Child of the Outcast

by Elizabeth Dunlap

  “Hey,” Olivier soothed. She reached for my fists and gently opened them. I’d accidentally clenched my fists around the orange halves. The floor and my hands were covered in orange juice and pulp. She took the pieces from my hands and threw them away.

  “Sorry.” She chose not to comment and wiped up the floor with paper towels while I rinsed my hands in the sink. “There’s something off with them,” I said once my hands were clean.

  “I know. I can feel it too. Do you think it’s getting worse?”

  I nodded. “There’s unrest. But it’s more than that. I’m afraid they might be organizing.” I didn’t have to explain how dangerous that was. Olivier instantly straightened up.

  “I’ll have Renard keep an eye on them. He can let us know what they’re whispering.”

  “That’ll help, but I’m sure they guard their words when he’s around. For now, let’s wait and see if things will die down.”

  And I hoped to god they would.

  I’d have to face Cameron eventually and explain my actions. I didn’t want him to be sent away. I wanted him here with me. I needed my brother. The number of people I considered family was very small, and I’d lost one of them forever. I didn’t want to lose anyone else, but I doubted I would have much say in the matter.

  The turned dormitory confinement went by quickly, which was good for me because Olivier had become a grouch without Renard around. It also meant it was time to confront Cameron, something I was not looking forward to.

  I was putting it off, but I ended up running into him on accident.

  I’d woken up with nightmares, something that was a regular occurrence now, so I went downstairs to get something to eat. The kitchen was dark, and opening the fridge flooded it with light. I grabbed an egg and whipped up some creamy merengue, which I put in a cup and took with me outside. The moon was up in the sky, and I couldn’t help but think of Knight. He should be running around as a werewolf right now, happily chasing butterflies and bunnies. But he was dead. The moon would never catch his shadow again.

  Cameron was lying outside in the dark, staring up at the moon, his head propped up with his hands. I smelled him before I noticed him. For one second I considered going back inside, but I decided to not be a coward. I approached him and after taking the last spoonful of merengue into my mouth, I set my empty cup on one of the nearby tables.

  “Hi,” he said without looking at me.

  “Can I sit?” He shrugged, so I sat and stretched onto the ground next to him. He was silent. Finally, I sighed and said, “I can’t read your mind.”

  “Good.”

  “That’s polite code for please talk to me.”

  He scratched his nose. “I know you’re sorry, so don’t say it. I also know that you have more to consider than my feelings. But I’m still mad at you. Not for what you did. Because you made me feel like I wasn’t important to you.”

  “I know. But you know that’s not true,” I said. “I hated doing what I did. I had no choice. There’s something off with them. I can feel it. And if I’d showed you special treatment, it would’ve stirred the pot.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you.”

  “Then don’t. But you should know, I already applied for you to live here permanently. The other turned will leave and you’ll stay.” I hoped that would make him feel better, and maybe forgive me a little, but I was wrong.

  He groaned and sat up quickly. “You don’t understand. That will make it worse. You said there’s something going on with them, and you’re right. Right now, it’s just whispers. But you do that and it’ll become shouts. And you’ll have a real problem when that happens.”

  “I can handle whispers.”

  “You’re not handling anything.”

  He got up and walked away.

  CHAPTER 13

  AT THIS POINT, DURING THE most horrible year of my long life, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. As one might suspect, I was very, very, wrong.

  The Hunters completed their training course, all of them just barely making a passing grade, and they were preparing to leave the Order as soon as Othello gave them their new assignments. The turned on the other hand had no interest in their training. They refused to participate in anything we tried to involve them in, and because the Hunters were still here, I had a feeling Othello was delaying their departure in case we needed backup.

  And the day came all too soon when we did.

  My days had become much less busy, considering I had no one to teach now. Mostly I just went to the doctor’s suite so I could see my little baby on the monitor. She was so big now, at five months. Her head was down to normal proportions. Her fingers and toes were fully developed. I never wanted to stop seeing her little body on the screen.

  Sadly, the machine turned off and I sat up. The doctor handed me more photos for my album and I left his suite. After leaving the photos in my rooms, I went to the beauty parlor on the bottom floor of the Order. It was another new thing I was trying in my attempt to be more social. I signed in and found a seat in the shampoo area while I waited.

  “It’s her,” someone whispered. I glanced around and the other ladies in the room were staring at me. They talked in another language so I wouldn’t overhear their gossip about me. They had no idea which languages I knew, and I spoke quite a few of them. Enough to know they were saying very rude things about me.

  “Arabella?” I heard Olivier’s voice in the doorway of the parlor. She was peeking in and looking around for the young girl. I waved to catch her attention. She walked over to me and sat in the other shampoo chair. “I can’t find that girl. Whenever she sneaks off, she’s always in some corner reading a book and looking wistful about life.”

  “Ah, to be young,” I said reflectively, though also sarcastic.

  Olivier rolled her eyes and surveyed the room one more time in case Arabella was hiding somewhere. Instead, she noticed the clusters of women talking about me. She looked back at me and I gave her a half smile. I expected her to lean in and offer to kill them, but instead she reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze, then a pat, and she stood up. “Let me know if you see her.”

  I didn’t see Olivier again until that evening, and Arabella still hadn’t been found. Renard was looking worried, so I offered to help them search for her. Cameron came as well, though he still wasn’t speaking to me. Our search over the castle revealed nothing. We widened our hunt to the forest, and split up in all directions. I pushed out my senses and took a deep breath as a wave of information flooded into me. I started to get a picture of the forest around me, animals, scents, tracks, when bright bursts of light came over my eyes. I had to brace myself on the nearest tree. I felt a twinge in my power as it spiked to the level of power I had during my blood binge, and since I didn’t have the blood supply to back it up, it left me weary. Focus. Just focus.

  I flipped through the information I’d gotten all at once. Something caught my attention, branches that had been broken. It wasn’t like we never went out here, but it was worth following. I shifted back into my own head, and trudged forward. The trail led me deeper still, until finally I caught the scent of someone’s blood. Arabella’s blood.

  My heart stopped and my face went cold. I pulled my phone from my pocket and quickly sent a text to Cameron, Olivier, and Renard. They were too far away to hear me shout. I focused on Arabella’s scent, and kept going. It was getting stronger when I started hearing voices. Panicked voices. I smelled more of Arabella’s blood, and it overrode my sense of smell for anything else.

  I didn’t stop to survey the danger, I charged head on towards the smell of blood. I burst into a clearing where Randall and a few of his friends stood. Arabella was lying on the ground in a crumpled heap.

  “We didn’t…” Randall started when he saw me.

  It took me a few moments to process everything I was seeing, including the inescapable scent coming from Arabella. I was horrified. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not now. I ran to her and lif
ted her head from the ground.

  She was dead. She smelt of death.

  My rage came quickly, my fangs dropping and my nails lengthening into claws. I had never been this angry in my entire life.

  “What have you done?” I shouted at them. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

  I almost attacked them. I wanted to. I wanted to sink my claws into their throats and splatter their blood on the ground. My friends arrived just in time to stop me. Olivier rushed to Arabella and screamed when she saw Arabella’s lifeless body. She wailed in French, her cries of agony so intense I felt her pain seep into me. And it fueled my wrath.

  “Explain what happened. NOW,” I demanded with a deep growl, my fangs still down.

  Randal looked shell shocked, but he still tried to regain his usual thoughtless attitude. “We…well we were just trying to… we didn’t mean to kill her.”

  I looked down at his bloodied wrist, and then back to Arabella’s body. There was a bite mark on her neck. “You tried to change her.” Randall’s face confirmed it. He didn’t look like he felt guilty. He was just surprised it hadn’t worked.

  Olivier sprang up, shouting in several different languages how stupid she thought he was, and was very descriptive about how she was going to make him pay. I held her back and she collapsed on her knees, holding my hand so tightly it hurt. “Did you ever listen to what we said to you?” she wailed. “We told you that the turned cannot change humans. We told you…” she broke off into sobs that wrenched at my soul.

  I carefully took my hand back from Olivier and stood up before I walked up to Randall and grabbed him by the throat. I saw my blood red eyes reflected in his, showing just how enraged I was. I wanted to shout at him. I wanted to tell him exactly what I thought of him. How he had wasted a human life because he didn’t listen to us. How his ego had destroyed Olivier and Renard’s family. He was ignorant, and selfish. He didn’t deserve to be immortal.

  But the words escaped me. Because nothing could bring her back. Not words, not punishment, and not revenge.

  “Call Arthur,” I said to Cameron, my eyes never leaving Randall’s face.

  CHAPTER 14

  ARTHUR SHOWED UP QUICKLY WITH other Hunters, and escorted Randall and his friends to the castle. Renard carried Arabella’s delicate lifeless body, and we followed behind him. Olivier couldn’t stop crying. I’d never seen her like this. If nothing else from that night could’ve jarred me, her tears would have. Once we reached the garden, Renard placed Arabella’s body on the lawn and went inside for something to place over her. He came back with a long white tablecloth, which he covered her with. Then he came up to me, took Olivier’s hands from mine, and led her inside, away from the body.

  I stood outside with Cameron next to me. My fangs hadn’t withdrawn yet and my mouth was starting to hurt.

  “Hey,” Cameron said quietly. He squeezed my arm, and it calmed me down enough for my fangs to retract. As they did, my body collapsed and I fell to the ground. My throat ached with tears. I struggled to not cry. I couldn’t cry. I’d cried so much that year. I didn’t want to cry anymore. “Hey,” Cameron said again. He gently took my arms and folded me up against him. And I let it go. I cried. I cried harder than I’d ever cried before. Cameron held me close and stroked my hair while I fell to pieces on his sweater.

  “I’m sorry,” I cried to him. “I’m so sorry.”

  He squeezed me closer. “I know. It’s okay.”

  We stayed on the lawn for what must have been hours. While neither of us ever looked directly at where Arabella’s cold body lay, it was constantly in the back of our mind.

  The darkness was beginning to recede when Arthur approached us, glancing at the body under the sheet as we stood.

  “We locked them up,” he said. “The rest of the turned were questioned. No one else was involved. Only those three.” I had no doubt Othello had used mind probing on them after drinking extra blood. It was permitted in a situation like this.

  “Will they get a trial? Are the Heads coming back?” I asked.

  Even he looked disgusted at the prospect. “No. A crime like this does not deserve a trial. They will be executed when the sun rises.”

  “Good,” I told him. He gave me a slight nod, and for the first time I felt on equal footing with him. I went with Arthur to Othello’s office, while Cameron went to his dormitory. Othello stood with the oldest of us, including Olivier. She looked how I felt. Broken, but determined.

  “Sunrise is in an hour,” Othello said to us. “Lisbeth, you oversee the turned. You will supervise the execution.”

  “Gladly.” It would give me much pleasure to push Randall into the sunlight. I didn’t even bother trying to rein myself in. This was not the time for it.

  The hour passed quickly, and when Arthur led the Hunters to retrieve the prisoners, everyone else gathered in the foyer. The rest of the turned stood outside on the lawn, in the safe shadow of the castle. They would watch how we handled breaking the law. Randall and his two friends, Ethan and Kent came in. Arthur had hold of Kent, Olivier took Ethan, and I grabbed Randall. We marched them outside, past the crowd of vampires.

  Randall struggled slightly against me the closer we got to the sunlight, but I held him firmly.

  “You’re afraid,” I whispered in his ear, pushing him forward.

  “Please,” he begged. “We didn’t mean-”

  I turned him to face me and pulled him closer by his shirt. “You destroyed a life that was not yours to take. We respect humans. That fact is burned into our minds from the day we draw breath as vampires, whether it’s from our mother’s womb, or from a bite. It is the most sacred rule we follow. And you spit on that respect.”

  We’d reached the sunlight, a line of yellow against the black shadow cast by our home. Olivier kicked Ethan into the light without ceremony, and he started screaming as his body caught fire. It took less than a minute for him to turn to ash. Arthur then pushed Kent across the line, who struggled and tried to escape. Arthur held him down as he shriveled and burnt up.

  I held Randall right next to the line, as close as he could get without touching the sunlight, and I wasn’t careful to make sure it didn’t hit him just a little. Not enough to catch him on fire, just enough to make him sizzle.

  “Mercy, please. Mercy,” Randall sobbed. I might’ve held back, if what I saw in his eyes was remorse. I would’ve made it easy on him. But his eyes held no shame, no repentance. Only fear for his life. For his selfish self-centered miserable life.

  My fangs dropped down and I scowled at him as I said one word. “No.”

  I lifted him up and threw him as hard as I could. His body caught fire as it hurled towards the stone fence that surrounded our castle. He burned up just before he hit the wall, and the small pile of ashes bounced off the stones before blowing away in the wind. It was too quick. Too easy. I wasn’t satisfied. But it was done.

  We turned around and faced the rest of the Order.

  “This is what happens when you take a human life,” I shouted, my voice carrying to every ear. “There is no mercy for this crime. None. You take a human life, you die. You participate in the taking of a human life, you die. You have knowledge that another vampire is taking, or has taken a human life and you tell no one, you die. I don’t care how old or young you are. Born or the turned. Important, not important. Rich or poor. I will throw your ungrateful body into the sunlight, or a meat grinder. Or both. There are no excuses, no mistakes, no accidents. One and done.” I wasn’t looking for an answer back or confirmation that I’d been heard. I marched back to the house and everyone parted in front of me.

  I didn’t stop walking until I was in my bedroom. I didn’t leave it for days. I lay there, feeling nothing and everything all at once. I felt trickles of the insanity I’d felt when I was a prisoner, and I had to chase them away.

  Eventually, Cameron came and brought the doctor with him. The doctor took my pulse, listened to my daughter’s heartbeat, and stressed that my mood wasn’t good for t
he baby. Satisfied we were both okay for the moment, he left, leaving me alone with Cameron.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “No.” I didn’t feel like pretending. Not with him anyway.

  He nodded and sat down on one of my chairs. “I like the new furniture. Before, your room looked like a catalogue. Now it’s homey.” I’d traded my sophisticated style with earthy natural pieces. He was right, it did feel homier. More lived in. Maybe I’d leave my clothes everywhere like humans did.

  Cameron sat waiting for me to talk to him. I stood up and walked to the window. It was the same view my old room had, just from a different angle. I could see the front gate and the massive stone walls. The wind was still blowing, tossing the shrubbery around, and removing all traces of the men we’d turned to ash.

  “I feel awake,” I said. “Like I’ve been asleep for years and I just woke up.” I laughed dryly. “Nothing brings you clarity like pain.” I was drowning in pain. Angry pain. I closed my eyes and allowed myself a few seconds, just a few precious seconds, to miss Knight. Anything more and I’d start to break down again. I could picture the way he smelled; the way his breath felt on me. I imagined him holding me in his arms as I stood at my window.

  I could even hear his voice in my ear.

  “It’s okay, Lis,” he whispered against my neck. He was there, holding me close, his arms around my waist and shoulders. I knew he wasn’t real, because I couldn’t smell him. He felt real, and that was enough for the moment. I put my hands to his arm resting on my collarbone and clutched his wrist like it could bring me strength. He tightened his hold on me, but didn’t speak more words. We didn’t need to speak. Since he was a figment of my imagination, I didn’t need to tell him anything because he already knew.

  Go away, figment. You’re not him. You’re not real.

  My eyes snapped open and the fantasy was gone. “I failed him.”