Jason left that very night despite it being days shy of his eighteenth birthday. Brone stayed up in the dark, laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He was alone in the room for the first time in four years, and he wished that he had forced Feldman to stay, to explain himself. He knew that his foster brother would never disclose more than he had already said, knowing that the few words he had spoken had done irreparable harm to Brone. Lilyanna’s guileless face constantly flashed in his mind, her sweet smile, her trusting demeanor and all he could think was how badly he had failed her. I was sent to this house by fate to protect her, and I let her die in the worst way possible, Brone told himself miserably. Did she really die at their hands? No, no way. Ben would never harm her. He has been our father, our friend. Feldman is lying. He is cruel and disgusting. But no matter how Brone tried to reason with himself, he now had the image of his housemate strangling the life out of the gentle, dark-haired darling he had grown to adore so well. Brone could not contemplate rest after Feldman had departed. It was after two a.m., and he rose from his bed, intending to dig one of Ben’s beers out of the fridge in the basement. The alcohol always helped him to sleep when he suffered from bouts of insomnia, and there was no doubt that he was never going to rest with Lilyanna’s face dancing in his mind.
Along the shadows, he stole, onto the main floor. He pulled open the door to the basement and cringed at the squeak. He froze for a moment, listening for signs of life within the house. Straining his ears, he thought he heard someone screaming. Brone tensed and leaned forward, his neck craning down the black steps. He heard it again, and it was a cry. Without thinking, he rushed down the stairs at breakneck speed, pulling open the secondary door to the unfinished basement. The area was large, but aside from Ben’s tools and the backup appliances, there was never anything worth looking for in the dark subfloor. Brone stood on the threshold, his eyes adjusting to the bright light of the single bulb suspended from the ceiling by a string. Ben was seated in a folding chair, several beer cans scattered at his feet, watching a small television screen. Brone shook his head and almost laughed out loud. The poor bastard is just escaping his family for a while. He snuck a t.v. down here to unwind. Get out of here before he hears you. Brone slowly turned around when another stifled scream erupted from the set, and impulsively, Brone turned to watch the drama on screen. Blood began to rush into his ears as he realized what he was watching.
On the grainy, old television was Ben and Feldman hovering over a beaten and bruised body. Off screen, Spence could be heard sobbing.
“Please, Ben, I don’t want to do this anymore!” But Ben did not seem to hear his foster son. Instead, he continued to inflict unspeakable horror upon Lilyanna who curled in the fetal position crying pathetically. Brone watched in terror as Feldman stepped forward and joined into the torture Ben had begun. Brone choked and gasped, ripping his eyes from the television. His eyes were inflamed with tears as Ben jumped from the chair, hearing Brone’s emotional reaction.
“Brone!” he panted, trying to use his giant form to block Brone from seeing more. “What are you doing down here?”
Brone could not answer. He began to shake his head, pointing at the screen as if he suddenly had lost the ability to speak. He could not hear, his eyes hazed over in the aftermath of the vile, horrendous scene before him.
“No! No, Brone, it was just a game! We were making a movie!” Ben cried, rushing toward his foster son but Brone had already turned to flee up the stairs. He was out the front door, disappearing into the black night before Ben made it to the main level. He never went back.
He had been plagued with what he had learned that night, forsaking sleep altogether. The night terrors would drench him in sweat, and Lilyanna’s plaintiff cries could echo endlessly in his head. He began to drink heavily, landing on the streets for a long while, living in and out of shelters. A kindly priest had taken young Brone under his wing when he was twenty and helped him find a job, and for a few years, he managed to keep his life a semblance of stability and order. The shame and revulsion which he had harbored since leaving the McKinnon household followed him but lessened in time. Eventually, he would have convinced himself that Lilyanna had not ever existed, drinking himself into oblivion. He would have, had he not run into Ben that night on Richmond Street. Blind fury had overcome Brone, and he had stabbed his once trusted father figure repeatedly with a broken beer bottle after dragging him into an alleyway. Afterward, Brone had known his calling was clear; he needed to avenge Lilyanna. They all needed to die.
Brone froze at her words, his jaw tightening. You silly girl. You want to die? You don’t know how lucky you are to be alive!
“Listen, Lilah, you seem like a nice girl, and if you believe you’re a vampire, that’s great, but I’m really not into that lifestyle. I have no intention of involving myself in your…rituals or whatever it is you guys do,” he told her, forcing a smirk onto his face. For reasons he could not fathom, he felt uncomfortable in her presence. The girl pursed her own lips. Words would not convince him. She needed to show him. As Brone cleared his throat, trying to think of something else to say, anything to fill the weird silence in the apartment, Lilah acted. Her turquoise eyes began to glow like hot coals in the fires of hell, and she willed her incisors to extend. His eyes widened in surprise which quickly turned to horror as she levitated toward the ceiling, gracefully spanning her arms wide.
“What the hell…?” he exhaled, slowly backing away from the sight. I am hallucinating. She drugged me. What the hell did she do to me? Yet even as he thought it, he knew what he was seeing was reality and that Lilah had been telling him the truth. She was otherworldly, supernatural. Somehow, this strange, beautiful girl was a vampire, and she had chosen him out of everyone else in the world. But why? For what? To kill her? He could not look away from her gravitating body, floating above him, hovering in the corner of the room.
“Please stop,” he whispered, but his voice was barely audible in his amazement. Her gaze never wavered as her ember hot irises seemed to illuminate more with each second. She parted her lips to allow for her sharp, glistening fangs to show and Brone recoiled further, his buttocks contacting the wall at his back.
“Do you believe my words now, Brone?” she asked but her mouth did not move, and Brone was suddenly aware that she was communicating with him in his mind. He tried to shake his head, but he was frozen, paralyzed in place. He was a jumble of passions, alarmed, intrigued and aroused.
“Do you believe that I am immortal?”
He was finally able to nod, his eyes drawn to her piercing energy. Slowly, the shocking glimmer began to ease from her penetrating orbs, and a smile toyed on her rosebud lips. Gracefully, her slender frame began to lower to the floor, her razor teeth retracting. A look of worry abruptly crossed over her face and a millisecond later, the door flew open. Scotty stumbled drunkenly into the apartment. She had sensed him coming. A strange expression froze on his face as Lilah crumbled to the hardwood in a pile.
“Was – did she – what the fuck?” Scotty sputtered, looking from Lilah to Brone. Immediately, Brone reacted, moving toward Lilah and helping her up. Calmly he turned back to his roommate.
“What’s that?” he asked innocently. Lilah looked away as Scotty continued to stare at the pair accusingly.
“She was fucking flying!” he screamed, pointing at her. Brone forced a laugh and firmly took Lilah’s hand, crushing her palm in his warningly.
“Go home, Scotty. You’re drunk,” he replied lightly. “Come on, Lilah. We have reservations.”
Without waiting for either of them to respond, he yanked Lilah from the apartment, forgetting that he was still in the same pair of ratty track pants and ripped t-shirt he had slept in the previous night.
“You have reservations, and you’re dressed like a homeless person?” Scotty screamed after them, but Brone did not stop, pulling Lilah into the stairwell.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he hissed at her as they hurried out of t
he low-rise into the night.
“I needed you to understand who I am.”
“Fine. I understand. What I don’t understand is what you want from me!” Brone was becoming dizzy with the rollercoaster of emotions he had experienced in the past days. Between Spence, Feldman, and Lilah, he was losing his ability to breathe. This is all a strange dream. You will wake up, and none of this will have occurred. But Brone realized he did not wish that to be the case. He wanted Lilah to be real, not a figment of his imagination, despite the bizarre circumstances surrounding her appearance. He had never experienced anything close the sensations he had felt while inside her as if she had crawled into his skin despite him being in control.
“I explained to you what I want from you,” Lilah replied quietly, allowing for Brone to drag her through the city. It was Friday night, and the crowds were thickening in the streets, dozens of party goers laughing mirthfully. Their chortles were a stark, disturbing contrast to the darkness Brone was feeling in his gut.
“You want me to kill you,” he repeated dully. “Because that will somehow make you human.”
“Yes,” Lilah answered simply. “It is the only way.”
Lilah knew she spoke the truth, despite Brone’s cynical reaction. She had traveled to the darkest corners of the earth, delved into secret societies of the otherworldly in quest of an out to her conundrum. She wanted to become human but at what cost? Was it possible to achieve?
She had yet to encounter another true immortal, but when she and Brone had lived in Romania, she had studied the history of Vlad Tese, the apparent original immortal, researched was little literature there was surrounding the mystery of who she and Tariq were or how they had come to exist. She had never learned anything conclusive, only mythology and folklore, most farfetched and ridiculous. It was not until the dawn of the twentieth century did more steadfast evidence appear and with it, a culture of people who claimed ties with her predicament. They called themselves vampires and as medical science improved, so did Lilah’s comprehension of who she was. It came increasingly apparent that she and Tariq had contracted a rare virus which enabled them to live forever. Live, Lilah thought with sarcastic amusement. We live as the dead.
In the Americas, Lilah bonded with these people who she finally felt some kinship. She had grown to believe that they were also immortal and for once, she belonged. They were a strange group, dressing in black clothing with shockingly pale faces and ruby red lips. Like her, they feasted upon the blood of others, teaching Lilah to hunt for animals like rabbits and deer. While the animal blood sustained her, it was never the same as fresh mortal veins, yet Lilah was content not having to kill. While the memories of Zalongo slowly became hazy, she would never forget the blood spilled by the Turks on that chilly December night.
Everything would have continued well had Tariq not discovered her new group of acquaintances. He ordered his sister to stop seeing them, claiming them to be false prophets, meant to lead her astray. Lilah had dismissed his warnings and foolishly maintained constant contact with her new friends. It was then that Lilah discovered a side to Tariq which she had never seen in one hundred and eighty years. Fueled by jealousy and betrayal, Tariq feasted upon each one of them while Lilah watched in horror.
“You see, darling sister?” he mocked, his face streaked in red, his white fangs flashing in the night. “They are not like us. No one is like us. There is only us.”
The irony, of course, was that Tariq considered their immortality a gift from the gods, bestowed only upon the chosen. He was certain that he and Lilah belonged to an elite group of vampires and that at some moment, they would all be summoned together. To Lilah’s mind, his was a child-like fantasy which would never materialize. Lilah discovered the only way to cure herself of the horrendous disease which had consumed them both was to die. And Brone was going to kill her.
“I have been walking this earth for over two centuries,” Lilah told Brone as the slipped through the shadowy streets. She noticed that his hand still clung to hers firmly, but he showed no signs of slowing as if he hoped to outrun some umbra which was chasing them.
“I cannot feel. I long for the warmth of sunshine. I yearn to cry, to feel anger, to know love.” Suddenly, Brone paused his brisk stride and stared at her disbelievingly.
“You do feel love,” he told her. She shook her head.
“I do not,” she answered slowly, staring at him with pleading green eyes. Please understand what I am asking of you, she willed him, but he grabbed her roughly by the arms.
“You do!” he snapped. “You love me. I can see it in your face!”
Again, she shook her head, a smidgen of sadness overcoming her.
“I am possibly the most connected to you as I have been to anyone,” she agreed. “But I do not love you. I cannot enjoy feelings of love.”
Brone was shocked at the confession. He did not know why this woman had been thrown into his already tumultuous life, but he knew that he needed to protect her. It was as if Lilyanna had been brought back to him and he had a chance to save her. But what she was asking was insane, wasn’t it? Brone regarded the pale beauty with her large, imploring eyes. She was destined to be with him, of that he had no doubt. The fates had landed her at his door, and he would be a fool not to recognized that he was already in love with her. He owed everything to her, she knew his darkest secrets. Could he do what she was asking of him? Lilah did not try to wiggle from his grip this time as if she had resigned to the fact that he would not release her.
“How do you know that killing you will make you human again?” Brone finally asked in a low voice. Lilah hung her head.
“I do not know for certain,” she told him. “But from what I have learned, this is the only way to discover for certain.”
She had heard tales from her vampire friends that death was the only way to cure herself of the virus. It could not be done by her own hands, or she would have attempted suicide years before. A mortal had to kill her. She reasoned that even if he only succeeded in ending her life, it would be better than continuing to roam the earth, lost and alone for the rest of eternity.
“No,” he told her firmly. “You can make me a vampire.” She smiled weakly as if she had expected the response.
“I will never turn you,” she replied softly. “You would never forgive me. I have never forgiven my brother for turning me.”
Brone stared at her, his heart pounding. Despite her seemingly shy nature, he sensed a core of steel in Lilah. Arguing would not warrant the response he was seeking. He released her arms and stood back.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Lilah questioned.
“Yes, I will kill you,” he informed her slowly.
Chapter Seven
It had been thirty years since Tariq had done this, but he trusted his instincts more than he trusted his sister. Lilah’s behavior over the past days had been strange, to say the least. Even when she had taken up company with the fake immortals, she had been forthcoming with him. Perhaps that it the reason she is no longer so, he thought wryly, remembering the mass murder he had committed upon the group, simply to teach his sister a lesson. Regardless, Tariq knew he needed to follow Lilah. His predisposition to danger had served him well over the centuries, and his mind would not be at peace until he understood where Lilah had been going for the past nights.
When she left that evening, he gave her a decent head start before trailing after her in the shroud of darkness. He allowed for her to disappear, using his extraordinary senses to track her. She was not difficult to find. He sensed her inside a small building on McCaul Street. She is simply going to feast, Tariq told himself, attempting to alleviate the strange sense of unease he was feeling. He remained in his spot across the street, waiting for his sister to emerge. She is taking too long, he told himself, resisting the urge to find her inside the complex. It should not take so long to feast. Perhaps she has encountered danger. Still, Tariq did not move from his location. He knew if he dared seek her out,
she would be furious with the intrusion. For decades, Tariq had been encouraging Lilah to hunt for herself. The encouragement had turned to irritation. The stress of living together alone for so long had begun to take its toll on both the siblings and the two had started squabbling over trivial matters. Lilah had begun to retreat into herself, spending days without communicating until Tariq would corner her and force conversation from her. She simply doesn’t understand. We must be patient and wait for our summoning. She is still very young in some ways. Tariq took her initiative to hunt for herself as a step forward and as much as he wanted to rush to her side, he knew he needed to wait. Lilah was very powerful, and she needed to understand her own strength, but despite Tariq’s sound reasoning, he wished she would finish her kill and leave. He thought of how she had left the boy alive in Regent Park. I must go inside, he finally decided. He stepped out of the odorous alleyway from behind the dumpster, but as his dark boots hit the sidewalk, a side door slammed open. Tariq instinctively stepped back, shocked as a tall, waxen stranger hurried past, Lilah in tow. A spark of anger coursed through Tariq’s veins as he chased after them, but as he began to catch snatches of their conversation, his gait slowed. Confusion spun his head in dizzying directions as he watched after the pair. They swept through the downtown streets, seemingly unaware of anything but one another. He didn’t understand what he was seeing. It was as if the two were enamored with one another but of course, that could not be. Lilah knew far better than to involve herself with a mortal. The dangers were unknown. Yet as Tariq carried himself in their wake, his well-honed ears absorbing their words, he knew his suspicions were true. Lilah had become smitten with a mere man. She was willing to give up her eternal life to spend a few meager years with him
The Campus Jock: A College Bad Boy Romance Page 37