by ERIN BEDFORD
Finally, it was silent outside. Well, not completely. I could still hear some of the animals settling down for the night and kids yelling in their houses, demanding to stay up one more minute. It was as silent as it was going to get for what I planned to do. Besides, if I didn’t find something to eat, I’d be sinking my fangs into myself. I wasn’t sure if the whole vampire drinking vampire blood thing worked, but it seemed a bit counterproductive.
The door creaked open, and I winced. I waited for a second, and when no one came running to investigate, I peeked my head out the door. The Glade was draped in gray, the moon and stars the only light to guide those who couldn’t see in the dark. Thankfully, one of my newfound abilities included keener eyesight.
I stepped out of the shack and scanned the area around me. The grain field spread out across the field in front of me, the stalks over my head at this time of year. Just about ready to be harvested. It made strolling out of the shack less anxiety-ridden and allowed me to walk at an average speed toward the cattle corral. Of all the animals, I’d figured that the cows would be best able to handle me taking a few nips here and there.
Of course, I saw the irony in me feeding on the cows. Marsha would have pointed a finger at me and said, “See? Cattle.”
I shoved Marsha’s adorably stern look to the back of my mind where I demanded it stay. I couldn’t start a revolution and save everybody if I was starving to death.
Could vampires starve to death?
Shaking the thought off, I focused on my predicament. I’d never hunted before. I was a harvester, maybe even a scavenger. But a hunter? I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Did I prowl toward the cow? Come up from behind it? Or did I just jump on it using my super speed and take it by surprise?
Not wanting to psych myself out about it, I decided to just go for it. Maybe my vampire instincts would kick in, and I’d know exactly what I should do. One could only hope.
I approached the corral and leaned against the rusted metal fence holding them inside. The cows shifted and moaned as if they could sense a predator staring them down. I licked my lips, trying to stifle the urge to rip into one of them. Ducking beneath one of the bars, I made a shushing noise, hoping it would calm them down.
Finding a sizeable brown cow, I stroked my hand down her side, cooing to her in a soothing voice. I slid my hand around her neck and dipped my head down, my nose brushing against the line of her neck. She mooed lowly, and it was like I was a different being all together. My heart beat a sultry rhythm as a low rumble tickled the back of my throat. The animal beneath my hands didn’t even startle. Instead, she leaned into my touch.
Was this how they did it? Was it this easy to get others to do what they wanted? The feeling was hypnotizing and addicting. I could easily see how the Crimson Fold would become corrupted by its power.
My fangs ached and peeked out from my lips, reminding me of my purpose here. Trying my best not to startle my meal, I gave the cow an extra pat on the head before I reared back and struck. My fangs pierced her flesh and the hot liquid pumping beneath poured out. The cow groaned slightly beneath me but didn’t try to get away. The others around us shifted uncomfortably but didn’t call attention to us. I wasn’t sure if it were because they feared I’d pick them next or if I had some kind of vampire allure that kept them docile. Either way, it made my feed easier.
I’d been entirely wrong about blood being blood. Human blood was far superior to animal blood. It wasn’t disgusting by any means, but it was more like craving a chocolate cake and getting a carrot instead. It would fill my stomach but wasn’t wholly satisfying.
When I couldn’t drink anymore, I slowly withdrew from the cow. The cow moaned its displeasure, and my eyes sought out the place I’d bitten and saw it was still bleeding. I quickly placed my hand over the wound and tried to staunch the bleeding, but it wouldn’t stop.
Panic rushed through me. If the cow kept bleeding, she would die, and then the farmers would notice. If they saw, they’d start to look for the culprit, and I wasn’t exactly the perfect criminal about all this. They could easily find me, and then that would lead them back to my father.
Suddenly, a tinge of a memory tickled the corner of my mind. When Patrick bit me the first time, he’d done something. Something to stop the bleeding. What had he done?
My nose wrinkled as I realized what I had to do.
Leaning forward again, I removed my hand from the wound, and my tongue darted out. I licked the two puncture wounds the hair on the back of the cow brushed my tongue, and I forced myself not to jerk back. This had to be done. If I was going to feed on them, I could at least do them the courtesy of healing them especially since I had the ability now.
When the bleeding slowed, I pulled away to check the wound. The holes I’d left were healed as if I’d never done it in the first place. It’d have been perfect had the blood not stained the cow’s neck, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. It wasn’t bad enough that anyone would notice.
I hoped.
With my stomach full, I didn’t immediately head back to my shack. I’d been cooped up for too many hours and just needed to breathe. I knew tomorrow would be another full day of sitting around contemplating what I would do next, something I really didn’t want to waste my precious time outside thinking about.
I didn’t need to think of where to go, my feet moved on their own. I walked past the fields and animals, away from the group of homes, and toward a secluded section surrounded by trees, where we kept the dead. Not many people spent their time in this part of the Glade, most didn’t want to be reminded of the death of their loved ones, but I’d always found a certain solace in seeing the markers for each person who’d passed.
As I stepped into the inner circle, my eyes automatically found my mother’s marker. It wasn’t much, just a metal circle that had been shoved halfway into the ground. We’d etched her name into it and laid flowers on her grave that day. White peonies had always been her favorite. We couldn’t get them in the Glade, but Father had made sure to make a delivery that day so he could buy some from the Inner Circle.
I’d cried harder than I had in my entire life that day, the day we laid my mother to rest. My father hadn’t. He’d placed his hand on my shoulder and told me it’d be alright, that my mother was in a better place. What place that was, I didn’t know, and he’d never explained. I guess it didn’t matter now since the likelihood of me ever going there was slim to none.
There were fresh flowers on her grave. I didn’t have to guess that my father had put them there. Now that we technically lived in the Inner Circle, he could get white poesies all the time. I was happy to see he hadn’t forgotten her though. I wondered if after I’d lived as long as Patrick, I would forget them, or if I would still come to put flowers on my family’s graves?
Did Asher remember his parents or did Patrick? Did any of them remember what it was like to be human? Some of them seemed too otherworldly that it was hard to imagine they ever had any humanity to begin with.
I sat there at my mother’s grave until the stars began to fade and I was forced to go back to my shack. As I curled up into a ball on the floor, I prayed to whatever deity was listening that I could hold onto my humanity for as long as possible.
Chapter 3
The days that followed began to blur together. I’d spend the day in the shack, not waking until the afternoon when my father would show up with food for me. I’d go through the motions of eating and making small talk with him. Then I would sneak out of my shack, find some animal to feed on - I never fed on the same one twice - and then spend the rest of the night walking around the Glade. Sometimes, I’d sit at my mother’s grave telling her all about what happened to me, other times, I’d just sit in silence.
I still hadn’t come clean about what happened to me, and I knew my father suspected something was different. But how did you explain the monster you’d become to the only person who still loved you? Could I really be blamed for wanting to hold onto h
im for as long as I could?
I knew when he found out that he’d look at me differently. When I’d found out about Patrick, I hadn’t precisely reacted well, not that he had been open about it to begin with. I hoped my father would at least let me explain before pulling out the pitchforks.
I knew I’d have to come clean soon. Someone was bound to notice my activities, and my father wasn’t stupid. The problem was I wasn’t sure what to tell him. Did I flash my fangs and say, “Hey, I’m a vampire now. You know about them, right?”
I didn’t see that ending well.
After filling him in on what I was and what the Crimson Fold really did, I still had the problem of telling the rest of Alban. My father might be easy to convince, but strangers were more likely to kill first, ask questions later. Not that they’d know how to kill me if I didn’t tell them. How likely would someone go straight for the head or heart anyway?
My inner monologue was interrupted by the sound of voices close to my shack. I tensed where I sat, lying as still as possible. Had someone found out I’d been staying there? Had they noticed my feeding patterns? I was in for it now. I just knew it.
I’d learned quickly to block out the surrounding noises. Otherwise, they gave me a headache. Try sleeping with the entire world blaring in your ear. Not pleasant at all, I could tell you. I closed my eyes and focused on the muffled voices to hear what they had to say.
“Come on, Willa,” a male voice coaxed, his voice a low tone. “Just for a little bit.”
Willa, I assumed, giggled. “No, we’re supposed to be checking the grain count. If the overseer finds out that we’re messing around instead, we’ll get a lashing.” There was some more giggling and then a smacking of lips before they moved away from my shack. I could relax again.
The mention of my father made me frown. We didn’t dole out punishments often, but when we did, they weren’t likely to forget it. I’d never been on the other side of the whip, but I’d seen many public lashings over my seventeen years. There was one instance that stuck out the most in my mind.
When I was nine, a boy not much older than myself had stolen from the stores that were set to go to the Inner Circle. The authorities had dragged him into the middle of our little development. His clothes like many of us were ragged, his cheeks not as filled in as they would have been if he had lived in the Inner Circle. I remembered thinking his hair was the color of the wheat I’d helped cut down that day.
There was already a red mark on the side of his face when they tied him down to a pole that sat in the middle of the village square. He cried and screamed for his mother, his father, anyone who would save him. A woman responded to his cries with her own as she pushed through the crowd. Her hair matched that of the boy’s and had to be his mother. Several men held her back, not allowing her to go to her child.
I remembered thinking, Just let her go to him. He’s obviously scared. But I hadn’t dared to voice those thoughts. I was too young and too frightened myself to speak out. Not like now. The memory of the scathing remarks I’d made to the Crimson Fold during my interview session came to mind.
I snorted. How naive I’d been to think that I’d be able to stop anything back then. I couldn’t have even saved myself, let alone anyone else.
The only thing that had come to mind at that moment was to find my father. I’d searched for my father’s face in the crowd that had gathered. His face had never been colder than at that very moment, and for the first time in my life, I was afraid of him. When he’d seen me looking at him, his stony expression melted for a moment, and I’d seen the regret there, but then as if it had never happened it was gone. He hadn’t wanted to do it either. That somehow had made me hurt more for him than for the child.
Watching in my growing horror, I’d seen them hand my father the whip. His hand had tightened around the handle, the length of it sitting in his other hand. He hadn’t moved right away, his breathing coming in slow movements. It had almost he had to psych himself up for it. I knew I would have.
My eyes followed my father as he walked toward the child. Observing him had been one of the horrific moment of my life next to my mother’s death. The closer he’d gotten to him, the louder the mother’s cries were, and even the rest of the crowd began to shift in displeasure. No one liked to see a child hurt, but none of them would stop him.
Before he could get to the boy, a man about the same age as my father ran out. Two of my father’s men had stopped him from approaching, but he said something I couldn’t hear that had caused my father to let him come closer. They’d spoken for a moment in low quick tones. My father had glanced at the boy and then back toward man. He’d said something else I couldn’t make out, and the man nodded, a determined look on his face.
The next thing I’d known the boy had been released and the man had taken his place. The boy didn’t get to go back to his family, he had to stand a few feet away from his father and watch as my father whipped him. Over and over again, the whip slashed through the air, the crack of it had filled my ears and nightmares for days.
The man never cried out, never begged him to stop. He just took the punishment while his family protested nearby. No one had moved to help him. They all knew the penalty for stealing, it had been ingrained in us since we were small. We get a set number of rations for our family. No more. No less. If you were still hungry, tough. Go chew on some grass, that was about the only option you had.
By the time my father had let the whip go limp in his hand, the man’s back was covered in bloody red ribbons, and he collapsed against the pole. The child had stopped trying to get to him and sank to the ground, his face red and blotchy from crying. I remembered thinking his father must have been stupid or loved him too much to let him take the punishment. After that day, the boy never stole again and that many more people were reminded of the price of stealing.
I also learned a sound lesson that day, but not about stealing. I learned why I’d always been seen as different. Even though I had been standing in the crowd with the rest of them, even though my face had been covered in tears as well, I didn’t get the same recognition. The adults didn’t punish me the same as the others if I spoke out of turn, and the children didn’t invite me to play with them.
I didn’t blame them. I understood. I really did. After all, would you want to be friends with the girl whose father punished yours?
Being the child I had been, I’d complained to my father. Why did he have to be the one to do it? Why couldn’t the Crimson Fold dish out the punishments? It was their job, wasn’t it?
My father’s answer would always be, “I’m in charge, it is my responsibility.” Like that answered my questions at all.
Now that I was older, I understood more. Having power didn’t mean you could always avoid unpleasant moments. That there wouldn’t be things you didn’t want to do but had to. As I bit into the goat I’d chosen for my meal that night, I felt that lesson more than I’d ever felt it before. Even the lesson about friends had followed me.
It wasn’t until I’d moved to the Inner Circle that I’d even gained a real friend, and even those had strayed when I won the election. The servants didn’t look at me the same way they looked at Marsha or Violet. Violet had also started to see me differently. Marsha and Narq had been the only ones who hadn’t had their perceptions of me change. They hadn’t treated me like whatever they said to me would go back to Patrick and get them in trouble. Naturally, because I’d tried to run away with them.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and briefly worried that Narq had ended up in the dungeon along with Tillie. I made a mental note that if I ever got the chance to get them out, I would. I might not be able to save everyone, but I’d save who I could. Even if I couldn’t protect myself.
My mind full of heavy thoughts, I made my way back toward the shack. I didn’t feel like talking to my mother today or exploring the Glade. Though my eyes weren’t tired, my heart couldn’t take anymore. I just wanted to curl up in my corner and b
rood.
When I saw my shack a few feet away, I froze. The door was open. A light colored the entrance in a golden hue. Someone was in my hiding place. But who? Only my father and I knew I was here, didn’t they? Had someone found my hiding spot?
It was hard to believe my father was visiting me this late. He probably figured I’d be sleeping. Plus, he had his own work to do early in the morning, and he undoubtedly favored his sleep over checking up on me.
All these thoughts swirled through my mind as I crept slowly toward the doorway. I paused just outside. I inhaled deeply, testing the air for any sign of who it might be. The familiar scent that filled my lungs made me relax but only slightly.
I gripped the side of the door and walked into the shack. My father sat with his back against the wall, his brow furrowed as he stared down at the floor. The floor creaked underneath my feet, and his head jerked up. The moment his eyes landed on me, I knew something was wrong.
Chapter 4
“Father?” I forced my voice to be steady even though my heart beat rapidly in my chest. A million things ran through my mind as I contemplated what he could possibly be doing here.
My father didn’t move from his spot but stared at me. Like really looked at me. His eyes scrutinized my whole form until they settled on my face. The confusion and suspicion in his eyes only caused my anxiety to rise.
“What happened to you?”
The question caught me off guard. I turned away from him to close the door to the shack and give myself a moment to think of an answer. What the heck was I going to tell him? I hardly felt like he cared to hear about the primping and waxing I’d gone through when I arrived at the Core. I cringed inwardly at just the thought of it.
“I’m not sure what you want you mean,” I answered, smacking my hands against the side of my legs. I forced myself to meet my father’s gaze though everything in me told me to look away.