Crimson Groves

by Ashley Robertson

  My eyes burned. My hands sizzled like they were holding lit embers. But it didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel pain. Gasping aloud, I looked down at them. They were glowing bright orange. My hands were glowing bright orange! Panic seized me. I jumped up, waving my arms in front of me. “What’s happening to me?”

  Stone got up too, jumping back away from me. “Abby,” he shouted, “what’s going on? It’s getting too hot in here. You need to calm down!”

  I could feel the heat, but it didn’t burn. I was on fire! Why was I not burning? “I don’t know! I can’t control it!” I wailed, voice broken and desperate. I took a few steps backward, colliding into the wall. The orange glow burst into flames with white tips. The heat intensified. I cried out, not because I was hurt, but because I was afraid. Unsure of what to do or how to stop the fire, I held my flaming arms in front of me, feeling completely defeated. “Help me. Please help me.” I started crying.

  Stone made an effort to come toward me, but the heat from my arms forced him back. I desperately gulped at the air around me, hoping to regain control of my body. A wave of dizziness shot through me. And that’s when I felt something even stranger, something I hadn’t felt since becoming a vampire. My heart slammed beneath my sternum and vibrated in a rhythmic motion. Tingles coursed through my veins as blood started flowing inside them. The flames spread up my arms.

  My chest started burning. I was sucking at the air like someone trying to drink a milkshake that’s too thick to slide up the straw. Small puffs of air filtered inside my mouth. Stone helplessly watched from across the room, eyes wide with panic. I felt my lungs expand, air rushing inside them, tickling my throat as it did. I was breathing again! Really breathing. How was that possible? With every breath I took the glowing fire on my hands and arms began to fade. I started sweating, the intense heat cooling slowly until it was completely gone. Soon my arms became normal.

  Stone’s second attempt to reach me was a success. He rubbed my back in tiny circular motions. His hand was firm, fingers pressing into my tense muscles. “You’re breathing,” he gasped. “I see your chest moving. The essence of your human life must be acting out right before our eyes!”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, placing my hand on my chest against my heart. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. How was it possible that I could feel these human things again? What the hell was happening to me? It was wonderful and frightening all at once. “Feel my pulse. My heart is beating!” I grabbed Stone’s free hand and placed his index and middle fingers on my neck, just above the vein.

  He pressed down. “Your heart’s beating. It’s really beating.”

  Beads of sweat slid down my forehead. I wiped it with my fingers, then lowered them under my nose. They smelled musky, salty. Excitement seized me. I couldn’t believe what my body was doing. Or why it was doing any of this. But my excitement quickly faded, replaced by fear, confusion, and shock. Was this proof that I was part human? Was that even possible? It had to be something: I didn’t see anyone else burning alive.

  Stone kept rubbing my back, keeping me calmer that I would’ve been. The thought of being alone when something like this would happen was far too overwhelming to consider. I actually enjoyed Stone’s touch. Stone, not Tyler. What would Tyler think? Why did I care? Stone was a vampire. He’d handled this fire thing much better than Tyler would have. But what was I thinking? There was no time for love, lust, whatever, no matter who it was with.

  My mind went blank—no more thoughts, no more questions. My body was limber and numb, as if I’d been injected with Novocain. Then, without warning, the sound of my heartbeat faded. I felt it stop inside my chest. My throat seemed to tighten; the air slowing down to a trickle. I stopped sweating, but there were damp rings under my armpits and around the collar of my shirt. I looked up at Stone’s face. His eyes were wide with shock. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Shaking my head I answered, “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before. You were, you were…”

  I sighed. “Whatever that was, thank God it’s over now.” I walked over to the sofa and fell into it. Stone followed my lead and resumed his usual spot beside me, propping his feet on the table.

  “When I tasted you last night…” He ran his fingers through his hair, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. “You’re different than any other vampire I’ve tasted. I don’t exactly know what that means, but it might be the beginning of an explanation here.”

  Suddenly, hunger unlike anything I’d felt before surged through me, and I felt my fangs burst out of my mouth. I couldn’t think about anything but blood. Blood, blood, blood. Remembering that Britney was at the bar, I begged Stone to send her back to me. Regardless of what I’d just gone through, there was absolutely no way I was drinking from another innocent—especially after what almost happened with Tyler.

  Without speaking a word, Stone flashed out of the room. I was alone for just a few seconds before the canned lights flashed on above, and then he returned with Britney and one of her friends, Mac. Oh great. Just great. He brought an innocent back here. Damn it! Fight it, Abby. Maybe Britney’s blood would still taste as good as it did last night? After all, I was the one that tainted it in the first place. Whatever, it was going to have to do because I wasn’t drinking anything else.

  All three of them sat across from me—Stone in the middle, Britney on his left, Mac on his right. Eager, smiling, ready. I was sitting beside Britney, didn’t feel myself move. I was just there, controlled by an insatiable hunger, mindful of Mac sitting just two bodies away from me. I grabbed Britney’s face. She gasped. I twisted it sideways, ignoring Mac’s amazing scent as my fangs burst through Britney’s skin and quickly plunged inside her juicy vein. The flow of her blood reenergized me while she wailed and moaned from the intense pleasure of my bite. When finished, I licked her neck, sealing the wound and picking up any remnant drops of blood, then laid her head on the armrest. I looked over at Stone. He was laying Mac against the other armrest. Apparently, he wanted some innocent blood this evening. I was in no mood to judge him for biting another innocent. Plus, I was a little jealous. Okay, a lot jealous. Is there a difference?

  Afterwards, we met each other across the room, back on the other sofa. He swallowed hard, took my hand inside his. “Because I like you, I will not lie to you. But it will not be easy for me to be so forthcoming. You will not like what I have to say, but you must control your emotions so they don’t get the best of you again.”

  I stared at his deep blue eyes. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t want that to happen again either, but I need to know what you know about Bronx.”

  “I know Bronx very well,” he admitted. “We shared an interest in Meredith and I needed him gone. Three had become a crowd, if you know what I mean.”

  “What? You also knew Meredith?”

  “Yes. I had just discovered my ability, seeing inside someone’s soul while drinking their blood, and I offered my services to the Head Council just as any gifted vampire should. I did many tasks for them, and by doing so it created a higher ranking for me amongst some of the other Enforcers. I tried to use my reputation by asking the Head Council to help Meredith and I permanently remove Bronx as an Enforcer, only they changed our deal halfway through by not killing him. They overrode Bronx’s death and relocated him to Florida because Bronx offered his services to them as well: his secret ability of mind control. You see, our use of persuasion is limited. We can only use it on humans. Some are more talented with this than others. But Bronx can use it on humans and vampires, gaining complete control of their minds. The Head Council saw value in letting him live and serve with them.”

  “The Head Council will kill simply because they are asked to?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Sometimes they do not even need to be asked.

  “You’re an Enforcer?”

  He nodded. “But I haven’t had any special assignments since Bronx was relocated. All I have to do is run this club, pay t
hem their money.”

  “What about Meredith?” Great, just what I needed. Another scorned ex-lover. Or wannabe ex-lover like Valentina was.

  “Meredith no longer wanted me after she discovered what Bronx could do. She left me to go be with him, but he rejected her and cursed her existence. I went after her and arrived just in time to witness him using his mind control on her. He led her outside in the heat of the sun and watched as she slowly burned to death. Fear of him giving me the same fate kept me from trying to save her. I fled from Florida and came to this town wanting to start over.” He shook his head. “I was such a coward.”

  His face looked sincere—I could see the lingering pain in his eyes. He was telling the truth. Every single word he said. I could feel it, sense it. But, of course, now I had more questions. “If Bronx is an Enforcer, then why would he allow a security guard to overpower him? That was the only reason I was able to escape him.”

  Stone met my eyes, stared for a moment. “There’s a reason he chose you, Abby. You’re special. More special than you even realize, and the power emanating from you—it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t know all the answers, but I do know you’re going to be a very powerful vampire.”

  The use of Stone’s word “special” sent my mind straight back to my father and the insane phone calls he’d made to me. Abby, you’re special. He knows and he’s coming for you. Was it possible that my father knew about all of this? Did he know about Bronx and what he would do to me? But if so, that meant he knew about vampires. And if he knew about vampires, was that why he left my mother and me so many years ago?

  I needed to keep probing Stone. As long as he was talking, I was listening. “What do you mean by special?” How could I possibly be such a powerful vampire?

  Delight beamed on his face. The muscles in his cheeks pulled up into a smile. “Don’t you feel it? A very powerful ability, or maybe it’s more than one. Maybe it’s multiple abilities, growing within you. That has to be why your arms burst into fire.”

  “What? I’m getting an ability?” I sat up straight, back stiff, shoulders tight. “That’s what’s happening to me?” I started to get excited, but it was drowned out by the ghost of my father’s voice. Abby, you’re special. He’s coming for you. My father was sounding less like a lunatic and more like a person who knew a lot more than I had ever imagined.

  Tyler. How long had it been since I left him at the house? I needed to get back before he came looking for me. I quickly stood up.

  Stone reached for my hand. “Wait,” he said.

  I looked down at him, and his grip tightened. “Let me taste you again. Maybe it will uncover more of this mystery.” He slowly brought my hand to his mouth. Torn between wanting to get back to Tyler and excitement at the possibility of getting my own powerful ability, I decided that Tyler would have to wait just a little bit longer. I sat back down next to Stone. His lips were already tickling the skin on my wrist. There was no delay—his fangs immediately ripped into me. My body tensed as he eagerly drank, savoring my powerful blood.

  16

  Introduced

  I HAD NEVER FELT MORE ALIVE since becoming a vampire. Laughter roared off my tongue as I carelessly raced back to Tyler’s house. My feet were light as feathers as they tracked over dirt, stones, fallen branches, and muck. A musty smell filled the woods, perhaps because of the day’s scattered showers. My hair was damp from the surrounding branches that brushed it while flashing by. Those new bangs now felt sticky on my forehead.

  The confirmation that I was getting an extremely powerful ability, or perhaps multiple abilities, consumed my mind. Stone told me that pyrokinesis was the power he’d tasted the most. My freakish experience with glowing arms capable of burning anyone or anything that touched them was evidence this ability was rapidly manifesting within me. When Stone read my blood, he was startled to discover that the intensity of the pyrokinesis was merely the beginning of whatever else was happening. But unfortunately, he couldn’t uncover why I became sort of human when the pyrokinesis flared up.

  When Stone finished drinking from me, his eyes looked afraid and excited. There are two ways to kill a vampire. Burning to death is one of them; decapitation is the other. Wooden stakes through the heart is just another myth about our species. Silver chains and holy water also did nothing to us, which old folklore would blatantly contradict. Once I mastered my new ability, I would become the biggest threat and most deadly weapon to all vampires. It would take several Enforcers and perhaps the entire Head Council, working together as one to defeat me—if that would even be possible at all.

  Stone begged me to practice using my new gift of fire before leaving the pub. Fear of another unexpected outburst made me agree, even though I knew Tyler would be worried sick. At first, gaining any control whatsoever of the pyrokinesis was impossible, sending Stone to the back of the room numerous times. But thankfully, before giving up, I finally started to get the swing of it. Filled with renewed confidence, and after a big hug from Stone, I flashed away. The anticipation of seeing Tyler and telling him everything that had happened, sat impatiently on the tip of my tongue.

  Out of nowhere, my father crossed my mind, as I approached the back door of the house. His possible knowledge of all of this seemed overwhelming. A pang inside my chest reaffirmed how brokenhearted I was over him. If I didn’t hang up the phone, would I have gotten more information from him? Perhaps I should’ve listened to him and not accused him of being insane. Did he know about vampires? Had he known about them all along? Was that why he’d left me? I couldn’t tell Tyler about this—not yet anyway. I wasn’t sure how I felt, or what I believed, but I didn’t want to make my father look crazy if he wasn’t.

  Placing all thoughts about my father in the very back corner of my mind, I let myself inside the house. Tyler was sitting at the café table in the corner of the kitchen. Beaming with delight, I rushed over and sat in the empty chair beside him. His face did not express happiness to see me. As a matter of fact, it revealed the opposite. Anger boiled in his eyes, and it caused me to momentarily forget about everything wonderful happening to me.

  “Ty, what’s wrong?” My words cracked, voice shaky. How did this man affect me so much? How could his obvious bad mood send me spiraling down with him? Unfortunately I already knew that answer.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said flatly. His eyes were red and puffy. Smudges showed where tears had once rolled down his cheeks.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left like that, but it was for the best.” I jumped up from my seat and flickered into his lap. His jeans crumpled and swished. He didn’t uncross his arms, like they were security barricades. So I leaned against them. The gray hoodie he wore was at least soft and inviting.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. I guess I’d really upset him, but he shouldn’t be this angry just because I left the way I did. Should he?

  “I’m getting an ability,” I mumbled against his arms, hoping that he’d be just as excited as me. “A powerful one. And maybe I’ll end up with multiple abilities.” I raised my head and cupped his face inside my hands, forcing him to look at me. He did not look surprised by what I’d just told him.

  We played a silent stare-off for several minutes. His face stayed hard, eyes glistening with anger. He still didn’t speak. Not one word. Since I’m not a mind reader, there was no way for me to know what was wrong with him. So I told him everything that happened back at the pub, hoping to get a more encouraging reaction and praying he wouldn’t be any more jealous of Stone.

  He let out a heavy sigh and finally opened up his arms. I fell into his chest and pressed tightly against him. “Oh Abby,” he breathed, “what am I going to do with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got a premonition right after you left.” He swallowed hard, pulled me harder into him.

  “What’s going to happen? What’d you see?” My throat tightened and my stomach twisted in knots. I knew this wasn’t going to be goo
d.

  He shook his head, arms squeezing tighter around me, as he said, “It’s going to kill you! I watched you die!” I felt tears landing on my head and heard the muffled sobs inside his chest.

  “That’s not going to happen!” I lifted out of his arms, staring at his face, green eyes heavily stung by those salty tears. “I’m going to learn how to control this power and I’m going to defeat Bronx with it! I promise!”

  “That’s not what I saw,” he exclaimed.

  I grabbed his face again, my eyes locking onto his like targets. “I’m already starting to control it.”

  His eyebrows dipped, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Watch me.”

  In a flash I was in the empty seat beside him. I held my right hand out in front of me, fingers together, palm up. I closed my eyes, concentrating hard, emptying my mind of rambling thoughts, distracting feelings. Exactly the way I’d practiced with Stone before he would let me leave the pub. I summoned the energy inside me, calling it forth, demanding its presence and submission. I squeezed my eyelids, focusing. My chest flushed warm. And then it got hotter and spread through my body like a wildfire in a dry forest. My arms and legs started tingling. Shivers crept up my back. The heat intensified, burning hotter inside me. I sucked at the air, mouth open, in deep, gulping breaths. The flow of oxygen made my body burn even hotter. But it didn’t hurt. I wasn’t in pain. The heat was still solely inside of me. I hadn’t released it out yet, so Tyler was perfectly safe. Everything was fine.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump. My heart rumbled to life, beating, pumping, and pulsing. It was time for the fire to come out, but on my terms only. I pushed all my thoughts and energy into my awaiting hand. The fire obeyed, erupting there swiftly, instantaneous like lighting. Tyler gasped, but I blocked him out of my mind to hold my concentration. As long as I was in control, Tyler was safe and everything would be okay. I took another deep, slow breath and then opened my eyes. That familiar orange glow was radiating off my palm as if a bright flashlight were under my skin.