Blood Born

by Jamie Manning

  As I slowly leaned in, relishing in the strong scent of human blood, Chance’s large arms wrapped around me and squeezed as tight as possible. With a quick jerk, he and I sailed backward and off the girl. Without giving me a second to react, he pulled me tightly against him and half stood, half dragged us farther and farther away. After a few seconds— and several feet— the intensity of the bloodlust eased a bit, but didn’t fully subside. Sensing that, Chance didn’t let up. He held me close and tight as I struggled to break free. My body seemed out of my control. It clearly wanted to free itself from Chance’s arms and my mind and get back to the girl slowly dying in front of us. I could feel my muscles pushing with intense fury against Chance’s body, writhing and coiling and fighting. My mind eventually gave into my body’s overpowering force and it, too, began to want the girl again. I was going to win. I was going to get away from Chance and feed for the first time—I could feel it. But something suddenly happened. Something strange and comforting and powerful. Intense heat flooded my body, radiating throughout my skin, my muscles, my soul. I was defenseless against it, and for the second time in only two days, everything in my life went dark.

  “Ava?” I heard Chance’s voice, faint and distant. He was calling my name, but I couldn’t see him. I could feel that safe, inviting heat that oozes from him, so I knew he was very close to me. I reached out with my arms, searching for him. I felt his hand take hold of mine, gripping it tightly. “Ava, can you hear me?” Very slowly, the darkness around me began to break away, replaced by long shards of warm, inviting light. My eyes fluttered open, revealing Chance’s face.

  “Are you okay?” He was wiping hair away from my face, the touch of his fingers sending tiny jolts of electricity across my skin. I sat upright, scanning the scene before me. We were still in the clearing in the woods behind my high school, a dead vampire and his victim crumpled in the grass across from us.

  “How is she?” I asked as Chance helped me stand. My head was spinning, and I felt that I could pass out at any moment. I saw the girl lying motionless in the high grass about fifty feet from us. Wow, I thought. Chance pulled me that far away? I was impressed at his strength and stamina.

  “She didn’t make it.” His statement cut me like a knife. After risking my own life fighting a vampire, after Chance had stepped in and killed it when I couldn’t, we still lost her. I was so mad at myself for failing that all I wanted to do was scream and hit something. Instead, I cried. Tears poured from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks and mixing with the dirt and spots of vampire blood that had taken up residence on my skin. Chance hugged me again, and I sobbed into his broad, muscular chest, letting the warmth of his body relax me. I wished that I could go back and do things differently. Maybe immobilize the vampire and check on the girl first, before going back to fight him some more. Maybe that would’ve helped.

  “Don’t dwell on what you should have done, Ava. It won’t help.” I first thought Chance could read my mind before I realized that I had been thinking out loud. I quickly moved away, suddenly uncomfortable being so close to him.

  “But I killed her,” I cried, trying to stop the tears as I crossed the field away from him and the carnage I caused. “She’s dead because of me.”

  “She’s dead because of him,” Chance said, nodding his head in the dead vampire’s direction. “You were trying to save her. And you did, Ava. You saved her from being drained by that monster.” The way Chance said monster made me cringe. I briefly wondered what he really thought of me. Did he think of me as a monster like I did?

  “Come on,” he said. He walked over and took my hand, pulling me along the path in the grass I had created earlier. “We need to get out of here.” As we passed the girl’s body, I couldn’t help but take another deep breath to soak up more of that delicious blood scent. Except this time, the smell turned my stomach. I hunched over a bit, holding the bile in my throat. Dead blood was so gross.

  “Sorry,” Chance said. “I forgot to tell you. Once a person dies, the smell of their blood makes you sick.”

  “How do you know so much about vampires?” I asked as I forced my stomach to settle down. I picked up the pace as we left the clearing and entered the thicket of trees, hoping to get as far away from the putrid scent as possible.

  “I don’t know,” Chance stated. “I just do.” His voice quavered a bit, the words sounding more rehearsed than spontaneous. He was hiding something, I could tell.

  “Okay,” I said, stopping dead in my tracks. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what’s going on.”

  Chance slowly dropped my hand but wouldn’t look at me, his eyes focusing instead on the empty space above my head. “Ava,” he finally said, lowering his eyes to look at me. “You just have to trust me, okay? I’m only here to help you.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No I’m not.” He turned and walked away from me, obviously upset. “I’m telling you the truth. I want to help you get through this.”

  “I know that,” I said. Chance glared at me with confusion. “I know you want to help me. No one would do what you just did if they didn’t.” A quick image of the girl’s bloodied body passed my eyes. I closed them to make it go away. “But that’s not the only reason you’re here, is it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Fine,” I snapped. “Let’s just get out of here.” Chance opened his mouth to speak but didn’t. Instead he turned and led us out of the woods, though this time taking an alternate route, leading us away from school campus.

  “So what about the bodies?” I finally asked as we maneuvered over fallen trees and deep holes dug by animals I had no desire to meet. I didn’t ask Chance where we were going, deciding it didn’t really matter; I had zero interest in going back to school just yet. I also surprised myself with how cavalier I could be talking about the dead. Maybe I really was a soulless monster.

  “Aldric’s taking care of it,” Chance answered. “That’s why we need to get moving.” As he basically pulled me through the woods, my mind began imagining what ‘Aldric’s taking care of it’ meant. Was he going to burn them? Bury them? Eat them? Okay, that last one was absurd, but given all that had happened to me lately, the idea wasn’t totally unrealistic. I wanted to ask Chance what Aldric planned on doing with them, but kept quiet instead. Judging by the look on his face, I had aggravated him enough for one day.

  We walked for what felt like hours before finally leaving the woods, coming to yet another clearing. This one, however, wasn’t empty. A large, decrepit house with giant windows and a wrap-around porch sat at the far back of the field, a very tall, very old oak tree plopped down in front. It was a typical horror movie house, complete with gauzy spider webs draping the corners.

  “Where are we?” I asked as Chance walked toward the dilapidated structure.

  “This place has been in my family forever. We’ll be safe here,” he answered, looking back over his shoulder. “I thought we could hang here until school’s out before we go back to get my truck.” I smiled at him, hoping to smooth over whatever relationship was growing between us. I sort of felt bad for being so mean earlier. Plus I was really tired. Even though I was immortal and apparently super strong now, my feet were killing me and I felt like I could sleep for days.

  Once we reached the house, Chance left me standing on the ground just below the porch as he clambered up the steps and fished a key from above the door. He had to lean into the door a bit to get it to open, and when it finally budged, a plume of thick dust billowed across the air. Chance waited for the cloud to settle before stepping inside. I stood patiently until he came back out.

  “Okay,” he said, popping his head out the door. “Come in.” Though I didn’t really want to, the rapidly dropping temperature outside was slowly clawing at my skin. So I nervously climbed the steps and went inside. I think my nervousness was due in part to the immense hunger I was feeling. Yeah, blood hunger. It sucked.

  The outside of the house looked like a palace co
mpared to the inside. Every surface was streaked with black grime and dust. More spider webs littered the corners, some even with spiders still in them. I made sure to keep a watchful eye on them just in case any decided to attack. Even being half vampire, I still hated spiders with a passion. As far as furniture, the place was almost barren. A rotten sofa was pushed against the far back wall of the great room, a very tiny wooden chair was lying on its back on the floor. A small table with a broken leg and some ratty sheers partially hanging around the windows completed the look.

  “Nice,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster given my fatigue. “The Hilton Hotels should take a cue from this place.” I was growing less and less surprised by the ridiculous things I was remembering. I hoped I wasn’t being too offensive, but I was really too tired to care. Of course, I had never seen the inside of a Hilton hotel—or any hotel that I could remember—but I doubted they looked anything like this place.

  “I know it’s bad,” Chance said, sounding defeated. “I’m sorry. I said it’s been in my family forever. I didn’t say we used it. But at least we’ll be safe here.”

  “What do we need protection from?” The thought had just occurred to me that we killed the only vampire in the area; apparently I could smell when one was near. So unless the locals were planning a torch-wielding field trip out this way, I couldn’t imagine what we were being saved from.

  “I don’t know,” Chance replied. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.” He sounded so much older when he said that, like a mother telling her child to buckle up before leaving the house. “I can’t let anything happen to you.” He moved closer to me as he spoke, that weird tingling in my skin coming alive again.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, his hand resting on my shoulder.

  “No, I’m fine.” He stopped touching my arm and, though I was grateful, I felt a twinge of longing; I did my best to force the feeling out of my mind.

  “Good,” Chance said with a tiny smile. He began pacing the room, occasionally glancing out the window facing the clearing.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked after the third time he peered through the Swiss cheese-like curtains.

  “Nothing.” His answer was stern and shrouded in mystery. Another lie. Why was he keeping so much from me? I felt the fury climb my neck and fight its way into my head. It was strong, that anger, much stronger than I could remember—not that I could really remember getting mad before. I wanted to leap over and strangle him until he told me what he was hiding; I laughed instead.

  “What’s so funny?” Chance asked, pulling himself from the window to look at me. Falling rays of afternoon sun were bouncing off his tanned skin, almost like he was glowing. I caught myself staring far too long and had to look away.

  “Nothing.” I tried to sound as secretive as he did before, hoping it would be obvious to him; it wasn’t. He simply turned back to his pacing and waiting. “So when are we going back?” I asked after a couple more peeks out the window by Chance.

  “Soon.” This time he crossed the entryway into the other large room spanning the width of the house, immediately looking through those windows as well.

  “You know,” I said, raising my voice to make sure he could still hear me. “These one-word answers of yours are starting to get old.” He didn’t respond, slowly moving around the room before coming to stand in front of me. “I’m going to need better than that.”

  “And your questions are starting to get annoying,” he finally answered, his intensely green eyes never leaving my face. The two of us stood there motionless, staring at each other like we had done so many times since I woke up in that coffin. I couldn’t help but feel the draw between us, like two magnets being pulled together, and I wondered if Chance noticed it too. I couldn’t understand it, really. I had no idea who this guy really was, or what he was doing helping a vampire. But something inside was telling me it was okay to trust him. I was having a hard time listening to the voice, but it was there nonetheless.

  “Then answer them and I’ll stop asking,” I said, doing my best to keep my eyes locked on his, even though what I wanted to do was look away to break the awkward feeling in the pit of my stomach. This time it wasn’t just the scent of his blood that was getting to me. It was him.

  “I’ve given you all the answers I can, Ava. Trust me.”

  “Those are you three favorite words, huh?” My anger toward him was starting to take over again, pushing the other feelings aside. “Trust me, Ava, you keep saying. But why? That’s what I want to know, Chance. Why am I supposed to trust you?”

  “Because what other choice do you have?“ Before I had time to answer him, a deep shiver scurried up the nerves in my back. My head jerked and my eyes flew open. I watched Chance’s face register what I was thinking. I had no clue how he could tell what was going on inside my head, but somehow he knew. Though I didn’t have to say it, I didn’t bother stopping the words.

  “There’s another vampire. And it’s right outside the house.”

  7

  . FOLLOW THE LEADER

  It’s just Aldric,” Chance said after looking out the window. He stepped over to the door and opened it, letting Aldric walk inside.

  Aldric looked very different in the daylight. He was still attractive, but his features were softer, more subdued. The paleness of his skin was still there, but somehow he appeared flushed, which was really weird seeing as how the blood flowing through his veins was dead. And though he had already said that vampires could easily walk around during the day, I couldn’t help but think that he should be sleeping in a coffin somewhere.

  “Hello, Aldric,” Chance said very cordially. His demeanor was much more confident than it had been in the cemetery. Last night he had been scared and timid; today he was bold and stood tall. I marveled at his impressive size. If anyone could give a vampire a run for its money, I would bet on Chance.

  “Chance,” Aldric simply said. The two exchanged looks that hid something. I suspected it was about me, of course, but didn’t say anything. What would have been the point? It wasn’t like these two were very forthcoming with information. Aldric crossed the room swiftly, stopping inches from me. I could smell the rotting blood in his body and it turned my stomach.

  “Hello, Ava,” he said, barely above a whisper. He took my hand in his and kissed it gently. Though his touch was ice cold, there was a mysterious warmth behind his lips. “I see you’ve been a very busy girl.” Those oddly-warm lips curled into a smile, revealing two tiny lumps in his gums. His fangs. I wondered if my smile was as creepy.

  “Sorry,” I responded, not really knowing what to say. Did I say, “Yes I have been, and thank you for noticing?” I wasn’t privy to what the correct response was when someone commented on your killing.

  “Please, don’t apologize. You were wonderful. I only wish I had been there to witness your first time.” He said ‘first time’ like I was driving a car, or walking. Very calm for talking about me killing someone (though technically I didn’t; Chance did). He’s a killer, Ava. Remember that. The voice was whispering inside my head, and though I knew it was impossible, I caught Chance glaring intensely at me. Had he put those words in my mind? Was he speaking to me without actually speaking? I brushed the silly idea from my head and focused on Aldric.

  “I didn’t do it,” I said dryly. “Chance did.” I hadn’t intended on telling him the truth, but there was something about him that got under my skin. I had no intention of being nice to the man/monster that made me the way I was. I kept my eyes locked on his, the two of us in an old-fashioned stare-down. I fought hard to win, and after nearly thirty full seconds of silence, Aldric smiled again and broke our gaze.

  “That’s fine,” Aldric answered. “A kill is a kill I suppose.”

  “You suppose?” I asked timidly. “Does that mean you don’t know? Was that girl’s death in vain?” Just the thought of it repulsed me, made me physically ill.

  “Relax, Ava,” Aldric said calmly. “It counts.” I hadn�
�t realized I had tensed up until I felt my shoulders relax. Chance’s kill counted. Ninety-nine to go. Yahoo.

  “So tell me,” Aldric went on, stepping away from me and perusing the room. “How was it?” Was he serious? Was he actually asking me if I enjoyed it?

  “How do you think?” I snapped back, suddenly mad at his coldness.

  “Well I would assume there was a plethora of emotions you experienced, much like I did my first time.” He kept his back to me as he spoke, his eyes scanning the filthy room. I watched his lithe body glide over the hardwood floors, his feet touching so lightly he appeared to be floating. “Of course, that was a very long time ago.”

  “I doubt my experience was anything like yours,” I said. Aldric stopped pacing the room and finally turned to look at me.

  “Really?” he asked with an inquisitive smile. “Other than the fact that you didn’t actually kill the vampire, our experiences were very similar. Did you not feel scared? Excited? Like you were on fire and couldn’t wait to attack, but at the same time hating yourself for what you wanted to do?” He moved toward me as he spouted his questions. Though I couldn’t see him, I felt Chance tense with anxiety. “Am I getting warm?” Aldric’s voice was low and sinister, like he was getting pleasure out of seeing me squirm. I struggled to appear unaffected by his intimidating ways.

  “We may have experienced the same feelings,” I said, reluctantly agreeing with Aldric. “But there’s a big difference in my first and yours.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “I didn’t choose to kill.” I stared at Aldric as I said it, hoping to get under his skin.