by Robin Thorn
A sudden chill moved through me. But it wasn’t the solitude that made the hairs on my arms bristle—it was the company. I wasn’t alone. Someone walked behind me. I didn’t turn around, not at first, I only listened to the slow, heavy footsteps crunching behind me.
I picked up my pace. I was acting paranoid, running from nothing but a passing stranger.
I snuck a glance over my shoulder. And there he was, a man, too old to be a student, too young to be a teacher.
I wasn’t focusing on the sludgy path ahead as I rounded the corner into a tunnel of silver birches. Suddenly a woman was standing in front of me, her platinum hair moving slowly in the cold breeze. I flinched at the sight of her.
“Hello there,” she purred, blocking my way. Her deep crimson eyes bore into me, somehow rendering me motionless. There was no white in her eyes. Only red. She grabbed my arm, her grip exceeding the appearance of her lithe frame. “I must admit, you look like a nice choice.”
Another hand clamped down on my shoulder—the man who had been trailing me. My heart leapt into my throat.
Before I knew it, I was being dragged into the thick of trees, stumbling as I tried to keep my footing.
My head smacked against a tree trunk as the man knocked me down into the snow. Through bleary vision, I watched him slink back into the darkened web of trees.
I gasped for breath as the woman fixed her ruby stare at me.
“Who are—” I doubled over in pain as the tow of her leather boot impacted with my stomach.
She grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my neck back. Her breath smelled of honeysuckle as she whispered into my throat, “Shut your mouth, New Blood. You don’t get to talk in my presence.”
The man resurfaced through the snow-capped branches, and now he was dragging Phoebe along with him. She was fighting against him, but he held her tightly.
“Phoebe,” I choked. I looked up at him, pleadingly. He sneered sinuously back at me, and for the first time, I noticed that his eyes were the same crimson hue as the women.
Phoebe struggled to free herself, and to my horror, he raised his hand and slapped her face, the crack echoing in the hollow silence. He whispered into her ear, and the phone she’d been holding slipped through her fingers and dropped to the ground. Her attacker pressed his boot on it, sinking it into the feathery snow. Phoebe’s eyes rolled back, and I watched as she sank to the ground.
I staggered to my feet. “Help!” I screamed.
The woman threw an iron punch at me, catching my jaw. “I told you to shut it,” she hissed. I dropped to the ground at her feet. “One more word and you’ll be meeting the same fate as your friend.” She kicked Phoebe’s unmoving body. “Marcel, do the honours,” she added, flourishing her hand toward the man.
I looked on helplessly as Marcel outstretched his arm. All of a sudden, a rupture of shadow lanced through the trees, and my ears started to ring. I gripped my head and cried out in pain.
I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Out of nowhere, the slice of darkness grew until it was the size of Marcel. One moment he was there in front of me, and the next, he stepped through the blackness into nothing. Gone.
The woman hoisted me up by my arm and dragged me into the shadow after Marcel. The last thing I saw as we passed through, was Phoebe’s unconscious body left behind in the snow, a trickle of blood spilling from her mouth and leaving a scarlet blemish on the otherwise white world.
I landed down hard on the concrete floor, clipping my skull. The duo stood over me, faces painted in warped exhilaration. Everything around me seemed to spin; the floor, the room, even my attackers. I didn’t even get a chance to ground myself before the woman knelt down beside me, her face close to mine.
“Do not speak,” she ordered in a throaty voice. “Not a word. Do I make myself clear?”
I kept my mouth clamped shut, staring into her narrowed eyes.
“That’s better,” she purred. “New blood’s learning fast.”
She slapped my cheek a couple of times, then stood up and turned to face Marcel. “He told us he’d be here when we arrived. I’ve got more important things to do than play cat and mouse with this runt.” She pointed a slim finger down at me where I lay broken on the hard floor.
“Don’t worry,” Marcel murmured back. “He’ll be here.”
I winced, trying to take everything in through my spinning vision. The light was dim in the room, and it seemed like we’d arrived in some abandoned warehouse. Everything was made up of cinder blocks, and graffiti marred the walls. There were windows on one side, some boarded up and some splintered with shattered glass, and there was one door at the far end of the room. No sign of anything I could use as a weapon. Not that I had a chance to get to anything anyway.
My thoughts raced as I tried to piece together who these people were… What they were.
A new voice broke the silence. “I see her mistake has made it here in one piece. Good work, Amerie.”
I flinched at the sound of his voice. How had he gotten so close to me without my noticing? The newcomer was standing over me, his black hair striped with grey and his expression arched into a dark smile. He crouched beside me. An overwhelming presence rolled off him, drowning me into silence.
“Leonard,” the woman—Amerie, I assumed—spoke now, “what took you so long? You said you’d be here.”
“Now, now Huntress, I was only a few minutes late,” Leonard replied, laying a hand on my arm. “Surely you won’t condemn me for that?”
Amerie’s face pinched into a scowl. “We want our payment.”
“Soon,” Leonard told her.
“Now.”
“You’ll receive your payment when I say it’s time, sister.” Leonard spat the last word at her.
They stared at each other for a heated moment, the tension between them palpable.
Then Leonard rumbled with laughter. “My, my. Lilith has her hands full with you, no? Like mother like daughter, I see.” Leonard’s laugh was deep and echoed across the barren warehouse.
“Then you should know to watch your words with me.” Amerie’s top lip curled back, and two long canines revealed. Spittle shot across space between them and a fleck hit my cheek.
My pulse quickened.
“You and your drudge can leave now,” Leonard replied coolly. “I have what I need, and soon I will deliver your reward.” Leonard rose to full high, blocking my view of the duo. There was something about his stance that made me feel like a toy, just an object of possession.
To my surprise, Amerie backed down. “Keep your runts in check, Leo,” she said, “otherwise mother will not be so forgiving next time. And you can pass that message on to your darling Collette.” There was spite in her voice, hatred.
Leonard glanced at me. “I can assure you that there will not be a next time,” he muttered.
Instead of replying, Amerie raised her middle finger, and then, the large metal ring enveloping her finger disappeared along with her and Marcel into the melting shadow.
Leonard turned to me slowly. We were alone now. He crouched back down to my level, a sinister smile tugging at his handsome face.
I shivered as he whispered the words, “Welcome to the family.”
I awoke to the sound of a voice. Half my face still buried in snow. Cold. Numbingly cold.
His hands were on me.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Wake up.”
I knew that voice.
It had been a whole year since I’d heard that voice. Twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days. I wanted to open my eyes to Sam. I wanted to see him, to kiss him… or to kill him, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I wanted.
“Take this,” he murmured again. A cold breeze blew onto my face and seeped into my mouth. For a moment I let the feeling sink into me. Suddenly, I was dragged back into consciousness.
“Sam,” I wanted to call out to him—to scream out to him—but my voice wasn’t working. Nothing was working, I was fr
ozen, sinking into the snow.
“Just a little more,” the husky voice murmured again. “Come on, Pheebs,” he said. “Come back to me.”
I felt my chest burn. It was Sam. It was his voice, his words, his touch. His arms were around me; his hands were on me, his whispers were in my ear. He was Sam again, and he was here.
I was caught somewhere between consciousness and delirium, slipping into memory as I tried to grapple for an anchor.
The image of the last time I’d seen Sam, a year ago, played out in my mind like a movie, the screen flickering in and out as my brain fought to awaken. I saw myself holding a blade to his throat. He was breathing fast; shallow, ragged breaths as his golden eyes locked with mine.
“Go on,” he seethed. “Do it. I’m begging you. Do it, Phoebe.”
His jaw tensed, teeth bared, he wanted me to do it. He wanted me to end it for him. I should have. I should have pressed that blade into his throat, just a little harder, and it would all be over. He’d be over.
But I couldn’t. I was weak.
“Breathe in.” Sam spoke now, more cool air brushing over my face.”Breathe.”
On his final word, my eyes shot open, and I drew in an urgent breath. My heart skipped, and for a fraction of a second, he was there, in my mind, or real, I don’t know, but I saw him.
And then he was gone. And I was alone beneath the snow-covered trees surrounding the campus.
Alone.
I ran along the stone walkway, dodging the patches of ice that were pooled on the ground. My heart was beating fast.
What the hell just happened?
I could feel the bruise spreading a dull ache across my cheekbone. Vampires. I’d seen it in their blood-red eyes. They’d come for Stef. And I’d let myself get blindsided. I guess it’s true what they say; you stop thinking clearly when it gets personal.
And then Sam. I could still feel his breath moving inside of me, reviving me, intoxicating me.
No. I clenched my teeth as I closed in on the entrance to Dorm Block D. I couldn’t lose focus—not again.
Although there were a couple of lights illuminating windows inside the dorm building, it was too cold for anyone to be hanging around outside. Fortunately for me, anyway. I’d prefer to dodge any questioning from strangers raising eyebrows at the beat-up, breathless girl running through the snow.
I flung open the main door and raced up the stairwell to the fourth floor. By the time I reached my room, I was trembling, partly from the sprint, but mostly because I was seconds away from losing my head over all of this.
Back inside my dorm room, I pushed the door closed and immediately began rooting through my desk drawers for the standard paper map that had been handed out on our induction day at the start of the semester.
Freeing the map from beneath my notebook, I opened it out and spread it across the floor. Before me, a green and grey lined maze of Briarwood wound around the A1 paper. I’d circled the campus in red, acres of a green band marking my confines.
With a slow breath, I raised my palms over the map. I allowed my eyes to close and my mind to shift to a different wavelength. A familiar heat moved through my chest, enveloping my ribcage. My palms began to tingle, and, slowly, I opened my eyes.
Now, a pale light was weaving gently around my fingers, Guardian energy unveiling itself.
“Find Stefan,” I whispered.
A bolt of white light shot from my hands and struck like an arrow, piercing the line that signified the border of Briarwood. A mixture of colours sparked off the page, red, black, gold… And Guardian energy? There was Guardian energy there too?
My heart skipped a beat when I stared down at the location, where embers of iridescent light now fizzled away into nothing, leaving a tiny scorch mark to remind me that they were there.
I knew exactly where the light was leading me.
I just wasn’t expecting the vampires to be leading me there.
I raced towards the parking lot, scanning the few remaining cars for my Chevy. The truck was in the far corner, where I’d left it just hours earlier. Already there was a dusting of snow on the bonnet, and the wheels were sunken into the white ground.
I flung open the driver’s door and slid into my seat behind the steering wheel.
The warehouse? I still couldn’t’ get my head around it. The vampires took Stef to the warehouse? And there was a Guardian there too?
But that was impossible. A knot formed in my stomach. I was the only Guardian who knew about the warehouse.
An echo of Sam played out in my mind. A memory from a long time ago, from the very start, when I’d barely even taken my first step on the firestorm road I was destined to travel with him.
“I found this place,” he said, his amber eyes glowing in the dull moonlight dancing on Maura’s grave. “I’m going to take it.”
“Oh, yeah? What, like an apartment?” Up until then, Sam had been hiding out in the mausoleum in the Briarwood cemetery, where we spent our Saturdays together. He never talked much about his past—the life he’d led before he was turned—but he was alone when he came to Briarwood, and he had been alone for some time since. Before me, that is.
Sam shook his head, dark brown waves curling onto his brow. “Way better than an apartment, Pheebs. It’s an abandoned warehouse, right on the outskirts of town. Off Route Six.”
I wrinkled my nose. “But that whole area is just marshland. No building can stand there.”
“I’ve seen it,” he said, grinning. “I’ve been there.” His hand folded around mine, and he gave my fingers a quick squeeze. “It’s a little way off the back roads. I’ll show you. It’s completely empty. I think it was used for storing iron.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little excited for him. His enthusiasm was infectious.
“There are thirty rooms,” he went on, “maybe more. All empty. I’m going to make it my palace.” The corner of his mouth lifted in that sexy way that it did—almost a smile, but more of a smirk.
“And you think you can live there?” I asked. “Won’t it be cold.”
“I don’t get cold,” he reminded me. Then added, “But I can put a fireplace in, so you’ll be warm.”
I allowed myself to imagine, to dream. To picture a world where this reality could be mine.
“Come,” he said. “Come with me. It’ll be ours. You and me, together.”
I grinned. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, Sam.”
He planted the smallest of kisses on my lips. “I have,” he murmured. “It’s going to be a life. Our life, Pheebs.”
So, we went to the warehouse that night. With our hands linked, we ran dizzily through the endless cinderblock rooms, dank and cold, but ours. That night, as we kissed, fleetingly but urgently, lust flooding through both of us in the most dangerous way, it was our palace. It was our kingdom.
Now, as I drove back there for the first time in a long while, I wasn’t going to my kingdom anymore.
Maybe I should have called for back-up. It was dumb to head into the fray alone. Or maybe the Guardians were already there. Either way, I couldn’t risk letting them know what I knew.
I couldn’t let them storm the palace, for fear that they would kill Sam.
I found it difficult to place an age on Leonard. Apart from his greying hair and the scruff of a beard that shadowed his jaw, his appearance was strangely youthful. It was only his eyes that held a strange agedness. His stare was striking, both dark and light at the same time, with spirals of golden-brown surrounding the pupils.
“Where am I?” I croaked, my voice shaking. I could hear myself echoing of the warehouse walls. I sounded like a scared child. Even I could hear the fear in the question. Despite my spinning head, I forced myself to sit upright and meet his gaze.
“Nowhere of importance,” Leonard replied, his words rebounding in the cavernous warehouse. “We are in a place where the outsiders cannot find us. That’s all you need to know, for now.” He smiled, flashing his teeth at me.
“Are you going to kill me?” I asked. Saying those words out made my stomach heave with nausea. A cold sweat coated my forehead, and my hands began to shake.
Welcome to the family? That’s what Leonard had said to me. They were not my family.
“Alas,” Leonard replied, “it’s too late to kill you.” He picked at his teeth with his fingernail and arched a fine eyebrow. “I expected you would have some questions regarding all of this.” He gestured to the space around us. “I can assure you that I will get to them. All in due course.” He clapped his hands together, and the sound vibrated across the barren room. A tremor moved through the flooring, and then a girl—the girl—stepped through the fogged air before us. My blood ran cold.
“You’ve met my child before, I see…” Leonard said, folding his long arm around her shoulders.
The frail-looking girl who had haunted my life for the past few days stared back at me now with the same eerie golden eyes as Leonard, and raven-black hair hanging limping over her vacant expression.
Child? There was no way Leonard was old enough to be her father. If anything, she looked older then him. I stared numbly back at them, unable to form any words.
“Hello,” she murmured to me. Her voice was light, and gone were the grave undertones that had coloured her words the night I’d first seen her. “I need you,” was all she said, as real and as tangible as the hard floor beneath me.
Leonard back-handed her across the face, and she dropped to her knees.
I drew in a sharp breath.
“Pathetic,” Leonard spat at the girl. “I am ashamed that I ever chose you. You’re weak.”
She looked up at him from where she cowered, her small face mirroring my horror. A red mark emerged on her porcelain cheekbone, and her black tresses tumbled over it as she bowed her head away from both of us.