didn’t see it coming but Jed’s face quickly got a violent introduction to my fist. Connor tried to intervene, so I punched him too.

  They came at me and I didn’t care if they were attacking me or simply trying to hold me back. I fought back, fully aware that it wasn’t really the guys on the team I was fighting. Every time I threw a hit, it was at Claudia, at Derek and at every other bloodsucker at The Shade. I was hitting them back for taking everything I held dear away from me.

  By the end of the whole bout, I was bruised and bloody, and though I was burning up with anger inside, keenly aware of the pain and the desire for vengeance taking hold of me, my body was as numb as my soul was aware.

  No matter how I got beat and cut up, my body could barely feel a thing.

  Chapter 17: Sofia

  “Sofia?”

  Still in the library, I looked up to find one of the people I least expected to find there – the football team’s linebacker, Connor James. The first thing I immediately took notice of in the tall, dark senior was the fresh new shiner on his right cheek.

  “Hey…” I muttered, not quite sure what to make of him approaching me. “What happened to you?” I pointed to his assaulted cheek with my pen. I was absent-mindedly fiddling with it while I read the same paragraph in my book for the fifteenth time.

  “This? It’s nothing.” He looked almost timid, a reaction I found strange. He was usually one of the loudest, most outgoing guys in our class.

  Is he blushing? I was beginning to find the encounter uncomfortable. Connor had barely spoken a word to me before. “Aren’t you supposed to be at football practice with Ben? Did something happen?”

  He twisted his body to one side, the expression on his face showing his discomfort. “That’s kind of why I’m here… We had this epic battle at the locker room… Well, Ben’s at the clinic. He got banged up pretty bad. Thought you might want to know.”